Parties

As our year here in Spain is drawing to a close we have been invited to a lot of farewell parties. Why so soon? The other American family is also going back and they are leaving on Tuesday. Actually, Dan is staying for his military assignment but the rest of their family is going back to the states because the schools are so bad here. Anyway, we were invited to their house on Friday night because a family in the ward offered to make them paella.
Paella is the famous dish of Spain. People rave about it. I find it highly overrated. It's just a rice dish with meat. Valencia is famous for their paella. The typical paella is Valenciana paella which contains chicken and rabbit. Although when I'm around town and see people eating paella I usually see them eating it with whole sea creatures sitting in it. We are talking about shrimp with their eyes and antenna's attached. You see whole snails with their shells in it. Pretty disgusting to me.
Josue and Christina made Valencian paella over a wood barbeque. We had a nice time. The kids swam in the pool while we visited with the families.
On Saturday the YW president Olympia and one of her counselors, Alexandra invited our families to a park for a bbq. Here in Spain you can't bbq in your back yard. You have to go to certain public parks that have community bbq's. They have bbq police there as well to make sure that your doing it right. Well we got in trouble bbq-ing with charcoal. Apparently you can only do it with wood. So several hours later and after the Strodes were lost for about that same time we were finally gathered for some great chicken, ribs, and chorizo.