El Campo

I arrived at the camp today, 8/3, at around 4:30 PM with Pancho, Alberto, and Katie.
Alberto and Katie, thankfully people I know fairly well, came to pick Pancho and me up at the bus/train station and we promptly began our gorgeous drive to Soncillo, a small village where the music camp is. On our way there, we stopped at a small restaurant and ate so much food and every bite was delicious. I have decided that from now on I will never eat another ounce of “American food” because the stuff in Spain is SO MUCH BETTER! Apparently it is customary in Spain to have three courses or platos. First, we had soup: leak soup (Mom, I know you would’ve absolutely loved this dish. It was fairly similar to the soup that you make except a bit thicker and I believe they used a few more spices… we’ll chat!), lentil soup with pork and ribs and chorizo (I think…), and also (my favorite) the chicken dish (I don’t know what it’s called or what exactly was in it… hahaha… but it was FANTASTIC!). For the second plato we had a cod dish and a chicken dish. I think I preferred the first plato, but this was still magnificent. Each dish came with a side of patatas or “french fries” made at the restaurant. We finished with my favorite part: the dessert! For our last plato we had three different desserts (keep in mind that we have been passing plates and bowls around throughout the meal… except Pancho---haha… :P --- so we’ve all gotten a good sense of each dish—which I LOVE!). For dessert we had a coffee chocolate mousse, which I would eat at least 100,000 times over, a lemony flan-like dish which I can hardly describe (it was flan-like, except thicker and a little lighter… but SO exceptionally delicious!), and last but not least the melon (which was a honeydew sort of melon with some sort of light caramel—but not really caramel—dressing). Anyway… from lunch we went to a beautiful scenic passage where there was water as clear as glass and waterfalls so steep, but small :) Next, after taking countless pictures (which I cannot wait to show you), we left for the camp.
At the camp we played games and my Spanish (I promise) got better! It was quite exciting. :) I have two kid tour guides whom I know from Madison: Celi and Elisabeth (with an “s”). They are both bilingual, which is extremely helpful for me :)
‘Tis time to rest. All of the other teachers went out but I’m still recovering from jet lag. I’ll probably go out with them tomorrow… but it’s 2:30 here and they’re still not back yet. I don’t know if I can “party hardy” like them! Haha :)
¡Buenas noches, Madison! Voy a escribir más mañana :)

maya

by the way, this is what the whole drive was like!