Leon

Si,

Let me begin by telling you ten differences I have noticed between Spain and the United States these first few weeks:

1.      

1.   1. In the US we have fifty minute classes and they run from, for example, 9:00-9:50, in Spain we have fifty minute classes that run from 9:10-10:00.

2.      2. Babies are bundles up and put in strollers with a clear plastic lining covering them so it looks like they are suffocating.

3.      3. They eat mainly with spoons, very anti-fork over here.

4.      4. I have seen only one person wear anything athletic since I have been here, they were sweat pants.

5.      5. Not everyone takes communion in mass, and when it’s time for communion it’s a free-for-all race to the priest.

6.      6. Everything and everyone runs fifteen minutes late, except buses.

7.      7. My madre made me a ham and cheese bocadillo (sandwich) when I traveled on Saturday, she made it for me Friday afternoon and it sat out from then until two on Saturday. They refrigerate nothing!

8.      8. Café con leche or their version of hot chocolate is hot chocolate pudding.

9.      9. People don’t wear wedding rings or wear them on their left or right hand.

10.  10. Soccer is not a sport, it is lifestyle.

There are many others but those are the top ones that come to mind now. The rest of my school week played out typically. Wednesday I have class from 9-3 but I have a break between each class. Carrie and I spent those breaks at café favorit planning trips and checking email. She had the daunting task of choosing which museums we are attending next weekend in Madrid. After class I returned home for lunch, then met back up with Carrie at café carpie diem to play cards etc. Thursday I didn’t have class till noon so I enjoyed a long leisurely stroll around Oviedo exploring on my own. That afternoon I had translation, hispanoamerica, and literature. I love my translation class, Juan my professor (Oh that’s another think we call professors by their first name) has a British accent when he speaks English. I am learning so much in that class about grammar and vocabulary, we translate English sentences into Spanish and he does a fantastic job at explaining things and telling great stories. My other two classes are taught by a woman named Silvia who is the demon teacher of Oviedo. She is a mumbler, soft spoken and doesn’t speak a lick of English. She teaches everyone in all the intermediate and advance levels, and no one ever has a clue what that woman is muttering on about. Everyone is just fighting sleep until she says the one thing we do understand, entiendas? Which means do you understand, when of course we all nod yes having no idea what meaning the last twenty minutes held. That class is brutal. After class we headed to the bus station to buy our tickets for Leon on Saturday and Madrid next weekend. I had our time and everything all picked out and written down on a piece of paper so I thought this shouldn’t be too bad as I approached the ticket window. Wrong! It was easier to buy tickets in South Korea that this was, and the lady half spoke English. Anyway, after a long and very stressful conversation I got a bus plus card and we had discounted tickets to Madrid. After our wonderful bus experience Hanna, Carrie, and I headed off to the school cafeteria, where we met up with Dylan to play cards and chat. That night after dinner was our weekly meeting with Paula and Luna to discuss how we were doing etc. We met at Ciceros at ten and had fun sharing stories and laughing. The most frequented subject is the ever popular, “You’ll never guess what my madre said/did” and “You won’t believe what my madre fed me!” We love comparing host families and laughing at the great situations they create for us. I headed back to my casa around midnight and was openly mocked by Amparo about only being out till midnight and called me a baby, I need to work on my party hardy Spanish side. 

Friday morning it was still rough to get up for my nine am class knowing I was stuck with Silvia for two hours. We endured, barely, and were rewarded with 11 am siestas back at our houses. My mom woke me up for lunch at two and after I met up with Tyler to help him get a bus ticket to join us in Madrid. I saw the same ticket lady as the day before but we were helped by someone next to her, as we left she gave me the nod. I met Carrie at favorit after and we played on our computers and finalized things for Madrid. We met up again after dinner with people on Calle Gascona for sidra. Sidra is the drink they poor from up high to a glass held at their waist to oxidize it, or so I have heard, actual reasons for many things here in Spain remain a mystery. I headed home early around midnight again, knowing I had a 730 bus in the morning to Leon. 

