Making Sea Salt

The first time I heard of making your own sea salt was from a wonderful blog called Not Without Salt. Her post had beautiful photos of gathering sea water in glass jugs. I pinned it, thinking that it might be something to try when we moved closer to the ocean.

Then after I came across an article from Simple Organic posting about the benefits of natural sea salt versus highly refined table salt, you really didn’t have to convince me any further to give this a try. Natural sea salt has so many more nutrients and is much more flavorful than table salt, which sounds like a win-win to me!

Now that I live right down the road from a few beaches, making my own salt is suddenly very possible, very easy, and free! We didn’t have beautiful glass jugs, but we did have empty milk liters.

(Stay tuned for a post about Wrigley & Zoe’s day at the beach)

When we first made salt, we brought three liters of water home with us and it yielded about 3/4 cup of salt.

What I wasn’t anticipating was how absolutely fascinated my husband would be with the process. The same day that we finished our first pot of salt, we went back to the ocean for EIGHT more liters of water.

Mike stood in the kitchen most of the day literally watching the water boil.

Late last night, the salt finally dried up enough and this morning, we have…a lot more salt!

Also, I guess Mike was in the 3rd grade science mood because he put an egg in a cup of vinegar just to watch it strip the shell from the egg. I think he was meant to be a mad scientist, not an engineer.

Mike was absolutely giddy over the whole process, so if you have kids, hopefully they will be too. It might be a cool thing to do the next time you’re on vacation (if you’re renting a condo with a stove).

I definitely don’t think we’ll be buying salt while we live in Spain!

Have you made sea salt before? Do you ever like to do elementary school science projects in your kitchen too, or is it just my husband?

101 in 1001: Eating Sea Urchin from the Sea

Mike and I have watched a LOT of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations. We love Bourdain’s snarky yet insightful commentary on all of the incredible places he visits. Since moving to Spain, we’ve tried to adopt his do-anything attitude, which includes trying everything we can and going on adventures to find the best, the freshest, and the most notable foods of this area.

One thing that really caught our attention was Bourdain’s Naples episode where he ate sea urchin STRAIGHT from the ocean and raved about it. Well…we wanted to do that too, so I put it on my 101 in 1001 list.

Yesterday, we went to one of the beaches within walking distance from our home and went hunting for some sea urchin!

We went during low tide so we would have a better chance of finding the creatures in one of the many tide pools, and we were successful! I was the first to spot a pool with many sea urchins who looked ripe for the picking.

Of course, when I hunt for sea urchin, I must look stylish.

Victory!! I was so proud of myself for plucking my first one out of the water! The glove definitely helped so I could get a better grip without puncturing myself. I only plucked 5 out of the tide pool so I wouldn’t decimate the population in that particular neighborhood.

While we didn’t eat the sea urchin right then and there, we brought them back home and dove right into preparing them so they would be as fresh as possible. If you find yourself in possession of a sea urchin, follow these steps. I used help from this video on youtube so I kinda knew what I was doing.

As for the taste, it was creamier than other roes that I’ve had. It definitely tasted fresh from the sea–a little briny, but not overwhelmingly fishy. Was it as awesome as I was expecting? Not really, because my expectations were probably unattainably high. But the satisfaction of capturing, cutting open and preparing something completely foreign to me was amazing.

Would we eat uni again? Absolutely! I think I’d try making it into a sauce next time, since I once had something similar at a local restaurant and it was delicious.

Besides our scavenge for sea urchin, we also picked up quite a few mussels.

While they were smaller than we’re used to getting at the market here, they were just as delicious.

Overall, we were really slap-happy over how fun and simple (and free) our meal was. It is always exhilarating to try new things, and we got some seriously good, seriously fresh food out of it. It’ll definitely be experiences like this that we’ll remember the most from living here, and it’ll be opportunities like this this that we’ll miss the most when we’re back home.

Have you ever scavenged and prepared your own seafood? Would you give sea urchin a try straight from the ocean?

Expat Depression

I’ll admit: one of the reasons I’ve been spotty with my posting at times is because I was feeling too depressed to write a happy post, and writing a depressing post scared me. I know there are those out there who would call me a snotty, ungrateful brat for not shooting rainbows out my ass about how awesome this is and how lucky I am and how wonderful and amazing everything is for me.

