special news report

i interrupt this blog's normal daily schedule with a very important announcement (audiolize (i'm still convinced that should be a real world) the sounds of the emergency broadcast beep)

in what we thought would be a very low-key, catch-up-on-jet-lagged-sleep weekend, three very important things ended up happening in the past few days:

1. we made about 12 tons of paella to see how it would size up to the authentic spain paella. why 12 tons, you ask? because it was a british recipe (ironic that we're making spanish food from british recipes...) and we don't understand british measurements

2. we rented a tandem bike for a day to run our errands around town. and then we decided to buy the heaviest things we could to put in our backpack... can of paint, a couple of books, some bricks...

3. the boy asked me to marry him! after our homepade paella, we went to his bench swing to enjoy the evening...er... night (it was about midnight on July 4th eve). then he got down on one knee...and i started laughing. i couldn't help it - that was just the emotion that came out. i, of course, said yes in a heartbeat and was thrilled to see the most beautiful ring ever - custom designed by the boy himself (i'm so proud). the accent diamonds are from his mother's engagement ring, which is my favorite part. my other favorite part is that my grandma tic toc was married on july 4 AND we discovered after the fact that the boy's parents got engaged on july 4 - crazy! so, i'm now a fiance. whoa

(i was talking on the phone with my family the entire time we took our "first pics as an engaged couple") feel important, people

spain recap - part 1

**the boy and i spent 10 days totally unplugged - no clock, phone, computer (except i was maybe on the computer a little bit) - in the beautiful country of spain along with his sister and her family and his cousin and his family. welcome to my recap of spain 2008**

i just like this picture because the way my hair is in my face makes me look like a thundercat

first leg of the trip: london heathrow airport. where the numbers 6 through 73 cease to exist.

when i lived in london, we had a boots nearby (equivalent to rite aid or cvs… only with a more british name. (have you ever wondered if maybe british people come up with names simply because they sound so funny? like picadilly or mashers or… um… chelsea…dang it – i hate when my observations backfire like that)) anyway, i would always go down to my local boots and get the haribo gummi starmix. i love gummis and the starmix tops them all. it’s been a sad several years constantly looking at every american candy store trying to find the stuff. so, you can imagine my pure joy when the airport had it!!


i mean, how could you not love this? why wouldn’t a starmix be filled with gummi coke bottles, hearts, bears, rings and – my personal favorite – fried eggs? i love that stuff

i had another observation in the london airport. a lot of people there smell like silly putty.

second leg of the trip: madrid

i blame my high school teachers and mr. rogers for my not knowing everything there is to know about spanish culture. i credit eliza doolittle for teaching me about the rain in spain staying mainly on the plains, but sadly, there wasn’t a drop of rain while we were there to prove her theory. the bottom line is, how was i supposed to know that their ash trays and bread plates at restaurants look the same there? how were we supposed to know that if you want to get train tickets, you need to show up at the train station three years in advance? how were we to guess that the tapas spain is so well known for consist of lots of sardines, octopus tentacles, wolf…

madrid was cool – definitely a busy and thriving city. i love the european style of big cities – lots of parks right in the city, fountains and statues all over the place. very cool. we went to a couple of museums – the museo thyssen-bornemisza, a modern museum with an interesting exhibit on miro. i mention that because it’s the only thing we were allowed to see. we got there 45 minutes before the museum closed and they wouldn’t sell us tickets to the whole museum because we wouldn’t have enough time to enjoy it. when would that ever be the case in america? you show up five minutes before it closes and they’d try selling you the whole upgrade package including a four pack of museum coasters. thanks spain for saving us money. we did sneak through a couple of halls though, and thank goodness we did because check out this awesome self-portrait i found:

we also went to the museo del prado (or parida, as i liked to call it), which is one of the world’s great art galleries and was definitely a grand museum – huge, old halls and hand-carved ornate decor. no funny self portraits though.

then for whatever reason, we thought it would be a good idea to go to the botanical gardens because…you can’t do that in america…? anyway, the gardens were very picturesque, but the gift shop was the gem of that place. check out what we found:

it’s a plant me pet!! if you’re having a hard time reading the cartoon, the gist is this: you play with it until it ticks you off and then you stick it’s head down in a pile of dirt (it has seeds for eyes). then, it grows a plant! (in our case, a melon!) maybe we’ll throw a plant me pet party in the winter when it’s time to plant him. this is me still loving him

as if my plant me pet wasn’t enough for one day, the boy found a jar full of gummi eggs on the housekeeper’s cart!! then my starmix morsel had a friend

third leg of the trip: the medieval town of toledo

we didn’t spend a lot of time here (this may or may not be accredited to not getting to the madrid train station three years in advance), but the boy really loved the medieval feel of it. he decided he was probably some sort of medieval king in a past life.

and then he started calling me his wench.

we had a three and half hour dinner with the boy’s sister and her family. they all ordered a prix fix (i’m betting that’s not really what they call it in spain) meal that included 2 appetizers, a fish entrée, a meat entrée and then dessert. they were all stuffed. i, on the other hand, had a side salad. i would not put spain on top of the list of vegetarian-friendly countries. i’m pretty sure even the desserts had meat in them. let’s just say i got very familiar with their olives and cheeses. and i was perfectly content with that. mmmm

on the train ride back to madrid from toledo, i taught the boy the card game speed. which turned out to be a very dangerous move. i’m betting if you ask any of the kids 10 years from now what they remember most about their trip to spain, the card game speed will most likely be in their top 10 list.