Waaaay up North

''I brought breakfast meat, lunch meat, and dinner meat,'' said my cousin Ruthann upon arriving to the cabin... ''There are 40 pounds of dinner meat.''

I perked up as the song ''God Bless America... my home, sweet, home...'' started ringing in my ears. No joke. This happened systematically every time my aunt started taking food in triple Costco sizes out of the cupboards.

The whole group

This fourth of July was spent super-ultra-Minnesotan style, waaaay up north near Warroad, right on Lake of the Woods. The journey began with a six hour drive through miles and miles of textbook definition ''middle of nowhere'' towns. Of course, a stop for pasties, an empanada style meat pie covered in dark gravy, was obligatory. We were, luckily, the first to arrive to my aunt Renee's cabin. I say luckily because this lovely 4th of July weekend my aunt and uncle had a guest list of 20 family members. Yes, 20.We settled in by picking out our beds as quick as possible up in the extended loft. Well, extended is kind of an understatement... that loft sleeps 13 with five queen size beds and three twins. My aunt and uncle made the cabin from scratch, with their own hands and their own ideas, and decided to make it "big family party" friendly. It's like camp up in that lovely loft... Camp with a bunch of snorers. This loft wouldn't be complete without an industrial sized pack of ear plugs on the only nightstand because, of course, the loft has no wall or no doors to soundproof the huge sleeping/snoring area. Your ears are completely vulnerable to people's early bird or late night habits. Up there, everything is heard. Forget privacy for a week, this is a new way to define an intense family get together.  But I have to say, it's a lot of fun.

A deer's eye view from the loft

Where did the remaining family sleep, you may ask? Well, my aunt and uncle intelligently made their own closed off room to sleep in, right next to the only bathroom. There's also a screened porch with a pull out couch, and the youngest cousins got to (more like had to) sleep in tents pitched somewhere among the campfire pit, three boats and god knows how many cars in the driveway.

And as a closing point in my attempt at describing this lovely place... this cabin would not be complete without a vast representation of Minnesota wildlife looking over us with their dead, marble eyes. Deer, ducks and fish... hard to get used to but definitely put on the perfect, final touch to completely integrate yourself in good ol' Minnesotan culture.

Our first meal consisted of some delicious hot dogs, baked beans, hash-browns fried to a crisp in everything greasy and some chips. Mmm. Did I mention I love America? The eating, of course, did not stop there. We ate three hefty meals a day, usually separated by a few hours spent fishing out on the boat. Puzzles, cards, movies and other "light" snacks, of course, were also involved in separating meals. Coolers upon coolers of beer and pop were also a must. Lets just say that anything you could ever want to ingest ever could be found. No exceptions.

Really expensive gigantic illegal fireworks were also involved in the weekend. Did I mention they are also life-threateningly dangerous? Year after year a couple of those moving-box sized fireworks tip right over and shoot directly at my dear family members. Somehow the majority of my (perhaps slow?) cousins sit front row in chairs just asking to be blown to confetti pieces. I chose to hide behind the truck or inside the porch along with my more intelligent father. This year was a miracle, only one shot out horizontally towards an unoccupied tent. Phew!

Roger's first catch!

Pelayo, whom you are all now familiar with, had his first experience "up north." I think he was a bit shocked by the "watch out for" list... may flies, horse flies, deer flies, ticks, poison ivy and last but not least, vampire mosquitoes. The poor thing, with his fresh sweet blood, was covered in golf ball sized welts all week. Although, not all was bad for Pelayo this week. He spent his first days lake fishing sporting a great thrift store find: an old pro fishing shirt. Kinda like a bowling shirt, but for fisherman I guess. This once belonged to a man named Roger. So now Pelayo is kinda known as Roger up in Warroad. I guess worse things could happen. I am very proud to report that Roger caught his first few fish that weekend- supplying us with three walleyes for an amazingly amazing fish fry.

