Asturias

For my last vacation during my time in Spain, I went with the family to the north of Spain to the province of Asturias. Ever since I got to Spain, people have been telling me I have to see the north and that it´s the most beautiful part. But, I didn´t understand what could be so great about it...until I got there. We stayed in a pueblito called Salas, and the original point of the trip was because the Escolanía, or boys choir that William sings with, would be performing in the church there.  We spent the first day driving around, and I can honestly say I´ve never seen landscape more beautiful in my whole life. It was all mountainous and everything was covered in green.  The ´road´ was a winding path through the mountains that hardly seemed like a road at times and in many places we would have had trouble if another car came around the corner. For the first lunch, we had a stew called Pote which has chorizo in it which is a Spanish sausage. I´ve had chorizo before and never got the big deal, but apparently the Asturians know how to do it right and it was the most incredible chorizo I´ve ever, and probably will ever, have.

On Saturday, we drove around to other little villages along the coast and something very common in Asturias are the aldeas. Aldeas are basically groups of houses, but it´s too small to be considered a town and they don´t have like a town hall or anything. There will be towns that include all the outliers, but these people can literally live in the middle of nowhere and that´s saying a lot coming from a girl from northern Michigan. We spent a lot of time on Saturday wandering around Luarca, a town by the sea. The lunch we had there was awesome. It included: fried squids and a black paella. A black paella is black because they put squid ink in with the rice. It was absolutely delicious.  Our hotel in Salas was in like a little old castle. It had a little courtyard in the middle and was extremely accomodating after all of the hostels I´ve stayed in over the past year. I´d forgotten you can go places where they make your bed for you and provide a towel.  The concert on Saturday night was awesome. I teach about half the boys in the choir so they were excited to see that one of their teachers had come all that way to see them perform.  In class, when they´re acting up, it´s hard to remember that these boys sing like little angels. We had another amazing meal afterwards and we sat around with some of the other parents and it was just so fun for me to sit there and watch Spanish versions of my parents and their friends sit around in a restaurant having a good time. It reminded me of being home a lot with how loud it was and all the jokes flying around.

On Sunday, we went to Oviedo, which is an actual city. We happened to be there during the Artesan festival and all the people were dressed up in period clothing and selling food and goods at stalls around the old town. The boys had another mass to sing at in the afternoon so we went to that too. I came the realization that I´ve now been to several catholic masses including several in Spanish, two in Italian, and one in German, but I´ve never actually heard one in English. We had lunch at the marketplace and set out for the long drive home. I had an awesome time, and it´s definately a place I would go back to. Maybe someday I can do the Camino de Santiago. It´s a very famous hiking trail through that part of Spain and it can take months to finish depending on the trails you take and stuff. It sounds like it would be an incredible experience, especially being able to enjoy all that landscape in the north. 
I started saying goodbye to my classes at school because I´m done teaching on Wednesday. But, last Wednesday was the last class with one group of 4th graders because they´ll be on a field trip this week. One group of girls wrote me a song and sang it. Another boy was crying and we thought someone hit him. When we asked him what was wrong, his friend said he was crying because I´m leaving.  I thought it was a joke and I asked him to tell me what was wrong and he told me, ¨me da pena,¨ which means like, I feel bad or it makes me sad.  It was the saddest, cutest thing ever. Then the teacher got all choked up and I got all choked up. Saying goodbye to the kids is the hardest part. I´m really antsy, however, to get back to my house, family, and country. Although it´s sad to be starting with the goodbyes, I´m ready to start something new again.