We made it safe and sound to Spain. Our travels went fairly smoothly. We got up early in order to navigate London and get to our final destination - Luton Airport. Luton is about 40 minutes north east of London. Once we flew into the Asturias airport, we were unlucky enough to discover that the bus had left ten minutes before our arrival and there wouldn´t be another one for two hours. Alas.
By the time we got to Oviedo it was probably about 6pm. Other than a new bus station, it was very much as I remembered it. All of my old haunts are still here. Yay! It was interesting to me how I could find my way around even though I don´t have a clear memory of what streets to take to get from place to place. I could just trust my feet and go.
We had an eventful Asturian evening. Well... I should qualify that. We did many very Asturian things, but a real Asturian probably wouldn´t have done them all at once and at night. First we went for a walk. Russell was game to come along, though I think he was about ready to pass out (we only had 4.5 hours sleep the night before). The main goal of the jaunt was to find a pay phone so I could let my host family know I had arrived safely. The first one we found worked but no one was home, so we continued wandering (reminiscing for me) and eventually found another phone to call from. That time I did get a hold of them. While we were walking we saw the University, the Cathedral, the Indoor Market, and one of my favorite coffee shops among other things. Once the phone call was taken care of, we set off to find dinner.
I wanted Russell to have an authentic meal, so we went to the Sidreria Asturias on Calle Gascona (Carolyn will know what I´m talking about) and we had an excellent Asturian meal. I had Fabada, a bean stew with chorizo and various other Spanish meats in it (so tasty!), and Russell had grilled shrimp and a nice slab of Cabrales blue cheese (a local specialty). Of course, we accompanied this with two bottles of Sidra. The waiter watched the Soccer game while he poured the sidra. Very authentic.
After dinner we walked around a bit to take in the night life. Saturday nights were always the big party nights when I lived here. I wasn´t much in the mood for a real night out, but I did think it would be fun to try and find some of the bars I used to frequent with my host sister and her friends. We used this as the aim of our next stroll, and I was able to find most of them even though I was never sure of their location when I lived here before. The streets were pretty empty, though. I think the university must either be on vacation, or people are away for the holiday this weekend. Normally around midnight you have to push to get through the crows on certain streets. Last nights there were groups of people at regular intervals, but nothing so crowded. After our walk, we topped our gluttonous evening off with churros and chocolate. We slept quite well.
Today we were invited to lunch at my host family´s house. My host mom made paella (one of her special occasion specialties). We arrived a bit early and chatted while she was cooking. The house looks exactly as it did when I was here before (5 years ago! Ack!) Juanamari (my host sister) was still out. She had gone to visit her boyfriend, who just got a job in Galicia. The two of them arrived shortly after us, though, ontime for lunch.
We started the meal with paella, bread, and wine. Now, this is a big meal, but if you´ve had a Spanish lunch (the big meal of the day) you will know it is foolish to believe there will be only one course. Or rather, you should know. I picked up on the courses to come, but too late to warn Russell. My host mother forced another half plate of paella on him before I could warn him that the meal was far from over. Next was a pan-fried steak and salad. Very good, but starting to be much more than we had planned to eat. Finally, we topped the meal off with a selection of pastries and coffee.
Following this meal, Russell and I took to the couch. We didn´t move much for the next hour. At that point, my host parents had to go out and vote in the local elections, so we took our cue and rolled home.
Gotta love that Spanish home cookin´!
We´re invited back tomorrow afternoon.
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