Spaghetti and Tuna?

Parents Forum
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<p>D is at her Spanish language immersion class in Salamanca, Spain (a very old college town that looks to be quite cool. I get a feeling that it is like Heidleberg, Germany.) 73 miles from Portugal. So far, so good. She has been placed in intermediate which she feels will be tough but doable. </p>

<p>The temps are much cooler than expected and the city is very walkable. Her time in Madrid was limited so far but she felt the Metro was easily mastered. </p>

<p>They are staying at Spanish homes and her first meal was the aforementioned spaghetti with tuna. As in "Dad. My first meal was _____ . That’s how well I’m doing with immersion. " LOL. </p>

<p>Since then the fare has been more to her liking . She is sooo excited and each call is like 30 seconds (we are having phone issues) and invariably ends with …“Ooh! There’s Nancy/Paul/Jeff. I’ve got to go.” They are doing a lot of exploring. </p>

<p>She hated changing planes and terminals at JFK but other than that (and the phone that thinks she’s in NYC), bueno. </p>

<p>How about y’all? Anyone already started?</p>

2

<p>Well actually, the tuna and spaghetti sounds like it might be good- I’m assuming yellowfin or bluefin, sushi-grade, NOT canned tuna. Maybe prepared sort of scampi style?
Otherwise, canned tuna and spaghetti- yuk. Sounds like “tuna helper.”</p>

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<p>My oldest is two months into his SIT social justice program in Fortaleza, Brazil. He has spent part of his time living with a host family in the city, and part of his time out in the “MST” Movimento Sem Terra with landless migrant workers doing his research. He sleeps in a hammock and hasn’t said much about the food, although he went veggie his first year of college and doesn’t talk much about food. He did say something about fried cheese on a stick that looked quite “heart attack-y” His Portuguese is coming along well. Apparently he can speak well enough to be understood, and understand well enough not to do anything stupid.</p>

<p>Among the other highlights:</p>

<p>He helped occupy a federal building (sit-in) with the landless migrant workers,
research on their collective agriculture practices and socialist<br>
ideology, and helped work out in the fields and build houses </p>

<p>Saw a riot break out at a futbol (soccer) game</p>

<p>Traveled to some of the beaches around Salvador and Recif </p>

<p>Went to a fire-eating show</p>

<p>Grew a bigger, thicker, beard</p>

<p>He returns mid-June. Second son leaves for Croatia in August.</p>

4

<p>Don’t know much about Spanish cooking, but pasta with tuna sauce is a classic Italian dish. The basic version is made by sauteeing garlic in olive oil, adding to that some chopped parsley and chopped canned tomatoes, simmering for a while, then at the last minute draining, flaking, and adding a can of Italian tuna packed in oil. I suspect it’s about the same in Spain, and it’s delicious!</p>

5

<p>

Sounds good to me too, but remember, this is Cur’s d we’re talking about- she’s from a farm in Texas- they probably don’t get tuna there ;)</p>

6

<p>Cur and others with abroad kids - Try using SKYPE for communication. It has been our sanity and saved us $$. D1 has been in Barcelona + this past year - will have to drag her kicking and screaming back to Boston to finish senior year.</p>

7

<p>When we were in Brazil at the World Social Forum, we visited an MST encampment. Really interesting place. Never had spaghetti and tuna, but had a lot of other good food. Oh, but cur’s D is in Spain.</p>

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<p>S#2 did an immersion program and lived in a host home in Santander, Spain (northern coast), last year. The wife was a very good cook, but he did say some of the food combinations were bizarre by US standards. He also said that almost every meal was accompanied by sunnyside up eggs. ??? He had a great experience and loved going to Pamplona for the running of the bulls.:eek:</p>

<p>S#1 will be studying in Aix-en-Provence, France beginning at the end of June. We have managed to find 10 days right before his start date when everyone is free, so we are all going over! We are going to start in Paris and then work our way down to Aix. #1 will then go off to his program, #2 will go back to Miami for a class and work and #3, H and I will travel around and stop in London for a few days before heading home. </p>

<p>I am so excited to have the whole family together for this vacation. As the kids get older, these opportunities are fewer and farther between so we felt we should take advantage of the situation and go for it. </p>

<p>After paying for this vacation, spaghetti and canned tuna is going to sound like a gourmet meal to us. :)</p>