I have no interest in being bashed for my personal experiences, so I stayed quiet and read some books instead because reading has always been able to transport me away from my thoughts.

But now that I have some perspective on the situation, I thought I’d write about my experience because I’m in a better place now.

1. I gave up my independence.

Giving up my independence was very hard for me. I’m used to being able to do everything for myself. If I needed something, I’d get it myself. If I wanted to go somewhere, I would go. Moving here eliminated that option for me because I don’t have a car. I depend entirely on Mike to take me places, and staying in the house all day was making me stir-crazy. I felt worthless and anxious all of the time.

To combat the feeling of worthlessness, I started actively trying to think of ideas for personal projects. I fleshed out ideas for possible business ventures. I created an awesome version of my resume on Photoshop. I’ve learned more html and css. Instead of giving in to my feelings of being trapped in the house, I tried to turn it into a time for me to focus on myself and focus on my goals. It’s worked. It has given me something to focus on and I’m building my skill set up for when I reenter the workforce after this experience.

I still have my days of feeling locked up in the house without anywhere to go, but having more goals has definitely helped.

2. It’s not as romantic as I pictured.

I pictured Under the Tuscan Sun meets Eat, Pray, Love. I pictured running into town to chat with the locals who made fun of me for my horrible Spanish, taking bike rides and perhaps rediscovering a love to paint. I pictured sowing a garden in a little patch of rustic earth. I pictured eating great food every day at new and fun restaurants. I pictured the movie-star version of myself (Ms. Anne Hathaway, if you were wondering) living here. It’s not like that.

But living here does have its quirks and movie moments, so I try to remember that most people’s lives are not film-ready and I’m no exception. I can’t run into town, and I can’t carry on a long enough conversation in Spanish for anyone to make fun of me in the first place. The hills where I live are nearly impossible to bike without some serious training, and the art supplies I brought with me are sitting in the guest closet untouched. The rustic patch of earth that I plan to sow? Well, it’ll take quite a lot of manual labor to get that ready. And the restaurants here all serve exactly the same thing, which is great, but I don’t want it every single day.

So things aren’t quite as romantic as I pictured. It’s okay though…I’m readjusting my vision to a more realistic outlook.

3. Loneliness.

I love Mike. I can talk to him for hours and hours. We’re perfect companions. But he can’t be the only human being that I interact with. I had a hard time accepting that Mike could go off to work and get social interaction from his English-speaking coworkers while I was in the house, trying to learn Spanish on my own without anyone to talk with. And yes, we tried to go to our local bar so I would get more language skills, but I’m not exactly going to be BFF’s with the much (much) older crowd that frequents the place.

I’m still working on my loneliness. Some days are hard. I have met a woman recently who has been nice enough to take me into town to go to the market and go for coffee. She lives right down the road from me, so I can walk over if I need some human interaction. She’s been absolutely wonderful and I’m so grateful to her for being so kind to me. I’ve also grown much much closer to Wrigley and Zoe since I’ve been here. My relationship with my dogs has changed completely. They are absolutely everything to me–I love them so much more today than I ever have. They’re wonderful companions and I never could have moved here without them.

4. Things are just different.

Of course things are different. I knew that things would be different. I thought I would LOVE that things were different. No chain restaurants, no big box retailers, fresh markets daily, a smaller, simpler life was what I wanted. But when adjusting to a new place, sometimes just those little familiar comforts from home are sorely missed. A recognizable brand or store is very welcome to me as I’ve been battling homesickness. Sometimes, you just like the option to go to Target if you need something instead of simply not knowing where to go to get what you need.

But that has been getting easier as we get more used to our surroundings. We’ve found suitable substitutes for many of the things we miss, and have been appreciating all of the things here that we will miss terribly when we go back home. It’s still hard sometimes because I do miss home and many things about it, but I’m loving this lifestyle more and more for what it is. No, I don’t want to live here for the rest of my life, but while I’m here, I’m appreciating it more and more.

5. The Language Barrier.

I don’t know as if I’ll ever be fluent in Spanish. Learning a language is harder than I thought it would be. I can understand much more now and can usually follow a conversation if it is slow enough, but I don’t yet have the vocabulary to be able to string any sentence I want together. It can be isolating and frustrating to not be able to say what I want to say, or understand someone else. Going to the market with my new friend is helping, but I have a very long road ahead of me.

