Cuando estás en Madrid...

En Madrid, ¡la gente está muy loca!

As I mentioned in my previous entry, I went to Madrid this weekend.  In general, I had a good time, enjoyed visiting the capital, and was extremely happy I went.  But coming back to Oviedo was one of the best feelings.  Madrid was too big, too crowded, WAY too expensive, and too international.  Most people spoke English and if they so much as heard you speak one word of it, they wouldn't speak Spanish to you.  Even if you asked them.  Even if they were struggling so much with English.

That was a summary of the following post.  If you have the endurance of a long-distance runner, you may brave the novel I wrote on my trip to Madrid...I hope you are mentally prepared for an entry of epic proportions...

So we left on Thursday at 5:45pm, even though the bus was supposed to be at 5:30.  Normally I'd just say that this is just how it is in Spain, but the buses run on a very tight schedule.  This bus was delayed due to rush-hour traffic, apparently.  Anyways, the bus ride wasn't too pleasant.  It was already getting dark so we couldn't enjoy the Spanish countryside, and driving through Asturias is the worst thing I could think of doing pretty much ever.  There are so many mountains, the roads just wind around them and over them.  If you're lucky, they go under them in tunnels, but that doesn't happen often enough.  About half way to Madrid we stopped at a rest-station (LITERALLY 5 minutes after I'd worked up the courage to use the bus's bathroom, of course), and we got into Madrid around 11:30pm.  The 15 of us took the metro to the stop closest to our hostel, had to ask directions to get to our street, and walked the 5 minutes from the metro to the hostel.  When we got there there was some confusion over our reservation.  How could they forget about 15 people??  But they sorted it out, and by 1am we were in bed.

One of two of the rooms in which we were the only people.

On Friday we woke up relatively early to get breakfast from the hostel and go on a walking tour that was going to start in Puerta del Sol (Door of the Sun), the main square in Madrid.  Some pictures on our walk to Puerta del Sol, which include Plaza Mayor (which reminded me of Saint Mark's Square in Venice, without the church):

"Learn to paint, idiot!"

The first of many horsemen, this one is in the center of Plaza Mayor

Our walking tour began in Puerta del Sol, but we walked all over the city.  I'm really happy I did it because I wouldn't have gotten such a comprehensive overview of Madrid otherwise, but it was 3 hours long and VERY tiring.  On the plus side, it was free!  I honestly cannot remember all the things we saw, but I took lots of pictures!  One highlight on the tour was the Palacio Real (Royal Palace), where the royalty still live today.  They have opened part of the palace up to the public as a museum, which I went to after the tour with some people from my group.

The prettiest building in Puerta del Sol, it was built by the post office on what they thought was the 0 km mark in Spain.

Madrid's mascot: a bear and his tree (El oso y el Madroño)

Of all the churches in Spain...

The horseman of Puerta del Sol (most of these men were kings, I just don't remember which).

Queen Isabel, her statue is in Plaza Opera because she commissioned many works of art.

Another horseman near the Palacio Real.

Palacio Real (or part of it...)

Our tour group, picture taken by one of the guides.

Photo taken by Gracia on our tour.

Awesome mural...when you see it!

Moldy Voldy not so Moldy

After the walking tour, we went to Starbucks to recuperate and then some of us headed to the Palacio Real, including me (by the way, the stuff we call whipped cream in the States is nothing compared the whipped cream I had on my hot chocolate in that Spanish Starbucks).  The palace was beautiful, it reminded me of Kensington Palace with an Italian-style fresco on every ceiling.  There was no photography allowed, so I have no pictures of the inside to share.  We saw a girl take a picture with her smart phone, get yelled at, made to delete all her photos from the palace, and get kicked out.  It was pretty intense.

We were dead tired after all that walking, and it was about 6pm after we went through the Palacio, so we went back to the hostel to take a siesta.  I didn't actually sleep, but I really needed to get off my feet.  That night we went out with the same company that runs the tours for dinner plus flamenco show plus pub crawl.  It was pretty fun, but I didn't bring my camera because I didn't want to carry it out at night in Madrid.  

The dinner was made up of tapas and they were pretty good.  Afterwards we went to a famous flamenco place that was set up as a restaurant with a stage for the dancers.  It was pretty cool, the dancing was very intense and it was interesting to watch because the singer, guitarist, and dancers all seemed to be following each other.  It wasn't just the dancers following the music.  I definitely enjoyed seeing it, even though they stuck us in the back next to the bar.  

