Delta=Lame

   I am sitting in the atlanta airport right now and I thought I should vent....

  So I made it to my flight in london just fine, got on the plane and took off. Took sleeping pills and slept the whole way. After we landed in atlanta we had to wait for a half an hour to pull into our gate. SO that made us late and I missed my flight to salt lake. So I am now sitting here tired and I still have to wait 2 more hours!!!

   Other news... Spain won the eurocup!! First time since 1964! Heck yeah!! I am sporting my flag.... so happy!

  I am tired. Hopefully I get home soon.

traveling...

Hola amigos,

  What is going on? So I am sitting in the Asturias airport waiting for my flight to London and I am bored. I had to take the 12 o clock bus from Oviedo and my flight doesn’t leave until 3:30. Gosh! Haha no it is ok, but I have just been sitting here people watching for way too long. I can’t believe I am already coming home. I had to say goodbye to everyone yesterday and this morning and it was actually really hard! I cried when lizzy had to leave… so sad. Then this morning my host mom cried a little when I had to go. I will never forget the amazing experiences I have had in this little town. I have learned so many things I will never forget. I guess I should tell you about the last couple of days. So Thursday night Spain played Russia in the eurocup and kicked their trash, so of course the crew of us went straight to the fountain and went swimming! This time there were probably 600 people in this little area around and in the fountain, cheering and screaming and drunk. It was fabulous! Then Friday we had our last day of school. Well it wasn’t really even a school day because we just played trivial pursuit and then had a graduation thing. It was awesome we got certificates and everything. Lizzy and I had the brilliant idea to make those graduation hats out of paper, people loved them! Haha and after the graduation we all went to a café that Rubio had rented out for us and got all this free food, coke and wine. I had 5 cokes… wow that would be like 15 euro if they weren’t free. Haha oh well! Anyway then yesterday I just packed, got flowers for my host family, and then went to dinner with the rest of us left in town. Of course after dinner we ended up at the astrurianu one last time…

    So here I am, listening to Beatles music, enjoying life. I am sad to leave but excited to come home and start my next adventures. 68 days until I leave for Ecuador!

  Ok so here I am, in the gatewick express. This has been a crazy day of traveling for sure. I have gone from bus to plane to light rail to bus to train. Wow… I am tired. I am going to get to the hotel and take a nice long bath…

Done Done Done!!!

   So.... I just took my last test! I am officially finished with school until January... can I get a heck yeah? I love spanish but I am so done with school!!!

   Tonight there is the Spain vs. Russia futbol game.... good thing there are a lot of fountains in this city, I am going to go swimming tonight!!!.... if we win. Don't worry mom I will be good.

   I come home in 3 days... so crazy. Time to get a tan before Ecuador!!!

FUTBOL!!!!

Espana beat Italia in the EuroCup and that is great news!!! We play again on thursday and I bet it will be just as intense. Last night most of our group went to this all you can eat buffet, ate a bunch of food and watched the futbol game. Double overtime and a shoot out and we won!! Woo Hoo, you should have seen this place... everyone was honking and running around. There is a fountain in the middle of a round about and some native spaniards started stripping down and jumping into as their friends drove around and around the round about honking and holding their flags out the window. So I decided that since I am a local now I must join them in the water. So I took my pants off and jumped in.... what a great time! Anyway this is the first time in 20 years that Spain has beat Italy so it was an amazing time.

I am sick of walking 6 floors to my house everyday.... I have buns of steel now for shizzle.

I am home in 6 days... crazy daisy! Also a shout out to Dani for turning 20 today!!!! Holla.

Rafting in Spain

Hello! So I first just wanted to apologize for my lack of blogging, I have just been having so much fun that I don’t really have time to sit and blog, but I will try to post at least twice until I come home….

Well it is Saturday and I just got home from hanging out. Lizzy, Jonathan and I just went out to dinner and then the internet café. Nobody is really going out and about tonight because today we went riverratfting and the sun drained all of our energy! It is ok though because it was so much fun! So this morning we went to this cathedral that was awesome! It is on the top of this huge hill and it is gorgeous! I loved it, anyway then after we headed to the river. This place is awesome because we are so close to the beach and to mountains, it is like paradise! Anyway so we headed to the river and we were off. It was more of a river float instead of rafting because it was really mellow, but that is why it was nice. Four of us hooked our kyakes together and floated, chatted and tanned on the river. It was fabulous. Then at the end there was this bridge that we could jump off of which was pretty high. It was fun, I definitely was one of the first ones up there.

