Un viaje cada fin de semana? A trip every weekend?

Hey all!

So I know it has been a while but a) I have been a bit sick and busy and b) I am in a good routine so there was not much new to report!

However, I successfully bought my new cell-phone (seen on your right) here, all by myself!  It was definitely my brave new thing for the day.  I love the phone already although I will not be using it a lot, nor do I actually know how much money is on it or how much it costs to use it.  Haha oh well, that can be my brave new thing for another day.  It was not all that expensive either.  I was able to get the phone and what I can only hope is a lot of minutes for about 20 euro (or $30).  And I get to keep the phone for future trips as well!

In other news, my friend and I are going to attempt to make a different trip somewhere every weekend.  It is really not that difficult to do actually.  Asturias, the province I am staying in, has numerous opportunities for day-trips that are amazing experiences within themselves.  We are within an hour of beaches, mountains, farmland, and caves.  For example, this weekend my friends and I are going to Cudillero, a little fishing village about a 45 minute bus ride away.  I included a picture down below, which obviously I did not take but you can be sure that I will be posting pictures that I actually took the minute I get back!

http://www.onoocio.com/zonaweb/encina51/imagenes/album/Cudillero%201.jpg

Next weekend, Aubrey and I are going to...wait for it...wait for it...GRANADA!!!!  I am so excited.  Yes it involves two thirteen hour bus rides, but still!  GRANADA!!!  We are meeting up with my friend Meghan from high school and staying two nights, three days in Granada and seeing all of the sights.  You better believe I will have stories and pictures to share after that journey!  It took Aubrey and I two whole days of searching the internet like it was our job to find the cheapest and simplest way to get down to the city but eventually our hard work paid off!  The Alhambra is definitely on my list of things to do before leaving Europe and I am thrilled to be able to go so early!

I think that may be all for now folks!  I am off to Cudillero bright and early in the morning!  Doesn't it look so picturesque?  Cross your fingers for not TOO much rain!!

Differences between Spain and the U.S.

I have only been here a week, but already I am noticing some key differences between the way things are done in Spain and the United States and as I do not have much new and interesting things to say, I think I will list them here:


1) There are NO non-smoking policies as far as I can tell.  Everyone smokes, they do it often, and they do it in your face.  It is probably the only thing I absolutely can't stand here.  It is very accepted, especially at night-time and whenever I come back home I immediately feel like I want to shower, hang my coat outside to air, and throw all my clothes in the wash (and sometimes I do)!

2) The night-life here lasts until the wee hours of the morning.  At Geneseo it lasted until about 2am, 3am at the latest (and that was considered extreme).  But here, it is almost embarrassing to go to bed before the sun comes up on the weekends.  When I got back from Gijon, Aubrey and I walked home to the sunrising and there were still parties and dancing going on when we left.

3) While I am talking about night-life, that too is much different than in the United States.  College students in the United States go crazy with drinking once they get to college, But here the drinking age is 18 so it is not such a big deal for kids to be doing something "risky."  So, the nightlife as a result is much more focused on dancing, meeting people, and just hanging out.  I like it here a LOT better.  It is just more relaxing and "grown-up" if I can use that term.

4) Classes do not start until ten minutes after the time they are supposed to.  Ironically, these is consistent across the board and teachers are always exactly 10 minutes late (so why they do not just change the start times is beyond me haha).  For me it is great because I always think the walk from my house is 5 minutes when it is actually 15 minutes.

5) Everything here is considered "5 minutes" away.  If you ask someone for directions they will tell you it is 5 minutes in that direction, and 30 minutes later you are still hauling your butt up a hill with no sign of your destination.  Not of course that that has EVER happened to me :)

6)  Oviedo is the cleanest city in Europe (or so they claim).  They have street cleaners all the time, special machines for picking up gum, and people sweeping their front stoops a couple times a day.  As a result, though I am living in a city of 250,000 people, it still feels smaller and less dirty.

7)  Everything here just looks cooler.  Many of the pictures I have posted on this blog are just of average buildings like hotels or office buildings.  To paraphrase Eddie Izzard: we have the history over here, and it is all over.  

Anyway, that's all for now folks.  I am fighting a cold and need to go shopping for the week.  Hope you all are well!

 

A trip to Gijon

Just a quick update:

This weekend my friend Aubrey and her friend Shana and I went to Gijon (a neighboring beach-town) to hang out with some of Aubrey's friends.  It was definitely my BNT (brave new thing) for the day.  Aubrey decided that we should go like an hour before we left and we just hopped on a bus and went!  It was very adventurous and fun because it ended up being a great trip and we made a lot of new friends (they are all students at the engineering University in Gijon). Plus we got to experience a new city!

