Recap of my first night here: to sum it up, I went to bed
terrified on my first night. If I ever so much as said hi to anyone in the
U.S. who speaks Engligh, trust me, I missed them greatly that night. My host family speaks SO.
FAST. They realized that I wasn’t understanding everything completely, and they
have slowed down since. They’re an older couple with three grown daughter and
three granddaughters. My host mom, Angeles, talks a lot lot, but she’s sweet. My
host dad, Tomás, is a singer, so he’s gone a lot singing at weddings and at
churches. They are essentially like a pair of Spanish grandparents that treat
me as their own.
So, I stink at following directions and I got lost THREE
TIMES in one day. Tomás dropped me off at school at the Instituto, then afterward,
I assumed he wanted me to find my way back alone. So I tried. I wandered for a very good chunk of time, breathless and
sweaty before I finally stopped to ask a police officer smoking outside (everyone smokes here) of the station
where to go and luckily, I understood his directions. After that, I couldn’t
find my parada (bus stop) to return back to school for our tour. Finally, after
asking probably three different people, I found it and made it back in time for
the tour. And then, after we had an
excursion through the city, a welcome by the town’s dignitaries (honestly, I
was so tired by that point that I stopped trying to decipher much of the accent
so I can’t remember who they were) and a fiesta by the marina, I was on my way
back home. (Side note: We ate some intriguing foods there. I tried fried
calamari… and liked it. There was something with tuna in, not my favorite. Their
tortillas are amazing, it’s like a potato omelet, not the tortillas we know
from home. The desserts are amazing. Never fear, everyone I hang out with here
knows by now that I am super obsessed with chocolate.)
There I was, after the party, just waiting for another
opportunity to get lost. Luckily, I found the right parada and got on. I didn’t
know where to stop though, so I asked the conductor and he told me two more stops.
I sat patiently and only dropped my Spanish dictionary twice. When I got off,
someone stopped me and inquired whether they could ask me something. Off guard,
I wondered if I was being mistaken for a local who happened to know where all
the tapas bars were.
Funny, really, way hilarious,
but no. Actually, this was Loreto, the granddaughter of Angeles y Tomás. She
had recognized her grandmother’s writing on the note that I had shown the
conductor and she happened to see my humongous, nerdy dictionary that fell out
of my mochila. Anyway, it was a tender mercy because Loreto, the granddaughter,
is so great. She understands me
better than anyone else in the family so far, and she knows when to stop to
listen and how to communicate well with me. I’m pretty sure my host mother
called up her entire family to tell them that I knew nothing going on around me
after that first night with them. Loreto found out that I happen to actually know
un pocito of the Spanish around me. Anyway, that was amazing. She stayed and
talked for hours, which got me to not be so afraid to speak up.
Hoy, vamos… Wait. Ahem. Today, we went to school for the
first time, full day. The past two days have been a whirlwind, and I mean the
cyclone with mucho viento (wind). It’s true. Verdad. I’ll try to speak in English
now… Anyway, so I was so super tired in class today. My teachers are both from
Spain and I think they teach at the Universidad de Oviedo. I go to an Instituto
Antiguo. It’s very cool and I like my cinema and art history classes. They’re 2
hours each though, so it gets pretty looong. And it’s only been one day.
Anyway, I’ve made a ton of new friends because our program is
super small, so I know all 22 people that I’m traveling with now. Tomorrow a
ton of us are venturing to Covadonga, where apparently there’s some cool ruinas
y catedrales. Also some caves and waterfalls. It should be pretty legit. I’ll
take lots of pictures.
Hasta luego!
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