¡Al Cristo!

No, I haven't somehow dropped all my morals and become religious, we just "took a walk" up to the statue of Jesus that overlooks Oviedo today.  It's on top of a mountain that has an amazing 360-degree view, so it was more like a hike (a hike for me, someone who doesn't hike).  It took a bit less than 2 hours to get up, we didn't stop too much.  We stopped at a couple of ancient churches, but after that it got a lot more difficult to walk.  I am really out of shape and found it very difficult, but I made it!  Definitely worth the effort, though I'm not sure if I'd do it again.

The little white statue on the mountain is where we're headed - and this picture isn't even from our lowest point!

One of two really old churches that we saw on the way up

I did it!!!

Oviedo

Oviedo + Clouds + Mountains

Oviedo has been sunny for almost a week now.  I heard that the good weather will end, but I am trying to enjoy it as much as possible, by climbing mountains, etc.  El Cristo knows it won't last.  I'm happy I did the walk, now every time I look up and see the statue I won't feel that pang of guilt that I haven't gone up yet.

In other news, I'm not sure if I ever mentioned on the blog, but I did change it on the google map that I linked on the side of my blog, but I finalized my plans for Semana Santa (Spring Break)!  Mary and I are going to Paris and Lisbon!!  We will be leaving Sunday morning for Paris, then flying from Paris to Lisbon Tuesday afternoon until Saturday afternoon.  The nice thing about this trip is that we are flying in and out of Oviedo, which is so much better than trying to fly out of Santander or Madrid - the price to fly with Iberia added up to the same as with ryanair/budget airlines (that don't fly into Lisbon and fly into an airport 1.5 hours away from Paris).  This week we finally booked our hostel in Lisbon, so we are all set to go, except for planning out our sight-seeing.  I'm so excited!  Now to just figure out to do with the long weekend at the end of April... But I'm so happy we've figured everything out for this trip, for the most part.

*Besos*

Barcelona y Carnaval (en Oviedo)

¡Hola! Sorry for the delay between entries, but here is my Barcelona experience (and a little bit about Carnaval in Oviedo).

So we took the train into Barcelona and walked from the station to the hostel, which was more like a bed and breakfast.  It was on the "second" floor of the building, which usually means the American third floor, but this time, for some reason, it was on what would be equivalent to the American fourth floor.  We had the entire hostel to ourselves, it was all on one floor and there were a bunch of rooms with different numbers of beds, a dinning room, and a lounge-ish area.

Dinning room at the hostel :)

We got situated and settled into this nice, private place.  Then we went for a walk around outside on the hunt for a Mexican restaurant and stumbled upon:

Sagrada Familia by night

This cathedral is really famous - it was designed originally by Gaudí, but he never got to see it finished.  And neither have I, because it still isn't done!  He envisioned that it would take 400 years to finish, luckily with advancements in technology, they estimate less than 200 years, dated around 2026.  This facade looks basically finished, and the one opposite does too, but there is a third one that, as far as I could tell, hasn't even been started.

Anyways, we found a restaurant called Amálie and I got Mexican food, served up in a French fashion (in Spain...).

 The next morning we had breakfast at the beautiful table spread in the picture and then I went with Grace and Mary to visit Sagrada Familia.  It was soooo impressive...indescribable, so I will provide pictures:

Looking straight up at the ceiling 

The Nativity Facade

A view from the highest point the elevator took us

If you look closely at the nativity facade there is a tree...we are behind it.

Mary walking down one of the towers

Beautiful rainbow stain glass :)

After Sagrada Familia Mary and I took the tourist bus to Park Güell, a park designed by Gaudí, commissioned by a man named Güell.  It was really nice and relaxing, once we got to the parts not crawling with tourists.  There were people EVERYWHERE, it was hard to get away from them, but there were less the higher up we walked in the park.  I decided that I really like Gaudí - his art is really interesting and uses colors and mosaics a lot, which is nice.  Art is always better with color :) (or, almost always).

Me in Park Güell with the famous lizard-thing

In Park Güell with Sagrada Familia and the ocean in the background :)

After the park, Mary and I took the bus around, which was a double-decker tour bus, but the tour wasn't that interesting.  We met Grace on Las Ramblas, a famous street from Plaça de Catalunya to the ocean with a bunch of shops and tourists.  We went to La Boquería, a market where they sold alllll types of food - meat, fish, produce, candy, chocolate, etc.  Pictures are in the food section of my blog, I won't repost them here to avoid more redundancy.