Roger also picked up a lot of Minnesotan. "Oh yeah," officially became a part of his vocabulary, along with changing his Californian pronunciation of "bag" and also chuckling appropriately when anyone let an "Uff-da" slip. Fishing license in hand, twins hat on his head, and all four limbs limbs covered in mosquito bites... shhhhh... I am secretly turning him into a Minnesotan!

I have to say that when I am away these are the things I miss the most. Family gatherings, friends, and over-eating. I guess mostly over-eating.

The longest Thanksgiving ever

This year I experienced the longest and most festive Thanksgiving of my life. Lasting a whopping two weeks, my days were filled with multiple dinners, family skype calls, presentations and classroom activities. Being that I work at a hospitality and tourism school where cooking, waiting, and restaurant services are taught, Thanksgiving dinner has been integrated into the school as a new kind of yearly tradition. The dinner is prepared by the cooking students and served by the service students. The menu is prepared in English and a traditional meal is ingested by students, staff, and community members.

The two weeks before Thanksgiving were filled with a lot of prep work. Traditional Thanksgiving recipes for green bean casserole, apple and pumpkin pie, and whipped cream were sent by my mom across the big pond, then translated by Chelo and I, and later turned in to the head chef for ingredient shopping. A guest list was prepared with a limit of 50 eaters. I did my research and prepared a power point presentation filled with my preferred version of the few available versions of the "history" of Thanksgiving published throughout the internet (is there any way to know the real origin anyway?). Lets say the week also included a daily panic attack that increased with the passing of every day until Thanksgiving day itself, which was the day of my grand presentation in the school's auditorium.

This was posted in the teacher's lounge:

Speech: Thanksgiving

Given by: Molly Yurick

Complete with microphones, loudspeakers, a blow up projector screen and well over 100 seats, I spoke about the American culture of Thanksgiving to just about everyone in the school is or will study English in the future. As they always say, you learn more about your country, your life, and your culture when you leave it. Things I learned from my research (hell, maybe you'll learn something too): Minnesota produces the most turkeys in the US... Thanksgiving is the biggest traveling holiday of the year... The first Thanksgiving lasted three days and over 150 people attended. Wowza, history!

Thanksgiving was also a day of surprise for my 17 year old group. Their English level is notably lower than my other students, so I made an easier and simpler Thanksgiving presentation for them. Up until Thanksgiving day, I pretended that I didn't speak one word of Spanish except for "Hola, como estas?" and "queeee???" During these two months of understanding when they thought I couldn't, I was pleasantly surprised to find that they always said good things about me in class, never bad things! (Thank goodness!) My favorite was "Molly mola!," which means, "Molly's cool." hahha. So on Thanksgiving day I asked Chelo, my fellow English teacher, if I had her permission to reveal the big secret to them. She told me that yes, it was about time to tell them. I told her to interpret for me (as she always did). "Every one of you must promise that you will continue to speak English to me as you have until now. Promise. Everyone has to promise." And one by one, in what was the cutest thing I have ever seen near-adults do, they raised their hands and declared "I promise." I snuck a video:

And so, in my quickest and most fluent Spanish possible, I blurted out, "So... it turns out I speak a little bit of Spanish." My students whipped their heads back and forth, doubled over laughing, and then ended with a round of applause. "Como mola Molly, como mola!," they proclaimed. This was one of the funniest things I have ever experienced. Even now, reaching the end of December, they still giggle and jaw drop when I speak Spanish to them. They just can't believe it. They spent two months thinking I spoke much worse Spanish than they spoke English. The good lesson that comes out of it though, is that I had to study and to work really, really hard to reach the level of fluency that I have.

Halfway across the world in Robbinsdale, Minnesota, my parents were hosting Thanksgiving with my aunts, uncles, and cousins. Thanks to the good graces of Skype, it was as if I was there in the kitchen with them drinking wine and waiting for the turkey to finish. They sat me at the table and I even won a game of Pokino, the game my family always plays on Thanksgiving.

The Friday after Thanksgiving I was warmly welcomed into the home of a few fellow Americans to ingest a real Thanksgiving dinner. Everyone brought a plate to share, and we engorged ourselves on wine, corn, stuffing, pie... the only thing missing was turkey- we ended up with store bought fried chicken instead. It was all pretty damn close to as delicious as always and it was nice to be surrounded by my fellow ex-pats.

