A stroke of luck, karma, blessings, etc.

I don't even know where to begin.  I am here, in Spain, and my hands are shaking because I am so nervous about trying to speak Spanish.  I just finished unpacking at my new home--my "mom" is very, very nice and patient with my Spanish.  She gave me a ton of pamphlets of things to do in Oviedo, and she has two teenage sons [ yep, you guessed it would happen to me mom, but don't worry, they're Stephen's and Michael's age ] and lives in the most beautiful area. 

I can already tell I will absolutely love it here.  When we were flying over Asturias, it was just green hill/mountains filled with trees and cute little villages.  And as we were riding on the bus there were blue houses splashed here and there--my kind of place.  And I live in the most beautiful part of town and there are peacocks in the park!  It's awesome.  And it is what will keep me hanging on until my Spanish improves.  I am just so blessed to be able to be having this experience, sometimes I feel a little guilty about it [ especially after how amazing London was ].

At first I thought I was doing okay.  I asked a man in Spanish where to get bus tickets, whether I paid with cash or card, and how much they were.  But then I went to go brush my teeth and accidentally went into the men's bathroom.  Worst part is, I finished brushing my teeth before I noticed that I was in the wrong room . . . I was looking for paper towels and instead found urinals and thought, "Hmm, that's not right."  Good to know I can sort of speak a new language but can't read pictures.

Anyway, the people in our group all seem really nice and I'm sure that once I get a hang of things it will be just splendid.

To be honest, I'm still giddy from what happened to us last night [ yes, even after sleeping in the airport like a hobo].  After meeting with Alexa for dinner at Kensington Creperie,

Megen and I decided to just go and see if there happened to be cheap tickets to Wicked.  [ We had helped a girl from Jordan find the right tube stop earlier on our way to the Portobello Market, so we were kinda banking on good karma to kick in. ]  With the encouragement from Alexa and Allison, we hustled over to the theater crossing our fingers that somehow, someway, something would work.

. . . I am so glad we helped that girl.

First section, great seats, student discount.  On a Saturday night!!  This is how we felt:

pure joy, disbelief, shock, excitement, etc.

It was amazing.  And Meg had never seen the play before so I was especially excited for her.

The rest of our day was good too.  Our kind friend Tony [ from the front desk of our hotel ] offered to give us cheap rooms when he heard we were sleeping at the airport . . . we would have done it but the only way to get out for our flight on time would have been a taxi so we said no.  After checking out, we just hit up the Portobello Market, got some great Indian food, and did a bit of shopping.  [ And don't worry, we were especially careful at the Indian restaurant so as not to repeat last year's Bombay House fiasco.  We asked them about 6 times if the food had nuts, they probably thought we were really annoying/stupid, but w. ]

Yay for nut-free naan and curry.