I don't have many more updates so here are some pictures for your enjoyment!

Me, Pepe, Jonas, Fanny, Shani, Philipe,

Anais, and Aubrey

Me, Shani, Aubrey

Fanny, Anais, Aubrey, Me

The whole group again (minus Jonas)

Aubrey and Me :)

El fin de semana (weekend)!

So it has been a day or so since my last update, and I have much to share!  The other night (as I had said before) I went salsa dancing at one of the local bars!  It was really fun, however I am still a horrible dance, but one who now knows how to salsa dance even if I can not repeat it.  It also doubled as my brave thing for the day, trying something new and making friends.  We left pretty early though due to our early classes on Friday.

Friday was a normal day by any standards, but my brave new thing (or BNT for short) was to go to all of the discotecas and dance the night away!  The parties just start getting underway in the wee hours of the morning.  The whole city transforms for the night and there is music and dancing everywhere you go.  Overall, I really loved the atmosphere and had a great time!  We had a solid group of people and we just kept hopping from place to place.

It was also very interesting because many of the songs played in the bars or discotecas are popular American songs.  It kept cracking me up that we would be dancing along and suddenly Shania Twain or the Black-eyed-peas would come on.  Needless to say, my group and I loved it.

Today, we went around the city with one of my friends who was here last semester as she showed us the sights.  I now know where to find the bookstore, and a market that will be open tomorrow where I will hopefully be purchasing some cheap rainboots (it rains a LOT here).  I also took a bunch more pictures which you can see here!

My BNT for today was ordering soup from a cafe and sitting at the bar by myself and eating it.  While to the untrained eye this may not seem like a complicated process, it was in fact.  In Spain, lunch is the big meal with three courses and everything.  So not only was there a language barrier, but to ask for just soup would seem ridiculous!  I also had no idea the proper etiquette for eating soup, so I tried to be delicate but accidentally ate to much and burned my tongue in such a big way.  It still hurts now, three hours later!  Either way, I did it!

Lindsey, Me, Sam, Si, Erico

Tomonori

Universidad de Oviedo Campus!!!

The bird fountain that I walk past every day to go to class.

A new mission, a week in.

My biggest concern about studying abroad was that I would not take advantage of the unique opportunity that I was lucky enough to be given.  I am in a foreign country, taking intensive language courses, and living in an apartment practically by myself, in the middle of a city, and I want to ensure that I am doing everything that I can, and living life to the fullest.  But while I was panicking that I have been here for a full week and not taken advantage yet, a very wise friend of mine reminded me that even if I only do one adventurous thing a week, then I will still be doing a great deal of things.

Instead, I am going to take it as my mission to do one thing that scares me every day.  This used to be my motto and it fell by the wayside, yet Spain seems like the perfect location to start it up once more.  So, everyday I will report here what I have done that has scared me, something brave, or something adventurous for each day.  It may be something little like learning to cook a new meal, or it may be something big like exploring the city but I am going to do something everyday (ok, well at least I will try!).

And to make myself feel better I am going to list the things I have already conquered:

Jan 7: Hopped on a plane to leave all of my friends and family behind and immerse myself in a new culture.

Jan 8: Navigated Paris' stupidest and most confusing airport ever AND successfully communicated where to get my lost baggage returned to AND stayed in a hostal by myself.

Jan 9: Conversed entirely in Spanish with my landlord and learned how to make small talk (that one doesn't sound big, but it was hard for me).

Jan 10: I cooked bacon for the first time by myself.  Yes, I burnt some of it, and yes I certainly burned my arm with some splatter but I did it (and now I know how easy it is).  

Jan 11: I went into the middle of a strange city with no plan, no sense of direction, and no goals.  I got completely lost and found my way back all by my lonesome :)

Jan 12: I bravely crossed the frontier of meeting new people!

Jan 13: Even though I was terrified of ordering something in Spanish, especially something as cultural as the Churros con chocolate, I ordered it from the cute little man who runs the cafe under my university.  Success!

Jan 14: Although it has yet to occur, I am going with some people to learn salsa dancing tonight!  Enough said, that is brave (those of you who have ever seen me dance understand).

Also, the pictures on this page are of the University Campus, though I am pretty sure more will follow.  Well due to a strange noise in the middle of the night (which may or may not have been a dream) I did not sleep well last night so I am off for a siesta!  Hasta Luego!

El segundo dia de clases

Even though it was incredibly disheartening to wake up to the not-too-gentle patter of rain on my roof, I did manage to make it to my second day of classes.  I was a little late by my standards, but by Spain standards I was just on time.