The next morning Hanna, Carrie, and I met at the bus station at seven am for our “prompt” 730 train to Leon. When we bought the tickets on Thursday we were ambitious and wanted to spend the day taking down a new city, that early in the morning we were really regretting our decision. It was freezing cold on Saturday. And I know in Iowa it’s ten below zero but it’s about twenty degrees here and we are stuck outside all the time walking forever, so I think it balances out. I was wearing leggings, jeans, warm socks, boots, under armor shirt, t-shirt, sweat shirt, coat, gloves, and my ear bags and I was still freezing. We waited for our bus in the waiting area in front of the automatic door where people were constantly coming in and out freezing us out. This one guy kept stepping outside to check for the bus then stepping back inside, can I just tell you we were sitting in front of two giant arrival/departure screens and you could literally see our platform through the clear sliding doors, I almost killed him. Our bus was about fifteen minutes late, very odd, but finally we boarded the warm bus and took a lovely hour and a half nap. I brought my airplane pillow Sarah bought me for my birthday and it worked like a charm. We pulled into Leon around 930 and had to force each other out of the warm bus. We made the fifteen minute walk into town and found a warm café. Our plan was to enjoy a café for a few hours before hitting the sites. I had a chocolate con leche, warm pudding, and delicious croissant. Hanna got a napoliana or a croissant filled with chocolate and carrie a café con leche, they make their coffee with milk here. After eating and playing cards, kitty whisk, for an hour we headed off to San Isadoro Basilica on the other side of town, we would seek out even the smallest sections of sunlight and huddle in the warm rays. San Isadoro basilica is a church with a famous attached museum. The church itself was pretty, nothing extraordinary and we walked around not disturbing the many nuns praying. We next head over to the museum for our 4 € viewing of the pantheon and frescos. The ladies working sent us up the stairs alone and we thought we would be free to explore and enjoy on our own. Wrong. We topped the winding staircase and found a locked clear door leading to a library and we were standing around it looking through and talking when a woman emerged and pushed us into the next room with about thirty people. The room was full of golden church treasures like chalices, crucifixes, and what appeared to be treasure chests. Also the walls of the room contained original frescos. What make this museum so important are the preserved frescoes on the walls in their original locations, very rare. They all follow the life of Jesus and are all really weathered. We next headed into the library room we had previously occupied and she unlocked the glass doors. The room was filled with ancient giant books, various musical books the monks use to use. They were pretty cool to see and the ceiling was decorated with angels reading books. This is when we realized just how unlucky we were, all the other people we joined in the other room were from the same school and on some sort of academic excursion. Our tour guide took it upon herself to go above and beyond explaining everything we saw. Obviously it was in Spanish and we could pick up on some things she was saying but we missed all her jokes, at least that is what we were assuming all the students were laughing about, and I’m pretty sure she didn’t like us. Next we headed into the old tomb room, which was freezing. This is where dozens of the the old kings of Spain use to be buried before the French invasion and the tombs were destroyed. The ceiling and walls were painted with more ancient frescoes and the woman spoke about each section. Forty five freezing minutes later we were lead out into the sunshine to explore the cloister courtyard. We headed back into the bookstore and played who can find the most important thing before heading out, I won with a replica of a golden rooster found in one of the courtyard rooms for 203€, mind you this replica was about four inches tall.

After a very exciting, not, Spanish tour we decided to head back into town to pick through some shops and eventually find a place to enjoy our picnic lunches our madres packed us. While poking around I asked an older couple if they knew where the central commercial was, or the shopping mall because we were cold and wanted to go inside somewhere for free. You have to buy something if you sit in a café. He pointed us into a building which ended up being a grocery store, close but not what we had in mind. After exploring the many aisles we indulged in small 19 cent bag of chips and chocolate sopresas. They are chocolate covered plastic tubes with a toy surprise inside for kids. We found our bench and ate our apples, oranges, and bocadillos, finally it was chocolate sopresa time and we all got different little surprises. I got a helicopter, Hanna a bird/bug (we aren’t sure), and Carrie (after a huge struggle to open the tube) a yo-yo. We finally decided to just go hang out in a café since all the shops were closing down for the afternoon siesta. I ordered Colacoa or hot chocolate and we spent the afternoon playing garbage and other card games. Finally around 4:30 it was time to visit the Cathedral in Leon where I had read in my trusty Rick Steve’s travel guide I would find the second most impressive stained glass in the world. The cathedral did not disappoint. I have never seen so many huge, beautiful stained glass windows in my life. They reflected color onto the floors and walls and were designed as such to have areas of different symbolic meaning, i.e. an area of dark glass for gloomier biblical message and areas of lighter colors for the birth and life of Christ and of course salvation. There were three huge rose windows and then several tall skinny windows some containing simple floral designs while others had intricate detailed pictures of the life of Christ and Saints. The Cathedral was absolutely beautiful, but also freezing cold. We only managed to last a half hour before we had to make for some warmth. We ended the train wandering the rest of Leon then catching the 7 pm train home. Amparo had dinner ready for me when I walked in the door and she and I spent the night watching T.V. together and I filled her in on all the thing I had seen. 

