Sleepovers and Crazy Costumes in Oviedo!

So this last weekend, a few girls and I indulged in the wonderful American tradition of the slumber party. My friend Ashley’s host madre was out of town this weekend and she said she could have some friends over. So we brought our cookies, chips, peanuts, Happy Hippos (my new favorite candy ever!!), 70 euro cent wine and sangria and had a good time watching random music videos, talking, and eating. It was so nice just getting to hang out in a house with friends! That’s something we all miss a lot about being in the States. We slept in until about 12:30 and then got up to make tortilla Española. So delicious!!! It’s basically a potato and onion omelet, but it is one of the tastiest Spanish foods! We set up the table with a tablecloth, napkins, glasses, and of course a hunk of bread. Living the Spanish lifestyle the best we can!

Then we went home to get ready for the parade of costumes for Carnaval. Luckily it was a beautiful, sunny day so there were tons of people out for the parade! Some people got super into it and made some really detailed costumes. It was also fun to hear the music. There is a large Celtic influence in Asturias so there were a lot of bagpipers and drummers. And many of the costumes reflected the culture as we saw “fabada” (people dressed up as beans, pork, and kids as little chorizos), Sidra bottles, bagpipes, and random Spanish food products. There were entire outfits out of balloons, crazy dresses made out of plastic bags, a giant Trojan horse and gladiators, a long road, and flamenco dancers. There was also a group that was dressed up like runners from Pamplona with a couple bulls! Josiah and I would have fit right in!

Saturday night there were so many people in Oviedo and of course everyone was in costume! It was fun to see, but it kind of lacks the excitement of Halloween because there’s no begging for candy involved. Well, on Friday night, I went to a kids’ Carnaval party that the host madre of my friend hosted. She had the kids line up in their costumes for a little parade and then gave them each a bag of candy and a present. They were given some nice presents too! Skate boards, dolls, Barbie’s with dresses, and other toys. Then they had churros con chocolate for everyone. So good!
All in all, I can’t complain about getting to dress up and celebrate “Halloween” twice in one year. Now I have some pretty good ideas for October….

This coming weekend Josiah and I are off to explore Madrid and maybe Segovia or Toledo! Trying to cover as much of Spain as we can! I’ll keep you posted.
Paz afuera! Besos!

The Beginning of Josiah's 24th Year and Carnaval!

So this last weekend Josiah came to visit me! We had a lovely weekend hanging out in Oviedo and being together for his birthday and Valentine’s Day. He showed up at my school Friday afternoon just in time for Translation looking super cool with his new 50 L backpack! My professors were nice and let him sit in with us for class, so he could brush up on his translating skills.

We walked around Oviedo a bit, got some churros con chocolate from Guty (some of the tastiest churros I’ve tried so far), and went to visit the host madre of a friend of his when he was in Oviedo. She was a cute, old lady who fed us pastries and juice and immediately added me on Facebook and told me to come over whenever. She was so happy to see Josiah (Jose as he’s known in Espana), it was sweet!

Saturday night we dressed up to go to Aviles for the Carnaval celebration there. I was a bull (with light up blue horns) and Josiah was a runner from Pamplona. We looked pretty cute, but as we were running late to the bus station, people gave us some weird looks. It was so cold though!!! I could barely feel my feet by the end of the night. In Aviles, they have a parade with some random floats and then a bunch of things spraying foam on people! Luckily, we avoided the foam, but we almost go squirted with squirt guns a couple times. The streets were filled with foam though! It reminded me of snow, especially being so cold. People were sliding around in it and having foam-ball fights! Being the gentleman he is, Josiah carried me through the foam a couple times, but my shoes still ended up wet. We went to a couple cafes to warm up and had some delicious fries with Bravas sauce (I think it’s kind of like spicy ketchup or something, yummy!), and some with melted goat cheese, and hot chocolate. Then we went back outside because they had a big stage with a band playing some fun music, so we danced in the streets with all the people! All in all, a good night!

On Sunday, Josiah and I hiked up to the Santa Maria del Narranco, which is this summer palace that was built a long time ago. It was a beautiful view of the mountains, the green hills, and the city! I really love the mountains here a lot. It was interesting to imagine what the area must have looked like before there were 200,000 inhabitants. Probably not too different though, because Oviedo really isn’t that big. There are just so many tall buildings and every building has housing. It’s kind of crazy.

