Jillian's Visit and the Less Pleasant Visit to El Dentista

Jillian just left yesterday after spending about a week with us here in Oviedo. We had a lot of fun making scotcheroos (she was super sweet and brought the ingredients from the States!), celebrating her 21st birthday, and hanging out with her familia! For her birthday, her madre made us lots of amazingly delicious food (tortilla, empanada with tuna, mussels) and her tia provided homemade Sangria for everyone. After the party at the house, we went out dancing with the Spanish ladies! It was all even more fun because Josiah was visiting too!
He was staying with Rosa, the host madre of one of his friends when he was here, and she is a lovely lady! She is so nice and funny and made us a lot of food! Seriously Mom, you would be amazed with how much she got Josiah to put away. Almost as impressive as your attempts to put some weight on him! Josiah also got a lovely European hair cut, complete with gel and faux hawk. It was funny, but he looks good! Of course.

I don't know if everyone knows, but I broke my back tooth (the one that had a root canal) on a stupid candy heart sometime before we went to Barcelona. It was a little scary, but I got a hold of my mom, and she just happened to be going to the dentist the day we talked. he said I would just need something temporary until I got back.
My madre set me up with an appointment with her dentist and last Tuesday after stopping for a cafe, we were off! It was a little nerve wracking being there. I could understand him, and I'm pretty sure he could understand me. But when I told him I needed something temporary, he said "Oh, you won't need anything after this! It will be permanent! You don't have any allergies to anesthetics do you?" As he's injecting something into my gums...He chipped away at my tooth, I ended up spitting out some gray chunks (hope I didn't need that cavity or root canal stuff), and he put some paste or something to form my tooth. I guess it's always kind of hard to know exactly what's going on at the dentist in your mouth, but after showing him my old, gross retainer to show what my tooth used to look like, I trusted him.
It's all good now though and I am having no problems! Now I have a little more experience with Spanish in the medical setting...

This week is our last week before Semana Santa, and I can't wait to go to Paris!!! Josiah is coming to Oviedo first, so we're going to ride the bus to Paris together (17 hours...) and then we'll pick up his mom from the airport! And then we will explore and disfrutar the City of Lights!!!!

The Historic Barcelona Blizzard of 2010

¡Hola a todos!
Just got back from Barcelona last night around 10:30. It was a wonderful weekend, but a little cold and soggy.

Saturday morning we got on a bus to Santander and then hopped on a flight to Reus (right outside Barcelona) and ended up getting to our hostel late that night. Right away we noticed the difference in language there because they don´t really speak Spanish, but Catalan. Which we decided is a mix of French and Spanish. It wasn´t hard to read signs or figure things out, but we weren´t really sure what language to address people in. I figured Spanish most of the time and that worked, although a lot of people spoke English to us since it is such a big tourist place. But that night we walked along the Ramblas a bit and explored some of the city at night.

Sunday we woke up and went to a café called Obama (random coincidence) to have some café and a chocolate filled croissant (sooo delicious!!!). We walked through the city and saw some parks, shopped, and then went to the Picasso museum for free since it was the first Sunday of the month! It was really cool because it displayed art from many of Picasso´s different stages (and he had many) and explained where he was in his life during each one. It was interesting to view what was probably his true and unique style in some of the later pieces too. He did a lot of parodies of Velasquez´s ¨Las Meninas¨ and that was really interesting to see and compare too! If you have time, you should look it up.
But then we went back to our hostel to eat our lunches and rest a bit before heading out to see the Sagrada Familia at night. It started raining a little, but it was still amazing to see the chuch lit up and glowing green. We noticed that a church service was starting in 10 minutes, so we headed down into the crypt to attend una misa. Luckily it was in Spanish and it was really cool to be a part of their service. But during the Communion, it was really scary for a moment, because the old priest seemed to be having a stroke and almost passed out twice! People ran up to help him and someone called the EMT´s, but we just kept standing in the pews and I said some prayers for him. Then he was back up and smiling, made a little joke, and continued with Communion. Kind of strange, and I think the EMT´s stayed around to check on him, so I´m glad he was ok.
Then we decided to walk around to look for some Asian food, because we had been seeing a ton of restaurants and were craving it. For some reason though, we could not find anywhere and my socks were soaked and feet were numb, but we ended up finally finding this little Japanese restaurant that was delicious!!! We ordered a few courses that were all tasty and got ice cream for dessert. We also met this American girl who was studying International Business in Barcelona and she was really nice.

