Arriondas y Gijón

I have a bit of catching-up to do! Sorry about that, guys. I've been busy.

Good news first, though: A spot opened up in one of the internships I applied to this summer (to get paid to work in my own lab), so I have a job!!!!!! Yaaaaaaaaaaay!  So exciting :).  I was going to work in the lab, anyways.  For the first time in 2 years I'm going to get paid to do it :D

Anyways, last weekend the Umassers and I went to Arriondas, a small pueblo in Asturias (spellcheck recognizes pueblo as a word, but not spellcheck, ironically-it's two words, apparently).  We did a ropes course in the morning and then went kayaking down the río sella (remember when I went to Ribadesella?).  The ropes course was really fun, but I'm scared of heights, so I didn't get to finish.  Kayaking was also pretty fun - they gave us wet suits and everything!  We actually had decent weather most of the time - no rain and it was pretty warm - until we were about 30 minutes away from finishing our kayak journey.  It started to rain pretty hard and we even heard some far-away thunder.  If the thunder had gotten closer I would have gotten out of the water, as it was, I was pretty antsy.  But we rounded one last corner, and there was our end-point.  I was sooooo sore the next day - the kayak route was 13 kilometers!  Downstream, but still.  Anyways, here are some pictures!!

Strugglin'

Zip line!

About to go kayaking!

Yesterday I went to the playa with a ton of people from our program.  It was SO hot and humid in Oviedo, we just had to get out.  By the time we got to the beach and got settled, we only had about 20 minutes before it got cloudy!  It even rained a bit later on.  But I did go swimming and it was a really good time.  We even saw the lowest rainbow I've ever seen.  It went from red to purple, just like it's supposed to.  AND it was even starting to go back to red again, but you can't really see that in the pictures.  We also saw, what we think were, dolphins when we were heading back to the bus station.  There were a bunch of swimming things in the water, and I think they were dolphins.  My host mom said dolphins aren't common at all to the mar cantabria.

Rainbow!!

:)

Today I went on a walk with my host mom through some nearby pueblos.  My camera died in the middle of the walk, but it was really cloudy our anyways.  The pollen here is killing me right now, my eyes and nose are so unhappy.  My host mom keeps wanting to take me places, which is great.  She's kinda freaking out a bit about me leaving, which is sweet.  We're probably going somewhere tomorrow, too.

I'm leaving Oviedo in like a week and a half!  I can't believe it!  Even though every week feels like an eternity, when I look back on it, it feels like I arrived in Oviedo 2 weeks ago.  I have such mixed feelings about leaving, which is to be expected, I know.  I can't wait to see my parents and my boy friend, but I'm going to miss being in Europe a lot.  I know I'm going to be bored in the States, but I'm also excited for this summer: getting paid to work in lab, living in Amherst again, hanging out with my friends every day... So yeah, very mixed feelings.

*Besos*