Asturias...not Austria

Prepare to have your breath taken away!! Seriously, Asturias is probably the most beautiful place I have ever visited. Not constructed beauty either…no sir, this is 100% natural, all God’s handiwork. Last weekend, I had the amazing opportunity to visit this normally rainy, normally green wonderland. I could go on and on about how great it is but I am just going to let the pictures do the talking…less reading for you, less typing for me!

Asturias is the northern region of Spain, between Galicia and Cantabria, which will remind anyone of any picture of Ireland you have ever seen. Filled with mountains, hills and even beaches, this place just screams “I’m beautiful! Stare at me!!”





On our agenda for the weekend was to go up to the Picos de Europa, or Peaks of Europe, National Park. This is basically where Spain’s northern mountain range, as well as the mountain range that becomes the Alps originates from. Before heading up to the peaks, though, we got to visit the town of Covadonga, where we saw stuff like this:




Then the drive up. Oh snap, it was amazing!! This is what most of the way up looked like…

In the actual national park, there are also two huge lakes that formed there over the many years these mountains have been around. Where does the water come from you ask? From the crazy amounts of water that are dumped on this region in the form of rain, that’s where! This is the view from up top.


And of course, when you are on top of a mountain, what are you obligated to do by law?

Frolic…

Act like Gollum from Lord of the Rings…


And sing “The hills are alive with the sound of music!!”

Yeah, I’m a dork but I know that if y’all were there you would be thinking the exact same thing!

Next, Cangas de Onis, where we stopped to grab some authentic Asturian food called fabada and some arroz con leche. Cangas has one main thing to attract tourist, a genuine Roman bridge with a replica of the Cross of Victory used by Spain during the Reconquista.



And final stop, Gijon (pronounced Heehon), the beach town that we stayed at for 2 nights! Again BG didn’t hold back and booked us at a 4 star hotel that overlooked the beach. Goodness, I love that school. Hehe…Anyway, the old town was gorgeous but on striking detail in their skyline was this sculpture.


Its name kind of translates in the Hugger of the Horizon, of course it has a much more artsy tone in Spanish. And then to finish off the visit and this post I went for a swim…

Yeah right! That water was freezing cold!! I highly recommend that anyone visit Asturias at some point. As my literature professor said, “You haven’t lived if you haven’t been to Asturias and Texas.” OK, so I threw in the last part, but you know what I mean. OH, and to anyone who hasn’t found out yet, I bought tickets to my next destination this past week, Oslo, NORWAY! WOOT WOOT for Scandinavia and Viking country in December!

London...continued!

Alright then. Day two! After being totally exhausted from all the day one excitement and sleeping in a wonderful bed at my bed & breakfast, I awoke early the next morning to get the most out of my day. Started out by going to the South Bank where I would find stuff to keep me busy for a good part of the morning. First stop was Tower Bridge! Apparently, this is the bridge that is often confused for London Bridge. FYI, London Bridge is actually not at all impressive, especially after seeing this:



Walked across this marvelous construction and enjoyed every second of it. I stopped by the Tower of London but got nowhere near entering it...It was just a bit too expensive for me. However, I did get to take a good riverside/skyline picture...



So after that little trip, I went back to visit the outside of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. I only visited the outside because, again, it was a bit too expensive for me.



Next stop, was the Tate Modern museum that was lots more fun than I thought it would be. Of course, lots of weird stuff that's called art and other very very neat stuff. I got to see tons of work by Andy Warhol, Dali, Picasso, Jackson Pollock, and even "Water-lillies" by Monet. I left a very happy camper! There was one exhibit that I took a picture of that I wish I could have experienced but the whole "interactive art" thing turned the Tate Modern into a theme park for children.



However, this view was totally worth going to the Tate Modern if I didn't enjoy my time there...



After this, I met with Kym, the YL person in Central London who had actually arrived there about 3 weeks ago! Had a fantastic conversation with her all about YL stuff and her own experience. Then after that I had the greatest adventure...I went out to go see my friend P.W. Gopal playing at a small church outside of London!! What I thought would be a simple train ride turned into a train/bus/taxi ride that lasted close to 2 hours!! Seeing P.W. was totally worth it, though.

And now Sunday! By this day, I was extremely exhausted but still extremely excited to see as much of London as I could stuff in one day. Instead, as soon as I got to my destination I just stayed there...the British Museum!! It's been a dream of mine to make it there someday and the fact that I spent the whole day makes me really, really happy. Of course, my favorite part was the Egyptian exhibit! To see all those ancient artifacts, like the Rosetta Stone, was simply unbelievable...I didn't take too many pictures of those artifact though and for a good reason too...Those kind of things you can really only enjoy in person. I did snap one shot inside the museum though to share...



