León (La Ciudad)

Last weekend I went with the Umass group to León.  León, which means "lion" in English, is also a city an hour or so south of Oviedo in the province, Castilla-León (the home of real Spanish).  It was about the size of Oviedo, but we only really spent time in the old part of the city.  The unfortunate part about this is that we spent 2 nights and 2 days there, which was really unnecessary.  We could have gone in the morning and come back in the evening and would have seen as much as we saw in 2 days and 2 nights.  The bus tickets were cheap, too.  I think that our coordinator is just trying to think of ways to spend our money, such as buying really nice hotels.  I would have much rather have gone for a day to León on my own or with the group and gone to Salamanca or something for the whole weekend.  I might make my way down to Salamanca for a short time, if I can.

That being said, León was still really pretty.  We had faaaaabulous weather and I definitely got some sun :).

Un león welcoming us to León

La catedral

Ceiling and staindglass window of the cathedral

Plaza Mayor

Margaritas at a Mexican restaurant

Best Quesadilla ever :D

Courtesy of Nora :)

My travel plans for Semana Santa are pretty much finalized as of today.  We sorted out what we could with the flights last week and today I bought my bus ticket to the Oviedo airport.  Unfortunately, we just have to hope there is space on the bus when we go to the station, so I'm sure we'll be going early.  Mary emailed the hotel in Paris and they responded that they are expecting us, so it's all good :).  I think the most stressful part of this journey will be getting to, being in, and leaving Paris.  Once I'm in Lisbon, I think I'm going to have a lot more time to breathe and think. I think.  I need to print out all the flight information still, but it's only Wednesday and I leave on Sunday.  I was waiting because they kept on changing the flights...

We (Mary and I) also bought flights to Andalucia for the end of May!!!  My parents are flying over and meeting us in Granada and then we're doing a mini tour of the south of Spain.  I'm so excited.  We've also booked one of our hostels/hotels, thanks to my mommy.  We still have 2 more cities to book hostels for, Granada and Tarifa, but that's a lot easier to manage then 3.  After the trip my parents and I are taking a train or something to get to Madrid and take our planes home (I'm not sure if they'll be on my flight home) and Mary is going to fly back to Oviedo, because her flight home is out of Oviedo a few days later.

Like I said the other day to Stephen, "I'm so scared!!", but I'm sure everything will be fine, I just haven't gotten on a plane since I flew to Spain.  But it's all starting.  You should see my schedule.  I'm barely going to be in Oviedo on ANY weekend for the rest of my time here!  The weekends I'm here, we're doing day trips with the Umass group in Asturias.  They actually look like they'll be pretty cool, I just kind-of wish there was more time so I didn't feel like I was rushing a Salamanca trip, if I try to do that.  I have a couple weekends in mind, though, that might work.  Along with Salamanca, I still need to go to Gijón when it's not raining and I want to see Avilés (a city near Gijón).  I also want to go to Gijón for the beach :).

I guess I don't have TOO much to accomplish before I go home, but I want to make sure I don't regret NOT doing something.  I usually don't regret doing something, because even if the experience wasn't the best, I would have regretted not knowing that.  If that makes sense...

We've had absolutely fantastic weather (hotter than 20 degrees C, in the sun, in the middle of the day and 20 around 7:30pm).  And with the time change, there's light until about 9pm now.  The sun is just setting now and it's 8pm.  When I walk around at this time near my apartment, there are tons of families with kids playing and people walking around.  Earlier in the year there were people, but not like now.  It's as if the entire city has woken up and come out to play now that it's warmer.  I was telling my language partner, Adara, that it can get below freezing in Massachusetts and she was stunned.  When I told her it's possible to get below zero degrees Fahrenheit, she was shocked.  At its worst, all Oviedo could do to me was rain (which sucked), but it never got below 4 degrees C here.

On another note, there's a juelga general tomorrow (general strike).  So if you have travel plans in Spain, don't expect to go anywhere.  It's absolutely absurd.  There are people who have flights tomorrow and because they have to take the bus to the airport, they had to change their flights or had to leave today and stay overnight near the airport.  I'm not even sure if all flights are flying tomorrow.  I'm also assuming this is why my flights got changed.  I just don't really know what they're planning on accomplishing, especially if the government knows this is going on and no one is going to see the repercussions of not going to work.  If they know that the workers are going to go on strike, what's to say that ACTUALLY GOING on strike will make a difference?  That's just my opinion.  I saw a girl from my class in the bus station today when I got my bus ticket for Sunday.  She has a flight to France tomorrow, but she's trying to go to Santander today because there won't be buses tomorrow, and the airline didn't give her a straight answer on the phone as to whether or not there would be flights tomorrow at all.  Ridiculous. When something weird happens in Spain, the Spanish people say "Spain is different" (in English).  Spain is different.