During the week after, classtime was spent making my students tell me what they were thankful for, just like at a real Thanksgiving dinner. My favorite? One student said, "I am thankful I was born in Spain and not in (insert poor African country here)." Then, as a bit more entertaining piece to class, I showed them clips of the only Thanksgiving movie to date: Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Using the infamous car rental clip, I taught them how to use the word "fuck" as a verb, adverb, adjective... the works. They enjoyed that one:

It's great having students that are adults.

Thanksgiving dinner at my school was served the following Thursday, December 2nd. A few of my all-around-the-world pals came to enjoy the meal with me. First course: pumpkin soup. Second course: stuffed turkey, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole and cranberry sauce. Third course: pumpkin and applie pie. Oh, most importantly, it was all accompanied by unlimited red wine. Lets say that for the food, well, they tried their hardest... In the end, it was fun to see my school and loads of people celebrate Thanksgiving.

Gobble, gobble!

But it's not TIME to eat...

Now that my time in Jaén is wrapping up, it's time for me to express some... cultural differences... I've come to notice in my time here. The first and most important being about food, of course.

"¡Pero no es la hora de comer!" = "But it's not the time to eat!"

The Spanish eating schedule is extremely fixed. Breakfast is whenever you wake up and usually consists of coffee and a piece of toasted baguette bread with something on top (ham? cheese? tomato? pate?). Lunch, their biggest meal of the day, must begin between 1-3pm. A light snack (optional) is eaten somewhere around 5-6pm. And dinner? Sometime after 9pm. If you eat anywhere outside of those boundaries, it's "NOT the time to eat." The majority of people seem to get really nervous and confused when you eat outside of schedule. How strict are they on this whole "time to eat" thing? Here are some examples...

This is what a bar looks like when it's closed... =(

1. The vast majority of bars that (normally) serve food CLOSE their kitchen, and sometimes their doors, from 2-8:30pm. Grocery stores also close at 2pm and don't re-open until 6pm... meaning... if you wake up late, or get a late start on the day, and happen to not have any groceries in the house, you WILL go hungry until something opens.
2. When I was visiting my friend Nacho in Barcelona over New Years, we were out until sunrise drinking and partying. The next day his family was having a New Years day lunch (remember, biggest meal of the day) starting at 1pm. Well, we woke up late and headed over there around 4 or 5... What was the first thing they said upon our arrival to lunch? Grandma: "It's a little LATE to be eating, don't you think?" Aunt: "Dear god it's late to eat..." Other Aunt: "I think it's too late for you to eat..." Really?...but we just woke up...
3. Holly and I invited a couple of teachers over to have a taco dinner at our house. I told them they could come when they wanted (as it doesn't tend to matter to Americans at what time we eat, just that we do it eventually, when we're hungry) and they insisted I choose the hour. So, I decided 7pm. Response? "7pm??! Buut, that's soooo early. How about 8pm, at the earliest." So, 8pm it was. They arrived on time, and the third thing out of their mouths? "One of my friends stopped by my house today with merienda (the "snack" eaten around 5pm-ish) but I had to say turn down what she brought for me because I had plans to eat dinner really, really early today." Really??
4. One Sunday afternoon, Holly, Amy and I woke up with a slight hangover around 3pm with empty stomachs and no groceries. We stupidly decided to venture out into the empty streets of Jaén on a Sunday (everything is closed on Sunday) at 4pm (kitchens still closed for another four hours) to look for food. We had made plans to meet up with some Spanish guys for coffee at 5pm, and we immediately asked them to take us to food. His response? "But it's not TIME to eat... it's 5pm!!" Really?! Yes, really. We explained our hangover/no food situation and he took us to a bocadillo place that was, miraculously, open on a Sunday at 5pm.
   

"Pero... cuando comeis en Estados Unidos" = "But... at what time do you eat in the US?"