The next morning I woke up for church and attended San Juans Basilica. The church was absolutely beautiful and located right in the heart of Oviedo. There were a ton of families there, I accidently got there very early and watched them have Sunday school in the pews in the front before mass. During mass the huge church was packed with people standing on the side, and they had a children’s choir and during the homily the priest would asks the 50+ kids surrounding him questions about the readings. The rest of Sunday was spent like a good lazy Spaniard should, little café time and a lot of napping television time. I hope you enjoy the rest of your week! Friday I am heading off to Madrid and very excited to see all it has to offer!

Hasta Luego,

Elizabeth

Ping meet Pong

Hola mi familia,

I started the weekend off right, by finding myself super tired and not excited for my two morning classes at nine and ten, hispanoamericano y literatura. The teacher is not too exciting and we literally spent the class time playing hangman and Pictionary, in literature we were doing book characters and no one got my Frodo, I drew the eye-mountain, a small man next to a large man, hairy feet, and a ring. What losers! After class at eleven a very tired Elizabeth made her walk back to her casa and collapsed on the couch. The plan was to nap in my bed but Amparo was doing my laundry, and the drying thing is outside my window so my room was cold. I ended up watching two hours of full house, family matters, and growing pains in Spanish. I think I comprehended the theme song. Elena and Marina came over for lunch after school at two and I was finally able to enjoy the traditional Spanish meal of paella, a rice chicken and vegetable dish, it was very delicious. Elena hates peppers (I surprisingly eat vegetables here, amongst other things, probably in fear of being rude) but she was complaining and made Amparo take them out of the rice and then was stealing Marinas bread and it was hilarious to watch them interact and yell, especially when I literally understood about 50% of what was going on. After lunch I met up with Hanna for a long walk through the mountain trails. We walked and talked for about three hours with a million other Spaniards jogging in short shorts and old ladies gossiping in valor track suits. After our long walk and meandering through town to put more minutes on her phone, we use movistar here; I went home and prepared for a night of debauchery. My madre and I got ready together because she was going out with some girlfriends that night, sixty and she’s still got it.

The student organization ESN had planned a traditional Spanish meal and then free drinks all night for the measly coast of fifteen Euros, which is cheap compared to outrageously expensive everything is here. We met at 9:30 and headed off to a restaurant to drink Sangria, wine, and sidra which is a drink that you pour out of a bottle up high into a cup you hold low at your waist. (Bartenders do it without even looking, impressive, I am attempting to pour my own next time we go out!) We ate a lot of bread, tortilla Espana, full shrimp with eyes, sausage things, chickens that they fry with parts of their feathers still attached (tastes hairy), and many other things. After hanging out and socializing with other Americans not from UNI we headed off to B12 a club for more free sangria till two am and salsa lessons. We spent the evening walking the street of Calle Mon, where all the bars are, and finally called it a night around three. I will have to fill in more detail in person.

The next morning, Saturday, we decided to play ultimate Frisbee in the park and planned on meeting at the books and hat statue around eleven. I woke up at ten and Amparo was sitting with her head on the kitchen table. We ate breakfast and she asked me what time I got home the night before, I told her three and she laughed at me and said she got home at four! She said we needed a siesta and lay her head back on the table. Ultimate Frisbee was a lot of fun; we played in a small green space as many dog walkers and old men watched in confusion. Have I mentioned that everyone has a dog here and none are neutered, I am not enjoying easily determining gender. We went to a chino store after (the equivalent to a dollar store but they are actually run by Chinese people, who speak Spanish) to pick up ping pong paddles. All of the parks in Spain have a ton of ping pong tables and people are always playing. We headed to the mall next to walk around and enjoy gelato. That afternoon after lunch I met up again with Carrie and Stef for an epic first game of ping pong in el parque de San Francisco. This park has peacocks running around freely so it was pretty fun to play and walk around. After ping pong I went to 6:30 pm mass at the cathedral. Bravo to you Oviedo we had a full house, I was still one of three people there under the age of fifty but it was nice to have a crowd. Mass was really hard to understand, the vocabulary and such isn’t what we study in school and the priest echoes a lot in the huge cathedral. Also mass was absolutely freezing cold, I was surrounded by elderly in legit fur coats shivering in their pew. After mass I headed home for dinner then met up with Stef and Carrie again to see the tourist in Spanish. I have a feeling that movie would have sucked in English. It was really interesting to see it dubbed over and watch Johnny Deep and Angelina Jolie but not hear their voices. After the movie we all had different opinions about what actually occurred so we’ll have to look up the synopsis and see who was right.