Anyway other than that this week has been pretty much the same. School, studying my little brains out, bars, dancing, ya know, the works. So great! We went up to Gijon to play that soccer game and got owned by the students up there. They are a different group though, a little more intense than my hippie classmates. We are all about peace and love and those Gijon people are pretty serious. Hahah that is really how I would describe the group I am with as a whole, just bunch of hippies. You should see what happens when we talk about politics…. Wow. Anyway we got owned but it is ok cause I got to see my guy friends! They are so funny. They all had the Spanish Mullet and the mustaches… so gross. But it was a fun afternoon.

Then the rest of the week was the same… I had a test Friday that I think I did well on, so to celebrate we all hit the beach for the afternoon. Oh how I love the rolling waves of Spain. Anyway tomorrow is going to be a busy day… church, then the flea market, then we are all going to a buffet decked out in our Spanish clothes to watch the Spanish vs. Italy eurocup game. Spain is going to take it all… you just wait and see! Haha Anyway I better be off to bed but I love you all!! I will be home in a week, how crazy. Ok goodnight!

Random bus stops

Well hello everyone! I can’t even remember the last time I posted so I thought maybe it was time to do another one! School is going well, I can’t believe I only have 8 more days of school! That is ludicrous for shizzle…. Right Ryan? Anyway so school is great and I feel so at home in Oviedo. I love my host family so much! And I feel like a total local now.

Anyway this weekend was our free weekend, which meant we had 4 days to travel wherever we wanted! So Lizzy, Jonathan, Will, Clare, Jacinda and I decided to head to San Sebastian, this beautiful beach town on the northern coast of Spain. So we caught the 6-hour bus ride on Friday afternoon and took over the back of the bus. Loud Americans. So we drove and drove and drove and finally made it to San Sebastian. The second we stepped off the bus we knew that the long ride was worth it. This place was beautiful! The town has a river running down the middle into the ocean and there is so much beautiful architecture and buildings everywhere. As we walked to the McDonalds where we were suppose to meet the owner of our hostel we enjoyed the view. So we waited for about a half an hour until Jules our British host welcomed us and showed us the way to the “Beach Palace”. This was probably the sketchiest place I have ever stayed! There were twelve of us staying in a tiny apartment with one bathroom… quiet the adventure. We later found out that this was an underground hostel and that having a hostel in that apartment building is illegal. Oh well! So Saturday we went to the beach and it was beautiful weather. Sunny and warm, and topless old Spanish women everywhere… true European style. Well after the beach we went back to the hostel and got ready for the night. We went out around 11 for dinner and danced the night away after. Such a great night! Sunday rolled around and we slept in until noon, woke up and it was a little overcast so we went and got a big breakfast and shopped for about an hour until everything started closing. Slowly the streets began to fill with men, women and children all dressed in their blue and white jerseys for the soccer game! I have never seen anything like this… people where shoulder to shoulder filling the streets, chanting, drinking and getting ready for the big soccer game. It was amazing, but a little crowded. So we decided to hit the beach again. After the beach we went to dinner and then went to a karaoke bar that night. We sang “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls and made many new friends. It was surprising how many Australians and Irish people were in this town, but we enjoyed the English! Then Monday we slept in again, got a big lunch, lounged around and boarded the bus that took off at 5:10. So, we were all settled in for our long bus ride. Halfway through the ride there is a rest stop where you can get out and eat or stretch for about fifteen minutes. So when we pulled into Santander Spain where the rest stop was on the way there Will, Christian and I quietly exited the bus trying not to wake Lizzy and Jonathan. So as we are sitting in the café enjoying out Spanish tortillas Will looks out the window and says, “I think that was our bus…”. I immediately jump to my feet and ran to the door to find that it indeed was our bus and we were stranded! Will and I found this hilarious but Christian… not so much. Well we finished our tortillas and headed to an Internet café to call Fernando Rubio and let him know what was up. Luckily we knew that there are plenty buses that run through Santander to Oviedo so we would be back in time for school the next day. So we figure everything out but we had to wait until 3:30 in the morning for the next bus! Hahah so we walked around Santander, got some Chinese food for dinner and had a grand old time. Meanwhile Jonathan and Lizzy and all of our luggage are in Oviedo so they put it in a locker for us at the bus station. So we boarded the bus once again and we all slept until we arrived in Oviedo at 6:30 in the morning. I immediately went home and to bed! So this weekend was an adventure for sure!

Today we are heading to Gijon to meet up with the other students from the U to play a soccer game against them. I am excited to see some familiar faces! I will write and let you know who wins the game… GO OVIEDO! Love you all…. Don’t worry too hard about me after reading this post either, getting stranded in a random city is all part of the fun, right? 

Pig ears and burnt almond fudge!

  I am loving Spain!! I want to shout it from the mountain top! I seriously love this place so much. So this week has been pretty exciting. I have just been studying hard and making friends. Thursday after school we went on an "excursion" to Gijon, a small town about 15 minutes from Oviedo on the beach. I loved this place a lot... well I love the beach a lot! We went to a little art museum, and then to the aquarium and it was awesome! I saw all kinds of fish and I felt like a 1st grader on a field trip. It was a huge aquarium though full of fish, sharks and penguins... simply amazing. After that we went to the beach and had some Gelato, could life get any better? The answer is yes...

