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