Church in Oviedo

My first weekend in Oviedo, I went to church with my hostmom and sister. Mass was at 11:30, which seems really late, compared to at home (10:00) and in Cedar Falls (10:30), but when you consider the fact that they eat lunch so much later here (My family eats at 2:30) it kind of makes sense. They go to Saint Francisco Javier. It was a more modern looking church and it even had a powerpoint presentation to go along with Mass. That was helpful because it made it easier for me to follow along. It seemed kind of like a children’s mass to me, not a normal Mass. My sister went to sit up front with the other kids and several different kids helped with different readings and such.

There were also 2 baptisms that day: Pablo and Claudia. It was interesting to try to compare the differences between the baptisms in Spain and those in the United States. There were some little things that seemed different. Like I don’t think they had all the parents and godparents make the sign of the cross on the child’s forehead and they made a bigger deal about the symbolism of wearing white. Something else different about Mass was there was only one reading before the Gospel.

Source

This last weekend I went to church with my hostmom and sister again. First we went to the church at the convent. Apparently February 3^rd is the only day the nuns come out for church (or something like that, I’m not sure that I totally understood what my hostmom was saying).

Source

It was something special anyway, and their Mass started at 11, so we went there first and left after a little bit to get to our Mass on time. Again there was a PowerPoint presentation. Now I just need to learn how to say the Our Father in Spanish. They don’t include that in the presentation; I think they just assume that you know it. :)

This weekend I think it was all the Confirmation students that did all the readings, but still all of the children sat up front. I kind of like that they seem to have guitar music at every Mass and the priest directs questions towards the kids during the homily. Again there was only one reading and the Gospel. I’m pretty sure it was the traditional one from Corinthians ‘Love is patient, love is kind.’ Someone let me know if I understood the Spanish correctly!

It's the little things...

There are certain things right now in Spain that always make my day:

1. Sun. It rains so much here, like right now it is pouring, so I cherish the sun whenever it appears.

2. The smell of freshly mown grass. As mentioned above it rains a lot here, so everything is still green even though it's February and they have to mow the grass every once in a while.

3. A brand new dry towel. It is very wet and humid in Oviedo so my towel never gets all the way dry.

4. When hot water comes out of the faucet. In many public restrooms there is only a cold water faucet and in my apartment it takes too long to get warm, so I get really excited when I get to wash my hands with warm water.


As you can see, most of this list includes warm things. Probably because it's cold and rainy here, but it's warmer than Iowa, so I probably shouldn't be complaining. :)

Segovia

Sunday morning, bright and early, we left on a bus to Segovia. Unfortunately, it was rainy on Sunday, but we still had a great time exploring the city. Segovia has the best preserved stretch of Roman aqueduct, which was really cool. 

We also visited the cathedral in Segovia, although I liked the one from Salamanca better, and Alcázar, a castle. In the Middle Ages, the monarchs of the Kingdom of Castile resided there. 

The Aqueduct

The Cathedral - no pictures were allowed inside

Alcázar

Look at his pointy shoes!

The chapel inside Alcázar

What I really like about it were the ceilings. Every single one was painted and they all had a different design, some were even 3D. Here is just one of the many different ceilings:

For lunch, Olivia and I tried cochinillo asado which is roast piglet, a tradition Segovian dish. We did not get a whole pig like this; we just got a serving.

On Sunday all of us tried ponche, a Segovian dessert. Ponche consists of 2 layers of cake filled with and egg yolk cream and covered with marzipan and powdered sugar.

One of my favorite things about Segovia was the different textured walls on the outside of buildings. They were all very pretty designs and they were all different.

Salamanca and Segovia were both lovely places to visit, and I'm glad we got to go!

Trip to Pais Vasco, Part II: Bilbao

Sunday began with a city tour of Bilbao. It was very similar to that in San Sebastian. If you wanted to hear what little they had to tell you about the different places in Bilbao, you had to fight to stick to the front, because they didn’t wait for everyone to arrive before speaking and they didn’t talk loud enough for everyone to hear.

You can barely see Bilbao's newest and tallest building.
This picture shows the mix of new and old architecture in Bilbao.

Look at the lovely brown river...

This is a theater that unfortunately hasn't had
as many productions put on because of the crisis.

Finally, it was time to go to the Guggenheim Museum. 

No pictures were allowed inside, unfortunately, but actually my favorite part was probably the building itself. 

'The Puppy'

My favorite piece in the museum was called ‘The Matter of Time.’ 

