No Longer In Iowa

I don't know where to begin! This past week was better than last week in many ways, yet more challenging. I had my first negative experience here, and hopefully my last. Last night I was walking home with a friend, and a group of guys were walking towards us. Being in the middle of a conversation, I didn't pay much attention to them until I felt my arm pulled very roughly and came face to face with a young boy, probably about 13/14. He was trying to take my bag, and me not knowing what was going on yelled, "What are you doing?!" (in English, obviously so helpful). He kept trying to pull on it, but I didn't budge, unaware of what I should do. Luckily after about twenty seconds of him trying to drag it away, a motorcycle came down the street and he and the other guys took off. It was pretty scary and eye opening since I was pretty close to home. I was very lucky that my friend was there too, and that the motorcycle drove by, because the group of guys were pretty daunting. After it happened, my friend said she saw them fan out across the street making it obvious we were about to hit some trouble. It could have been a lot worse, but I ended up with my bag and an experience that made me realize I am no longer in Iowa. Until then I have just been under the pretenses that I could walk around, and do whatever I wanted as I do in the US.  Now I know I need to pay careful attention to my surroundings, and not be so naïve. My host family again proved to be very helpful and consoling as they quickly explained that this is very rare for Oviedo, and that they haven't ever heard of this occurring in our area. Also, they called the police, who informed them that they are aware of this group of guys, and were going to look into it since it occurred on a street with many cameras. Again, I am very lucky.

I experienced the typical weather here for the first time; rain, rain, rain. Asturias is known for its rainy, cloudy weather. However, according to my host mother, this winter has been quite the exception. I was excited in the first place that I had completely avoided an Iowa winter and the snow, but even more elated that I may be getting out of a very rainy season. I wasn't as lucky as I first thought. It rained a few times during the week, and a lot this weekend. I learned quickly from my mistakes to keep an umbrella on me all the time. Rain is so expected here that people own umbrellas like accessories. There are umbrella shops, and umbrella holders in almost every single place you go into. My host mom came home so excited to show me her new umbrella she got on sale. She owns about eight of all different patterns and designs.

Thursday, me and a few girls went to the huge mall out of town. Rebajas is going on (the whole month of January is the only time during the year that they have sales or rabajas), and we obviously had to take advantage. We had to take the bus, but the bus system was a lot easier than that I had previously conceived.   We shopped for a few hours, and only made it about half way around the first floor. Needless to say, we're going back again this week, when things are even more on sale, and before the sale ends. Everyone, get excited for your souvenirs :). Thursday night we met up with our advisors to talk about our experiences thus far, and after were surprised to find out that we were going for dancing lessons. We had a teacher and we learned the basic steps for the Meringue and Salsa, and had to put it to use as we were paired with others in the place. In my case, a 30 year old man. Haha, it was very fun all in all.

The highlight of my week was our trip with our club, ESN. We went to Pais Vasco, which consisted of the cities Bilbao and San Sebastian. It took about five hours to get there, but it was worth the wait. We went to San Sebastian first, which was very rainy. It is right on the ocean with a famous beach, and yet another breathtaking view as we took a trolley to the top of a mountain. We then checked into our hostel, which was a very new experience for me. It wasn't that bad, but I didn't allow myself to spend time thinking about how clean the sheets reallyyyy were, or how often the bathroom was cleaned. We made new friends from Boston, Massachusetts, and Italy. The next day, we went to Bilbao, known famously for it's Guggenheim Museum of Modern Art. While I am not really a museum person normally, I liked it a lot. They had a headset we could listen to for each exhibit, and that made me appreciate each piece a lot more than I would have. We had a lot of free time in between the museum, and me and my friends Lara, Kelsey, and Ellie played cards and ate a lot. We started off having pinchos (small sandwiches), found a sweet shop and bought unique looking cookies, and finally left there to find some churros. While there I decided I absolutely needed some french fries, and thinking that they would be small since they were 2 euro, I was surprised with a platter. We ended up all sharing them and eating them as fast as we could because we were running late. As usual, it didn't really matter that we were late since nothing ever sticks to schedule. I thoroughly enjoyed both cities, preferring Bilbao slightly due to its very beautiful older part of town. I was very tired when we returned yesterday, but it turns out I don't sleep as well I wish I could on buses. However it was very hard to even consider sleeping half the time because our tour guides, Ruben and Yoni, were constantly playing disco music loudly, and singing songs into the speaker system. It was pretty annoying at 7AM, but very entertaining in the end.

More differences I've noticed. Well, first of all, everyone eats ham here. ALL THE TIME. It is literally in everything I've eaten so far. I usually don't eat it in the US, but I've grown to like it since I really don't have many options. Its pretty weird. Speaking of meat, I have eaten far more here than I ever do in the US. I like meat, but at home I always prefer the side dishes. While here, I told myself I was going to try everything that Cruz made, and I have actually enjoyed all of it. She told me she noticed a difference from their culture and our culture, and told me that tomorrow she is teaching me how to properly use a knife and fork. She says most Americans do it wrong, and I'm positive I do, since I make a complete disaster of my plate every time I try and eat something. Kind of embarassing, but that should be interesting. Another difference I've noticed is how cold they keep the apartments. It's not just mine, it seems to be any building. I think my mom started to notice how often I kept my coat on, and the massive amount of layers I started wearing and showed me how to turn up the heat. A privilege I still haven't gotten in my own house ;) just kidding dad.

The 17 days I've been here have proved to me quickly that I've made the correct choice in studying abroad. Before I left I was worried that I wouldn't like it here, or that I would get really homesick over the course of five months, but I know I've made the right decision and am so blessed for the opportunity that I have gotten. It's so great too that I have such great family and friends that are willing to bend their schedules and make time for me even with the time change. It really helps more than they know. My host mom told me tonight that my Spanish is getting better and better which is a relief, but I find it hard to believe considering I stumble my way through many sentences. I'll be posting pictures soon from my trip this past weekend, and I'm going to try and blog more frequently so that these posts aren't so long!