Halloween and All Saint's Day

Just a bit late on this... Halloween was a very average day here in Spain. However, in the evening my sister and I found a little pumpkin at the grocery store and my host dad carved a jackolantern. Then my whole family put on weird black clothes and had a photo shoot. (My sister and I ended up using up 3 1/2 camera batteries and never did get any good photos, but it was really fun). These are the ones that came out sort of decent.

Antía, me, the jackolantern with eyebrows, and Elena

hahaha Lois

Babi and I looking good in the flash

the dog doesn't make a good photographer (but the pink slippers are a nice touch, no?)

Witch and Assassin (and jackolantern)

The day after Halloween is All Saint's Day. In the morning I made attempted to make chocolate chip cookies. In a few weeks there is an AFS get together and the students are supposed to bring a dessert from their country, so of course I picked on of my favorites that I've made tons of times.   ....They were disgusting. I don't know if it was a weird butter or flour or brown sugar or vanilla or what but they tasted weird, and it didn't help that they were also slightly burned and ran together. My mom seemed to like them anyway though... she ate 4 (I could barely manage 1) and kept saying "están buenos!" (they're good!). She just doesn't know how much better they can be.

chopping up a chocolate bar for chocolate chips

 All Saint's Day is about remembering and honoring the dead, so we went to the family cemetery with flowers and candles and greeted everyone else in town (because everyone goes to the cemetery that day) and listened to a short mass at the church while standing under umbrellas in the rain. Cemeteries are very different here in that the graves are above ground more like family tombs. Only the oldest graves (several centuries old) are in the ground.

For dinner that night, all the family came over to eat a special traditional meal with bacalao (a type of fish) and potatoes, and at the end, chestnuts. And that night it's a custom to not clear the table- you leave everything overnight for any hungry spirits.

This is a different but similar cemetery from the one in Marin. Sorry the picture is weirdly tilted, I took it by accident and it happened to show up better than the ones I took normally. But you can see the above ground tombs.

 That was the first half of that weekend, part 2 coming soon.

How do you know when it's fall in Spain?

(First of all i'm able to post this in the middle of a Wednesday because we stayed home from school today because there was a strike. My town is too small for a manifestation where people actually hold signs and shout and stuff, the closest was in Vigo I think, but my sister and I just caught up on sleep and hung out at home. I must admit I don't fully understand how my sleeping in will help education reform, but okay.)

Also this title should really be "How do you know when it's fall in Marín?/in Amy's host family's house" but the more general Spain sounded better.

Being away from home when seasons change is a weird feeling.

The official start of autumn may have been back on September 22, but there wasn't a visible change other than on the calendar. However, by now I'm starting to notice some differences from the past couple weeks. 

1) My window fogs up in the mornings (and I draw hearts on it). (I only notice on weekends though, since on school days it's still dark when I get up).

2) The naval academy uniforms switch to black. This one is very specific to Marin. I don't know if I've said this, but the Spanish Naval Military School is situated here. This means that when walking around town you're likely to see small groups of uniformed men and some women out and about. Earlier, they always wore white, but now with cooler weather they wear a (presumably warmer ) black uniform. I haven't gotten any pictures though so these are from online.

not my photo, but this is the summer look

again not my photo and but these are the black uniforms. or dark blue maybe.

3) The scarves come out.  Yay winter clothes shopping!

4) Hedgehogs also also appear. apparently the dog food bowl is a warm and provides tasty meal (seems reasonable if you like dog food).

5) It's voting season here, too. Just a couple differences I've seen is how the candidates advertise themselves. I'm not sure why but instead of one big poster of their face and name, they fill up the same size with lots of little faces. And there are cars with speakers on top that just drive around announcing political news like voting dates or promoting a candidate.

sorry for the poor quality, but you can see what i'm talking about

again poor quality but see the speakers on top? this was just driving past my house, so the big gate bars were blocking the view.

6) The weather changes. More rain- maybe 40% of the time (I just made that statistic up). There are still sunny days though, and often it will drizzle in the morning and clear up by afternoon. This might seem like a negative to some people, but I like rain. Probably because from Texas it still seems like a drought is miraculously being cured whenever I see rain even though here one obviously doesn't exist. And it's just so peaceful and soothing

The fog fills up the valley so I can barely see the town and none of the river or mountains beyond. It's a strange feeling, like the house is being wrapped in a (somewhat chilly) blanket. One of my favorite things is watching clouds float down to eye level from my window since I'm on the hill. Oh yeah have I mentioned it's really hilly here? Well it is.

7) The water bottle doesn't go in the fridge. It's the details that count right? We keep a big water bottle to pour water from in the fridge- or we did in the summer. Now it's cooler and water is fine at room temperature so it can stay on the counter. No picture for this one (since it would just be a water bottle... on a counter. yay.)

[Edit: maybe I was too hasty in assuming a picture of a water bottle on a counter would be boring. You can decide for yourself.

 

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8) Halloween. Just like at home, the supermarkets here fill up with costumes and jack-o-lanterns. Well, it's just half an aisle, but it's still a lot considering they don't even really celebrate it. This j, but here the real holiday is Samhain or All Saints Day which I don't know how is celebrated (yet).

 

 This coming weekend I'm going to Ponferrada for an AFS orientation and I'm really excited!  It'll be great to see kids in some of the other cities and catch up since Madrid and I know it's going to be super fun.