That night a big group of Umassers went out to bars/clubs in Barcelona, but I stayed in with everyone else and just had a relaxing evening.  The next morning Mary and I walked to another one of the tourist bus lines and met up with 4 other people in our group.  We took the bus up to Montjuic (Mount of the Jews) which had things like the Olympic stadium from 1992 and other museums.  We all took the teleferíc up to the fortress on top of the mountain.  It was terrifying, but the views were awesome.

Taking the cable car up the mountain...

The ocean, the city, and, if you look really closely, Sagrada Familia in the background

After we finished walking around and taking pictures with various backgrounds behind us, we took the cable car back down (which was scarier) and went on the rest of the bus tour.  Mary and I got off at the beach and walked around.  It was another beautiful sunny day and the waves were huge!  I collected a bunch of small, orange clam shells that had little round holes in them that, if I'm feeling ambitious, I will make into a necklace.  The beach was right near Las Ramblas, so we walked up it again and went back to La Boquería and got some fruit to eat.  We just walked around, killing time, until it was time to go back to the hostel, get our things, and head to dinner.  We walked around looking for somewhere to eat for a long time - I was out with a bunch of vegetarians, so it was kinda hard.  We eventually found a place that said they would make vegetarian paella, so we had our first Spanish Paella :).  It was really good - it came in a huge pan because we had all ordered the same kind.

Paella! 

After we ate, we took the metro to the train station, met Carrie, Camilo, Cora, and the rest of the Umassers, and took the train back to Oviedo.  I took a Tylenol PM, and slept alright, but classes the next day were no fun whatsoever.

This weekend was Carnaval celebration in Oviedo.  There was a parade during the day that wasn't as flashy as the one in Tarragona, but it was still really good.  There were a bunch of people marching with drums, and everyone was dressed up.  I have never seen so many people in Oviedo at one time.  It was insane.  And then last night when I went out, there were thousands of people in every square and every bar and every club.  It was impossible to move or breathe.  It was INSANE.  Everyone was having a good time and there were tons of costumes, but I was uncomfortable most of the time because of having no room to breathe.  Other than that, it was a fun night and now I'm having a slow Sunday.  I helped my host mom make fajitas and they came out decently - finally something spicey!!

Anyways, it's back to the quiet life for me - no more traveling until March 10th, which barely counts because we're just going to Gijón.  I will update once in a while, especially if something exciting happens, but I won't be bothering you with so many travel updates haha.

¡Hasta Luego!

¡Tarragona y Carnaval!

¡¡Hola todos!!

I haven't even finished going through all my pictures from this weekend (there are over 2,800 pictures...), but I'm going to write my Tarragona blog entry anyways! Woohoo!

So on Friday night I ate dinner early, for Spain, and met the Umassers at the train station, which is conveniently 2 minutes away from my apartment.  Carrie (our coordinator), her husband, Camilo, and her baby, Cora, met us there as well.  She handed out our train tickets and a Bus Turistíc pass for Barcelona.  We got on the train and it left before we had even sat down, but everyone got on alright and we were off!  The trip was decently uncomfortable, but I slept okay even though I woke up almost every time the train made a stop.  Finally, we arrived in Tarragona around 7:30am Saturday morning.  We took a bus into the city and stopped for café and croissants before heading to our hotel.

Our hotel was really nice!  It was right in the main square of the old part of the city.  We stayed in rooms with 2 or 3 people in them and almost all of us had balconies over looking the plaça.

Our hotel!

After a 20-minute turn-around, we went on a walking tour with Camilo, who had lived in Tarragona for 5 years.  The city is absolutely gorgeous and the weather couldn't have been better - not a cloud in the sky and probably 60-65 degrees!  Tarragona is right on the mar (sea), and it has a beautiful strip of beach.  Tarragona was one of the most important Roman cities back in the day, because it's on the east coast of Spain.  The main attractions of the city are the Roman ruins - there is an amphitheater, a circus (basically a race track), a forum, and more.  The amphitheater overlooks the ocean - it was so so beautiful!

El mar y el ampiteatro (The sea and the amphitheater)

Umass (aka us) also provided us with passes to see all the Roman ruins without having to pay out of pocket, so I saw the amphitheater and the circus on Saturday.  And then we walked down to the beach and I put my feet into the Mediterranean for the first time!  It was freezing haha.  Afterwards, we meandered back up to the Rambla (the main street of the city) and had a picnic style lunch.  (We may have eaten before going to the beach, actually. I don't remember.)  After lunch we went to the hotel and then to walk along the old Roman wall that surrounded the old part of the city - it wasn't what I expected, but it was a very nice and relaxing walk.

El ampiteatro

El Cirç (The Circus - I think that's the Catalan spelling...)

La Playa!!

