But let's see what's happened recently...
Wayyy back in the day on the 8th, my birthday!, after classes we took the trip to Gijón which is a city about 20-30 minutes away and it is a costal town so that means beach! Granted, it wasn't the best weather but it was great to finally get to Gijón for the first time and experience it! It is a pretty sweet place. After we got back we went to the Boulevard of Cider. This is a whole street in the Historic part of Oviedo that is just all Siderías and restaurants. We had a fair few bottles of cider and got to witness how a true pro pours the cider without even looking. Our waiter was the man! Eventually more and more people joined up with us and we had about 20 people sitting out side and when we left we had gone through 15 bottles of cider (plus the birthday shot Laura got me! Thanks Laura!). All in all, an enjoyable bday.
Thursday we had a Temple dinner at this amazing steak house and we had some seriously awesome food and sangria thanks to Temple University and Jaime (one of our coordinators, who is seriously the man). It was a great time. We got there at 9:45 and didn't leave til 1-130. Which actually pretty per the usgue when it comes to Spaniards and their eating habits.
Friday was the ridiculous that was the Espicha. An espicha is a traditional Austurian party that just involves lots of snacks and lots of cider and lots of music. The espicha was thrown by our university to welcome us. So there were about 200 of us there. It was in this amazinggg place about 10 min away from Oviedo. It was definitely one of the most awesome places Ive been. There were hundreds of empty cider bottles hanging from the ceiling and walls and there were huge "cider barrels" that you had tables in them you could dine in. We took over about 3/4 of the entire restaurant with our ridiculousness. There was traditional music and dancing. And mostly there was lotsss of cider. Instead of bottles they have hugeee pressurized barrels and you just go up to one of the people working them and they turn the spicket and the cider flies out of there faster than you can imagine. He fills your glass up a bit and off you go. Probably to return again in a few minutes. By the end of the night one of the waiters was letting us pour our own cider which was a seriously awesome, yet wet and sticky, experience. The party went on for hours. And then everyone piled on the buses to get back home and we just continued the night out at the bars, or so I was told bc everything is a little fuzzy after that. Haha. But it was definitely an amazing time!
Saturday we went to Gijón again, this time we actually experienced the beach! It was really nice, and they have a few beaches. One is real and one is artificial. Of course the real one is nicer, but the beach isn't too long and when the tide comes in the beach all but disappears so ya gotta make your way back to the fake beach, which is definitely still nice too. Not too much else of excitement happened for the rest of the weekend. Sunday was just filled with resting for the first time after an exhausting 2 weeks.
This past week was filled mostly with school stuff. Yes, I am actually taking classes here and yes I actually do have to do some work. But I still managed to go out a few nights and have good times and managed to do some shopping and a also fit in some time to go to one of the parks and relax with some wine. Oh and how could it have ever slipped my mind?...I may or may not have gone to see Harry Potter in IMAX 3-D on the day it opened and saw the first showing of it in Oviedo (and yes, it was in Spanish). Oh lordy was it amazing! Can't wait to see it again in english!
Thursday night I quite possible had the best food of my life. We (as in the Temple crew, thanks to TU and Jaime again) went to El Club de Tenis aka the Country Club of Oviedo. Jaime's grandfather was one of the founders and so we definitely got the hook up. Everything about this place was amazing. It was so nice inside and as soon as we got there our huge table (for about 30) was set up with pitchers upon pitchers of sangria and bottles upon bottles of wine. First we had the best Gazpacho I've ever had, granted I've only had it a few times and it's all been since I've been here but it was amazing. They brought out the soup and then the waiter came around and you could pick which of the fresh veggies you wanted in it. They had tomatoes, cucumbers, onion, peppers, crutons!, and i'm sure a few things I'm forgetting. After that we had this white asparagus with smoked salmon and two types of cheese all together in this melty cheesy goodness. My lord was it delicious. Then I had an amazing steak. It was very thinly sliced but it was the longest piece of steak I've ever seen, it literally didnot fit on my plate. Of course with the steak we had french fries, since they are the side dish of choice for everything in Spain. It was sooo good, but I was stuffed after the asparagus so it was an effort to eat a lot of the steak. After that we had this amazinggg desert. It was this little cup made of chocolate with a lemon sherbet type of thing in the bottom with fresh fruit on top. Wow it was sooo good. Then after that we had our after dinner shots and coffee. Often in Spain for desert you will get a choice of an actual desert, coffee or a shot of something. But since this was the country club we got all three! After that many of us went out with Jaime to a bar back in the main part of the city. It was such a fun night! Granted I didn't get home til 3 and I had a test the next day but oh well....When in Spain, right?
