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Starting bright and early (4am to be exact) on June 25, 2010, I will be embarking on my biggest adventure to date. I will be in Rome and Paris for one week before I arrive in my final destination: Spain. I will be living with a family in Oviedo, Spain from July 4 -July 31, 2010. They don’t speak English in this town, so needless to say, this will be quite an experience that will most definitely contain some pretty entertaining stories. So, stay tuned and look for updates of my summer in Europe!

Monday, July 26, 2010

Brennen, We´re Moving Abroad

I spent the entire weekend at the beach and it was HEAVENLY! On Saturday, we woke up at 11am and took the train about half an hour away to a town called San Juan. Literally the only thing there was the beach. But it was so beautiful!! Again, it was surrounded by mountains and dramatic rocks. The water was crystal clear and there was hardly anyone there. There were board walks every where taking you across the seagrass to different parts of the beach or up the mountain if you wanted. There was even a little beach house with bathrooms, showers, snacks, and of course, a bar. We didn´t use any of that though because we came prepared with our lunches that our host moms packed for us. We found a nice spot on the beach and parked ourselves there for the day. The weather was perfect: sunny the whole day, warm enough to take a dip in the ocean but not so hot that it was uncomfortable laying out, and there was just the right amount of breeze. We just relaxed and layed on the beach all day. It was so wonderful! I could do that every day of my life and not get tired of it. Here are some pictures of San Juan Beach:


After hanging out for a while, we got back on the train to Oveido. I went home and needed a shower really badly because I was sweaty and gross and covered in sand and salt from the ocean. Well, this is where my night gets a little more interesting and a funny story begins. I go into the bathroom, start the shower, and the water will not get hot. In fact, I let it run for a few minutes and it only got colder. My water has always been iffy - it will be hot for about a minute or two, then turns freezing cold so I have to turn it off. Then, I turn it back on and its fine for another 2 minutes and that is the process of my entire shower. Well, it has never just been straight cold. So, I walk out of the bathroom to ask my mom what the problem is, and she´s gone. She just peaced out. So I start snooping around the apartment and found the hot water temperature adjuster. I turned the nob that had the shower picture next to it and waited like 1/2 an hour. Nothing happened, so I went to mess with it again. Well, as I was turning the nobs, my host mom came home. So, I had to close the thing really quickly and run out of there. I didn´t have time to put the nobs back where they were, so I was really nervous that she would find it and yell at me later. Anyways, I asked why there was no hot water and she didn´t know, so I had to take a freezing cold shower with a migraine (I forgot to mention that my head felt like it had gotten hit by a train. Ya, I almost got sick at McDonald´s it was so bad. Don´t worry, I was fine). So I took my shower, and then went to hang out with friends for a bit. When I came home, she had a little story for me. She said that after I left, she started getting really really hot. She kept opening all the windows, but it wasn´t helping. She was sweating, and having to drink a lot of water and it was bad. Finally, she figured out that the radiators had been turned on somehow. (They don´t have a heating system, they just have radiators in every room). Well, I had accidentally turned on all the radiators in the house and completely baked her out. I didn´t admit to it, but she knew. Oops!!

Anyways, so on Sunday, I went back to Ribadesella which is the beach that I went to last Saturday on our excursion. It was the one with all the rocks. I loved it so much that I wanted to go back. Me, Liz, and Courtney (I know, name dropping. Sorry) took the bus about an hour away to Ribadesella. Oh my goodness, I´m in love! It is the cutest town ever, on probably the most beautiful beach I´ve ever been on. And there are even super cute houses right on the beach! The weather is amazing all year round and they don´t even have to worry about hurricanes!! Brennen, have I sold this place to you yet?! Because, we´re going to live here. It´s ok, I can speak Spanish for us, no worries.
This is a picture of the really cute/amazing houses right on the coast. I´m SO jealous of whoever lives there!