Sunday morning we took the group trip to Covadonga and boarded the bus around 9:30. Covadonga is located up in the mountains and has a huge beautiful Cathedral and also a cave shrine to Mary. Covadonga is the place where some army man had a vision of Mary telling him to continue fighting the Muslims and it is considered to be the birth place of Modern Spain. It’s in the same region as Oviedo, Asturias and that’s while prince is called the Prince of Asturias. Anyway the bus ride was really curvy up through the mountains and some people threw up which was a little bit disgusting, you could literally hear it and smell it. Once we go to the town we walked around enjoying the beautiful views and the shrine of Mary. Under her cave is a large lake thing and a fountain of gross water, it is said if you drink from this fountain you will find your true love and you should have seen the line to take a sip, instead of love we will probably all find diarrhea. Our plans after Covadonga were to head up to the beautiful mountain lakes but the roads were icy from the fog, it was probably 30 degrees and people thought it was absolutely freezing; the temperature really did drop though between sun and shadow. So we headed to a smaller town to a huge outdoor market to kill some time. We bought twelve churos for two Euros and they were fairly delicious. Our final stop was Ribadesella a town on the sea and it was beautiful. We hiked up to the lookout point and enjoyed the picnics our madres made us of sandwiches and fruit. We all had ham and cheese sandwiches, bocadillas, wrapped in tin foil that had been sitting out all day and oranges, it was like they planned it. The town was adorable and had a lot of old style, brightly painted houses. Carrie and I spend a lot of time on the half-sand/half-rock beach collecting and getting hit by waves when we weren’t looking. It twas embarrassing to be turned around picking up rocks and get hit by a silent wave from the back.  We arrived back in Oviedo, exhausted, around seven and I headed home to spend some quality time with my madre watching strange Spanish shows and playing around on the computer.

This week has begun very typical. Monday brought four classes: vocabulary, grammar, hispanoamerica, and literature. Silvia, my profesora of literature and hispanoamerica, was as boring as ever and no one can understand a word she says, tests should be interesting. After class I returned home to enjoy one of Amparos amazing meals, then headed off to la gorda and parque de San Francisco for round two of do-or-die ping pong with Carrie and Jessica. We played and chatted until the sun set then headed off in search of a new café, we are growing weary of the ones around school. We found a fancier looking establishment and enjoyed chocolate con leche y churos. The hot chocolate here is basically a delicious melted chocolate bar, but better. I pulled out my many travel books, thank you family, and we searched places to travel and ranked our favorites! That night my madre made me my favorite dinner yet. An egg cooked sunny side up with bits of a hot dog like meet cut up and scattered inside and topped with a ton of peas. Sounds bizarre, looks bizarre, and tastes delicious! After dinner I was finally able to skype my family and see the birds, thank goodness they are doing well!

Today was a wonderful, yet rainy day. I didn’t have class till eleven so my friend Jessica and I met at 8 am to go for a run. We didn’t know it was raining until we had both left our houses and our phones so we made the best of it. After my run I showered successfully, no flooding the bathroom, and enjoyed my typical breakfast of hot chocolate and graham crackers, I hope I don’t get sick of it soon! School was typical and Amparo had lunch waiting for me when I got home. I met Carrie, Stef, Hanna, and Jessica at three in the school cafeteria at 3:30 for hours, and I mean hours of games. My wonderful father provided me with a travel size version of loaded questions and a new game called cheaters. We played both, then Jessica had to leave and the four of us enjoyed playing a two hour game of hearts, it was absolutely ridiculous. People shot the mood three times, with help of course. Afterwards we met up with some more classmates for pastries in a café across the street. I had the Spanish version of an éclair and it was delicious, but that’s no surprise. Tonight for dinner I had soup that tasted like chicken noodle, and potatoes and ham. Amparo and I talked for a long time and she said I was improving a lot already, YAY! We are currently watching some Spanish t.v. show and I am heading off to bed! I will update you again soon and I hope you are enjoying all things Americano!

Siempre,

Elizabeth

Bringing Week One to a Close

......

