Autumn food and winter play

Last night at 9 pm, Amin (fellow Fulbright scholar, and recently moved in roommate), Phil (my cyclist boyfriend-turned-computer skilled madman), and I were sitting in the living room. Thinking about dinner. Jenn, the keeper of the flat we all share, was to throw a big "fall dinner", yet there was no start to the frenzied kitchen madness. In fact, the quiet in our big apartment was almost as loud as our grumbling bodies.

"Are you sure she said tonight?" I was asking in 10 minute intervals, as the clock ticked to about 9:45pm. Finally, with the city nightlife fervor beginning to stir, Jenn wisks into the kitchen with Gigi at her side and takes to the stovetop and the oven, making (Sara's famous) pistachio pasta, banana cake, roasted chestnuts, cooked wine, and an avocado apple salad. Kris arrives about 8 beers deep, as he said, and livens up the living room scene with his bellowing voice and hilarious opinions. (One of my favorites from last night was his argument with Amin about Spanish people not getting lung cancer from smoking as much as American people because they eat better food.) Then Kelly and Marc came over, two friends of Jenn's, with a large kettle to make squash soup. After 5 minutes of chatting with the men about electrical engineering, cycling, and research in Barcelona, Phil, Marc, Kris, and Amin had almost forgotten about the food that was being cooked for all of us. Marc is originally from Barcelona, so he had a lot of insight about the city and the culture that Amin, Phil, and I found fascinating. Meanwhile, Kris was walking from the living room to the kitchen, dancing with Gigi to Brazilian ballads she was playing on her computer, and returning without the glass of cooked wine that he had intended to grab each trip. And with that, the clocked chimed 11:25pm, and the table was full of people and our stomachs quieted. It almost felt like an early Thanksgiving, to be honest. In fact, if we don't do something similar towards the end of the month, that's what it will have been :)

Today, Phil and I have been dinking around on our computers, and are planning to get going to the Snow Show soon, which is the Snowboarding World Cup held near Montjuic at the Olympic Stadium. I can't wait. Not only have I never seen talented snowboarders, I've also never been to a competition of anything that takes place in the snow. Not sure if I need to wear a winter parka, or my usual fall jacket, since the current temperature here is like 55 degrees!