After flamenco, we went on a 4-pub bar crawl.  I only made it to 3 out of 4 of them because a girl in my group was robbed at the 3rd one because she set her bag down for 5 minutes, which gave some of us an excuse to go home.  The bars in Madrid were much bigger, louder, and more crowded.  In a way, that was fun because the dance floors were always full and there were plenty of people to dance with.  But it was also very overwhelming, at least for me. 

Because we didn't get to bed until ~3am, two other girls and I decided to have a slow start Saturday morning.  Some people in our group who hadn't been to the palace went in the morning, and some others went to the Fútbol stadium, which had a museum and a tour I think.  Nora, Storie, and I left the hostel around 1pm and went to Plaza Mayor for some lunch.  We ate outside, and because it was kinda cold out, the restaurant had provided fleece blankets for the outdoor tables.  So I wore my eatin' blanket and lunched in Plaza Mayor.  

A sun dial on the side of a building on our walk to Plaza Mayor

Plaza Mayor

After lunch we walked to the Museum of Reina Sofia, a contemporary art museum that houses a lot of Spanish artists' work, such as Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí.  Some areas were photography friendly, whereas others weren't.  I was surprised to see Picasso's huge painting called "Guernica" that took up an entire wall and necessitated 3 security guards.  It was definitely an interesting museum.  Unfortunately, we did not have the time or energy to go to El Prado, a famous museum in Madrid of older art.  Even if we had gone, people say it takes about 3 days to do El Prado in its entirety, so I don't feel so bad.  Plus, Sofia Reina was free.  Some photos from the museum:

Elevator at Reina Sofia, if you look closely it says Reina, there was another that said Sofia.

Salvador Dalí

Also Dalí

Dalí, again.

We went to Starbucks again after Sofia Reina, though it was a different Starbucks.  Madrid was as Starbucks'd as any US city.  Anyways, I said something to Storie in English and a guy at the table next to me asked, in English, if I was from the US or the UK, and I said US, and since he said it in an American accent, I asked where he was from.  He said Rhode Island, so I was like, "Oh that's cool, we go to school in Massachusetts!" And he asked where, and I said, "Umass Amherst," and he said, "Oh I graduated from there ~5 years ago."  So we met someone in Madrid who went to Umass!!  It was pretty cool.  He sat down with us and we talked to him about Spain and everything.  He was a math major at school and is apparently teaching English to engineers here in Spain.  What a coincidence!

Once we got back to the hostel, we took it easy.  Our plan was to go out again that night to a really popular, and disgustingly expensive, club, but since it's Spain, no one goes out before midnight.  We played cards and hung out before finally leaving.  The club, Kapital, was pretty intense.  It was huge - it's famous for its seven floors of bars and dance floors.  We didn't go to every floor, but it was still pretty cool.  The main dance floor was huge and there were lights and every once in a while they dumped a ton of really cold air on us - at first I thought it was for the effects, but it really helped keep us cool.  They even had a male and female dancer on either side of the DJ dancing with very little clothing on.  It was pretty entertaining.  Drinks in that place were ridiculously expensive.  I didn't buy anything once I got there, it was too horrific to even think about.  For example, a shot was, I'm pretty sure, 5€.  And it went up from there.  I couldn't believe it.  I'm glad we saw it, but I am so happy that I am not living in Madrid this semester.  Going to Madrid this weekend made me realize how good of a decision it was to study in Oviedo, at least out of the cities in Spain.  We'll see if I feel the same when I go to Barcelona...

We didn't get back until the wee hours of the morning, and we were in NO way the last to leave that club.  I am very curious to see how late (aka early) it stays open.  7am?  8am?  Those Spaniards showed no signs of stopping.  I slept for 3 hours (a very good 3 hours, but still only 3 hours) before I had to get up and get ready to check out of the hostel.  After we checked out, I went with Nora, Storie, Grace, and Mary to Plaza Mayor for some food and souvenir shopping.  I thought it was hilarious that they sold Barcelona soccer paraphernalia, as well as Madrid.  So tourists could pretend they went to Barcelona as well?  Yo no sé.  

After some people had lunch, we went to a Churros place that's open 24/7 near Puerta del Sol and I had my first authentic, Spanish Churros con Chocolate.  They were amazing.  And when they say "Chocolate", they do not mean "Hot Chocolate", they mean melted chocolate in a cup that you dip the Churros into.  