Wednesday night we met at la gorda at 4 to climb the mountain to the huge statue of Christ at the top! The Spanish tour guides did not prepare us for our climb and many people showed up looking very fashionable. We Iowans however knew better and led the pack in spandex and sweats. The hike was on roads which was a little bit of a disappointment but it didn’t wind at too steep of an incline. We passed two old churches on the mountain and almost got hit by about 700 cars. Finally towards the top our guides, who have been smoking the entire time and are hiking in fancy shoes and jeans, point us in the direction of a shortcut. I have never walked up anything that steep before in my life. And it didn’t seem to end, finally we make it to the top only to realize we have to go down a bit and Jesus is waiting on the other peak. After many groans were sounded by the large group we continued and made it to Jesus. It reminds me of the big statue in Brazil, he is standing arms open overlooking the city. We made it up as the sun was setting and we watched as the sun disappeared behind the beautiful snow covered mountains and watched as all the lights of the city slowly turned on. Oviedo is massive, but everyone here thinks it is so small compared to other places in Spain. It started to get cold so we climbed back down in the dark wondering how much we were going to pay for this in the morning. We parted ways around 8 and got milka chocolate bars for our separate walks home. My madre had a large dinner ready for me when I got home knowing I would be very tired. I attempted my second shower that night. I have my own bathroom next to my bedroom and the shower is a box probably 2X2 with no curtain. I have a hand held nozzle thing and I cannot help but get water everywhere. It bounces off my body or when I lay it down it goes crazy and splashes everywhere. Needless to say showering is an adventure with a large clean up after, I try to cover the floor with my dirty clothes and a towel to absorb the water.

Thursday I had a large break between classes so I went to a local café with a few friends and we ate and used their internet for a while. After class I went home for lunch and met Carrie, Hanna, and Kendra to go shopping down town. In Spain they have these things called Rebajas, which are a nationally mandated sale throughout January and February. Everything is on sale of 50%, 30%, etc. We shopped for about three hours, I bought a cheap pair of black flats and new short black boots, very Spanish. Our last stop was H&M probably the best store I have ever been in, but I decided I needed to pace my purchasing so I resisted and only browsed. That night was our first fiesta night out as a group. I tried on different outfits for my madre and she picked out what I wore. I ate an early dinner, 8:45, then headed out for la gorda at 9:30. We walked to a bar where we met Paula and Luna, our coordinators, and we talked about our experiences so far and if we were adjusting well etc. Some of the tour guides own a bar, so that was our next stop where we attempted to salsa, twas hilarious. After that it was fiesta time and they showed us a whole street of bars. People stand outside and take our large group into their bars by promising free shots and to play American music. My madre was proud of me when I returned at two in the morning but said I should still be out, most Spaniards are out till seven am.

Spain is treating me right. I love how much Spanish I am learning and how much I get to practice. We I am out with my friends from Iowa we generally speak Spanish or at least spanglish, and of course I have class, then talking with my family. Amparo and I can talk for hours about everything, last night we watched the news and she was describing the different stories to me. I also love talking to her grandkids Elena y Marina. They speak so quickly but are adorable and the other day they put on a singing performance for me and we love to watch bob esponja (spongebob) together. Spaniards are really affectionate and the sisters are always touching and kissing, it caught me a little bit off guard.

I hope you are all enjoying the winter; it’s always 50 degrees here!

P.S. I am currently watching Full House in Spanish

First Impressions...

Hola, Hola, Hola

I cannot believe how time has passed here in Spain, I already feel like I have been here at least a month! Everything is better than I could have ever imagined and my Spanish has already improved so much, I am excited to see what an actual month of practice will do. Traveling was really easy; Carrie and I met up with Hanna and Kendra in the Chicago airport before our seven hour flight to Madrid. Everything was really smooth, though I wasn’t able to sleep on the plane. We had a five hour layover in Madrid until our final one hour flight to Oviedo; we slept and enjoyed expensive McDonalds. Finally we arrived in Oviedo and were happy to see all of our luggage was accounted for, Kendra and Hanna took a taxi into town and Carrie and I decided on a more inexpensive bus. The bus ride was absolutely gorgeous! Austurias is the most beautiful region of Spain with the sea and mountains all within a short bus ride from each other. It felt wonderful to be back in Europe and the houses and farms all reminded me of Italy. The bus ride was about an hour and took us the the downtown bus station. We then hailed a cab to take us to our hotel for the evening, Hotel Isla de Cuba. We arrived and immediately did what a traveler shouldn’t do and took a three hour nap in our uncomfortable hotel beds. When we woke it was dark but we decided to take a mini tour of the city, we were meeting Luna and Paula, our coordinators, at 9:30 for dinner so we had some time to kill. The hotel is right across the street from the University so we walked across and found la casa de las lenguas, the building where we had our placement test the next day and all of our classes. After our walk we joined our other classmates down stairs to play cards and wait for Luna y Paula. We sat down for dinner and introduced ourselves then enjoyed trying the Sangria and many strange dishes lay out before us: Country potatoes with various sauces, egg and potatoes, chicken, salad etc. We were all really tired but after our 10 € meal they announced they were taking us on a walk and to a bar. They showed us the university and where to go the following morning and then onward to a bar that was opening especially for us, where Luna said the owner knew everything about American classic rock, yet didn’t know Journey. We played card games and hung out till about one then we were too tired to continue. Luna and Paula thought we were babies and wanted to party longer, I swear Spaniards don’t sleep!

