alternative activities

last night i went out. it was saturday night and isn't that what people do? sheida had found out from some friends that there are some gyms in and around bilbao that are trying to offer alternative healthy activities to people on saturday nights. we were going to a free capoeira class from 10 p.m. to midnight. i'm really and truly in Spain. I have always loved the alternative timing of everything here... bedtime is generally after midnight, morning starts much later, and of course, there's siesta. Anyway, if the thought of a capoeira class at 10 p.m. is strange, stranger still was the fact that it was competing with a yoga class and african dancing at the same time, brazilian dancing and squash at 11, and then there was the swimming pool aerobics from midnight to 1:30 a.m.
Can you imagine, you have your dinner at 9:30, like usual, change into your workout clothes, take the subway (which runs 24 hours a day) to San Ignazio, and have a nice yoga warmup followed by a swimming aerobics class... and you're home by 2!

Cereal Surprise

Life in Spain has been wonderful so far, and full of little surprises. Sometimes it's not the big things that make you happy... Growing up, I always classified cereals into 2 kinds, the "good" cereals, like all bran and raisin bran, and shredded wheat, and pretty much anything that advertised itself as a source of dietary fibre, or makes you chew really hard, or tastes bad and isn't covered in sugar. Then there were the "bad" cereals, like count chocula and lucky charms and cocoa puffs, froot loops, cookie crisp and cinnamon toast crunch and anything that had sugar as one of the top 2 ingredients, had marshmallows in it (you know the ones that are hard and crunchy when they're dry but are magically transformed when you add the milk?), turns your milk a different colour (smurf cereal... blue milk!!!) or had a cartoon character advertising them. There was also a grey area for things like frosted mini wheats (little shredded wheats with a layer of sugar thick enough to peel off and eat as candy) and rice krispies (as advertised by snap, crackle and pop). But in general, cereals for the most part fit into these categories. There are people who like the good cereals in the morning, they wake up to a bowl of muesli or bran stix or something, and there are others who like the bad stuff, a bowl of chocolate milk with marshmallows would do if it were socially acceptable, but since it isn't (or not where i come from, anyway) the cereal comes with little balls of puffed wheat or rice as well so you can start the morning guilt free.
This morning, I went to the cereal cupboard to get some cereal. I must tell you, I'm not really a cereal person, mostly because I don't like milk, or the way it makes the cereal soggy. But anyway, this morning, feeling healthy, while preparing a cup of mint tea with fresh mint from the garden, I picked up the box of All Bran and poured a bowl. I was surprised right away. At home All Bran is sticks of bran, similar in flavour and texture to cardboard. This all bran looked exactly like spoon size shredded wheat, but darker. This was a pleasant surprise. I liked the looks of it. I poured the bebida de soja, as it is called in spanish, and dug in, quickly before the cereal gets soggy. With the first bite, my eyes flew open in surprise. Hidden inside each little pocket of bran is a morsel of dark chocolate. Not milk chocolate of course, because that would be bad for you! Dude! I looked at the box again and there it was in tiny italic letters underneath the big bold All Bran was choco. I like it here :o)