Today I had Grammar (again), Translation, and Literature.  Grammar was just as good as yesterday, a combination of learning and fun.  For some reason I just click with this professor, I understand his way of teaching Spanish very easily.

Translation is going to be tricky but really enjoyable and useful.  The professor is actually an English professor at the school and his English is impeccable.  He said he would only speak Spanish, but every once in a while he broke into English.  At first, I didn't realize that he was actually speaking in English a) because I was in pure Spanish mode, and b) because he has a perfect British accent!  I am so American-centered sometimes that I did not realize that someone who learned English in Europe would probably have a British accent since they are much closer.  It just kept cracking me up every time I heard it.  I think the other part is that I never have heard someone from Spain who had so mastered the Spanish language to even have a particular accent other than a Spanish one.  Perhaps this is confusing to others, or doesn't make any sense the way I am explaining it but I found it very intriguing.

Literature is going to be a beast.  The teacher speaks incredibly fast and throws a lot of information out at us and we have to read six books (in Spanish) or at least parts of them, I am not sure.  It is definitely going to be my hardest class by far, but why come all the way to Spain if I don't want to be challenged!

And, I have made some new friends!  But since this blog is public, I think it best to keep the specifics under wraps :)

Alright, well that was a pretty boring blog, more informative than anything.  A quick shout-out to my two new followers!  Thanks so much!

First day of school!

Sorry folks, no pictures today!  It was rainy rainy rainy (but warmer!), so I did not want to wreck my camera.  However, I did start classes today en Espanol!  I found out that I was placed in the Advanced II classes (there is one beginning level, three levels of intermediate, and three levels of advanced) so I was pretty pleased with my placement.  Anyway, I got there at about 8:45 to see what my placement was, but of course because I was in the advanced level I did not have class until 10!  Ah well, I needed a break in the cafeteria anyway.

Then I headed off to my first class, Grammar.  It was taught by the same person who judged me for the oral exam so I was pretty excited, as he had seemed very nice. The class seems like it is going to be difficult but also very much worth my time.  The professor is incredibly helpful and clearly knows how to teach foreigners especially spanish, while speaking no english himself.  Since it is an upper level we are going to review everything briefly, but then go into the nuances of the language, such as the differences between similar verbs that we had previously interchanged.

Next was Art History and while the intro class was not interesting I see the potential for it to be fun; the professor seems to love what she does and most importantly is taking us on field trips to see local art history around the city.

It was a short day today, only two classes lasting from ten until twelve, but tomorrow I take my other three: phonetics and conversation, introduction to translation, and literature.  I really tried to take a mixture of classes so that I could cover all my bases.  I am getting the nuts and bolts of the language through grammar and phonetics, the basics of spain through art history and literature, and something I have had no experience with but may make Spanish a lot easier with translation.

All in all I am pretty excited about my classes.  If the ones tomorrow go as well as the ones today then I am going to have a difficult but also fun semester and will definitely learn quite a bit (which of course is the goal).

Well thanks to all for continuing to follow!  I am sure once I get into the rhythm of things these will become more mundane and certainly less frequent, but for now I just want to share as much as I can!

A trip around the city

Today I took my proficiency exam to see which level I will be at for the whole semester. The writing part did not go as well as I would have liked, but when I did my oral exam, my teacher said that I should be put into the advanced, so hopefully that's where I will be! All the people in charge seem very nice and helpful so I feel more confident that I will be able to maneuver my way through everything in the next few months. I did meet a new friend named Katherine, she seems pretty nice. But I am sure tomorrow when my actual classes start I will meet people who I will be spending a lot of time with etc.

After my exams, I decided to take a tour around the city. Armed with my maps and my camera I just wandered towards the center of the city. I had no idea where I was going, absolutely no idea what I was going to see, and no deadlines or rules to follow. It felt very adventurous indeed.

As it turns out, I probably would have seen more if I had actually had a plan, and the next time I go I will try and have some sites that I am searching for, but as it was I just toodled around, snapping shots of neat architecture or the snow covered mountains behind it all. It was beautiful, and the weather had started to warm up slightly as well, creating an almost perfect walking climate: not too hot, not too cold, but still super slippery).

Eventually, with all the wandering I got terribly terribly lost. But where normally I would have panicked, tears getting ready to spring out of my eyes, this time I felt a strange sense of calm. Not only is the city incredibly safe (unlike Madrid and Barcelona apparently), but I knew eventually, somehow I would find my way back. I had maps if I needed them, and the people who live here are incredibly generous and helpful if you need anything. As Charo (my coordinator here) told me Oviedo is not tired of tourists like the other big cities, so they are much more willing to be helpful.