9

<p>I’ll title my post “Spaghetti all over the rental property”. I left my son in DC over the weekend in a rather adorable cheery and well located brownstone apt that was covered in filth but you can see the Capitol from the corner. He has no car and will be walking to work.<br>
He looked pretty shocked when he saw the place. And when I took the “dishes” out of the “cabinets” and they were covered with the former tenants’ final spaghetti dinner! Guess if you just put dirty dishes away up on a shelf you get your deposit back? Ditto the blender with the strawberry’s still stuck in the bottom and the only two non broken drinking glasses full of crud. We put them in the dishwasher and then watched it leak a gallon of water all over the postage sized kitchen floor. We handwashed the rest of the furnished apt from top to bottom and then water leaked under the kitchen sink. Did I mention the four inch centipede belly up in the B/R sink or the grime all over the walls? It was a great Mother’s Day for me. </p>

<p>In all seriousness, it was a mother’s dream come true. An entire day when my expertise and past life experience in lousy apts came in handy and I was needed. We had a great time working together. When I finally pulled out and drove down Constitution Avenue as it was almost dark, I knew that my son was feeling confident and like things were “put right” and he was excited about his new job and adventure. My son landed a fantastic job on the Hill related to his personal and non political passion, a real job with a real paycheck. I am not thinking I will be the person that sets up too many more of his apts of the future with him. </p>

<p>I sensed the end of frat dorm boy, and although I fretted about that chapter of his life it is a bit of a tug at the heart to get a glimpse of employed man of the world who can support himself and master a big city. After he finishes in DC he moves abroad to an even bigger and more complex city where he is working on a language.</p>

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<p>texastaximom, i spent 6 months in brazil with my sister who was in the peace corps. Fortaleza is a beautiful city and he is lucky to be there. They are known for beautiful lace linens so make sure he brings you a new tablecloth and a few of the brazilian hedgies (hammocks) you’ll be glad you did. THey also have great wood carvers there… What a great experience for him.</p>

11

<p>I am grinning. D is beginning the last month of her 3 month sojourn in Europe, France mostly, with a little London, Belgium, Milan, Germany and Prague thrown in for good measure.
Her hostess has Skype or a Skype-like service, so we get long weekly calls on Sunday nights (for her). yesterday, DH in passing asked her what she was eating for breakfast. The answer was Special K. DH - “Oh, so you bought some Special K to feel like home?” DD “No, that’s what my French Mom eats, so we have Special K. I’m getting a little tired of it.” “No coffee, no croissant?” “Yes coffee, rarely croissants, she likes Special K better.”
So much for our notion of cultural immersion. Being in country for the presidential election was interesting, though.</p>

12

<p>Ah, those Mediterranean seafood dishes that Italy, Spain, Greece, etc. share because they are close to one another. Every culture has its version of pasta, and those countries around the Sea add seafood to it. Not so unusual. D leaves in Septemebr for Spain, then Germany, and I know it will be an exptremely difficult task to get her to come back.</p>

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<p>D starts a two-month internship in Shanghai, China in early June. Being from California, she’s happy with spaghetti and tuna. However, what she will make of duck necks sealed in plastic bags, jellyfish, chicken feet, intestines, and oh yes duck tongues, I shudder to think. Luckily tofu is just pronounced “dofu” in Chinese so she should be able to survive.</p>

14

<p>My daughter will be studying in Taiwan this summer and in Beijing in the fall semester, in intense Chinese language programs in both locations. She has been studying Chinese for two years at college and hopes to greatly improve her fluency. She will be coming home for about three weeks in August, in between. She was originally planning to study abroad next spring, but found out that there is a required course for her major in the spring and so applied for the fall almost at the last minute and then for the summer even more as a last minute thing! </p>

<p>The program in Taiwan does not provide housing - the students need to find a place to rent themselves - which I thought would be very difficult in an unfamiliar city in another country, as well as with the language barrier. By an amazing stroke of luck, my former co-worker and good friend who is Taiwanese and who keeps in touch will all of her former classmates and coworkers found out that her good friend’s family has a “guest apartment” on one floor of a building where the friend’s sister and brother lives with their families on other floors. It is only 15 minutes by bus from the school where my D will be studying, has two bedrooms, dining room, living room, kitchen, and air conditioning, and they are not charging her rent, only for the utiilties (less than $200 for the whole summer)! Her friend says that people helped her when she was younger and she likes to help her friends and their friends :slight_smile: I am sure it will be lovely - it is normally used when relatives from the US, etc. come for visits! I can’t believe the unbelievable luck that it worked out like this, and I am much less worried about her going to live alone in a foreign city because I know my friend’s friend and her family will welcome her and help her figure things out, and also will be there in case of any unexpected emergencies!</p>

