De Puta Madre

The title of this post is a local colloquialism, that basically means "the shit," or something that is really good. This is not to be confused with hijo de puta, which means son of a bitch. Es de puta madre is a good thing, albeit not something you would say in church or in front of your grandparents. In my grammer class we had to write sentances with all 4 past tenses in them, in a certain order, and I wrote such an awesome sentance that my professor, Esther, said it was de puta madre. Go me. Yo soy de puta madre.

La comida de aqui y yo no nos llevamos bien. I don´t like the food at all. I guess I´m a pretty picky eater when I am at home, and here, where everything is just randomly prepared for me is the pits. Maybe once every few days there will be something that I like, but who can get by on one good meal every 3 days? Let´s take today for example. For lunch I had boiled green beans (bleck!) to start out with. Wait, it gets worse. For the main course I had pescado. And by pescado I mean little fried fish. They were about 4 inches long, complete with skin, tail, and the spine. My host mom told me that you are suppose to eat them whole. I choked down one and couldn´t take anymore. 3 hours later I still feel queasy. Maria was suprised that I didn´t like them, because apparently they are delicacy in Santander. Man, I wish I had taco bell right now, or mashed potatoes and gravy. I went to try to buy snacks yesterday, but I only had a little luck. All the food is different, and the grocery stores don´t have the American snacks that I like. I did, however, find salt and vineger potatoe chips and chips ahoy. Let´s see if that lasts me 9 more weeks...

I learned in culture class today that some people in Spain eat horse and cat, because it is cheap. This makes no sense to me. I know people all over the world eat weird stuff, but come on. We are in Western Europe! Spainards discovered America. Why should they eat horses?! I keep picturing Love Bug on a dinner plate, and it is very unpleasant.

There are absolutely no espresso shops in Santander. Am I in the wrong town or what? On the plus side, I finally feel like I kinda sorta know my way around town. At least I haven´t gotten lost since that unfortunate night when I missed my bus stop. I went to the beach on Sunday and it was cool. Now I can say that I have been in the Atlantic Ocean...well, kinda. It´s actually the Cantabrian Sea. But it´s attached to the Atlantic, I think.

Mom- If I understood correctly in art class (chances is I didn´t though), in some cathedral in Santander there are the heads of the two patron saints of the city. They´re over a thousand years old I think. It seems disgusting, but I would love to go and see them. If I go I hope I can take pictures. Nothing says semester in Europe like two ancient rotten heads.