Thanksgiving in Madrid - Gobble Gobble!

This was our first Thanksgiving dinner in Madrid. We invited about 20 people to our house, all from different walks of life. Good thing we have a bigger flat!

We got a 6.5 kilo turkey (a little over 14 lbs) that took a little over 4 hours to cook. I started cooking everything around 2pm:
- candied yams
- stuffing
- turkey with cranberry glaze
- veggies
- pumpkin corn bread muffins

Plus, I made everything from scratch and gluten-free so Manuel could eat it all. Nothing like challenging yourself. My first turkey, my first time doing every single damn Thanksgiving recipe (and in Celsius, not Fahrenheit), and 20 people waiting to find out about my culture's tradition. No sweat...

Fortunately the turkey turned out tender and juicy, all the other dishes were yummy, and everyone seemed to have a really good time. There was one point in the night that our electricity went out on us...I guess I can't use the oven, the stove, and the microwave all at the same time. Oops!

Overall, Thanksgiving was a success and I'm excited to keep on with the tradition the next years to come!

Thanksgiving in Madrid - Pick up the Turkey!!

I finally found a "muy guapo"turkey at the market down the street!! I thought it would be much more difficult than it actually ended up being, but thankfully there are enough Americans here in Madrid for me to find a nice turkey. The only difficulty I had was finding one that was a reasonable cost (6.5 kilos and it cost almost 30 euros), and at any market you have to request the turkey one day in advance.

Since I don't have a car and it would be a bit difficult to carry this heavy turkey home in a plastic bac, my friend offered to help me pick it up with his motorcycle.

This is the first time I've ever taken a bird home on a bike, with no helmet (the bird, not me)!

El autobús

I love this sticker that is on the bus. It has taken me almost a year to realize that this sticker is on every bus, and it's absolutely the best. A great visual of "Beware of pickpockets!"

The other day I saw on the news a piece about pickpockets in Spain and it was amazing to see normal looking people sifting through others' purses (on the bus or in the metro) without that person having even a clue. When you come to Madrid, watch your stuff!

Election Day

Yesterday I was so excited about the elections and how it would turn out. I went out with friends to Hard Rock Cafe for some American BBQ ribs and then went to a "Democrats Abroad" Party that was at the Círculo de Bellas Artes. What a perfect night - hang out with a bunch of other Americans and watch the elections from 1am to dawn. Interestingly enough, I would estimate that about 40% of the people at the party were not American. We crammed into the entrance until the bodyguards would let us into the venue, where the press was already inside to get the right snapshots and videos. Big, flat TV screens were on each floor and on the main floor there was also a live band. By about 3am, I decided to go home and sleep and wake myself up in a few hours to check out the progress. At 3am here, still less than 1% of the votes had been in. So at 7am I woke up, crawled to my laptop and found out that Obama had already given his acceptance speech. Amazing!!! I spent the next 15 minutes looking at statistics and videos on CNN.com and then went back to bed.

It's a little bit odd to be outside of my country for such a historic event. I am not sure it has even completely "hit me" that we now have, for the first time, a black president and what that means for American culture. It's just incredible and, well, about time. I am excited to see what new changes will be in store for U.S.of A.