Paella... no pael(LA)

Today was paella day! A few weeks ago I made a spanish friend in my European economics class (which is in spanish by the way..) whose name is Gerard. He is from Cataluña and has been super helpful in getting me acquainted with the University and life here in general. Last weekend my friends from Richmond and I met up with Gerard and his friends for drinks. It was a lot of fun. Somewhere in the night he promised to invite us all over for a paella lunch one day. Since today is a spanish holiday and no one had to go to class, we decided it would be the best day to do it. In case you are unaware of what paella is, here is a definition that I copied from the internet: Paella is a cornerstone of traditional Spanish cuisine, originating in Valencia, although it is served all over the nation, especially on Sundays and holidays. Superficially, it resembles a risotto, since the dish is made with rice, meats, and vegetables cooked together in a large pan, also called apaella, or paellera in some regions of Spain. 


The paella was very delicious. It was a seafood version so it was filled with shrimp, squid, and mussels. I'm absolutely loving how fresh the seafood is here - it reminds me of home! We thought we would be there for maybe an hour or two but we forgot how much spanish people love to spend time after eating just talking with one another and enjoying themselves. We got there a little before 3 and didn't leave until 7! When we asked if they had anything they needed to do for the rest of the day they were confused. They said that they didn't have any classes and that they don't normally do their homework (something that seems to be commonplace here) so why not just sit around and relax. Leave it to us Americans - always trying to get to the next place and accomplish the next thing. It was a very relaxing afternoon and I'm glad we spent it with spaniards because it felt as though we were more apart of the lifestyle here.


A challenge that continues to cause us grief is the language barrier! I feel that I do not practice spanish enough. When I do practice my accent is horrible and I become embarrassed. We learned latinamerican spanish in the US so it is difficult to adapt to the Spain accent. Today when we tried speaking with the boys in spanish we would make many mistakes and sometimes had to turn to english. However, I'm happy that we at least made an effort to practice. The boys find humorous the way we pronounce double L's. We say words like paella and amarillo with the latinamerican accent. They say paella with more of an L like paelLa. We tried to mimic their pronunciation of these words and of course failed. Next time we are going to invite them over to our apartment for an American dinner of hamburgers and hotdogs and some good old beer pong. My goal is to be able to pronounce these words correctly by then... We'll see if that happens.