   So friday was your typical party night. I went out after shopping at about 11 and stayed out until 4:30. I still can't get over how completely normal that is here. Anyway so we went to the little pub "asturian" where all the americans hang out. The bartender "john" is from oregon. This is a cute little joint with great cheap pizza and sometimes free coke. (John likes us). So saturday we had another "excursion". We met the bus at around 10:30 (half of the group hung over from the night before, I love the perks of not drinking) and we were off. We went to some cathedral in the hill towns about an hour out of Oviedo. It was cool, just another church. Then we were off to the most amazing beach ever!! And... it was sunny! So basically a bunch of americans that were almost glow in the dark because we are all so white took over this beach. I played a little futbol with some locals boys and took a walk with Tim my sort of professor. After spending 4 hours on the beach we all boarded the boat to head home. Luckily we weren't glow in the dark anymore, we were purple with sun burns! Anyway we had about 2 hours to get ready and then get back on the bus to head to our fiesta! So that night we went to this little pub where they feed us some healthy tradition. We had some bagpipes and traditional spanish dancers come and play for us and teach us to dance. Then we feasted on some local cuisine... mostly seafood, bread, and Sidera. Sidera is a famous drink in Austurias. It is like a strong apple juice that is alcoholic. Needless to say putting college students and unlimited, free alcohol in a little restaurant may not be the best idea... most everyone was plastered. It was hilarious for us sober people. Once we were full and happy we headed home to bed.

   So now it is Sunday. I woke up and went to the amazing little branch in Oviedo. After church 6 of us went to a members house for lunch. They fed us a traditional meal from Brazil (where they are from), so we dug in. After we finished the food, which was sort of like a hawaiian haystack they informed us what the mystery meat was... pig ears, hoofs, and tails.... can you say YUCK! But it actually was kind of good.... weird. Anyway now I am in the Oriental with the crew. My friend and I decided we wanted ice cream, so we ordered one and guess what kind it was... burnt almond fudge! I almost started crying I was so happy... I still am! Grandma would love it here! Anyway I am off to bed and to study.... I have a test tomorrow. I hope all of you are enjoying your lives. I miss you guys!! I can't believe I will be home in three weeks... so bittersweet. Anyway Adios!!!!

   

SOL!

So… the oriental (the internet café) is closed! Some random holiday, so lame. Anyway so now me and Jonathan and Chase are sitting outside trying to jack the wireless. I love my life! It is finally warm and clear outside…. Not a cloud in the sky! I am wearing my new green tank top and jeans and I am loving the weather, maybe I can even get a tan… doubt it. Anyway just wanted to let all of you know that it is finally warm and I am looking forward to the ballet tonight. I will let you know how it went.

I also just wanted to tell my family how much I love them! You guys are the best and remember how much you mean to me. I am having an amazing time and I would not be able to do this without you guys. Keep it real in the 801!

Best Madre Ever!!!

   Mom, I love you... but I also love my host mom! So on friday I wore these old black high heels that I brought to Spain to basically just leave here because they were so trashed. Anyway so I wore them out on friday and the cobblestone tore up the heels! Apparently my host mother saw them, but I had no idea. So today after I came home from school my madre brought my high heels in and she had gotten them fixed! She took them to this shoe place and had them put another heel on! How amazing is that. I am loving my host family. They are the best!

   Anyway I am in the internet cafe and I really need to do my homework. I just wanted to share this story with you all! LOVE YOU!

coke coke coke coke

   I am having the best time! Yesterday we went on our "day excursion" which was awesome. We left at about 10:30 in the morning and headed about an hour north to these ruins Castro de Coana. They were these awesome celtic houses. Great learning experience! Then we headed off to two fishing towns called Luarca and some other place I don't know the name. They were beautiful little towns. After we got home we all went for the siesta and then met at the cathedral at 11:30 for dinner! So late! But I didn't mind because we went out for SUSHI!!!! AHHH! I was so happy. Blissful in sushi. Anyway after we just went out and danced, some drank and we just had a great time. It is crazy how late these people stay out! I just down cokes to keep me going... 3 euro cokes!!! Can you believe that? Oh well... they are good!

   So this morning I went to church and it was awesome. They treated us so well and there was a baptism which was a cool thing to see. I met the missionaries and one of them comes home next week! Crazy. Anyway after church and the baptism we had food and it was great! They stuffed us full. Then I went home, took a siesta and now I am in the internet cafe with some friends! I am having an amazing time and making some awesome friends.... these kids are amazing! Anyway I must be off. Keep in touch all.