So it hasn’t been easy. The holidays were especially full of tears and sadness because I missed my family. Video chatting is always helpful and I’m so happy that we have technology to keep us connected. Things are finally getting easier, which I’m very grateful for. I do really love the fact that this experience is teaching me so much about myself and the world. It’s valuable experience that I’m sure will help me in life.

They aren’t always easy lessons though, and I will have days where all I want to do is go home. I will still have days where I’m frustrated and overwhelmed and lonely. I’ll probably NEVER understand why some Spanish customs are what they are, and I’ll probably always be a little confused by a lot of things. I’ll probably be very glad to get back to some aspects of my life in the States and mourn some aspects of life here. This experience is probably not movie material like I thought it would be, but it’ll be an essential part of who I become.

We Were on a Break…

Oops. I suppose I’m supposed to apologize for not writing here in awhile, but the break was kind of nice, actually! I’ve been pretty productive recently and it feels great! I don’t want to abandon this blog though, so I’m going to get back to updating it as often as possible.

Our trip down to the South of Spain was successful! After a few days of being routed and rerouted to different buildings, different departments, we weren’t sure that we were going to get our official paperwork. It was pretty stressful and frustrating to be in lines for hours and hours only to be told that we had been given form A to fill out and we needed form B.

But it’s done. We’re legal. We have awesome stamps in our passports now, I have an ID card that will get me on any international US naval base and we both passed our driver’s tests! We have to wait 3 months for our licenses to arrive. No one said that the Spanish government was in a hurry, huh?

Speaking of the slowness of Spain, our Christmas packages that were being held up in customs have officially been sent back to the US. I think. I just hope they make it back to my parents because I don’t want the money they spent on us for Christmas to be lost. That would be pretty tragic.

So we’ve been here for nearly three months now, and I’m no fan of exactly how things are run in this country because every step of the way has been painful, frustrating, annoying and pretty awful.

BUT. But. I can say that when I try to put those feelings aside, I’m starting to get more used to living here. I like it even. There was never any doubt that this would be superior to the beauty of New Jersey, and it is really, very beautiful. The weather is getting nicer and less rainy, and I am getting excited to experience this area of Spain in the Spring and Summer because I think it’ll be awesome. I’ve made a couple of new Spanish friends recently, and having those companions to talk to has also certainly made my outlook on life a little sunnier.

The view from our bedroom is still breathtaking.

I’ve even started a new blog project which will be very different from this personal blog, and I’m so excited to tell you guys about it, but it’s not ready yet. From this new project, I also have the opportunity to do some freelance writing for a local Philadelphia magazine, which I’m hoping works out because that would be so exciting for me to be published.

I’m happy to be back! Be on the lookout for a few more posts this week because I’m feeling inspired!

Spanish Road Trippin’

I have another trip surprise…

Right now we are in the car for a very long day of driving. About 9 hours of driving. And from where we live, we could get to any number of places in 9 hours, but this time, we’re on official business: put an end to our illegal immigration status.

In order to do this, we have to go to a US Naval Base in the south of Spain. They’ll take our passports from us for the week, process us, and give us the wonderful little stamp that allows us to be here. We have been laying low over the holidays since the police are very quick to pull over anyone at night to breathalyze them/check their papers. So with our newly attained SOFA (Service Of Forces Agreement) status, we will be able to once again leave the house without fear of being pulled over and being locked up abroad.

But just because we’re on official business doesn’t mean we won’t be making the most of this trip! We get two days of travel down to Rota, where the Naval Base is. Tonight, we’re stopping in Sevilla for the night. Tomorrow, we’ll head into Gibraltar and check it out before going on to our hotel.

Our hotel in Sevilla–hopefully it really does look this cool in real life!

Our hotel in Rota, where we’ll be staying for the week.

The week won’t be too busy for us, but we do have to take Spanish driving tests! It’s a written test, thank goodness, and it’ll be in English since many of the men and women at the Navy Base need their license. We get a little review session before the test…I hope I pass! It’s certainly been awhile since I’ve taken a driving test.

