The Last Few Days

Good Morning,

Today I am leaving for Oviedo, a town in the North of Spain, and will be going out to Salinas to stay with my friend Pilar, who was in Cádiz with me and will be going to Granada, and her family. Every summer she comes out here to visit her family so not only is her Spanish really good, she is also extremely familiar with this part of Spain. Her family is letting me stay with them for free, which means I have a little more money to spend on the next few days at museums and things. I am planning on taking a day trip out to the national park up here called Picos de Europa. It was the first national park in Spain and is one of the most visited national parks in Europe. The exact place that I will be starting my hike from is Covadonga (in case you want to google map it). After taking some time away from the huge crowds that are all over Spain right now because of the Pope being in Madrid, I will go back to Pilar's for another night and then head over to Ribedesella to see one of the oldest caves in Spain, Cueva Tito Bustillo. While it is not the one in Altamira, the one that most people know of, it is supposed to be amazing and I will actually be allowed into the cave. The Paleolithic art is very similar to that in Altamira and there are stalactites and stalagmites throughout the cave as well. After this little adventure if I have time I will try to make it over to Altamira before going to Bilbao for the night. In Bilbao I will obviously go check out the Guggenheim but I think my friend Dorotia and I are going to take a day trip out to San Sebastian to see the beaches and some of the touristy
attractions over there. Finally, on the 23rd I will get on a bus at 8pm and start the day long trip back down south to Cádiz to pick up my luggage and will then go to Granada on the 25th. I check into my program on the 26th and start classes the following monday. While it seems as though I have tons of things to do in the next few days, I know that everything is going to continue to fly by. I cannot believe that my two week break is already half way done and that I will be in Granada shortly. So far during the past week I have been speaking more English than Spanish because most of the people that are staying in the hostels speak languages other than Spanish but they do know English. While traveling with Dan, Reid and Dorotia I have realized that a huge majority of the world speaks some degree of English and that while this is nice and great, in terms of communicating with people, it also means that when I am tired of dealing with pushy European people I cannot bad mouth them cause more likely than not they will understand what I am saying. Like I briefly said before, I am ready to not be around tons of tourists that, apparently, don't know how to walk properly, read street signs, or, like a woman this morning, know how to use the most basic coffee pot to make coffee. I think this woman wanted me to make it for her even though she is like 55 and should know how to figure out how to use a coffee maker. Sorry for the rant. I just realized that it is 9:00 and my bus leaves at 9:30 so I gotta go. Pics will have to wait a few days.
Love you all!