El Mural Romano (Roman Wall)

That night was carnaval in Tarragona - people (especially niños) were walking around in costumes all day, especially as it got later.  At 7pm there was a parade that lasted 3 hours that I took hundreds of pictures of.  A few of us dressed up a bit - I was a pájaro (bird) with a feathered mask and a feathered fan and a purple dress haha.  The parade was fantastic - synchronized dancing, music, laughter, excitement.  We went out for a bit after that, but because we didn't know the city, we failed at finding anywhere good to dance or hang out.

¡Pájaro!

A paint-chip wheel costume!

The next day we woke up early in order to see the sunrise over the Mediterranean, since the sun rises so late.  A bunch of us walked down, but almost everyone pealed off after about 20 minutes (don't really know why...), but Grace and I stayed and watched the sun rise.  It was really nice and definitely worth waking up for, since we only had to wake up at 6:45am.  After Grace and I got back to the room we took a "siesta" until around 11am when we had to check out.  We left our bags at the reception and went to the Roman Forum of Tarragona, which was just a collection of Roman ruins all gathered in one place, basically.  It was pretty cool, but I've seen the the Roman Forum of Rome...

The Moon rising right before the Sun...

Sunrise over the Mediterranean :)

A statue of an activity they do in Catalunya - a tower of people.

Roman Forum

We took it easy the rest of that day before meeting back at the hotel and then walking to the train station to go to Barcelona.  The train ride to Barcelona was about an hour and a half and it hugged the shoreline the entire time - it was beautiful.  I was sitting next to a Catalunian woman who was making what looked like lesson plans, but I couldn't really tell because I can't read Catalan.  The fact that I didn't speak the language was kind of frustrating, because I kept thinking that I'd be understood, but that wasn't necessarily the case.  And it was pretty difficult to read things like menus.  My host mom called me while I was on the train, which was awesome timing, but I was embarrassed to speak Spanish in front of this woman haha.  Oh well, I got through it alright.

Anyways, that finishes up my stay in Tarragona.  I mostly just enjoyed the sun, the ruins, and the sea as much as I could.  I will write another entry about Barcelona in the near future!

*Besos*

¡Volví!

I'm back! I just wanted to post a short entry saying that I got back safe and sound.  Also, I have somewhere around 2000 pictures to go through, so it will be a little bit before I write about Tarragona and Barcelona, but I will do it by the end of the week, have no fear!

¡Hasta Luego!

Una Semana Muy Larga...

SPOILER ALERT: I'm going to be whiny in this post! Consider yourself warned!

I'm sorry I haven't written much...It's been a really long week.  I haven't been able to sleep before 2am in about 2 weeks... I've decided I need to lay off the café con leche in case that's what's keeping me up.  Valentine's came and went without much notice, which was kinda sad.  I had an exam today and an extra class, so I had 5 hours of class after 5 hours of sleep.  And it won't f*cking stop raining.  I swear to god, is it too hard to NOT rain once in a while?  I could never live in Oviedo, or a place as wet as this.  It's too depressing.  It's too hard to be happy.  We had about 30 minutes of sun today before the clouds came back, though it did stop raining for a bit (though my host mom just came back in and told me it's raining again...).

Anyways, hopefully I can get some sleep tonight before Barca...  We're going tomorrow night at 8:30/9pm on a train...we'll see how that goes.  I bought a costume for Carnaval (aka Mardi Gras)!  I'm excited, it was really cheap and it consists of accessories so I can bail if I lose confidence (always a plus).  We're going to be in Tarragona for Carnaval, I don't think we're going to see Barcelona's Carnaval.  Anyways, I don't think I'm going to have internet while I'm there unless someone lets me borrow an internet-containing device, so you won't hear from me until, at the earliest, Wednesday.  And probably not even on Wednesday, because I'll be dead. 

Well, I just wanted to give a quick update and whine a little bit...don't worry, I'm done now.  Hopefully once the insomnia goes away I'll feel better in general...  Anyways this came on my internet radio and it made me happy.  It's been a long time since I heard it.  Speaking of music, we went to a bar called Sol y Sombra (Sun and Shade) and they played lots of different kinds of music, like Mika, Sweet Home Alabama, and I am a Man of Constant Sorrow, to name a few. 

¡Hasta Luego!

Un Fin de Semana en Galicia

¡Feliz Lunes!

It's Monday, which means it's time for a blog entry detailing my weekend's adventures!  I went to Galicia with the Erasmus students, specifically we went to Santiago de Compostela and La Coruña, two cities about an hour apart by bus.  Let's just say, the trip was fine, except that I really dislike the ESN coordinators.  They are obnoxious.  There is no better word to describe them.  The trip could have been a lot more pleasant if they had not been present (I rhymed!).