Finally, on the course of my wandering, I found a street that looked vaguely familiar, and I traced my way back to the university and from there found my way home. I had conquered the city! Not only did I find my way home, but I did it without panicking.

As a reward I gulped down some coke and chips (snack of champions I know, but I was hungry!) and looked up some easy recipes online. Then, with a list this time, I went to the store to get specific things instead of just wandering the aisles. The benefit is that I now have about a week's worth of food (give or take) and actual meals planned out. My lunch today: grilled cheese and tomato was absolutely delicious. I know that does not sound complicated, but even that was an accomplishment for me and very healthy too (grainy bread, mozzarella cheese, fresh tomatoes, and olive oil).

On the flat-mate front, Tamara and I have actually interacted now and she is very nice. We talked a little about school etc. She, as well as everyone else, was very complimentary of my spanish, but I can hear myself saying the wrong things which is frustrating. But hey! that is why I am here, to become fluent and comfortable speaking the language.

Well tomorrow I start my classes and find out what I will actually be taking. Cross your fingers that I get into art history!

First Views of the City

This is just a quick update about how it is all going here in Oviedo.  Today, my point-person here Charo took me on a tour of the city so that I would be able to find my way to class tomorrow without getting totally lost.  The only tricky part about the trip is the massive amount of ice and slush covering the sidewalks.  Since the city is not used to getting this kind of weather, they apparently are unprepared with how to deal with it as well.

The walk to the university is maybe five minutes at the most.  Then another five minutes past that is the old center of town where there is a cathedral and many ancient buildings etc which I will be exploring on my own after my proficiency exam tomorrow at 10:30 am.  I promise after I explore the city, pictures will follow!

My roommate has arrived, but just barely.  She walked in and said hi and then she and her boyfriend/brother (not sure which) went out to grab some fun and walk around the city.  Her name is Tamara and she seems very nice, but honestly we haven't spent much time together yet.

Oh in good news, my bag arrived late last night!  All was intact, so I was able to unpack last night and settle in which was lovely.

Certain people have wanted to know about my food situation, so I will comment slightly on that.  Shops are closed on Sundays, so I stocked up on a random assortment of food but seemed to have forgotten key ingredients like oil and butter.  So on Monday I will go out again armed with a shopping list and some goals, but for now I have had pasta, rice and peppers, croissants, and empanadas.

Thats all for today folks! More tomorrow with some pictures.  <3  

Mi Apartamento

So I am currently sitting in my new SPANISH apartment in the breakfast nook looking out onto my little corner of the city of oviedo. It is beautiful it really is. At the moment it is covered in about an inch or two of snow which is shutting the whole place down. They are apparently not used to any snow, as the buses can't run, people are using umbrellas, and they are spraying the streets with hoses to try and get rid of the most beautiful type of precipitation. Anyway, I am in a two bedroom with a Spanish roommate (yet to arrive) who is a student at the school I will be attending. Apparently she is very nice, and has also had roommates through this program before which means she will not only be used the language barrier but used to the whole situation. She should be coming either tomorrow or the next day, it depends on the snow situation from where she is coming (haha, it just kills me how little snow they are able to handle!)


Anyway, back to my apartment. So two bedrooms, moderately sized with a desk, a bed, a sidetable, and two bureaus, then the living room which is bigger than it appears in pictures, and the kitchen which is also moderately sized. There is a washer in the kitchen but no drier (outside in better weather, a rack for now).

My landlady is also incredibly nice and helpful. She took me to the shopping plaza which is a two second walk down the street to show me the ropes of shopping in Spain. It is a much different experience, down to the different kinds of carts (more like baskets on wheels that you roll like luggage, with a long handle). You also have to buy your own bags, so I invested in a nicer quality one (for a whole dollar) so that I could use it whenever I go shopping.

All shops also close on Sundays, so it was important that I bulk up on supplies while I still could. Mostly I just bought things that I could use on multiple occasions: a stick of bread, empanadas (delicious!), pasta, rice, peppers, milk, eggs, things like that. And of course pringles for when I get homesick for American food.

My main bag has still not transferred from Paris, but should in theory be delivered to my doorstep at some point today, that is if the plane can make it in the snow. Luckily, I was very fortunate to have the advice to pack legitimately everything I could possibly need (except socks) in my carry-on in the event that my bag were to be delayed and I have an abundant supply of anything I could ever need.

In other news, I am no longer jet lagged (although still a bit on the peaked side) as I slept for almost a full 12hrs last night. Luckily I was so tired that I didn't even stay up thinking about being in a new place, as I am sometimes apt to do. All in all, I think I am going to be happy here. Thank you guys for reading!