Three months. What we thought was going to be a quick two-week shutdown/nice little break from school turned into THREE MONTHS. Three months of disappointment, cancellations, sadness, boredom, a little homesickness, but also three months of laughing, learning, growing, exercising, and lots of cooking. As boring as this article might be, I really want to keep a record of what we did to keep ourselves sane while we were stuck under some of the strictest lockdown conditions in the world due to COVID-19.
Okay okay, I guess "stuck" isn't really a good word for our situation...technically, we could have been repatriated just like every other BYU study abroad student. But we felt so strongly about staying in Spain that we just told BYU to not worry about us anymore and stop sending us "We strongly advise you to make arrangements to return home" emails (in the nicest way, of course:). So there we stayed, in Mikel's beautiful cottage outside the city, for the duration of the Spain state of alarm.
So, what did day-to-day life look like for a couple of Americans trapped at home in Spain during a pandemic? Well, let me just set the scene for ya. There were eight of us living in the house: Hayden and me, Sydney and McKay Woodwell and Jeremy and Alison Dean (all from BYU), Mikel (landlord), and Damián, our Argentine BFF (and the godfather of our firstborn child...we'll get into that later). Damián (the most positive of the residents) affectionately dubbed us "QuaranTEAM" and led us in CrossFit workouts every day so as to avoid gaining the COVID-19 (if you know, you know).
Here's a rough daily schedule that we followed nearly every single day:
7:00 am - Wake up, run around the tiny neighborhood circle (carefully avoiding coming into view of our neighbors' windows), do a yoga routine
7:30 am - Shower, get ready, study scriptures
8:00 am - Prepare lessons for teachers, study our classes (we took a couple of classes during spring term bc why not?)
12:00 pm - Breakfast/lunch (intermittent fasting really helped us not get fat during the whole ordeal)
1:00 pm - Back to studying, taking the occasional siesta
6:00pm - CrossFit with Damián
7:00 pm - Dinner (often coordinated with other housemates)
8:00 pm - Movie time (we went through all the Harry Potter and Pirates movies, I finally showed Hayden Moulin Rouge, and then we got reallllly into Downton Abbey with the Woodwells:)
On weekends we would have crepes for breakfast and invariably on Sundays, we would have a big meal all together. Not a bad life, right? We really wanted to make the most of our time, because when else in our lives will we be given so much free time?
Some days were better than others, though. For the most part, we stayed pretty positive and happy, but I did have some particularly hard days, like the day we were officially refunded our Hamilton and Phantom of the Opera tickets from London and the day our anniversary flights to Mallorca were canceled. The worst part of it all was just not knowing how long we would be stuck. The prime minister Pedro Sánchez (yes, people in Spain literally "Vote(d) for Pedro") would evaluate every two weeks to see whether the state of alarm needed to be extended. For the first few weeks I was hopeful every time he made an announcement, but after enough let downs I just sort of had to convince myself that this was just how it was going to be for a long, long time...and I was right.
Here's a nice post-workout picture of *most* of the quaranteam. I think on this evening Hayden and McKay were working in the blue-tiled pool that is slightly visible on the right. Long story short, in order for Mikel to fill the pool, he needed to get rid of all the tiles that were blocking the cracks in the cement that he needed to fill to avoid leaks into the apartments he was building downstairs. So, we and the Woodwells volunteered our free labor scraping off every single little tile in hopes of speeding up the pool filling process. It was grueling work, but with the help of a crowbar, some hammers, and even a jackhammer, we turned that pool from blue to white in just a few weeks.
LOOK AT THESE BEARS. An account of our quarantine time would not be complete without a record of these huge beasts who woke us up every morning, drove us crazy all day, and kept us up long into the night with their barking and howling. Misha, the dog sitting down, is so sweet and friendly, but she stinks like no dog I've ever known and that made it realllly hard for me to love her. Although when I compare Misha to Artza, her even-larger male counterpart, I love her a whole lot more. Nobody but Mikel can go anywhere near Artza without risking their life (not exaggerating - he probably weighs 200 pounds) and I'm pretty sure Mikel is going to have a lawsuit on his hands if he doesn't get rid of the beast. Eventually, he built a cage in the back corner of the yard for the dog so he was relatively contained, but still. Scary, scary thing.
Okay, let's talk about SPRINGTIME in Alcalá. SO BEAUTIFUL! We were so, so lucky to live next to a beautiful forest where we could sneak out and get a glimpse of the world as it changed seasons. The endless wildflowers were a delight in such a gloomy time, and it was worth the risk leaving the house to not miss out on such beautiful scenes.
We even made pretty bookmarks out of the wildflowers for our moms for Mother's Day. What a beautiful blessing in such a difficult time!
We even dressed up for the first time in months to take pictures in the forest on Easter Sunday. The only thing that would maaaaaybe make these pics better is a little more beard maintenance on Hayden's part...yikes. I guess we'll never have to wonder what Hayden's facial hair looks like untamed again.
Alright, alright, let's get to the one most important aspects of quarantine that kept us going when nothing else could...FOOD. When restaurants are not an option, you really have to get creative and collaborate on meals. This was made easier for us by the fact that our landlord just so happened to have a history as a chef at a Michelin Star restaurant in the Basque country.
There are so, so many things about this photo that just scream QUARANTINE to me, like Misha sitting there, McKay's hair (which Sydney once compared with Misha's matted underfur and it's the funniest comparison I've ever heard), the wall that Mikel's property shared with the cranky lady next door (who would scream "JURRI!!" at her little yappy dog every day and yell profanity at Mikel at any chance), and, of course, the PAELLA.
We probably ate the stuff 5 times over the course of quarantine. Nothing could really compare to the Valencian paella we shared with the Woodwells right in the place where it was invented, but having an expert chef in the house really helped ease the quarantine blues.
Though there were many, many meals shared, here are a few that realllly stood out as some of the best concoctions that we came up with as a quaranteam.
THIS BRAZILIAN MEAL. Hayden made up for the unruly beard (sorry for the close-up) by knocking this meal out of the park. Sooooo yummy!
Since we couldn't be in Mallorca for our anniversary, and in lieu of Cinco de Mayo, we collaborated on making Café Rio salads and WOW we should have opened up our own Café Rio in Madrid. It was phenomenal...until the next day when every one of us reported some sort of digestive side effect. Totally worth it though.
THESE. Okay, Mikel made some great food, but I would argue that THESE were the most amazing of his creations. I've always been a croissant lover, but until I visited Europe I didn't know what a real croissant was...and now, I'm a forever croissant-snob because I've had the best of the best. These were crisp and crunchy on the outside but soft and warm and perfectly buttery on the inside and smothered with amazing homemade plumb marmalade...truly an incredible creation.
When General Conference rolled around in April, we couldn't believe we were still in quarantine. We tried to make it feel as much like home as possible (even though the time difference threw us way off because we were up until midnight watching it) and you know what that means...
CINNAMON ROLLS! These were some of my best creations during the lockdown. I can sort of taste them just looking at this picture...brb gonna go bake some more rn.
Eventually and very gradually, Spain's intense restrictions were eased, and we were finally able to leave the house. Even though our time in the country didn't turn out anything like we had planned, we learned to appreciate the simplest freedoms and made lots of wonderful memories with some lifelong friends. Things got a lot more interesting once we were able to leave the house, but I hope to never forget those weeks when time stood still.
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