To finish off the day, I went to Piccadilly Circus to catch me a quick movie to kill a few hours before my flight. I went and saw Volver, a Spanish movie by Almodovar which I HIGHLY recommend! It's said to be an Oscar contender and there is even Oscar talk for Penelope Cruz (which in my opinion is incredible, especially b/c I'm not a fan of her...still she was great in the movie).

And of course, what better way to end this adventure post than by sharing what kept me well-nurished (or at least alive) during this time in merry olde London!




Yeah I kept it nice and simple. Alright, well that ends my English adventure...up next is Asturias!

Foggy Streets of Londontown

To start off, this is a picture of a possible pair of shoes that I am buying for 35 euro…Just take a wild guess at which ones I’m buying.



LONDON!!! Time to report to the world how this wonderful metropolis treated me. Well, to start off, it is just now hitting me how I actually spent 3 days in a huge city all by myself and survived! I can’t tell you how incredibly adult I feel by having done that. Just another testament that I can take on the Amazing Race. Think you would be capable of doing this?? Let me know and you can be my potential Amazing Race partner! The clock is ticking on this decision because I’m applying for the show in less than 7 months!

Alrighty, now London. When I arrived to London Luton Airport on Friday the 13th, it was close to midnight and there was no way for me to get to the city and have a place to sleep so the airport became my bed. To my surprise, there really were a lot of people sleeping at the airport, so many, actually, that I had trouble finding a good spot. This is where I slept and the money that I guarded with my life as I slept:





Cozier that you can possibly imagine. Of course, the cold floor didn’t make for the best night’s sleep. Morning comes and I catch a bus to London! About an hour later (Luton Airport is REALLY far away) I got dropped off at Baker Street, home of Sherlock Holmes, and in the northern part of Central London, mapless I might add as well. So now, here I am just looking around thinking “Oh snap! What am I going to do? Where am I going?” So I walk, and walk, and walk…Pretty soon I run into an apparently barricaded US Embassy that I wasn’t allowed to take pictures of. I keep on walking and eventually find myself at Buckingham Palace!



Not as big as I thought it would be, what with the Queen of England living there and all, but impressive nonetheless. Now you might be asking, “Why in the world are you walking? London is a big city with lots of public transportation.” And I would answer, “True, but that transportation costs money. And with a crappy exchange rate of 2 dollars for 1 pound, I am not about to spend all my money there.” Little did I know that eventually I would. Hehe. Anywho, still mapless and wandering, I get to Downing Street, home of PM Tony Blair, and other fancy buildings. But seeing this is what got me even more excited!



With Big Ben as my guide, I get to the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. Very nice place to just sit and stare at. I got lots of pictures of them but I must be selective so I don’t drown your internet with my pictures. The best part about this discovery of Big Ben was that I got there close to 11 am! You know what that means, right? 11 wonderful chimes of that HUGE clock. Got a video of that that I can show on my computer because I have no clue how to minimize it and e-mail it to people.





After Big Ben, I found a map and went to check out St. Margaret’s Cathedral, the first Catholic church to be built after England went Protestant. This was completely different than any Spanish church I have seen and beautiful in it’s own way. No pictures allowed inside but you can see the outside without any problem at all!



When I got done with this it was about time to go check in at my bed & breakfast. After a quick peek at my map, Earl’s Court, where my bed awaited, didn’t look too far from Westminster where I was. So again, I decided to walk. 3 hours and lots of kilometers later, I got to my place tired like WHOA!! This extreme exhaustion was remedied, however, by walking by a lot of neat places, like St. James Park.




Nice, huh? Now, I got all checked in and it was getting close to evening. There was still tons of London to see. So while my feet and body were begging for rest, my eyes and exploring self decided to get up and drag the rest of me along for the ride. However, at this point, I was against walking back to the other side of London that I had just come from. I folded and went and bought a 3 day transportation pass. This made me feel extremely dumb after having walked as much as I did. Then I remembered all the great things I saw and those dumb feelings went away real quick. Next stop, St. Paul’s Cathedral, the 2nd largest cathedral in the world!



I got there too late to do the touristy visit but right on time to attend an Evensong service. In this service there was only singing of praises and psalms to God by an amazing children’s choir accompanied by a few older men. The best part about this wasn’t just being able to attend a service in an amazing house of God but being able to do so from the choir seats right by the altar!!!! I got there early enough that I was asked to move up to those seats with a few other people. What a privilege! What an amazing experience…I will never, ever forget it.

To wrap up the evening, I then went down to Leicester Square (pronounced L-eye-ster) and saw me the great American musical, Avenue Q! What a hilarious show. Outrageous, really. I never thought I’d see puppets doing what they did in that show! Some good songs from it: The Internet is for Porn, What Do You Do with a B.A. in English, and Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist Sometimes. Yeah, that’s the kind of show this was. Hehe…Ok, well that is enough for now. And to think this is only day 1!! Days 2 & 3 will be up later this week.