I know I'm basically getting everything I've thought out of my head in one entry, but oh well!  Did you know that in Spain they wait for the cross signal to turn RED before walking?  Crazy, right?  Basically, they stand at the cross walk talking through the green light.  By the time they realize it's green, it's already turning red.  So they go.  To someone walking past it looks like they're waiting for it to not be green anymore before they walk.  Spain is different.

Did you know that in Spain, bread is a poor man's food?  La comida de los pobres?  My host mom told me that.  I just told her that I must be a poor man, then, since I'm not going to stop eating bread. Spain is different.

Well, I'm out of atrocities for now.  I'm sure I'll think of more later.  For now, ¡Hasta luego! I'm not sure if I'll have time again to write before I leave for Semana Santa.  Be prepared for thousands of posts in April!

*Besos*

El Día de San Patricio y Más

Sorry for the double whiny posts yesterday...but, I felt (and still feel) very mistreated by these airlines.  Fortunately, when Mary and I called today to talk to Iberia about changing our flight so that it wouldn't have an overnight layover, they very nicely changed our flight without a fee.  When I called, I asked from someone who speaks English, and we got through it haha.  We haven't called about the other flight with Vueling from Oviedo to Paris, but we might.  I got an email response today to my complaint I sent yesterday saying we could see if they have different flights, it's just a lot more expensive to call them than Iberia - like, twice as much.

Anyways, just wanted to keep everyone updated and even though I was freaking out and really, really upset yesterday, I'm better today.

Today is our first day of "X Jornadas de Cultura y Sociedad" (Society and Culture X-Games).  Super corny, we are all well aware.  I'm taking dance and photo-journalism.  I couldn't do normal photo and photo-journalism, so I did dance instead haha.  My schedule is completely messed up this week, I have dance in the mornings and photography at 5pm, but we don't have normal classes!  That's not to say that I don't still have a ton of work to do for the end of this week/beginning of next week...

How'd you like those double-negatives?  Gotta love that Spanish grammar...

This past weekend we went to Gijón for a city tour on Saturday.  I didn't take a single picture of the city.  You should be SHOCKED.  It was pouring and I didn't feel like wrestling with my camera and my paraguas in the rain for grey, wet pictures.  I'll just go back when it finally haga bueno en Gijón.  We did have an amazing 3-course meal that I took pictures of :D.  The pictures below are of the food that I actually ate:

Ensalada

Croquetas - Fried balls of gooey potatoes with a pinch of jamón

Paella

Cake called "Muerte por Chocolate" (Death by Chocolate)

Death by chocolate.  Reminds me of something... CAKE DEATH (a very serious problem we need to make people aware of).

That night was St. Patrick's Day, so we went to one of the Irish pubs in Oviedo that we've been to a couple of times.  It was pretty fun.  The music was fantastic and reminded me of contra dancing hehe.  They also had live music once it got later.  We started our evening pretty early because we knew the bar was going to be pretty packed, but we got a table and played cards - it was a good evening.

Raspberry Belgian Beer - Tasted like fizzy fruit juice

You had to drink 2 pints of Guinness for the hat...luckily someone didn't want theirs :D

My tiny half-pint of Guinness

Live Music :D

Sunday I didn't do anything, except freak out about flights.  The weather here has been very New England-y, in the sense that it could be brightly sunny (like it is right now) for 20 minutes, but then it pours for an hour.  Reminds me of home haha.  That's what happened on Saturday - we thought it was going to be nice out and then it poured, and it's been doing that ever since.

Anyways, I'm off to photography in a bit.  This weekend I'm going to León with my group from Umass and then the weekend after I leave for Paris! I'm still excited, though very disappointed that we're going to be missing so much time in what people say is the most beautiful city in Europe...

¡Hasta Luego!

Don't fly with Iberia either...

So Iberia changed our flights too! On the way home, our flight from Lisbon is later, giving us more time in the city, I guess.  But we have an overnight lay-over!!  What the eff are we supposed to do now,  sleep in the airport?  Thanks a butt-ton.  I am becoming increasingly upset with these horrible airlines.