Other than that, we’re going to explore the Cadiz area and relax! We’re excited to explore yet another area of Spain, and I get to add another country to the places I’ve been–we’re spending all day driving through Portugal!

Oh, and I almost forgot–one of the parts I’m the most excited for!! On the Naval Base, there is an American grocery store where we can get some of our favorites from home that we’ve been missing. I’m looking forward to marshmallows and reese’s cups!

Wish us luck on our Spanish driving tests!

Christmas in Spain

Christmas has come and gone another year. It felt a bit sad and too short and bittersweet without family to celebrate with. Two of the three boxes of gifts my parents sent me are being held up in customs, and won’t be released to us until we give our residency numbers. The problem? We’re officially in the country illegally for another two weeks until our paperwork is processed.

Bah humbug.

And it’s not really the gifts that I’m mad about, it’s just the fact that my parents spent so much money shipping that stuff to us only to have it held up.

But despite the bummer when it came to our gifts, we really did have a nice Christmas. We had to wait until 4pm our time until we started our video chat with my parents and my sister and BIL. We still got to spend time with everyone and participate in the festivities, even if it was through a screen.

I probably should have taken a screenshot, but Mike took a photo of us in the screen instead.

What we looked like from their side!

The day after Christmas, my parents hooked us up at Grandma’s house so we could see and chat with the extended family. It was so wonderful and it felt like we were almost there.

Almost.

I miss my family and wish like crazy that we could have spent time with them this holiday season. Last year we were unable to make Christmas in the Midwest because our honeymoon had eaten all of my vacation days.

There is no way that we’re missing Christmas next year. I don’t care where we are on this planet–we’re going to make it home for Christmas.

We have a lot to look forward to in the new year though, so we’re trying to keep our chins up and look forward to everything exciting we have going on here.

Our blue christmas tree!

Have you ever spent a Christmas away from family? How did you connect with them over the holidays despite the distance?

Coruña

This past Saturday was a gorgeous day. We decided to head into La Coruña, which is about 30 minutes away from us. It’s the 19th largest city in Spain and has a nickname of A cidade de cristal (The Glass City). Most of the buildings in the city are covered in windows, and when the sun reflects off of them, they give a beautiful affect to the city.

But first, we headed to the Tower of Hercules, which is an ancient Roman Lighthouse as old as the 2nd century! It has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the surrounding area is full of bike and walking paths, as well as a golf course and a beautiful coastline.

We walked around the tower for a bit…

(it’s a soldier with a gun)

And then we went inside!

It was pretty cool walking in and seeing the ruins of what the tower was before renovations. The ceilings were so low at first, I was a little scared we’d have to duck the whole way! But once we got climbing the stairs, there was plenty of headroom. We climbed the tower (242 steps) and got a very rewarding view at the top!

From this view, you can see all of the space for the bike trails, and you can also see the city of Coruña in the last photo.

After we went down all 242 steps, we walked around the trails a bit.

Beautiful, right?? We decided that this would be an awesome place for a picnic, so we might just have to do that sometime soon!

After the Tower of Hercules, we went into the city of Coruña. We’ve been a couple of other times, but mostly at night after everything but the bars had closed. Of course, we got into the city right at seista, which is 2-4pm in this area of Spain. Um…I didn’t know people seista’d on Saturdays, but whatevs. Some shops were open and we had a nice time window shopping.

In that last picture, you get an idea of why it’s nicknamed the city of glass!

Mike and I feel great that there’s a city so close to us that we can explore on Saturdays (everything is closed on Sunday). It’s definitely not Philadelphia…the cuisine here is still all very traditional to the area and there isn’t a lot of ethnic cuisine, but there are some highly rated restaurants here that we’d like to check out! We already found one place called Abica that we truly love and I know we’ll be going back soon!

I do like the city though and I think it has a lot to offer! I look forward to knowing it well by the time we leave!

Losing Trust

Since we moved here on account of Mike’s job, it has required us to go through about a million and a half people for each step in the process. First, there was the person who held all of the information about the job but who didn’t post it when she said she would (over and over again). There have been HR people who promised us things they didn’t deliver on. There have been managers who are unresponsive. There was the promotion Mike was promised, oh, LAST NOVEMBER that those in charge dragged their feet on and haven’t responded to inquiries on the subject. There were the people in charge of getting our visa paperwork that had us running around for months to get everything in order, only to then say that we apparently WOULDN’T be getting visas. Instead, we’d be entering the country under a military agreement called “SOFA Status.”