We walked to the metro stop "Opera" where there is a mini "museum" of the old aqueduct they found while digging for the metro.  It was literally 1 room with a video projected on a wall and 3 pieces of aqueduct, but it was pretty cool.  Then we took the metro the bus station and caught the 2pm bus back to Oviedo.  

The bus ride to Oviedo was a lot better than the one to Madrid, it went faster, I slept marginally more (aka more than none), and we got to see the countryside go by.  Spain's countryside is really interesting because in Madrid it's very dry, but there are hills and some mountains in the distance.  It's very beautiful.  And then, somewhere between Madrid and Asturias, there are just plains and grass and treefarms forever.  The rest stop that we stopped at on both sides of the journey is in what looks like the Midwest of the US.  And then you hit Asturias and there is NO flat ground.  The mountains we saw were so beautiful, but I couldn't really get any pictures because I was in a bus.  Had we stopped, I could have won a photo contest.  

We got in around 7:30 and it was very clear that everyone was happy to be back.  Most people said the same thing, that they were reallly happy they got to go to Madrid, but they are much happier studying in Oviedo. 

Anyways, if you made it this far into this post, kudos to you.  I'm impressed.  I apologize for talking (typing?) your ear (eyes?) off, but I probably won't have another post for a while since I plan on laying low in Oviedo for a little while.  ¡Hasta Luego!

*Besos*

¡El Parte Más Importante!

I forgot the best part of my evening the night I went to tapas because it was overshadowed by my frustrations.

While I was walking to the tapas bar, I was stopped by a man who (all in Spanish) asked me for directions! And I knew what he was talking about, where it was, and I gave him directions in Spanish!!! After two weeks in Oviedo, I am officially a local.

(Maybe I'm not THAT knowledgeable, but I'm still (wicked) proud!!)

Anyways, that was definitely the highlight of my night and I can't believe I forgot to mention it.  But, while we're here, I will just mention that last night I met up with some friends from Umass at a cidrería to watch the Madrid-Barca game (Real Madrid y Barcelona).  It was really fun.  At first, I wasn't sure who the people would be rooting for, because in Spain you have your regional/local team and then you either root for Madrid or Barcelona.  Barcelona scored two unanswered goals and the bar was pretty happy, so I thought most were Barca fans, but when Madrid came back with two goals, the bar was just as loud.  A pretty even split, I'd say.

This was the second of two games that were scored together as one because, apparently, they play at one team's home stadium one week and the other team's the next.  (Also, "away" goals are "worth" more.  Yes, really.)  So, because Barcelona had "won" 2-1 last week IN Madrid, the fact that Madrid had tied the game this week in Barcelona didn't matter.  Barcelona won.  (Aka, the total score was 4-3, but if Madrid had tied it IN Barcelona (4-4 total), Madrid would have won because they would have had 3 away goals whereas Barcelona would have only had 2.  It makes sense, just takes a minute to think about.)  Barcelona, I have decided, is my team, since Madrid seems to be a team of assholes...

Anyways, I'm off to Madrid in two and a half hours! ¡Hasta Luego!

*Besos*

Vamos a Madrid!

¡Sorpresa! My trip this weekend is to Madrid!

I've spent the last week/a bit more planning this trip.  Originally, it was only a few of us who wanted to go, but I invited the whole group of UMassers plus two other friends I had made just in case.  Only 6 people said they were going, but when I told people to meet at the bus station to buy tickets, 12 people showed up.  And 3 more have bought tickets as well.  We are an army of 15 and we are going to take Madrid by storm.  We leave tomorrow after classes and will be staying in a Hostel that may very well be the crappiest in Madrid.  It's an adventure!  I'm not actually too worried, because no matter what problem we face, we have so many minds to find a solution.

The first half of this week has passed similarly to all the others.  Classes, siesta, etc.  I tried to go out to a Tapas night last night, but it was a failure.  I showed up on time (woops) because I thought I would get lost.  It was 9pm and we were hanging out outside (and by "we", I mean the guy in charge of the event and me...) waiting for more people to show up.  Around 9:30pm a few people arrived, but no one I knew well.  "Okay," I thought, "time to make friends!"  But these kids were all attached to their little groups of people from their home universities, and were hell-bent on simply getting wasted.  And nothing else.

