Halloween and Spainksgiving!

I have epically failed at doing a blog. :p I had a post half written about Halloween that I never finished. And considering its almost a month past that holiday I think its about time I finished it.

Everyone on the patio at my school for the costume contest.

Halloween in theory is not as big of a holiday here as it is in the US. I think its growing though because people seemed to be pretty into it. My school had a Halloween party for the kids which was a lot of fun. There was a costume contest for all the levels and lots of candy and castañas asadas (roasted chestnuts). All the kids and the teachers dressed up. 

Hard to see, but that's Antonio in the back.

Antonio was a zombie and he actually made a few kids cry because he looked so scary. From a theatrical makeup standpoint he did an amazing job making his scars. Haha (sorry, nerd moment). 

One thing I find interesting about Halloween in Spain is that everyone dresses as something scary. There were no princesses, Hannah Montanas, Justin Beibers and all that other stuff. I was one of the judges for the costume contest so I of course had to take a lot of pictures. :)

One of the teachers who was saying "scary things"
before the costume contest started. He doesn't
speak much English, so he was just saying
the names of Metallica songs.

Amaro (legit one of the cutest kids ever) was one of the winners. 

After the costume contest was over it turned into an impromptu dance party.
(Conga line of course.) :p

Decorations in the hallway. I helped color them. haha

On the non school related side I went out to Cuatro Calles with some of my friends in an attempt to go bar hopping, but as per usual in Cuatro Calles it kind of sucked. Especially on Halloween because everyone and their mother was out, so it was like trying to party in a NYC subway. :/

Now for Spanish Thanksgiving! Or Spainksgiving as I have decided to call it. :p

Lots of food!

Just some of the chefs,
we were secretly on a mission to
see how many people we could fit in the kitchen.

 Supplies are definitely limited here. So, we made do with what we could find. If you want a turkey you have to request is way in advance, so we didn't have one. Lauren and I decided that we were going to organize everything and have the dinner in our apartment.

We ended up with all of our roommates (even the unofficial boyfriends who live here....another story....) my friend from Germany, Dörte (also an auxiliar) and her friend from France, Maxime (an Erasmus student).

Everyone made something and we ended up with a very eclectic but delicious meal consisting of tortilla española (from Mamen's boyfriend and Lauren's boyfriend), Spanish Chorizo (from Mamen), mashed potatoes (from me, minus the secret ingredient which I guess doesn't exist in Spain), broccoli casserole (from Lauren), chicken in tomato sauce (from Saher), and a baked pasta dish (from Dörte), and alcohol of course courtesy of Maxime. And what Thanksgiving meal would be complete without pumpkin (or in this case, butternut squash) pie (made by Lauren). An adventure in and of itself.

 

The delicious pie, which our oven decided
needed to be burned a bit.

Spanish family around the table. :)

We ended the night by playing a few drinking games which somehow ended up turning into north versus south. Over all I think it was a great night! Even though it was not 100% traditional for our non-American friends.

PS: Get excited for my next post!!!! It will be about my Moroccan adventure.
PPS: sorry for the weird formatting, I gave up trying to fix it.