Anyways, we left Oviedo Saturday morning at 8am, well, more like 8:30am because we had to wait, and had a 5 hour bus ride to Santiago de Compostela, the capital of Galicia.  The drive was picturesque, we drove down the coastline for a bit before we turned South towards Santiago de Compostella.  It wasn't so bad, though I wish I could have slept a bit more than 20 minutes... I was bored, but the ride was beautiful, and even though I wasn't sitting at the front of the bus, the big windows allowed for some bus-photography (Mountains to the right of me, ocean to the left, stuck on this high way with you...)

Rolling hills of Asturias

As the sun rises over Asturias...

The Atlantic Ocean of Northern Spain

We got into Santiago de Compostela around 12:30pm and went directly to our hotel, which was actually really nice and had bathrooms in every room.  After a siesta, we met with the group in the hotel's lobby for a city tour.

Santiago de Compostela is the capital of Galicia, is the home of one of Europe's oldest Universities, and is the end of the Camino de Santiago, a religious pilgrimage that one can take, starting from as far away as France.  We didn't spend any time outside of the old city, but I got the impression that the surroundings of the old city were more residential and commercial.  The old city was beautiful, containing many old buildings and statues that were made of stone that had never been restored or changed since centuries in the single digits.  I'm sorry, I don't remember all the names of the buildings or all of their significance.

Catedral de Santiago, where the Camino de Santiago ends

Inside the Cathedral

A beautiful park we walked through, a bit outside the old city.

A view of the old city from the park.

ESN took us out that night for tapas and partying, because that's what they do.  I was pretty tired, so a couple of us went back really early (remember this is Spain, so it was about 12:30-1am) and went to bed.  I got about seven or eight hours of sleep, it was wonderful.  I enjoyed Santiago de Compostela, but I don't think we really saw too much of it, just the very touristy things.

The next morning we had breakfast at the hotel, which was really good, and then we drove to La Coruña.  Nora and I snagged seats at the very front of the bus, and because we were above the driver, we could see everything.  It was fabulous.  My camera's battery was dying by then (I had let someone look at my pictures and even though I said not to look at too many because I was only at half battery, he looked through ALL of them and so I barely had any battery life left...), so I don't have too many pictures from that drive.

La Coruña was a fishing town that had exploded and became a pretty decently sized city with modern commerce and six times the amount of people than Oviedo, or something along those lines.  It's coast was beautiful, the water was incredibly, impossibly blue.  We drove up to the Torre de Hércules (Hercule's Tower), the oldest (functioning) lighthouse in the WORLD.  Pretty sweet.  And then we spent the rest of the day walking around the old city, stopping for lunch and taking a city tour.  But my camera died long before the tour.  As pictures crop up on Facebook, etc, I will steal them and add them to this entry because I definitely missed out on some things.  But here are some of the shots I did get:

Torre de Hércules

A wind vane, we think.

Main square of the city.

To the left of this last picture was a statue of a woman with a spear in her hand and her foot on a dead man lying on beneath her.  This badass statue is of Maria Pita, the woman who rallied all the women in the city to stand up against the English, when they invaded the city.  The men had all died in previous wars, and the women were left to defend their city - and they did!

Nora and I went to a Creperie for lunch and split a crepe the size of a dinner platter.  It was massive (once I get a picture it will go up on the food page of my blog).  As we walked around I heard, for the first time in my life, bad bagpipes.  I thought they didn't let bad players play the bagpipes, but I guess you're allowed to put your hat out and hope someone doesn't realize how bad you are...  Bagpipes, you might be surprised to know, are actually really popular/common/normal in Galicia, and even a bit (I think) all the way over in Asturias. This is mainly because Galicia is directly beneath England and Ireland, so Galicia has a strong celtic influence, especially La Coruña because it was/is a really important port in Spain with Ireland and England, seeing as it was probably the closest and easiest to sail to.

The drive home was shorter than the day before, but it was dark by the time we got to any good scenery, so we couldn't fully enjoy our amazing seats.  Anyways, we got back last night really late, so I'm completely exhausted.  I also had 4 classes today without a break.  I haven't quite wrapped my head around the fact that I'm going to Barcelona this weekend, it's happening a bit fast - we leave on Friday night.  I'm hoping for good weather...but we'll see.  Also, we're taking 2 overnight trains, so I will be taking my 2 tylenol PMs that I didn't take on my flight to Spain, and hoping for at least six hours of sleep, if not more, on each leg of the journey...otherwise it's going to be miserable.

Anyways, I apologize for the lack of pictures of La Coruña, trust me I'm probably 10 times more upset...  If anyone I know puts up good pictures, I will steal them (and credit them, of course), and put them up.

*Besos*