Ashley Connelly, Week 6, Madrid

Hi all,

It's been another hectic week in Madrid navigating work and discovering new aspects of living in Madrid. At work, we quickly alternate between having not enough food to having way too much food. For instance, earlier this week, we lacked fruit and yogurt to give to families as dessert. We were left with only the first and second dishes of some type of meat and pasta to give. Fortunately, the local food bank donated peaches, tomatoes, cherries, and greek yogurt to us; however, whenever the food bank donates food, they do so in bulk. This means we have over two refrigerators of yogurt and crates of fruit. We had so much yogurt and fruit this week that part of the donation had to be stored at another site. When we have this much perishable food, we end up giving grocery bags full of fruit to families. For every family, I gave a 4-pack of yogurt for every person in the family. At one point, some people started asking for less fruit because they already had so much at home. The food eventually goes bad before we can give it all out. We probably threw out more peaches than we gave to families and there is still a considerable amount of expired yogurt in the fridge. It is quite frustrating because the same thing happened last month with pre-made lasagna and will probably happen next month (unless the food bank closes in August like everything else here).

After work, I try to escape routine and discover new parts of Madrid. This past week I found a beautiful rose garden in Parque del Oeste near the Royal Palace. The garden contains rosebushes from all over the world including France and the United States and some are as from as far back as the late nineteenth century. While the rose garden was beautiful, the highlight of my week was visiting the Reina Sofia and seeing La Guernica by Pablo Picasso. The Reina Sofia is Madrid's modern art museum and in addition to La Guernica, it displays many of Dali and Juan Miro's works. Although it was nice to see the works of great Spanish artists that had such a profound influence on art, I thought the non-traditional works and pop art were the coolest. For example, my favorite work from a Brazilian artist that featured live birds and a poem along a sandy trail.

My gourmet toast 

In addition to exploring Madrid, I've been developing a few life skills such as frying an egg and potentially giving Americans a bad rep. Most food here you can't simply stick in the microwave. You actually have to cook it so I've been searching for simple recipes online after I completely botched making lentil soup which turned out more like lentil paste. I found a few recipes for breakfast toast that looked good yet simple. The most work they needed was frying an egg- something I've never done before. Yesterday, I attempted the first of these recipes. Not only was this my first time frying an egg, it was my first time eating a fried egg. Although it didn't look like the picture I was trying to imitate, the toast was delicious and I haven't gotten salmonella  My achievement, however, did not come without scrutiny. My German flatmate found my inability to cook quite comical and stereotypical of Americans (even though every American I've told this story to can't believe I didn't know how to fry an egg). My Irish flatmates were quite helpful though and offered to teach me how to cook chicken too. However, I think I'll just go vegetarian for the rest of the summer (until I can get a burger at Wendy's) and avoid honing my culinary skills for a little while longer.