Spanish holidays...

The Spanish love them some vacations! Seriously, these people find just about any reason to celebrate life and being Spanish. I personally have no problem with that because that means more days off for me!! Last week was an extremely short week. Starts off with Monday being Día de Cervantes (because it was his birthday) so Alcalá was all about getting their party on! They dedicated 2 weeks specifically to these festivities but Monday was the day to be in Alcalá. The medieval fair was kicking and bringing TONS of people out into the streets to enjoy a bit of Middle Age fun. This is what it looked like:



Crazy huh? That’s not even the craziest thing though! They had some intense food for sale at different sidewalk shops. For example, they had my host mom’s favorite:


DEEELICIOUS! Yeah right!! That picture was as close as I got to that pulpo. Grossness if you ask me. I know being abroad is all about expanding my horizons but nothing could bring me to eat this after looking at it. And, of course, Día de Cervantes would be incomplete without an appearance of the man that made him famous, Don Quixote, with his trusty sidekick, Sancho Panza!



Alrighty now fast forward to Thursday, Día de la Hispanidad or Dia de Pilar, the patron saint of Spain. Everyone in Spain was out and about for this day. Similar to Independence Day in the States, minus the whole independence thing. Let’s just say it’s a party celebrating being Spaniards. So, the government also chooses this day to celebrate the armed forces and have a HUGE parade of all the armed forces. Take a look:









Yup that is a whole lot of military people! They got a little bit of everything. My favorites were the ski patrol and the legionnaires. Seriously, what other country can say they have special skiing troops and African desert troops! The parade is such a big deal that even the Royal Family came out to celebrate. I was able to get pictures of some of them waving at me as they drove away…I guess they heard of my reputation of falling when I get close to world leaders. Hehe



After this parade, I gotta say that I felt a bit more patriotic towards Spain, and I’m not even a bit Spanish! Well, since they gave me a free flag, I can’t help but like them more.



Come back soon for some London pictures/stories!! 3 days alone in a big city produce a whole lot of adventures!

El Escorial...resting place for royalty

WOW! People told me El Escorial was going to be really nice but I had no idea just how nice it really is. It is SO nice that nice is probably the worst word to describe it! El Escorial is a little town about 50km out of Madrid, or a short one hour train ride. This town is pretty much known for the amazing monastery that is the resting place for all the Spanish royalty and dominates the skyline of the city. I went to El Escorial for a retreat with a group called Syncronations. What this group does is help Christian study abroad students meet up with Spaniards, helping set up intercambios (language exchanges) where both people can learn from each other and practice their speaking skills. At the same time, you, of course, share your life and minister to your new Spanish friends. They also provide a bi-weekly Bible/culture study of Spain and a place for some great fellowship. It is a fantastic organization that I am extremely excited about being a part of while I am in Spain. Plus, I can tell that God wanted me there for sure…after all, how common is it to meet the twin sister of a friend from high school that is from Harlingen, someone that goes to the same small school in Massachusetts and knows a friend from high school (*cough* Angie *cough*), and be with like a bajillion (or about 10) people that actually know where Harlingen and the Valley is? Yeah, you read that right. Apparently you have to leave the country to meet other people that know Harlingen or the Valley…

Ok enough chatter and more pictures! Well, this is the sweet view we had from our hotel.





Enough to make you really jealous for a bit isn’t it? It’s ok. I’m pretty sure I’d be extremely jealous if I was looking at your pictures right now. Before we got to go inside the actual monastery, we went on a hike up to the Silla de Felipe II. From atop a nearby mountain, Felipe II, who commissioned the building of this gorgeous place, watched the progress made on the construction. He had a good eye because look at what he was able to see…



Well, after the retreat was all done, a few of us went to check out the monastery. What a great move that was! Just look at what I found inside…








Sorry if the pictures are a bit blurry, but taking pictures without flash is tough! Hard to believe people lived with this sort of luxury. That last picture is just the ceiling decoration! But I have saved the best for last! When I saw this, my mouth seriously fell open and all I could say was wow…



This is another ceiling decoration but a painting of course. I could seriously just stare at the ceiling forever!!

Ok, well that’s all I got! This weekend I am off to London all by my lonesome so I am in for quite the adventure. I leave on Friday the 13th so as most of you know I’m pumped! Don’t freak out because that is, first of all, my lucky day and, secondly, the day you can find the cheapest tickets ever!! Flight for about 75 Euro and bed & breakfast for about 25 Pounds. Yeah, I’m a bargain hunter, I know. Hehe…Two and a half months before I see all of you lovely people again!!