Never Fly Vueling

These a**holes changed my flight itinerary, didn't tell me, and took away an entire day of travel from me.  They're barely even a budget airline.  I was supposed to leave at 8am on Sunday and now I'm leaving at 4pm.  They told me previously when my flight got changed from 7am to 8am, but they didn't tell me when it got changed by 8 hours.  I wouldn't have known if I didn't go and check online.  I'm just so upset, I don't know what to do with myself.  We were supposed to have at least half a day in Paris on Sunday, the Louvre is free the first Sunday of the month (which is the Sunday we're going), and now we only get a day and a half.  It's not only losing me money, it's going to cost me money because now I have to pay for the Louvre and a night in a hotel I basically don't need.  F*ck that.
</rant>

El Mercado de Oviedo

Hey everyone!  I felt kinda bad writing so little for the last entry I wrote, but I wasn't really in the mood to write, I guess.  It's not that I have more to say, really, today, but I spent this morning and yesterday morning walking around the market in Oviedo.  My host mom has told me about the market they have on the weekends and she also says that some parts of the market are open on the weekdays too (but they close earlier), but I wasn't expecting to see hundreds of people crawling through the narrow streets of Oviedo!  We've had, like I can't stop mentioning, really really nice weather - 60s and sunny - for a couple weeks now, and this weekend was no exception.  People were out and about, talking, eating, drinking, buying - the "ambiente" that I experienced when I was out walking around with everyone was so wonderful.

Yesterday my host mom brought me to the Archaeological museum of Oviedo, and even though it was pretty cool, I mostly went to get her off my case about going to that museum since every weekend she asks if I want to go.  It was pretty interesting, but basically just a bunch of old tools and ceramic pots that people used hundreds and thousands of years ago.  I mean, that's pretty sweet, but there's only so many little daggers I can look at before it gets redundant...

After we did the museum, she walked me around Oviedo, like she does, and pointed out EVERYTHING, like she does.  We found the market and walked through it - I didn't have my camera on me yesterday and I was very sad, the weather was just so perfect for an outdoors market.  There was also a traveling food market thing that we found, luckily it was also here today, so I was able to take some photos of it (to be uploaded to the food page!).  Anyways, these kinds of things are always better seen than described, after all a picture is a thousand words (and I'm sure you don't want to read a thousand words right now....).

The inside of a church in the center of the old city

A group of bagpipe players

Spring has Sprung!

 When we got back to the apartment, my host mom and I made fajitas and guacamole for lunch. It was one of the first times, if not THE first time, my host mom had eaten tortilla chips and the first time I had ever made guacamole.  Since this food isn't authentic to where I am write now, I decided not to put it in the food blog, but I definitely wanted to show it off!

Anyways, that's all I've got.  Other than the fact that my camera's flash is apparently broken, which I found out only today.  It won't pop up and the camera says that it has an error when it tries to open - I don't use flash often, but how did this happen???  And now my camera is broken :(:(:(:(:(.  Also, my iPad's USB is broken, so it won't charge, so I ALSO have to find a new USB...sigh.  The electronics are revolting.  I better hide my laptop...

¡Hasta Luego!

Bermiego

Holaaa

I actually have an excuse this time for not writing! I had one hellovaweek what with school work and the such.  I had 2 exams and a 10 minute presentation (in Spanish!), but now it's Friday, it's a beautiful day, and I'm done!

Last weekend I went with my host mom to her house in Asturias in a town called Bermiego.  It was pretty cool because it was like going back to the 19th century, plus electricity.  The roads were slanted, made out of stone, only wide enough to just barely fit a sedan, and curved around the houses.  There can't be more than 100 people living in this little pueblo on the side of the mountain.  It was definitely a unique experience - when you go somewhere as a tourist, you go to famous spots or big cities - never the side of a mountain where the people are still working on the same farm their family worked on 500 years ago.  Oh, and it was also beautiful!

The entire pueblo in one picture!

This little town's claim to fame is a 2000-or-so-year-old tree that they claim is the oldest tree in Europe. Okayyy.  But it was still pretty cool. It was a pretty good weekend, we ate paella and walked around the little village.

Honestly, not much is going on, which is why I haven't written.  I don't have any concrete plans for this weekend, so we'll see.

I hope you enjoyed the photos!

*Besos*