Except…we still don’t have SOFA status. In fact, in a couple of weeks, we will officially be in this country illegally if the paperwork is not in order by that time. We’re trying to get the company to make some “suggestions” for what we might do if our legal status expires before our paperwork is in order. I’m really hoping that their answer isn’t “it’ll be fiiiine” but my hopes aren’t really that high.

And then we tried to purchase a car. Two people who were hired to help us relocate told us that we could purchase a car in this country and it would take a few extra steps, but it was possible. A day before we were supposed to purchase a car, it turned out that we wouldn’t be allowed to get insurance on the car (after at LEAST 6 or 7 emails confirming we could get insurance and two months of discussing it). A week later, they found an insurance company that WOULD insure us. So in order to pay for the car in cash, we cashed in some of our stocks and investments and spent weeks transferring the money into cash, incurring regular fees along the way for ATM transactions and whatnot.

So we found a car. We paid in cash for the car. We were supposed to pick it up a few days later. Mike returned his rental car, took a taxi to the dealership, and lo and behold, there was a problem. We can’t buy a car!! Shocker. So Mike was without a car and had no way of getting back home. The dealership lent him a car while we got other arrangements together.

There have been SO many fails on SO many people’s parts during this whole process. We cashed in thousands and thousands of dollars of our investments, incurred fees converting it to Euros in cash. We lost money on a deal that never should have happened in the first place. That money could still be sitting in an account, accruing money for our future children instead. Somewhere along the way, SOMEONE should have told us that no, it isn’t possible to buy a car. That we HAVE to rent even though it’s more expensive than purchasing.

We still don’t have all of our items from home, either. Our big items like our beds and our christmas tree aren’t here. We’ve been told for weeks that it would be “soon.” We’re trying to schedule the delivery for this week since we’re going out of town next week. I can’t imagine what people do if they buy an unfurnished place and wait for their furniture for months before it arrives.

At the risk of sounding dramatic, we just don’t trust people anymore. We just don’t. We don’t trust that anyone will do what they say they will. We don’t trust that people who assure us of something they “know” actually know anything at all. We don’t trust that people who are paid to help us will help us at all.

I had no idea when we took this job that I would lose faith in so much of humanity. We’ve always been prepared to the extreme…sending 3 or 4 confirmation emails to people on things just to be sure the status hasn’t changed, that we will be good to go. The fact that so many emails have gone back and forth telling us false information or misleading information is so, so disheartening.

I don’t trust that we’ll be “just fiiiine” if our legal status here expires before our paperwork is ready. I don’t think it’s fair of anyone to ask us to be here illegally because someone else didn’t do their job properly. In fact, I think it’s…um…illegal for someone to ask that of us. Personally, I’d rather spend Christmas back at home instead of in a Spanish jail cell if we’re caught.

It’s sad that an experience like this that was supposed to be fun and exciting has made us so much more cautious of everything and everyone. It’s sad that people who have our lives in their hands have misled us on numerous occasions. It’s sad that we used to want to travel and live abroad beyond our time here in Spain, but now we have to seriously, seriously reconsider that dream.

Thanksgiving 2011

All in all, Thanksgiving 2011 was a success! Mike and I had a blast last night and didn’t get home until nearly two in the morning. Poor Mike, having to work today!!

Here are some photos of our Thanksgiving:

We had to cut the legs off of our turkey so it would fit in the oven! Then we decided to spatchcook it, so it would reduce the baking time and give us more room in our oven for other things.

He fills out a pan quite nicely, wouldn’t you agree? Of course, I didn’t take a picture of him when he was done. D’oh! Bad blogger. He looked and was delicious though.

Here’s the spread, all laid out. And yes, we ARE eating in a garage behind a bar with plastic chairs

And then, things got a little wild n’ crazy kids up in there…

I guess boys will be boys no matter what country you’re in!

The pies were delicious, but unfortunately I only got one bite of pumpkin. Mike dropped the leftovers on its way back home I nearly cried because I worked so hard on getting all of the ingredients and pumpkin puree is a precious, precious commodity around here.