Honestly?  I'm sorry, but I'd like a little more intelligent/interesting conversation when I hang out with people... The purpose of going out, especially on a weeknight, should be to spend time with friends.  Secondary should be drinking/eating/whatever.  It's frustrating that that's all these American students want to do.  Spaniards do not spend time with friends at home, they go out to bars and cafés and hang out together.  But even they aren't there just to get drunk, they're there to socialize.

So I waited for about 45 minutes, finally got too cold and too frustrated, and left.  No one I knew showed up, but that wasn't really the problem, I sort-of expected that.  Oh well, hopefully next time people I know will go, since trying to make conversation with these other people in clearly impossible...

Today is a beautiful day and I had the nice surprise of being reminded that my last class was canceled.  With my new-found free time Grace and I went shopping in the spaceship mall (that is what we all call it, but it honestly is a spaceship, especially from above).

A picture of the mall (pre-construction?) downloaded off Google Images...you tell me it doesn't look like a spaceship!

I bought a handbag, since I left mine in Amherst :(, and gafas del sol, since I, yet again, lost them (surprise, surprise...).  I also went to un mercado and bought some nonperishable food for the 5 hour bus rides to/from Madrid and for snacks while in Madrid.  Since I've been back, I've just been reading my guide book on Madrid and getting excited for our trip!  But now that I've read all I can about Madrid and written a blog post, I really should write my assignment for Literatura Española... I've been putting it off since it seems like that hardest class I'm going to have. I can barely analyze poetry in English, let alone Spanish, let alone ye olde Español....

Anywhoooo...off to write that analysis!  I will have a nice, long blog entry for my viaje a Madrid when I get back on Sunday!!

*Besos*

Los Peces de Gijón

¡Hola Queridos!

So what has gone on since I last wrote?

We went out Thursday night to Calle Gascona for Cidra and fun.  I met some Irish people and British people who knew some of the members of our group, but not me.  I was starting to feel sick (everyone on this program is sick right now - even the profs), so I didn't even buy anything haha.  Then we walked to Plaza del Sol, which I think is normally a hoppin' place on the weekends because in Europe there's no open-bottle law.  Thursday night, though, it wasn't too exciting.  So we went looking for a dance-floor/bar.  Of course, we ended up at Pub B-12, where I've gone tons of times with the UMassers.  It was fun and I definitely stayed too late because yesterday I was pretty sick (stuffy nose, sneezing, coughing, head-aches: the works).

We bought bus tickets yesterday for our trip next weekend.  But other than doing that and going to class, I didn't do anything yeserday.  I just stayed home and slept - took 2 nyquils and slept for 10.5 hours last night.  It was wonderful, and I feel better today, but definitely not 100%.  Hopefully by Monday I'll be much better.

Anyways, today I woke up to a text message that said if I wanted to go to Gijón, I would have to meet at the bus station at 1pm.  It was 11am, so I kinda had get my butt in gear.  But I made it and Nora, Storie, Sabrina, Fiona, Stephen and I went to Gijón.  The bus was ~20 minutes and was 2.25€ one-way, which is pretty cool because there is a beach there that is seems to be really popular in the summer.  Today was pretty nasty and cold, so there weren't many people around.

We ended up eating at a small café on the beach, wandering around without a map (and not getting lost! Yes!), and going to the acuario (aquarium).  Everyone really enjoyed themselves at the aquarium, it was really relaxing and calming.  I definitely think it was bigger than the New England Aquarium, and there were lots of places to sit and just watch the fish.  We were all completely fascinated.  When we got to the bus station after being in the aquarium for a couple of hours, there was a bus to Oviedo in about 5 minutes, so we hopped on and made it back in less than half an hour.  It was a really fun day.  Tonight I think I'll go out since I've had a night off and I feel better.

From left: Storie, Rita (Me!!), Fiona, Sabrina, y Nora

My té con leche and the awesome "Mini-muffs" as we called them.

Jellies :)

Awesome Sea Turtle :)

¡Hasta Luego!

Colinas y Comida

Hola chicos!  For those of you in the states, I heard there's been snow and sleet.  We've just had the typical rainy, nastiness that is "Asturias".

Yesterday after classes I went on a walk to Parque Oeste (Western Park) in Oviedo.  It's actually really close to where I live, but I ended up walking for 2 or 3 hours.  And let me tell you, it was tough.  I found my friend Grace (who's blog is in the right hand column) after being there for about an hour, and then she and I left the park and walked on the roads up.  Just up.  Pretty much as high as we could.  We were in a really high part of the city that was mostly residential.  It was really cool.  There were a bunch of rural houses that seemed like they had gotten swallowed up by the growing city of Oviedo.

