Hahahalloween

Hola! As I've been telling anyone I've talked to the past few weeks, there was recently a week-long occasion in Soria that filled me with joy and riboflavin: semana de la tapa micologica, or "Week of the Mycological Appetizer" (Mycology is the branch of biology concerned with the study of fungi, or mushrooms). It's amazing how this tiny city comes to life whenever there's any event that yields an excuse to leave the house, eat, drink, and enjoy oneself. I went setapeando ("mushroom appetizer-ing") 6 days in a row because food is life, and by the end of the week, word had spread about which bars were serving the best tapas, leading to ridiculous overcrowding and a wait sometimes as long as an hour for the tiny appetizers because here, they don't cook in bulk or in advance, and so everything is fresh and delicious.


Left: mushroom tapa at Templo, consisting of some kind of delicious mushroomy sauce-gravy thing (that's the technical term) served on an edible doughy spoon, accompanied by a scallop with peach nectar? complicated but delicious and memorable. Right: mushroom empanada type-thing at Santo Domingo II.

On Sunday, my friends and I went to our first soccer match in Spain. Soria's team, Numancia, was playing. There were a lot of people, and on our side of the stadium, there were two groups of "cheerleaders" consisting of mostly men and some women who were waving huuuge flags, playing various percussive instruments, yelling, chanting, cheering, and stomping. Numancia won!!!



Then, I had a great week in school because I prepared a class on Halloween and the kids were so into it. Spain doesn't do Halloween; instead, they have Dia de los Santos and then Dia de los difuntos for which they go to the cemetery, bearing flowers, to clean loved ones' graves. To pique the kids' interest in Halloween, I brought them whatever candy had made it out of my house alive (I had a regrettable and unavoidable binge session that led to an actual intervention by Simon and Erin, who had to physically restrain me while they locked up the meager remains of the candy in the living room credenza) and showed them a variety of Halloween-themed pictures, including this guy:



So I'm explaining "On Halloween, kids sometimes prepare gross stuff like eyeballs made out of olives and baked goods that look like fingers, and you can also make a brain out of hamburger meat and ketchup!". The kids weren't disgusted by this because THEY EAT BRAIN AND FINGERS HERE.

On Saturday, we headed to a chino to look for Halloween costumes. I picked up a hot pink wig and a matching pink scarf because I'm full of imagination. The resulting classy costume, which was greatly enhanced by Steph's contribution of her very own tie-dyed leggings, got named "Colour Vomit". We headed over to our neighbors Candy and Kim's for a fabulous Halloween party. Check out these costumes!!



From the top left, clockwise: Shane as Guy Who Goes to the Chino 20 minutes Before They Close on Halloween Night to Look For a Costume, me as Colour Vomit, Shannon as Abstract Wounded Lion, Kim as Shane, Simon as Chilean Miner, Candy as Terrifying Zombie, Erin as Pumpkin Dressed Up As a Greek Goddess, and Estephie, stealing the show as Amy Winehouse.

The party was tons of fun and the cookies were delicious, even though Candy did not make her delicious brownies. Candy, if you're reading this, please make the brownies. Please.