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.
