Food, glorious food!

Arh... Firstly I wanted to point out my very impressive use of bullet points in the last blog post. I can do photos, type and now use bullet points too! *brag brag brag*

Now to update you on the weekend before last... Yes! It's catching up on me - I'm being slack.

The weekend before last was the teacher's meal FINALLY!

Annalisa and I arrived at my school 2.30pm really not knowing what to expect - a sit down meal? Little nibbles? We had paid €20 each after all.

When we arrived at the school no-one was in the staff room and we followed the very typical, loud, animated, sound of Spanish voices across the playground. Lo and behold there were 60-odd teachers gassing amongst a waterfall of beer. (There wasn't actually a waterfall... There was just beer everywhere.) It turns out there is an old canteen that isn't used anymore in the school grounds with a bar!

There were random slabs of pate and small biscuity things scattered across the tables, it didn't seem to me €20 of food! We grabbed ourselves a beer from the non-stop tap (we probably could have extracted it from the air to be honest) and mingled as much as we could munching away on the fishiest pate known to man and the leekiest spread I've ever tasted.

Promptly so, the caterers arrived with a big paella dish - fanbloodytastic, I don't even like fish. Then they unveiled 'migas'. A typical Spanish treat - breadcrumbs and anything else they can find all mixed in together. I mean, I know I'm not selling it but it wasn't that bad... Just really bloody dry, which led me to drink, which led me to the kitchen, which led me to witness the second keg of beer and the 30 bottles of Bacardi, whisky, vodka and rum (aha - I understood how the money spending was calculated now!), which led me to cancel my lesson and help the poor buggers get through that awful amount of alcohol!

Some 'copas' (glasses) later Karaoke comes out to play. The pressure was on for us English girls to sing some English songs but Stacey decided that  'La Bamba' would be a lot more fun. Anyway, we sang the night away, mingling and relaxing with the teachers and got kicked out at 9pm when the head of my department decided it was late enough to be in an educational institution.

A good afternoon was had by all and I topped it off by hitting the port until 4am. 16 hours in total of Spanish partying - I was fluent by the end of the night!

I was struggling in the morning and had to go and give my weekly class to one of the teacher's daughters. The week before they'd asked if I like meat and invited me to dine with them.

I gave my class at their house outside on the sunny terrace, feeling very delicate and as we were wrapping things up family friends arrived for this meal. I didn't know how this meal was going to go; if it was going to be just me, or friends and was slightly relieved to know that the conversation wasn't going to be targetted at me.

We moved inside and my colleague asked me if I wanted beer or wine. Uh oh. I said I'd prefer water to which he reacted pretty badly. 'Don't you want my wine?'... To which I was forced to reply 'Oh... Why, yes... Of course I do.' Anyway, as you can imagine the meal carried on in a difficult manner.

My colleagues wife had pulled out all the stops and there was meat of every kind on the table. Then she brought out a big paella dish. Please. Not fish - my stomach can't deal with it (and I'd told them I didn't like fish!). Nope. Migas. Again. Great...! I was pretty much forced to eat (and chew whilst they all watched me) octopus, eat boneless fish and when I was completely full with all this magnificent food they pulled out an enormous array of puddings. Pumpkin pastries, pomegranate in a red wine sauce sprinkled with cinnamon (mmm!) and lots of different 'patisserie'. I'm about to pop...

Then my colleague loads the table with his fine collection of strong alcohols. Havana Club. Legendario rum. Jack Daniels. Gran Marnier. 'Which do you want?' he asks. Huh?! Who?! Me?! I think. 'I recommend the Legendario, it's really sweet and soft'. And before I know it there's a tumbler sat in front of me with ice and his classy rum. Him and our other colleagues (the family friends) sat there drinking their sprits... Neat!!! Now... I hope some of you can relate to this but when you don't know a culture and you're invited to someone's house to dine with them, you don't enforce your own culture. So Stacey sits there drinking her rum on the rocks, burning her throat with every swig.

All jokes aside, the meal was absolutely fantastic. I was absolutely flattered and privileged to be invited to their house for lunch. I got a real insight to a natural Spanish custom. They are an absolutely lovely family and their friends are just as nice as them. Some more great people here in Melilla. It was difficult in my suffering state but when I explained quite openly that I'd had a big night the night before when my colleague dropped me home he explained that he didn't go to the teacher's meal the day before as he knew exactly what it would be like - beer galore!

Anyway... The weeks continue to pass by quite quickly with lots of English so I really do live for the weekend; whether that be dining in an incredibly social, civilised environment or just watching a Spanish film I'm pushing my Spanish to the max.