Caca de Vaca

     Saturday morning was another excursion and Friday night I enjoyed myself too much so that I forgot to set an alarm, but luckily my friend Christina came in and reminded me and woke me up. I woke up in my dress from Friday night and wearing one shoe, so needless to say Saturday morning had a rough start. I got myself ready and made it to the bus with plenty of time to pick up a nectarine and a red bull before an hour or so ish bus ride to some random town. We got to this little town, the name of which I forget, and walked around, saw some pretty bridges and chilled in a cafe all together for a while before getting back on the bus to go up to the lakes (the main excursion). 

     The next bus ride was nauseating and bumpy and near deathly because the bus was driving up the most narrow road in the world up a giant cliff passing by other gigantic buses. I closed my eyes for most of it but when I wasn't, there were some phenomenal views. We eventually got up to the lakes which were surrounded by cows that you could go up to and feed and touch, the place I think is called Covadonga but I could never remember that, plus there were cows so I refer to it as Cowabunga. We had about 2 hours at the lakes, so we walked around for a while and then watched the cows sleep, eat, buck each other, and other exhilarating cow activity. We laid by the lake for a while and I got a slight sunburn that is now just a tan, bonus. It honestly felt like being in the Sound of Music with our surroundings, it was so pretty excluding the significant amount of cow shits everywhere that made for a lovely scent. 

          After relaxing with the cows in the sun by the lake, we got back on the death road to go down to the town of Cowabunga to see its cathedral. 

       We made it safely down the mountain and stopped in the town for about an hour, a small group of us went to the first restaurant we found and split calamari because we were really hungry and hadnt eaten lunch yet. Then I went to this pretty cave shrine thing and put my hands in and drank out of the holy water that I guess gives you luck for marriage. Keep your fingers crossed. Then I headed over to the pretty cathedral which was the main attraction of the town and looked out over the view. We were up in the mountains so the views were beautiful, like living in the gorge or something. We rounded up the troops and got on the bus one last time to head home to Oviedo, an hour and a half bus ride away.

The holy water that gives you marriage luck

       We got home into Oviedo at 6:30 or so and got poured on during the walk home. The weather was very strange, it was hot as hell all day, sunny and extremely humid which I hate and then walking home it felt the same (sticky and humid) but it rained on us. We were all exhausted from a long night/day of adventure with the cows and the last thing we wanted was hot rain that made us sticky and made our hair big. We hung out for a while, showered and rested up before getting ready to go out again. We hit up the Plaza Del Sol like we always do and drank some beers while socializing with other people from our program (the Germans). 

      Sunday was a very relaxing day full of rest and sleep which was very much so needed. Emily, Sarah and I went to the little Sunday market that Oviedo has where they sell anciently old books and socks as well as knock off designer underwear and 80's prom dresses. Quite the selection. We walked around for a while and I got some little things, then we got a kebab for lunch before heading back to lay around and sleep some more. Cowabunga was definitely worth the trek and was really fun and Sunday was the exact kindof day we all needed to get ready for our last Monday of school in Spain.

Oh Man

         We set our alarm to wake up at 6:30, so that we could finish packing leave at 7:30 and get to the airport by 8 for our 9:30 flight. Apparently, we subconsciously decided that we would have to go out of here and leave this place the same way we came in. In a ridiculous and stressful fashion. Sarah and I woke up simultaneously at 8:20, and that called for a gigantic fuck as we popped out of bed and I jumped out of my top bunk. We packed, got dressed and bounced from our room by 8:32 or so, went downstairs checked out and literally ran to the taxi stop and told the guy we were in a hurry because at this point it was 8:40 and the airport was at least 20 minutes away. We eventually made it to the airport at around 9:06, ran up to the kiosk thing and got our boarding passes, then we got to security and it was a huge line so I asked the lady if we could skip it or if there was anything we could do since our flight was already boarded. She kindly let us go in the elite security line and we made it through with 7 minutes to run to our gate and get on the plane. We got there, got on the plane and found our seats at 9:27. Probably the most ridiculous morning, and the most travel stressful weekend of my life. To top off the ridiculousness, our entire flight was full of fathers and priests from a youth group going to Madrid for some world youth day with the pope or something (the pope was in Oviedo the day before we left and everything was really fancy all day). One of the fathers asked us if we were participating in world youth day which I found ironic since we were coming from Amsterdam and we werent exactly being holy all weekend. So we made it on the flight and were on our way back to Oviedo. What a weekend.
Here are some pictures from our trip:

Dam Square

coffee shop cat

hilarious

coffee shop

our neighborhood and pancake spot

After a 3 hour plane ride and a 5 hour train ride, we finally made it back into Oviedo around 8:30 and we settled in and told everyone our stories about our crazy weekend. If there was one picture to sum up Amsterdam, I would say it would have to be this. 

sweet life

Dam

    Our second day in the city started with us waking up early-ish to go to the Anne Frank House. We got in the disgustingly long line and waited for about an hour and a half before we got to go in, but I filled the time using Sarah's really shmancy camera to take some quality photos.

      House boats are really popular in Amsterdam and the concept fascinated Sarah and I, we would see people in houses on the water just making dinner or watching TV and we thought that it was a pretty cool way to live. Sarah took this gem of me while waiting in line.

      Once we finally got into the house, we spent a good amount of time inside. The history of the house was so rich and so surreal to be seeing in person, we saw the entire secret annex and saw the actual entries of her diary as well as her room. We were able to look at old pictures of her and her family and walk up into the annex the secret way that they used to have to enter through. Seeing the Anne Frank House was probably one of my favorite things that I have ever done because I have always been so intrigued by that story and to see it so closely was definitely a highlight of my trip.

Anne Frank's House in the middle of Amsterdam

The stairwell that Anne Frank would climb to hide

The secret entry way to the Annex

       After the Anne Frank House, we took a taxi to the flower market and walked along the street where they sell seeds for flowers. Amsterdam and Holland in general is known for tulips so there were a lot of tulip bulbs, we walked around and got flowers for our moms and did a little shopping before getting on the free tram again to go to the Van Gogh Museum.

    
       The Van Gogh museum was really cool to see as well, there wasnt a line which was nice and we got in and saw the history of Van Gogh and all of his most famous paintings chronologically which was interesting to see the progress. We spent about a half hour in the museum before seeing the "I Amsterdam" sign and taking touristy pictures in front of it.

        We then made our back to our neighborhood and shopped for the last minute things we wanted to pick up before leaving in the morning, we got some food at a restaurant across from my favorite coffee shop and people watched while enjoying the vibe of Amsterdam.

Sorry Gramma, but I didnt do anything illegal!

       We then dropped everything off at our hostel and walked back toward the canals because to end our perfect weekend, we were going to go on a canal cruise. We payed and got on our boat and waited for the captain to take us on our thrilling canal tour of Amsterdam. Only a few more people showed up for the sunday night cruise, and they all happened to be couples in their thirties or so. Amidst the four couples kissing and romanticizing each other, the captain welcomes us aboard to the lover's canal cruise. So there Sarah and I were, the youngest and only non couple sitting in a nice booth about to embark on the lover's canal cruise. Perfect. The canal cruise was really cool because we did it at night, so all of the lights around the city looked pretty, especially the lights on all of the arcs in the canals. The tour was about an hour and we surely enjoyed our cruise made for lovers.

most famous bridge in Holland 

           We walked through the bright light streets one more time before going to our hostel to pack up everything because we had to start our trek back to Oviedo early in the morning. I think it is safe to say it was one of the best weekends of my life.