<p>At the program in Beijing, the students are required to sign a language pledge to speak only Chinese except in case of emergency or in emailing or talking to friends and family at home. Since my daughter is very social and talkative, this will be great incentive to improve her Chinese skills, since it will be Chinese or nothing :slight_smile: My husband and I are thinking of meeting her in China for a vacation when her semester ends in December, although it is probably not the ideal time to visit, as far as weather.</p>

<p>Although, as I said, she made her arrangments at the last minute, in a much shorter timeframe than I would normally plan something like this, everything actually seems to be coming together with her plans! It is all very exciting to me!</p>

15

<p>Salamanca!!! In my humble opinion, it’s the very best university town in the entire world (well, Boston’s pretty cool, but in Salamanca, the university is the life of the town). When I lived in WA, I got to participate in a summer program sponsored by the Spanish consulate for Spanish teachers at the University of Salamanca. Is your daughter in one of the USAL programs? They are top notch! I was in regular native speaker classes, but several of my friends were in various levels of Spanish as a foreign language and spoke highly of the instruction, and I had the opportunty to observe instructors with beginning-intermediate students on weekend excursions. They were great, never ever giving in to speaking English, but always reinforcing students’ comprehension and thus, their communicative competence.</p>

<p>Curmudgeon, your daughter sounds like one who wouldn’t sit around her in room on weekends anyway, but encourage her to take advantage of the optional weekend/ Saturday trips. I remember day trips to Caceres, Ciudad Rodrigo, Avila, Toledo, and longer trips to Lisbon and Granada. Madrid is easy to manage with a group of friends (bus service is reliable and cheap) and you can get anywhere on the metro in the city. It’s fun to be there on a Sunday morning for El Rastro, a giant flea market. The traditional Madrileno warning about pickpockets is good to keep in mind: “There is only one pickpocket in all of Madrid. Unfortunately, we don’t know where he is, so you have to be careful!” </p>

<p>If there is time at the end before your daughter has to come home, the beaches are fabulous and the Med water is nice and warm by mid-late July–all of the travel agencies in Salamanca will have packages for a decent price. </p>

<p>Oh, and it’s funny that you mentioned tuna–one of the cool evening traditions in the plaza is the groups of “tunas”–they are university students from the different faculties, dressed up and singing/playing traditional songs from the 1600s. The plaza is always lively at night, with couples and families out for the evening paseo, and in fact, it sort of seems that Spaniards only sleep during the aftenoon siesta. </p>

<p>Ah, it’s been too long…I have to get back there! I remember writing to a friend while I was there, and his response, although it loses something in the translation, was that my happiness was practically jumping off the screen…I sure that will be your daughter’s experience as well. </p>

<p>One last thing–most of the internet cafes have some kind of internet telephone thing that is very reasonably priced. The university itself had very little to offer in the way of computer services when I was there.</p>

16

<p>S2 is in London in the middle of a course which he says is so good–he is physically depressed when he has to leave at the end of each day (M-F 10 to 5 pm course). He’s discovered Ryan Air et al and is travelling to see friends every weekend. Last weekend was Harrowgate for L30 pounds rt. Cheaper than the London hostel. </p>

<p>S1 is getting ready to leave for his summer of field research in Africa for his senior thesis. He’s making a quick stop out to see both sets of grandparents–hopefully earning a bit of pocket change doing hard labour for them.</p>

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<p>I’m laughing at these posts.</p>

<p>Alu: Luckily tofu is pronounced dofu in Chinese. Well, yeah, considering the word and the food are Chinese to begin with…:)</p>

<p>Cangel: I also had the shock of my life when my teenage nieces and nephews announced they had cold milk and cereals for breakfast. In my days, we had croissants, brioches, or tartines with warm milk; and we stopped drinking milk as soon as possible.</p>

18

<p>WJB is on the mark. Pasta with tuna or a tuna-based sauce is a classic and very, very good. There are several variations, but one of my favorite recipes includes mushrooms, tomatoes and hot chile peppers. Yummy!</p>

19

<p>tuna and pasta, salmon and pasta, shrimp…fish and pasta- pretty normal stuff</p>

<p>I have done ham and pasta (think procetta)- yum</p>

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<p>trip to London years ago- tuna salad made with kernal corn sandwiches, cold baked beans on baked potatoes…, no wonder Pizza Hut and other foreign restaurants were thriving.</p>