Happy (belated) New Year!

Hello again!

I firstly have to apologise for the long absence. I have had a very busy two months so I will try to fill you in without too much boring detail.

Christmas

Christmas in Spain is a very different affair from the classic British Christmas that we are used to celebrating on the 25^th December. Out here, they have a big celebratory dinner with all the family on Christmas Eve, and then a lunch on Christmas Day. The traditions are slightly different depending on the household and how religious the families are. Less religious families are likely to follow traditions more similar to ours, sometimes having turkey and doing presents on Christmas Day. More traditionally Catholic families are more likely to just have a family gathering and a special meal on this day. For them, the present giving, and the more important day is El Día de Los Reyes Magos, or the Day of the Wise Men. This is celebrated on the 6^th January, and they all go back to work the following day.

Something that really surprised me, given the Spaniards’ pride in their food culture, is that they do not have a national traditional feast. While they all agree that the meal is special and they make it a feast, there is nothing like our roast turkey with all the trimmings. Despite no universal Christmas meal, they do have some very traditional Christmas sweets. Before I went to Spain I thought that Turrón was just a kind of sweet treat similar to nougat, but I have since found out that the only requirement for a turrón is that it is sweet and its shape – it has to be a block. There are several traditional types, which includes ‘Turrón Duro’ (Hard Turrón), a crunchy nougat filled with nuts;

‘Turrón Blando’ (Soft Turrón), a block made of powdered almonds mixed with sugar that crumbles and melts in the mouth; 

‘Turrón de Yema’ (Egg Yolk Turrón), which is like a cross between a dense cake and marzipan;

‘Turrón Crujiente’ (Crunchy Turrón), which is just a block of chocolate with puffed rice (otherwise known as Rice Krispies).

There are then a whole host of non-traditional blocks with assorted flavours. The other sweets are known as ‘surtidos’, which is an umbrella term for a selection of biscuits and ‘Polvorones’. ‘Polvo’ means powder or dust, so it will come as no surprise that ‘Polvorones’ are an incredible crumbly sweet made from flour, lard and some flavouring like lemon, cinnamon or chocolate. They are like a shortbread, but not crunchy, and they just disintegrate into powder as you bite into them. I think they are a bit of an acquired taste, but I like them!

January was spent revising for exams so I have not seen much more than my desk, and I came back to England for the week before term starts again on the 1^st February so I will start writing about my experiences again soon.

Answers to questions:

Are Spanish people bossy?

“Spanish people” are no bossier than “British people”. In other words, you cannot just generalise about a whole nation.

Is the Spanish music similar to English music?

While I am in the lab, people often have music on Spotify. Sometimes this will be a lot of English or American music, but other times it is Spanish music, which tends to have a different overall feel from the music over here. The rhythms really suit Salsa style dancing quite often, and if it is a man singing, I tend to notice the autotune a lot, but I don’t know if it is supposed to sound like that or not.

What is the best landmark I have seen?

Valencia has some really lovely old buildings in the city centre, and the architecture there is lovely, but I think my favourite landmark is just the whole of the Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias. I have posted pictures of this before, but I can put up some professional ones so you can see just how impressive the whole complex is.

Thank you for reading! Next month I will write in Spanish again.