Day 8, part 2

So to continue more...

Last night for dinner I had soup (they just call it sopa which means soup, no specific name for the kind) and fried chicken. Both were very very good! The soup is exactly like chicken noodle soup but without chicken - just broth and small noodles. The chicken was not breaded, only fried with garlic in olive oil and it was very very good! Meals are always followed by dessert, but dessert is not sweet here, always fruit: apples, oranges, bananas, pears, melon, cherries, nisperos (I have never seen them in the US, but they are so good!). I still can´t get used to eating dinner around 10:30 or 10 at night. I get hungry at 6 and we don´t eat til much later.

Yesterday in Granada, we got to see a mountain where the gypsies live. They dig caves inside the sides of the mountain and live there in the caves. Some have thatch doors or curtains and some are just open holes. Some say the caves have electricity, but I imagine if they do, it´s just a light bulb or something. While walking from the Alhambra to the cathedral we met several gypsies on the street. It´s very weird because in the US there are ´No Soliciting´laws but here there are none. They grab at your arms to try to stop you to give you rosemary and let them read your palms and tell your fortune so you can pay them in the end. It´s quite annoying honestly because they don´t take no, you just have to scurry away. It was funny because the cheapo ones only give out evergreen branches, not even real rosemary...come one, if you are gonna tell my fortune, i think the spirits would want you to be authentic with your herbs.

I went to a Pastelería on Monday, a bakery. I ordered a torijo, i think that´s how you spell it. It´s a dessert typical of the Holy Week. It consists of two pieces of bread covered in cinnamon and sugar with cream in between them. It seems that they have been soaked in something too. Think french toast covered in cinnamon, sugar, and cream. IT WAS ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!! I want to bring some back, but it has to be kept cool so I don´t know that that will work on the plane.

I must go home for lunch now. Hopefully it will be good. My host mom said something the other night about making a cake-like dessert of cheese that is very rich. I know it wont´be just like our cheesecake, but I´m hoping it will be similar!