The next morning we went to the test around 10 and heard a presentation, all in Spanish about the university, then took the test. The test is way to divide us into intermediate and advance levels. The sections included a couple conjugation fill in the blank sections, an essay portion, and an oral portion. The oral portion was intense, I had this man who spoke very quickly and was easily frustrated. But I pulled through, along with the other hundred plus Americans from across the United States studying in Oviedo. After our test we returned to Hotel Isla de Cuba and waited for our families to pick us up. Mine arrived around one, her name is Amparo and I could not have asked for a better match. My friend Laura studied in Oviedo a couple years ago and said I had to have her, and I am so happy I requested her. Amparo lives about three minutes away from the university, some people have to walk a half hour or more every morning, in an adorable apartment right across from her granddaughter’s elementary school. She chatted my ear off walking to her house and showed me my wonderful room. Bucket list warning: sleep in a bed that pulls down from the wall, COMPLETE. I have a little room in the back of the house with a pull down bed, table, chair, closet, and dresser. I also have my own bathroom right next door, I couldn’t be more comfortable. I met her granddaughter Ellena who is 11 and was home sick with the flu. Ellenas mother, Marina, is an English professor at the university and lives very close to Amparo, so Amparo takes care of her grandchildren every morning before school and every afternoon. I enjoyed my first homemade Spanish meal, potato stew with a ham omelet and fried vegetables, delicious. Then unpacked all my stuff and met her other granddaughter Marina who is eight and adorable. Amparos other daughter Blanca is also staying with her right now and so is Blanca’s dog Runa, a feisty little French Bull dog. Runa and I got off to a rough start when I caught her chewing through one of my Korean socks an hour after I arrived, but she is slowly growing on me. It may just be because I get to yell at her in Spanish. After a nap I enjoyed an early dinner (seven o’clock) and headed out to meet up with other UNI people. We walked down to the mall to get school supplies and cell phones. The company we use is called movistar and the phones are very cheap and small, but they get the job done. We ran into another student, Nate, who was buying a phone with his madre and she helped me pick out a good plan and ordered everything for me, however she also spoke a mile a minute so it was a bit challenging.

Tuesday was our first day of class and we arrived early to find out what level we have been placed in. As predicted I am in the intermediate level, and am taking vocabulary, translation, literature, culture, and grammar. The way our schedule is set up our classes are different each day and all at different times so it can be slightly confusing to keep up with. My classes were very typical, casual conversation with professors and practicing basic skills. Each professor gave us a card to fill out and we have to add pictures to them so they can learn our names and faces. After three classes it was time for me to take my three minute walk back home for lunch, at two o’clock. I ate lunch with Amparo, Ellena, and Marina and it was fun to listen to them argue and tell stories especially the kids, they speak so fast and I only get about a third of what they are saying. She made more stew and meat, oh and of course we all share a loaf of bread with every meal. I watched the Disney channel with the girls after lunch then met Carrie at school to walk to the statue la gorda, a fat woman holding a baby, to have an official tour of Oviedo by some Spaniards attending the university. It was nice to meet some of the other Americans not from Iowa and talk as we were led around town. We stopped at many parks and historical sites; we also stopped and toured the inside of the cathedral which is beautiful. At one of the parks there were a million peacocks running around. After the tour Carrie and I went to the mall behind my house to explore more and enjoy some gelato. I got home around seven and helped Amparo do laundry and talked for a few hours before she made me a delicious dinner of meat and French fries.

Everything here is so different than what I expected and I am thoroughly enjoying it all!