Kentucky Fried Chicken 13/107.

I hate telling people I'm from Kentucky. When I tell them, their first response is, "Ahh, si, Kentucky Fried Chicken!!!!" Embarrassing that chicken is the only association people have with the place I call home. In my Democracy of Eastern Europe class, which I must say I feel really smart in because we are talking a lot about Yugoslavia. Thanks to my trip to Serbia, I know a lot of information and can speak up in class discussions, we were talking about different regions. We started talking about the north vs. south issue in the USA. I don't consider myself to be from the south nor the north. Come on people, Kentucky was a border state during the war afterall. And we all know that Louisville is very different from the rest of the state. That's why we have the Keep Louisville Weird campaign, among other reasons of course. Anyways, perhaps the only time you will hear me claim anything southern is when it comes to the food. I think it's atrocious that people don't know about sweet tea, fried cornbread, etc. So tonight for dinner, I introduced Elena, Luna, and Dan to good old southern comfort food.

My menu consisted of fried chicken, corn, and mashed potatoes. I was going to fry cornbread, but they don't sell corn meal here. Frying in olive oil is a lot different than frying in canola oil or vegetable oil. But it still worked great. Everyone loved the chicken. The kids said it was the best they've ever had. Elena kept marveling over the taste of the chicken. (I didn't even do all my seasonings....just a pinch of salt and peper, and garlic powder.) Spain doesn't have corn fresh off the cob like we sell it. So I had to work with pre-cooked corn. Spaniards are not big fans of corn, so it was quite a cultural shock for them to eat it. My mashed potatoes were more of a puree - we didn't have a hand mixer, only a blender, so they "mashed" a little different than I wanted them to. Concept was still the same though. I felt like I was right at home, minus the sweet tea.

Earlier this morning, I ventured off to the American food store near campus. I picked up a small bottle of ranch dressing and a bottle of strawberry syrup for milk. Prices on American food here is ridiculous - I had to pay about 11 dollars for both of them together. I did however, talk with the store owner, a very nice lady named, Emily. She is from Queens, but has Spanish parents. She told me what food was coming in here in a few weeks and what they have for Thanksgiving. I also found out that finding a turkey here is nearly impossible. The ones you can find, you have to baste. Sure I'll be skipping the turkey this year. They did have some great things like pop-tarts, grape jelly, syrup, cake mixes and icing, cereal, and drinks. I need to ask her if she will be ordering Golden Oreos or Cheddar and Sour Cream chips....

My morning started off kinda hectic. I had taken the metro into town like I always do. I was on the second of five escalators on my way out of the station when I got behind a man with two suitcases. All of a sudden, the escalator jerked and we realized it had broken down. I decided to walk around the man and continue up the rest of the stairs. I had reached the next escalator, when I heard a woman yelling. I turned around and saw the man with the suitcases shoving another man and trying to push the woman out of the way. Then, when they got to the top of the escalator, the suitcase guy started throwing punches. At first I thought that maybe the other guy had hit the woman and the other guy was really mad and started fighting him. The lady on the escalator with me, told me it was actually a robbery. YIKES! The robber ran up the escalators and the woman chased after him. You always hear people talk about pick-pocketing being a huge problem in Madrid - they will go so far as to cut purses off of women's shoulders, but I never had a problem with it myself. I always thought you had to be pretty dumb to get pick-pocketed. My belief has quickly changed. Here we were in broad daylight, at 12:30 pm and a guy just steals a woman's purse. I wasn't scared, just fortunate that it wasn't me. I was left to wonder what would have happened had the escalator not broken down and I not walked around the man with the suitcases. I would have been in the middle of things, and very possibly, been the victim of a crime. I was careful with my things in the metro before today, but am definitely going to be even more cautious from now on.

I added a class today - Politics of Asia. Guess it's about time I learned about the motherland, huh? I had heard negative things about the professor, but I didn't have any problems with her. One thing she does do though, is she will pace back and forth i a very compartmentalized area, taking five or six steps up, and five or six steps back. It's quite annoying....and frankly, gives me a headache.

I do have a lot of reading and homework to do. I am going to need to stay on top of things and not get behind in my classes, but I know that having a full schedule is what I need in order to operate successfully.

Hope everyone enjoyed their holiday today!

Ciao,
Sarah

Quote of the Day: "A dream becomes a goal when action is taken toward its achievement." -Bo Bennett

The kids and I, at our "Kentucky dinner party"