Anyways, we got there at about 11, so we took a little hike first. There is a mountain with a church at the top that you can see from the beach, so we decided to check that out. It overlooks the ocean as well as the whole town. It was so, undescribably gorgeous! We took a picnic up and enjoyed the view while we ate our lunches. I was for real in heaven. Like, I´m not kidding, this is what heaven is going to look like and I am so excited! Ok, I won´t keep you waiting any longer while I describe this awesome place to you. Here are some pictures:
This is a view of the coast and the Spanish flags. I don´t know what the outer two are, but the light blue one in the middle is the Asturias flag (which is the region of Spain that Oviedo and this town are in), and then the red and yellow one is the national Spain flag.


Here is a view of the whole town of Ribadesella. Tiny, but adorable!


This really reminded me of Pirates of the Carribbean. I know this is not in the Caribbean, but the view is very similar and the old cannon with this look out made me think of it.
This is the view from the top of the mountain!


The view looking off the other side of the mountain.

Me at the top!!

After we had our lovely lunch, the morning clouds had burned off into a gorgeous day. We treked back down the mountain to relax at the beach. But, on our way back to the beach at one of the boardwalks there were a ton of cute craft vendors set up. It was kind of like an art fair. It was so cool!! It was really neat to look at everything. I gave in at one booth and bought something. It was a really cute vendor with pressed flowers. There were necklaces, earrings, journals, and handmade candles. I loved the candles because they had really pretty pressed flowers all over them, so I got one. Also, I need it for my new apartment!
Here are a few of the stands. The one with the woman in front of it is the flower one.
There was also the cutest swing ride. It was all wooden and all of the swings were different ocean animals. It was so old fashioned that the man who ran it was pedaling on a bike looking thing to make it go. It was so cool!! I´ve never seen anything like that before!
After that, we got to the beach and relaxed. It felt so good! I even had a nice little nap in the sun. After an hour and a half or so, the tide started to come up. But it was perfect timing, because we were packing up to go over to the big rocks on the other side of the beach. Last time, the tide was really low, so we could go out and climb on the rocks, but this time the tide was so high that we could only get onto the closest rocks to the land. It was really cool because it looked completely different from last time. The water was SO blue, I could hardly even believe that it was real!

Here´s me in the ocean before the rocks.
Compare this picture with the one from last week. It doesn´t even look like the same place!
We enjoyed the view there for a bit and then took the bus back home. When we got to Oviedo, Liz and I really felt like a nice cup of hot chocolate, so we popped into a café. We didn´t know what they called hot chocolate, so we were looking through the menu trying to figure it out. They had a list of their hot drinks and one of them was just ¨chocolate¨ so we though, well the hot is probably just implied since with was the hot drinks menu so we went with it. Liz changed her mind and got coffee, but I still really wanted hot chocolate. So, I ordered it and when it came out, I kid you not, it was a mug full of piping hot melted chocolate. Straight chocolate. I just looked at it and then Liz started laughing, so of course I did too. That is just my luck. It seems like this kind of thing always happens to me. I was so mad because I really wanted some hot chocolate! I drank a little of it, but couldn´t have much. Liz had some too, but we still hardly made a dent. Then, we decided to splurge and order churros to dip in it. After all, it was the same chocolate that we got when we ordered chocolate churros a few days before. Anyways, I guess now I know that ¨Chocolate¨ on a hot drinks menu is not in fact our American hot chocolate.
Well, I cannot believe that I only have 5 days left here. It is so weird and has gone by SO incredibly fast!! I´ve had such a great time, and am going to try to make the most of each day that I have left here.

4 comments:

  1. Wow, it's SO beautiful! I can't wait to see all of your pictures!

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  2. Incredible Sweetie!! Thanks for the beautiful photos. What do people do with a cup of melted chocolate? I love you. Dad

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  3. Your pictures are truly enchanting, especially of Ribidesella! I think we'll all move there. It looks like a village from a fairy tale! A perfect honeymoon spot perhaps?Maybe one day we can all go there and rent one of those fantastic houses on the beach- our Spanish Bella!

    Come home with a heart and soul full of treasures to savor for a lifetime!
    Love you. Mom

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