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