Oviedo

My friend Megan has been studying in Oviedo this semester, so I've been meaning to visit her since January. Earlier last week she reminded me that she only had one weekend left in Oviedo, so I figured it would be a pretty good time to go. What better time to visit than the weekend before her final exams? Luckily Megan is not a procrastinator like myself, so she was ready enough for her exams that she was ok with spending the weekend hanging out with me instead of studying.

Friday afternoon (on May 10th) at 2:00 I started my trek north to Oviedo, the capital of the autonomous community of Asturias. The busride was about 5 hours long because we stopped in quite a few of the major cities along the way. The mountain scenery was beautiful and it was interesting getting to see what cities like León looked like. I also had a lot of reading to catch up on for my history class, so the busride flew by.

the view out the bus window

Oviedo didn't have any hostels listed on hostelworld.com (which seemed very fishy to me), so I had to pick one based off of google reviews. After failing to find any hostels with cheap spots in an 8-12 person room, I ended up getting a 1-person room in a hostel for 22€ per night. It was the nicest hostel I've ever stayed out... basically it was a hotel. I had a bathroom with a shower to myself and a room with a queen-sized bed and even a TV. It was located in downtown Oviedo, so it worked out perfectly. I guess I put to much faith in hostelworld.com. Lesson learned.

Look at the size of the bed!

After Megan helped me find the hostel, we explored the city a bit and she showed me around the university where she's taking classes.

Megan was incredibly well-prepared for my visit. She had picked up maps of the city from the tourism office for me, had brochures about the Feria de la Ascensión that happened to be going on that weekend, and even had a list of possible things to do in Oviedo along with their prices and when they were open. I will try to steal her ideas and be that organized when my family visits Spain in June... no promises, though.

Friday night we met up with a group of Megan's friends from UNI and they showed me their favorite bars. Spain has some interesting themed-bars. My favorite was a place called "The Batcave" that served "batjarras" (instead of jarras) and constantly had a Batman movie running on a small TV in the corner of the bar.

Saturday morning, Megan and I hiked up Monte Naranco to see the Christ statue that overlooks the city. We left at around 10am and got back at around 2:00, so the hike only took about 4 hours including the 30 minutes we spent at the top.  Megan's friends warned us that the trail disappears halfway up, so we just followed the road up to the top. I was impressed by all of the runners and bikers we saw; I was exhausted just from walking up! The Cristo was modeled after the famous Cristo in Rio de Janeiro, and overlooks the entire city. The view was amazing! It was definitely worth the hike up.

An old church on the way up

Megan near the church. You can tell we're towards the
bottom because she's still smiling! ;)

view of Oviedo from the Cristo

My best Cristo impression

After making it back down the mountain, we had lunch at a restaurant near the famous calle Gascona. It took us a while to find a place because so many people were in town for the Fair. We both got the menú del día (daily combo), a special offered by many restaurants in Spain, consisting of several courses with several choices to choose from for each course. We both had the same kind of vegetable soup and it was incredible! Although maybe we only thought that because it tasted like corn and we're two Iowans that haven't had corn in 6 months.

Calle Gascona

After lunch Megan and I walked through the Feria and visited the Cathedral downtown. The Feria was like a giant Farmer's Market with a lot of homemade breads, cheeses, meats, and other items like knives, wallets, and wooden shoes.

The Cathedral only has one tower and people
say it looks like a hand with the index finger
extended (Megan's demonstrating).

Some baby goats at the Feria

We were both exhausted, so we decided to take a siesta and meet up later. I took an hour power-nap and then walked around for a while on my own, doing some people-watching in a park.

Saturday evening we used the hostels free wi-fi to watch UNI's graduation that was being streamed live. Probably seems like an odd choice since I don't even go to my own brothers' graduation ceremonies... (sorry guys!)... but Megan's boyfriend was graduating and also giving a speech because he just served as UNI's president of the student body. Graduations aren't that bad when you can spend them laying on a bed eating McDonalds.

Saturday night Megan and her friends took me to a Sidrería to try some sidra. Oviedo is famous for its sidra (literally cider). It's kind of like a cross between beer and wine (I think). They forgot to warn me how a sidrería works, so I was very perplexed at first. The waiter takes a bottle of sidra and holds it above his head as high as possible. Then he pours it into a glass in his other hand at waist-level. Then the server quickly sets the glass on the table and someone is supposed to drink it before the fizz disappears. It was entertaining to watch. I forgot to take pictures or video, but here's a video from youtube: sidra pouring.

Sunday morning I found my way to the bus station and headed back to Salamanca. The weather in Oviedo stayed nice all weekend (besides a little drizzle Saturday night), which was very unusual. Megan said it's been raining almost every day all semester. I guess I picked the right weekend to go!

¡Hala Unión!

After four months in Salamanca, I finally made it to my first UD Salamanca soccer match (or is it soccer game? I don't really know what the proper term is... Maybe I'll stick with partido de fútbol). As big as soccer is in Spain, Salamantinos don't get very excited about their local team. Instead, everyone picks either Real Madrid or Barcelona and cheers for them. That's probably because while Real Madrid and Barcelona are fighting for the top position in La Liga, the highest division in Spain, Salamanca is in the middle of the pack of the Segunda B division, the 3rd lowest of 4 divisions.

Salamanca plays at the Estadio Helmántico just north of the edge of town. It would probably be a 40 minute walk, but Jack (my roommate) & I were able to catch a bus near our house that runs on game days. We weren't sure when the bus left, or if there even was a bus for sure, but my very reliable source (an online UD Salamanca forum) claimed there was one that left an hour and a half before game time. The game was at 6, so we showed up 4:30pm on Sunday afternoon expecting to see a crowd of crazy soccer fans waiting for the bus. Nobody was there at first, but eventually a few more fans showed up. The bus ended up leaving around 5, in typical Spanish-time fashion.

We got to the stadium and bought our tickets for the south fondo (endzone) because the endzones were the cheapest (10€) and a friend from ISA said that the south side was more fun. She was right! Some Salamantinos might not care about the local team, but there was a big section of dedicated fans that stood the entire game, chanting, cheering, and booing. There was no assigned seating in the sections, so we could sit anywhere on the south side. Our seats were great- I could have high-fived Raúl Moreno after making a good save if it weren't for the security guard nearby.

Salamanca was playing Atletico Madrid B (their "A" team is in La Liga), and ended up winning 3-0. Forget about the frog, Jack & I must be good luck!

There were signs of the crisis: The jumbo-tron and smaller
electronic scoreboards appeared to be broken.