Chocolate Chip Cookies

One evening as I was walking home with my roommates we had a chocolate chip cookie craving. I to bake and they to eat. We decided to make some so we stopped by Más (the grocery store around the corner) and bought a Milka chocolate bar to use as the chocolate chips.  As we walked in the door to ask Isabel if we could use the kitchen we hear the grandkids playing. In the living room I found not only Ana and Juanito were over but both their parents as well. I decided to wait to ask Isabel and instead looked up the recipe to convert into Metric measurements/Celsius temperature.  This task completed I proceeded to the kitchen to see if Isabel had all the ingredients. She had everything except

1. Baking Soda: She only had baking powder and said that is all there is here in Spain, so I just put 2x as much in and its seemed to be okay.
2. Brown Sugar: Guate had prepared me for this one. Instead of b.sugar there is a strange dark sugar I can't even describe. I settled for this as well.
3. Vanilla: Much to my dismay there is no liquid vanilla extract as we know it here in Spain. They use a powdered or sugared vanilla made with artificial vanilla flavor! Yes, I ran to several stores to double check and called someone from the school to triple check. 'Tis the sad, sad truth.  

I feel compelled to take this moment to tell you about the different ideas about food going bad here. Meat is left out on counters, fruit eaten mushy and brown, mold simply "cut out" of things such as cheese, butter, or jelly and still used! "What you don't know can't hurt you" has gained a whole new meaning for me!
But back to the cookies. The family left for the park so I began to mix up the batter without any measuring cups or spoons (Julia Child would not approve) and with Isabel at my side watching and fussing. She wanted me to bake them in the little convection oven and turned it on herself. After the first batch was in for about 3 minutes I smelt burning cookies. I ran to the oven only to see she had set the cookies at the top of the confection oven set to 200 degrees C and only heating from the top!
By this time the family had returned and we were all crammed in the tiny kitchen. The oldest son was laughing saying we needed to call the bomberos, firefighters, to which the daughter replied with the "universal firefighter sound." Finally things were calmed down, I adjusted the oven to my liking when no one was looking and made the rest of the batter into blondies.
My roommates were extremely kind assuring me they tasted wonderful and, considering the long journey and many hardships they face, really they weren't all that bad. Chocolate chip cookies- not as easy as 1-2-3 in Spain!