Source

You could walk through it or view it from above. You can read more about 'The Matter of Time' here. 

On our way home from Bilbao we stopped at a castle (that had a fence blocking it, but some people cross to go under the fence anyway) and a church on an island (more like a peninsula). 

Some people chose to hike out to the church. I didn’t go because I thought they had said we couldn’t because it would get too dark, but then people went anyway. Finally, we returned home.

I do not plan on traveling with ESN again. The trip seemed very unorganized and they changed the schedule randomly. The city tours were not worth my time, and I don’t enjoy traveling in a huge pack with 50 Americans. I have concluded that even though it’s more cost effective to travel with group rates, I would rather take fewer trips that I actually enjoy than more trips that I do not.

¡Salamanca!

This past weekend 3 of my friends and I took a trip to Salamanca and Segovia. We were intending to leave Friday afternoon, but had to leave later because the bus we were going to take was sold out. Lesson learned: next time go to the bus station before the day of to buy your ticket.

We arrived in Salamanca at 1:30 a.m., but unlike the United States, the bars in Spain do not close at 2 a.m., so we were able to meet my friend Nathan, who is studying in Salamanca.

Saturday was a beautiful day. I didn’t even wear my coat half of the time. First we checked out the Roman bridge.

 Then we met Nathan and went in the cathedral. In Salamanca there’s an old and new cathedral that are connected to each other. 

We elected to go into Ieronimus, which allowed us to climb up into the churches and see some exhibits, such as these musical instruments.

Instrumentos de viento - madera
Chirimia contralto.
Barrilete de bombarda torneado con respiraderos en roseta.
Constructor: Bassano

Instrumentos de viento - madera.
Orlo bajo, oboe barroco (sin pabellón) y chirimía contralto.
Constructores: Hans Rauch y Jeorg Wier?

Trompeta marina

Music by Antonio de Yanguas who was  the Maestro de Capilla
at the cathedral in Salamanca from 1718 to 1753.

Throughout the morning we also visited La Casa de Las Conchas, the grand entrance of the original University of Salamanca (it is said in order to pass your exams, you must find the frog hidden in the façade), and the Plaza Mayor. 

Casa de Las Conchas

Point to the frog!

Plaza Mayor

Eventually Nathan went home for lunch and the girls stopped somewhere to get food. We got the menú which lets you pick 1^st and 2^nd courses, dessert, and drink. My first course was paella, which was delicious, the second was pork stuffed with cheese and peppers, and dessert was natillas, which tasted kind of like pudding. 

Paella

Natillas

We then headed back to the hostel for a siesta and later made a picnic-type supper and met up with Nathan again.

Our hostel was in a very ideal location, it was very close to the Plaza Mayor. We got a 4 person private room, since there were four of us. What we got was 2 double sized beds and a bathroom to share. What would have been really awkward is if there were 3 of us and a random person.

The next day we were off to Segovia!

Trip to Pais Vasco, Part I: San Sebastian

This past weekend, I travelled to San Sebastian and Bilbao in a trip led by the ESN Oviedo organization. We left at 7 in the morning on Saturday and took a 5 hour bus ride to San Sebastian. Upon arriving in San Sebastian we went up in a funicular to see a panoramic view of the city. 

We hiked up to El Christo later in the day.

There were some people sailing in the bay.

At the top there was also some carnival type rides including this sketchy rollercoaster. Not many of the attractions were open however.

After that we had time for lunch. Most of the students on the trip had lunches packed by their host mom. My mom gave me a huge chicken sandwich and 2 clementines. My group ate ours in a park that had this interesting clock.

After this, the ESN members led us on a city tour. I was a bit misled when I saw there would be a city tour on the schedule. I thought it meant there would be an actually tour guide, instead it was members of ESN who didn’t know very much information about the things they were showing us, giving the tour in English to 50 students who are supposed to be studying Spanish.

The following day was a holiday celebrating Saint Sebastian. Festivities technically began at midnight Saturday, but we did see some people already dressed up and this band of middle school aged children performing. 

In addition, San Sebastian was also hosting a soccer game against Barcelona. I believe they said that these flags were in support of the San Sebastian soccer team.

The last item on the agenda in San Sebastian was to climb up to El Christo. El Christo is up the mountain in a fort.

We were told to not climb on the canyon.

Then we got back on the bus to head to Bilbao for the night.

Stay tuned for Part II: Bilbao!