Monday was the day we were planning on doing most of our walking around outside, but when we left, it was raining. We went to a little side-street café to warm up and have breakfast (café and an even more amazing chocolate filled croissant!). It started snowing a little though, and the old people in the café kept saying how crazy it was. We decided to quickly walk over to the Sagrada Familia and it was awesome!!! I could probably talk forever about it, but this blog will probably be long enough. But, what you must know is that: Gaudí is an amazing genious who made Barcelona beautiful with his art and design which was inspired by the nature God created around him and he used it to give glory to God in the Sagrada Familia. And he invented all these geometrical techniques that people are now trying to figure out with our current technology. Ok, I tried to sum in up in once sentence. But really, there´s a lot of cool stuff, and my friends and I are coming back in 2025 to see it finished!
As we were leaving the Sagrada Familia, it was blizzarding and there was a ton of snow coming down hard and fast. Our feet were already wet and numb, so we decided to just run back to our hostel. We stopped in a souvenir shop for a little break, and the owner asked if he could take our picture because we were covered in snow and the day was ¨historic.¨ We hadn´t eaten lunch yet, so we decided to use the big kitchen in our hostel and spend the afternoon cooking for ourselves. We ran across the street to buy some ingredients and ended up eating a true Spanish meal of paella with shrimp, a loaf of fresh bread, and a glass of sangria at 5:30pm. Super cheap, delicious, and fun! We didn´t want to go out in the snow again, so we just snuggled up with blankets and our last pairs of clean socks and played cards for awhile and talked with the other travellers in our hostel. That evening, we put bags on our feet over our socks, and ventured out to find some delicious ice cream for dinner. It had stopped snowing and we had a lot of fun just walking and talking.

Tuesday we were up early because we were determined to see Güell Park and Gaudí´s houses before we had to leave at 1:00. Although there was ice, snow, and giant fallen trees in the park, we made it and it was beautiful! There was a guide giving a tour and he was saying how he´s given many tours, but he would never forget this one. Despite the bad forecast we had seen the night before, it was a clear sunny day and with our metro transportation skills, we saw Gaudí´s amazing mosaics and crazy, futuristic houses.

It ended up being one of the most fun trips and we learned that sometimes the situations that seem the worst are really the best and make for the greatest memories!!!

I´ll try to put some pictures up later. Jillian is coming today and I can´t wait to see her! Then Josiah will be here Friday in time for Jill´s big birthday party on Saturday. I think we´re going to have a cook out or something in the casa of her host aunt. Time is just flying by!!!!

A Weekend In Madrid With a Quick Visit to Nebraska

Yes, after Josiah picked me up at the bus station in Madrid Friday night, we saw across from our hotel a café called NEBRASKA. Of course we had to go there for dinner! Josiah ordered “The Nebraska” sandwich, but I can’t remember exactly what was on it, but something involving many types of meat. Of course. I ordered a sandwich with salmon, tomato, white asparagus, pickle, and a hard boiled egg. The Spanish have some pretty weird combinations, but it was pretty tasty! Josiah asked if we could get a discount since I was from Nebraska, but no such luck.
Saturday morning we woke up early and took the 45 minute bus south to Toledo. It was such a cute little town! We saw some Roman ruins of a track/stadium that had been used for chariot racing and is now a park, so that was cool. Of course we had a little race, and I won!  But we also saw El Greco’s house (under construction) and his painting of The Burial of Count Orgaz which was really interesting. It was also fun to walk around and just explore the winding streets and look at the beautiful view of the river and the mountains. They are big into sword making, Don Quijote, and marzipan everywhere there! Although I will not be bringing back any sabers or daggers, I did get a cool Don Quijote mug (even cooler since we just read it in Literatura) and we sampled some marzipan. It was so good!!! Yummy. It was cool to see how they formed it in crazy shapes, like dragons or the huge cathedral of Toledo. It was neat to see the cathedral too! It was huge and reminded me of Notre Dame. While in Toledo, I also managed to step in dog poop, which is lucky according to Spaniards. So not too bad, and of course Josiah had to document it all, so the photographic evidence will never let me forget it! It was a lovely city though, and by the time we were taking the bus ride home, I was falling asleep.
Sunday we spent in Madrid, which I think is the best day to be in Madrid! After stopping at a café for some café con leche y tosatada con tomate (literally just toast with mashed up tomato on it, which was surprisingly good), we went to the Reina Sofia Museum for free! There we saw some of Picasso’s famous works, including the Guernica. It’s big! They also had photographs of the different stages of the work, and it was interesting to see how the different parts came together and how sometimes he completely changed things. After that we found our way to this huge Rastro (flea market) that extended along this super long street. There were so many people, we could barely move at one point! But then we went to the big Plaza Mayor and sat in the sun for awhile watching all the people and weird street performers out on a Sunday afternoon. That evening, we were lucky enough to get into the Prado Museum for free too! Another busy day en España! And it ended on a delicious note of Italian food and ice cream from Spain’s first McDonald’s.
On Monday we had a picnic in Parque Retiro and then we were off our separate ways at the bus station. This weekend I’ll be back at the bus station again to head to Santander, where we’re going to catch a flight to Barcelona! I can’t wait!