Christmas in Palma

Today is the very first Christmas day I have ever spent away from home and it feels very strange. Andy and I bought a small fake Christmas tree and we bought several lovely presents for each other (boots, necklace and tea set for me; spain flag, barcelona jersey and cd for Andy) but being away from family for Christmas is a surreal feeling. Especially with the warm weather outside. But we are making the most of it while we can. The only challenge at this point is that both of us are feeling under the weather and we need to start packing for our adventures to Dublin and London tomorrow. Yikes!

But tonight we are going to make a huge dinner with our roommates that I am really looking forward to. Here is the menu:

Deviled Eggs
Hot Spinach and Artichoke Dip
Spinach and Mushroom Lasagna
Pork Roast
Glazed Carrots
Corn
Garlic Mashed Potatoes
And Banana Bread for dessert

We'll see if we can get it all together in a timely manner so dinner is hot all at once. Last night, Andy and I went to Jill's house for a delicious curry Christmas Eve dinner and her kids were so excited that they kept running around in circles around everything chanting "Christmas is tomorrow, Christmas is tomorrow!" It put me in a festive mood. Jill's parents also flew in from Manchester so we left her dad in charge of the kids and walked down to the Cathedral for midnight mass. The huge cathedral was decorated with lots of danglies from the ceiling and the effect was charming. We arrived at 10:30 and the service began at 11 with quite a bit of singing and frankincense. Yuck. I do not like the smell of that stuff. Unfortunately the service was completely in Catalan so I understood very little but the organ and the singing was captivating and we stayed until midnight but we weren't very far through the program so we ditched and walked back home under the Christmas lights. Funny side story though: On Calle Sindicat in the old town we had heard a pretty noisy party going on above one of the stores on the walk to the Cathedral and then when we were walking back home, an old woman near the loud apartment was out on her terrace with a sizeable stick banging onto the windows of the partyers. It was absolutely hilarious. She was very seriously shaking a stick at them and nobody was listening to her whatsoever. Perfect. Anyways, I need to go get the eggs ready and have a little snack before kitchen madness commences. Merry Christmas everyone. I hope it's a good one!