Oh, and did I mention we brought the dogs? They were a big hit.

Miro LOVED Wrigley. I think he would have kept him if we let him Wrigley also got a lot of time on the treadmill since he loves it and it entertained everyone. Zoe was much more low-key throughout the night, but she gave lots of cuddles and kisses too.

Even though it was a VERY different Thanksgiving this year, we had so much fun. Mike’s Spanish is improving dramatically, and I’m getting much better at following conversation, though not quite as good at speaking yet. It was a very fun night, and I’m so glad we found this group of people to befriend while we’re here.

How were your Thanksgivings? I hope everyone had a wonderful day yesterday!

Don’t Mess With My Dinnertime

So, we’ve been living in Spain for nearly a month now. In that time, our schedule went like this:

• 6am-Mike wakes up, Mandy’s in bed
• 7am-Mike leaves the house, Mandy’s in bed
• 8am-Mandy makes her way out of bed and hangs out with the dogs/on the computer/around the house
• 12 noon-Mandy is hungry so she eats a snack
• 3:30pm-Mike comes home for the day, they eat lunch together
• 4:30-Mike works out
• 6pm-They aren’t hungry
• 7pm-They aren’t hungry
• 8pm- Kinda hungry, but not sure if they want to spend an hour cooking, then eating, then going to bed
• 9pm-OMG Starving, need food in my face now. Since dinner was never cooked, look in cabinets and refrigerator for 20 minutes, hoping something delicious and quick tackles me. Settle for something quick and healthy, like nutella on cookies. Or, if we do cook dinner at 8pm, finish eating around 9:30
• 10:30pm-Bedtime. Feel terrible because we just ate dinner and don’t sleep well, or feel terrible because my dinner consisted of Nutella and cookies for the third night in a row.

Besides the bedtime at 10:30, this is the way most people live their day-to-day lives here in our region. They don’t eat dinner until 9:30 and then go to bed maybe around midnight or one.

But…Mike gets up at 6am to get ready for work. Most people don’t start their days here until 9am. That makes a big difference! We aren’t night owls by nature, and staying up past 11 isn’t for us on a daily basis when he’s getting up early. I also really loved the ritual of cooking dinner around 5 or 6 oclock, eating and having the rest of the night to do whatever we pleased, be it run errands or hang out at home.

The Spanish schedule was making my days feel so off. I thought I would adjust after a couple of weeks, but we found that we just didn’t like the way this schedule was making us feel.

So here’s what we decided. Mike’s going to eat lunch/snacks at work. I’ll eat lunch/snacks at home. He’ll come home at 3:30, work out, and then be ready to help me cook dinner by about 6. We’ll cook dinner, and be happy having the evenings to relax before bedtime.

It will be very difficult to go out to eat on a regular basis. Here, many restaurants don’t even OPEN until 9pm. Add to that the fact that eating dinner out here usually takes a MINIMUM of 2.5 hours since the service is slower and no one is ever in a rush. Add in there about 20-30 minutes of driving to said location both ways and it’s impossible to get home at a decent hour on weeknights.

Saturdays are the best day to go out to dinner since we can carve out however much time is needed for a meal. Sundays…everything is closed. Only some restaurants are open for lunch on Sundays, but most of those places don’t have websites and you don’t know that it’s closed until you get there and you’re fire-breathingly hungry.

Now, the way a lot of the Spanish offset their eating/sleeping schedules is by taking a siesta in the middle of the afternoon, aka: taking a nap.

I think that’s stupid. I don’t want to break up my day with a nap unless I’m sick or if I’m so tired I might just pass out standing up. Further south in this country, it might make more sense because it’s literally too hot to think in the middle of the day, but here, it remains a steady 50-70 degrees at all times. You don’t need a nap in the middle of the day if you eat and go to bed at a decent hour, now do you?

So…we tried the Spanish way of eating. We agreed that it wasn’t sustainable for the long-term, and since we’re eating at home all of the time now anyway, we might as well do it on our terms. When we do decide to go out to eat, we’ll plan that day accordingly.

Do you think you could adjust to this kind of eating schedule? Would you take a nap in the middle of the day just to make it work?