Ourense

This last Saturday a wonderful couple named Jose and Rita Souto took Laura and I on a tour of Ourense. Ourense is a beautiful city with Roman influenced architecture.

The pictures below are of a small town called Allariz

A cute little doggy that was basking in the sun

A cafe/restaurant we stopped at for tea and coffee

Thought this was a cool looking scene that shows the clash between the modern world and the old

For lunch we ate at a castle called Castilla de Maceda. Here we enjoyed a mixed salad, a shrimp omelette tower, and venison rice stew

View from the castle

Jose, Rita and I

Xunqueira San Miguel - a lovely rural town where Rita is from

Downtown Ourense

Catedral San Martin De Tours

Reminds me of Pillars of the Earth

A service taking place in an ornate gold room

The cathedral ceiling

At the end of the night we stopped for pinchos and ordered pig ears - a very popular delicatessen in Ourense 

Ship Launching Ceremony - Base Naval de Ferrol

My roommates and I are lucky enough to have Ferrol's navy base within a 5 minute walk from our doorstep. This last Thursday there was a ship launching ceremony for a particular boat that's been a work in progress since 2003. On rare occasions such as this, the navy base opens its gate and allows spectators to partake in the ceremony. 

The size of these ships are very impressive, it's no wonder they take long to make

The ship being led out by tug boats

The cranes used during the construction process

Another ship currently in progress

The ceremony procession 

Such a tourist ;)

Fragas do Eume Field Trip

The Fragas do Eumo is a beautiful protected national park just 15 minutes from Ferrol. The word fraga means "natural wood" in Galician. 

Our guide explaining the different types of vegetation

A really cool bridge we crossed

View from the bridge

Flor and Ines

Castañas (chestnuts) are very popular during this time in Galicia. Everyone loves to roast and eat them with a glass of milk. 

Dinner Party

Since we had a holiday last Monday my roommates and I decided to host a dinner party and invite the other auxiliares in Ferrol. It was also a little going away dinner for my new Scottish friend Jek. Since everything is closed on holidays we had a very eclectic meal :) All in all there was good company, good conversation, good food and good alcohol. Success. 

Megan, Sarita, Jessica and Jek

Our random dishes: salami and toast, pizza, pasta, garbanzo bean salad, and potato soup

Leslie, Chris, Jessica and Megan

Jek, me and Elyse

Cupcakes

Although Spaniards celebrate Halloween differently than Americans both versions have great traditions. In an effort to show the kids a piece of what Halloween is like in America I suggested to Maria that it would be fun to have the kids decorate Halloween cupcakes in art class. I mean who doesn't love cupcakes, right? Wrong...cupcakes are not common in Spain. I quickly learned that you can't hop down to the local grocery store and buy frosting or cupcake mix so we attempted to make it from scratch. After I showed Maria the ingredients for making cupcakes she mentioned they're exactly like Spanish Magdellenas and suggested we buy that part already made and just make the frosting. Me of course being the great cook that I am (ya right) decided to partake in this frosting making endeavor. In a nutshell our frosting came out crunchy (wrong kind of sugar) the consistency was watery and I managed to shock Maria with how much sugar is used in cupcakes. The good news is kids will eat anything colorful with lots of sugar so overall the cupcake mission was a success :)

Maria and her daughter Rita trying to mix the butter and sugar

Some of our frosting ingredients

Magdellenas (I would describe these babies more like muffins than cupcakes)

The kids making Halloween spider cupcakes

Yeah, that'd be our watery crunchy frosting haha

Happy sugar-high children