Flamenco Friday

Last Friday night our program director, Carmela, had some of us over to her house for tapas. For those of you who are unfamiliar with tapas, they are small plates of food that are served in restaurants and bars around 7pm. Spaniards eat dinner very late, so they often go out for tapas to hold them over. Carmela served us some wonderful tapas including: 


Tortilla Española: It is actually nothing like a tortilla, it is more like an egg-and-potato omelette. Here is a picture: 

Empanadas

Meat with a carrot sauce (the vegetarian in me didn't take a pic of that one)


And my favorite...shrimp with the heads on! Okay I was not going to take one because it was just more than I could stomach. Carmela demonstrated how you first rip the head off, then scrape out the "membrane" and then eat it. I was already queasy at this point but she INSISTED I take one, so I did. I ripped the head off and there was something extra hanging off of it. Carmela looks over and goes "Oh Holly, you got a girl shrimp, that extra meat means it is a girl!" I don't feel the need to say more. 


Lucky for me I got to wash this all down with some fresh melon :) 


Later, Carmela surprised us and came out in full flamenco-garb and put on a little show for us. It was quite entertaining. THEN (get ready) she brought out her daughter's old flamenco skirt and scarf and insisted I put them on and dance with her while everyone else was on the couch watching. I really don't know how to flamenco so I followed her moves, it's a lot of arm movement. Lucky for me, Carmela picked one of my friends and got her a flamenco skirt too.


As you can see, I laughed a ton:

And was VERY glad when my friend joined me: 

And finally, the best part of the night...her house tour. She has 4 Salvador Dalí drawings in her house, two of which are made out to her. Apparently her family was friends with him. It was a full cultural experience between the food, dance, and museum-like art :)