It's been a challenge explaining to Spanish people that we don't have "a time" to eat our meals in the US. You just eat when you 1. have time 2. are hungry 3. feel like it. Now, it's fair to say that we have a general outline for meals... breakfast between 8-10am, lunch between 12-1pm and dinner somewhere between 5-7pm. But I will say that in America, if you are hungry at 3 in the afternoon, no one is going to call you crazy for it... and you won't have trouble finding things open.

Jamón ibérico = Cured ham.
Most restaurants sport a few of these on their walls
and regularly shave of pieces to serve to customers. Mmm.

"¿Te gusta la comida espanola? Es la mejor comida del mundo..." = "Do you like Spanish food? It's the best food in the world..."

This is my favorite Spanish person question... my response usually is, "Yes, I like it. But it's hard not to like olive oil, potatoes, ham, cheese, and baguette bread..." The Spanish diet is a simple diet based (basically) on the things I've listed above. Yes, I like Spanish food, but sometimes there is such a small variety in the foods they eat I get bored. I mean, c'mon, their hamburgers are made out of chicken. At the school I work at the principal and secretary invite me to eat lunch with them, and this way I have been able to try a ton of delicious homemade traditional Spanish foods-- and I really enjoy them-- but I will be honest and say the variety of foods is pretty small and that Spanish gastronomy is far from the best in the world.

Tons and tons of Extra Virgin Olive Oil at a co-op in Jaén.

"Que normalmente comes en los Estados Unidos?" = "What do you normally eat in the US?"
This question, for me at least, is a hard one to answer. I have tried to explain to people that in a normal week I could ingest a vast variety of foods, anything from Italian, Mexican or Chinese... to hot dish, hamburgers, "Mac and Cheese" or pizza! The response I usually get is, "Yea, you could, but what do you normally eat?" and when I respond with "I guess I'm not quite sure" I get the Spanish look of "I can't believe you don't know what you eat..." because Spanish people know what they eat and they are proud of it!


What the Spanish do have down is a healthy, complete diet. Fruit is considered dessert after lunch and fresh salads filled with tomatoes, onions and olives topped with only olive oil and a splash of vinegar are common for starters, meaning vegetables and fruits are not an enemy but a friend. The kids at school eat full salads for lunch every day. Imagine, if instead of nasty bagged salad with withering radish and carrot slices drenched in ranch dressing served in public school lunches in the US, there were fresh salads with fresh veggies inside! And topped with only olive oil!! How can they do it?? Here in Spain, these things are affordable! Today I went to the market across the street from my place and bought 5 tomatoes, 3 bananas, 2 oranges, 2 small heads of lettuce, 4 full carrots and an onion for a whopping €3,50 (about $4). Oh, and olive oil? Being that Jaén is the largest olive oil producer in the world, 5 liters (well over a gallon) costs €12. Imagine how the rate of obese people in the US could drop if fruits and veggies and other healthy things were made affordable! Here in Spain, a bag of chips costs more than a bag of apples...

The other positive to the Spanish diet is eating a large meal in the middle of the day. This way, by the time "dinner" rolls around, you're still not even that hungry... and if you are hungry a yogurt or a fruit or a small bowl of cereal (although a Spanish person would not eat cereal after breakfast time, probably) will suffice to hold you over until breakfast the next day.

Oh, and how can I forget the wine. Wine is goooood n' cheap here. The most expensive bottle at my nearest supermarket is a massive 3€. My favorite wine moment in Jaén? I was at the grocery store and there is this elderly lady was in line in front of me to check out. She had a bottle of wine in hand and asked the man in front of her, "Is this a good bottle of wine?" "Yeah, for someone who likes regular wine, it's good," he responded. "Okay, I was just wondering, because this one is 2€, and I figured I could get one of the cheaper ones, you know, the ones that cost .60 cents, but I thought I would go for a nicer one instead... because it's a gift for someone." hehhee.

It's 2pm, and I already ate my lunch at 11am. I am not adapted to the Spanish eating schedule. Shame on me un-assimilated American, shame.