A view down the fountain/stairs in Parque Oeste 

Pretty sure these are the Picos de Europa because they have snow :)

This area of town is literally called "Buenvista" (Good View)

My original goal was to find the sunset, and seeing as the name of the park was Parque Oeste, you would think i would be able to see the sun set.  Unfortunately, though, either the sun is still not quite setting in the west because it's January, or the park isn't really very western.  Next time, I'm going to go to the other big park near the edge of the city.  When it's not raining.  If it ever isn't raining.

So it was pointed out to me that the only food I have mentioned was the terrible pizza we had at PizzBit.  So here's a short Spanish food story: After dinner last night, which was a fillet of steak and salad, I went to Il Padrino (The Godfather), a bar close to my apartment.  A bunch of exchange students were meeting there for drinks and minipizzas haha.  It was really fun, but the minipizzas were literally those that you would make from frozen and throw into the oven.

Il Padrino Menu

Alex and the Sangria w/ Crazy Straws

In general, I eat a lot of ensalada with acete (olive oil), baguettes (my mama buys a baguette every other day), and various types of meats.  My favorite, of course, is chorizo, which is a Spanish sausage/salami/pepperoni thing.  Today for lunch I had a vegetable pureé.  Ugh.  It was basically vegetable soup without all the work of having to chew all those soft veggies.  I ate it, but it was basically baby food.  I have also, of course, had Spanish tortilla, which is alright.  A bit eggy for me though.

Veggie Pureé. The croutons totally saved it :).

This weekend we might hike up to the Jesus statue that looks over Oviedo.  I missed it the first time people went, but I heard the view is just indescribable.  We may also go to Gijón, a city to the north of Oviedo, and on the ocean.  We also have been working on plans to travel next week for the long weekend...

*Besos*

Covadonga, Cangas de Onís, y Ribadesella

Today was the excursion to Covadonga, Cangas de Onís, y Ribadesella.  It was a long day, but we saw many amazing things.  There was definitely a lot of history to see in these places, though our tour guides were pretty lame.  They're the guys who organized these trips, but they think we don't understand Spanish, so they try to speak in English and we end up learning nothing. It's annoying.


We left around 10:30am this morning from Oviedo and drove to Covadonga where there was an impressive church and an even more impressive cave and waterfall.  The mountains were beautiful everywhere.  There were the ones that must have been lower that were covered in green grass and trees.  And then there were what must have been Los Picos de Europa, which had snow on the peaks.  I couldn't get a picture of these since we only saw them through the bus windows and it was really foggy/cloudy today:

La Iglesia de Covadonga

Con las montañas

Las Cuevas y la Catarata

Me in front of the water fall!

Afterwards, we drove to Cangas de Onís, which only took 30 minutes.  This tiny town is the home of a reeeeally old Roman bridge.  It also used to be the capital of Spain for a very short time, back when Spain was only Asturias (According to Spaniards, when the Muslims were conquering Spain, they couldn´t handle the mountains of Asturias):

The Roman Bride in Cangas de Onís

La iglesia de Cangas de Onís

Again, we had a 30 minute drive to Ribadesella.  This town is on the Northern coast of Spain.  We walked up a steep cliff to a tiny little church and an amazing view.  It started raining a little bit at this point, but it stopped pretty quickly.  The first rain I've experienced in Asturias, which is very strange for the area.  Oviedo is known for being rainy.  Ribadesella reminded me of the fishing towns in the US East when it's off-season for tourists.  Since it was cold and rainy, we were the only ones there, other than the 25 locals that had ventured out of their houses:

The Fishing/Tourist Town of Ribadesella

Cliffs!

I had extreme motion sickness from the drive in the bus from Oviedo because there were so many turns and dips.  I used sheer mental power to not get sick on the drive from Covadonga to Cangas de Onís because that was even twistier, but shorter.  The drive from Cangas to Ribadesella was better and I was starting to feel better from the morning.  And the drive home was almost all high-way, so I was good - I was actually able to have a conversation with someone.  When I got home my host mother was asleep on the couch in front of a dubbed version of "Sister Act".  In fact, she's still there, haha.


I hope everyone enjoyed my week of intense blogging!  Now that everyone knows where I am, what I'm doing, and what I see, I will most likely be posting less often.  Also, if you want postcards and you don't think I have your address, email me!


*Besos*