But then we went to the movie Historias de San Valentine (Valentine’s Day Stories or something)! It was good in Spanish, so I recommend that you all see it in the States! It would probably be even better if it was actually Queen Latifah’s voice, but I understood most of it, so that was good. Then Josiah took me to a delicious Japanese restaurant! It was kind of funny at one point, because I was speaking Spanish to one of the waitresses, but I think she thought I was speaking English, and she said she couldn’t speak English. It was just a situation of miscommunication because neither of us could speak the best Spanish, but she couldn’t speak English and I can’t speak Japanese! It’s pretty interesting how language can be such a barrier sometimes! Luckily, I’m learning a second language, so that knocks one more barrier down! But we ended up with some delicious stir fried vegetables, salmon filled with banana (really tasty!), rice, and wine. So apparently we communicated something right!

It was a wonderful weekend, and now I’m looking forward to the Carnaval celebrations here in Oviedo this weekend! Should be fun!
Hasta luego everyone! I miss you lots! <3

¡¡Granada y Sevilla!!

Buenos dias!
This post is almost a week late, but better late than never right? It´s funny how even though I feel like I have a lot of free time, it´s easy to fill it up pretty quickly.

Anyway, last week at this time, we were running up to the Alhambra because we didn´t want to miss our alloted visiting time! It´s kind of complicated because we bought a ticket for 10 am, but we had to be within the Alhambra, in front of the main palace at 10 am. We made it on time and even though it was a little chilly in the morning, it was cool to see the huge fortress in the early light. The Alhambra is pretty huge! I guess at one point there were thousands of people living there! Even though it´s big, it seems like it must have been pretty cramped because we saw this little neighborhood and the ¨houses¨were basically two rooms the size of my mom´s bathroom and then a third room the size of our front closet. Even if you´ve never really taken a close look at the closets in my house, you can imagine.
But of course there was beautiful art everywhere on the walls, the ceilings, and the gardens outside. There was so much detail in all the script and geometric shapes and patterns.

Another part I liked about Granada was the Albaicin, the old Moorish neighborhood that our hostel was in. There were a lot of little streets and back alleys to maneuver, which made getting there a little difficult, but there was a cool little hang out on the roof that looked over the city. It was inevitable, we all had Aladdin songs stuck in our heads the entire trip! In Granada, when you order a drink, they always bring you a tapa (some little appetizer thing) so we took advantage of that in the evening and met up with some other friends from Oviedo. They brought tortilla espanola (a kind of potato-egg dish, yum!), sandwiches, potato chips, bread, and a stew-like thing. Between the three tapas bars, I think we only spent about 6 Euro! Not bad.
Then that night Josiah and I walked up to the Mirador (¨look out point¨) to see the Alhambra at night. It was really neat to see it all lit up next to the whole city.
Before leaving for Sevilla the next day we took a walking tour of Granada and it was really interesting. Our tour guide told us a lot about the history, the people, and the caves. The have a lot of caves in Granada and people actually live in them! Our tour guide was writing something about caves, so he lived in one for awhile. While he had kind of a rough time and ended up with fleas, he said that many of them are really nice and have water and are solar powered.

Once we got to Sevilla, we found our hostel and then went looking for this place called La Carboneria that has free flamenco shows. It was amazing! I loved it. There was a guitar player, a singer/clapper, and a dancer. It was passionate, emotional, and exciting and impossible to not be drawn in. I've heard that the singer usually sings about something personal, and it was cool to see how they all interacted together to convey that.

The next day we went to this old palace where Columbus got permission to travel and planned his trip to "India." We also went to the Cathedral, which is the third largest cathedral in the world. It actually used to be a mosque, but they put a cross on top, added some Christian art, and voila! Cathedral! We climbed to the top of the tower and got to see a cool view of the city too. That afternoon we took a walking tour, and since Josiah answered a question right about the city's symbol, he got a free hot chocolate from our tour guide. It was interesting to talk to the tour guides about their time traveling and in Sevilla, the gypsy situation in Spain, and the best places to go in Sevilla. We ended up going to a tapas bar and I tried this traditional Sevillan gazpacho-like thing that I think was blended bread, tomato, olive oil, and something else...Not sure but it was tasty!

The next day we walked around, went to some art fairs, fed the Spanish ducks, and then headed home! The bus ride back was nice because we got to spread out and sleep more. Then we got back to Oviedo at 7:30 in the morning and were in class at 9:00! I had to take a long siesta that afternoon.

Anyway, it was a great first trip and I can't wait to take a couple more! Sorry, again about this being so late. My internet access has been really unreliable. Internet access was so much easier in the US, that's one thing I will not take for granted ever again!

Love you all!