Friday was a pretty chill night. We wanted to take it pretty easy to save up for Saturday. We just went out to a few places and had some drinks. Went to la plaza de paraguas (or the umbrella plaza) which is just a plaza with a bunch of bars and restaurants but also with a huge wooden umbrella in the middle that you can sit on. Haha. Don't ask me why. It was quite the relaxing night, but I still didn't go home til like 330 which was kinda rough when I had to get up at 8 the next day and doing the same thing the night before.
Saturday morning was an excursion to Conga de Onís, los lagos and Covadonga. Conga de Onís was a nice little town about an hour away. It was very pretty and had an awesome bridge built by the romans that goes over this river. Highlight of this part of the trip: one of the kids for my group, Mike, jumped off the bridge into the river in his boxers. Awesome and hysterical.
Los lagos (the lakes) was amazingggg. We went up one of the mountains in our bus (and when I say we went up the mountain I mean 45 min+ trek up the craziest, tiniest, roads you've ever seen. There were cows all over the place and they would just decide to hang out in the road. Needless to say it made it a bit difficult to get a huge tour bus up the mountain. But the ride up was one of the most beautiful things I've seen. Just being surrounded by mountains and country side and hundreds of cows. When we got to the top there were two lakes we could hike to. Wow were they beautiful. I have never seen something that was just perfect before. You have this huge pristine lake in the mountains. You are still surrounded by cows, and I don't mean you could see them in the distance, I mean you had to walk next to them constantly to get where you were going. You are just surrounded by mountains and you can see the snow covered Picos de Europa (Peaks of Europe)...called so because they would be the first thing that sailors could see when they were making their way back to Europe back in the day. It was breath-takingly beautiful and I have definitely never seen anything as perfect and gorgeous in my life.
After that we went to Covadonga which in at the bottom of the mountain we had just climbed up. There is a huge beautiful church there and also a sanctuary build, literally, into the mountain about a little water fall. When we went up there, they were having mass so it is definitely something that is still in use. It was really cool to see. Finally we made our way back home.
Once home I had about a 45 minute turn around time to get myself together to go out. We went to Gijón to experience the last night of Semana Negra (Black week) it is a crazy, crazy festival out of the beaches outside of Gijón. There were more tents set up selling food and clothes and anything you could think of than you could imagine. There were full bars set up everywhere and full clubs as well. They had the craziest carnival rides you could imagine...actually they were more of rides you would have to pay they extra 2o bucks to go on at Dorney Park or something of the like then carnival rides. It was the craziest, more sensory overloading thing I've been to. There were just so many people, most completely drunk, having a great time. The thing to do afterwards is to go back into Gijón and make your way through the bars. We didn't make it to that, but we still didn't get home til 6 in the morning and I wasn't in bed til 7 (because of that freaking 40 minute walk from the train station). It was definitely an experience I am quite glad I had!!
Now it is Sunday and I definitely slept in til 4 PM and just plan on being a bum allll day. Time to just relax before another week of craziness. Wow, only 12 days until I leave Oviedo. That is going to be a sad, sad day. But I did just purchase my bus ticket to Barcelona for the last 5 days of my trip so that should be quite the adventure as well!
Sorry for the obnoxious length of this, but I never have time on a consistent basis to update, so I gotta make the most out of it when I can!
Besitos,
Lauren
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