First there's the turkey. In the U.S., you would find turkeys, especially around Thanksgiving, for around $0.69 a pound. Turkey is not a common meat in Spain. But the meat market does have turkey. However, it will cost 8.95 euros a kilo. So that's over $5 a pound (which includes the carcass, not just the meat). But it will be worth it (at least this once).
Then of course there is pumpkin and pumpkin filling. Although around this time of year, you do see small pumpkins in some stores, they do not have the typical American-shaped pumpkins here, especially in larger sizes. A friend of mine said that pumpkin here is shaped differently. To me the shape is like a butternut squash. The only way to find out for sure is to taste it, which I hope to do soon.So, fresh pumpkin is out and I went to a number of stores to find pumpkin filling to make pumpkin pie, to no avail. So Chris will be bringing some cans of pumpkin filling.
There is no corn syrup here so Chris will also be bringing that. They do have a form of sweet potato here, which I hope we can use to make yams. And although I could not find corn meal, they do have canned corn here, which Chris will use to make corn pudding. We'll also have stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy and all the trimmings!
My form of a traditional Thanksgiving is to serve a pasta dish before the turkey and the trimmings. Being brought up in an Italian-American home, this was the standard fare. So for this Thanksgiving, I'll be making homemade lasagna with home-made noodles. The challenge was finding a good tomato sauce base. My grandparents were from Naples, so lasagna was always made with tomato sauce. Not so in other parts of Italy, I learned recently from my Italian friend here. In Bologna, they do not use a red sauce but rather cook it with bechamel sauce. But my lasagna will have tomato sauce. I found a place that sells imported Italian tomato puree, which I have always used as a base to make the sauce. One of my Italian friends in my Spanish class works at an Italian store, where I'll be buying Mozarella, Provolone and Ricotta cheese at cost.Eye Check-Up
It's been over a year since my last eye appointment, so I scheduled for one here. I have my government eye insurance coverage, but this will be a test on how smoothly this all goes with an overseas claim. I met with the ophthalmologist. She checked my eyes and discussed about continuing to use of contact lenses. Up until now, I have been using monovision lenses, in which a lens is prescribed for one eye for reading and a different lens for the other eye for long distance. However, multifocal lenses allow you to see simultaneously out of both eyes for both reading and distance vision.
There is a significant difference in cost, at least here in Spain. However, I found that I could order these lenses online, have them shipped to Chris before he comes here, and my insurance company will cover most of the cost, with me spending only about $50 out-of-pocket. That's quite a good deal!
Hike in the Pyrenees - Porté-Puymorens in France
If you are familiar with European geography, you know that the Pyrenees is the mountain range that separates Spain from France. Also, in the Pyrenees is a very small country (technically a principality) called Andorra. Right near Andorra, on the French side, is a hiking trail called Porté-Puymorens, which we hiked this Sunday (today). It was a beautiful hike, but it took about 3 hours to get there and 3 hours to return. So the actual time hiking was shortened due to the shorter amount of daylight hours during this time of the year. But it was still worth it and got to meet some new friends on this trip!
