Moving across the sea

Dear world/friends/self:

I have decided that the easiest way to share my travels is to put all the pictures and text I want together on a blog. And so, after much deliberation I have decided to write the very cleverly titled "Tyler's Travels". I expect, just like my personal journal and correspondences, that I will forget to write anything for long stretches of time. When I do get around to it though, I will let people know via facebook or something.

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Soooooooo, yes. I live in Oviedo, Spain! Very exciting. After a week of quasi-homelessness I have a place to rest my head again. It wasn't easy though. After 18 hours of travel I decided I would try and see all of Barcelona in a day and a half, and daggummit I sure came close. The coolest three things I saw were:

The Sagrada Familia,

the beach in Sitges,

and the Castellers. It happened to be this huge festival called La Mercè while I was there, and one thing they do is have a competition to build towers of people, called Castellers. I believe one group built a tower 7 levels high, with a group of men at the bottom and a small child at the top.

Barcelona is definitely a very cool city. But honestly, I was SO ready to move on. I even arrived at the airport 3 hours early just so I could get on my way. I was tired of the noise and the fear of getting pick-pocketed and tired of Catalán. Catalán is the regional language of Barcelona, and while it is a nice language, I really came to Spain for Spanish, and I was getting tired of strangers asking me directions in a language I don't know.

Oviedo is a dream--just Spanish all the time, every one. It's just assumed everyone speaks it, whether you're Chinese or African or pale as a ghost. In fact, I find anyone 30 years and above knows little more than "hello, how are you."

Now I'm all moved in and comfortable with my familia. Here's a street view of my home--you can also zoom out to see where I'm situated.

Here's my bedroom.

Here's a (zoomed in) view from my window. That little white thing on the mountain is a statue of Christ.

I have explored the town center a few times, but haven't taken any pictures really. There's lots of cool stuff though. I'm about a ten minute walk from school, and a 15 minute walk from the center, which has a lovely cathedral and TONS of bars and shops. The drink of choice in Asturias is sidra, apple cider. It is always served by pouring it from high up into the glass in small amounts and drinking it really fast. I personally am not a huge fan. It tastes fine, but you finish a bottle in like 2 minutes (cuz you always share). It's kind of rushed drinking and everyone warns me of the dangers of sidra.

Anyway, that's all for now. I will next get some pictures of the city and my university.

Hasta luego!