Away

Away for Navidad!

not much happening

The view over the hill from Oviedo looking south towards Leon.

A day indoors

The rain has come back so a day indoors studying spanish. Lastnight my friend told me that the mine museum is only a simulation.... so we didnt travel 300m underground, the lift just took us about 20m under ground, where they had built a reconstruction of an old mine.
Instead of the nativity scene here is Nube again, cute.

Visits

We have enjoyed having U.K friends over to visit, so another tour of the local eateries, one lunch we sat in a beautiful square flooded with sunshine, eating hearty asturian food. Now ive realised that the festivities have crept up on us, only four days until we visit Scotland and Brighton. Another visit we had was a donkey in the hills. Javi's family have a small holding a few minuets out of the city, with dogs and sheep and chickens and Nube the goverment sponsored donkey. She is a rare breed locol to these hills, a youngster and friendly. We fed her carrots and bread rolls. The view from the land is beautiful snow capped mountains and rolling green hills. Javis dad gave us some honey liqure to taste, very smooth and perfect for a winter afternoon. I think im going to to be a hill billy soon.

300 meters underground

I started Spanish lessons this week at the adult comunity college for imagrants. Yesterday we had our first school excursion, a free trip to the museum of mining in Mires. We got to go in a noisy lift with no lights down 300 meters. It was cold down there but the air was fresh, I suppose it would have been fog/ dusty with coal back in the day. We walked for about 2 km, with a guide who had a micraphone attatched to one of thoes baby listening/ speaker devices inventive portable amplification I thought. I didnt understand much of what she said. My class is very amusing it is like a united nations meeting, the teacher says something then the Algerian woman asks the Morrocan woman what was said, they speak in french, then the camoroon guy says something in Spanaroon and everyone laughs because no one understands what he said! It goes on like this for two hours, we get there in the end. The teacher is very energetic. Other nationalities include Serrielionie, China, Russia, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Philipienes and Brazil.
The picture is of a few pupils with the Profesora in the centre.

Happy Birthday Rob

You can link to the Satorialist http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com/
And imagine that he took a picture of you
looking all street and what would he say
he loves the way you have matched the colour of your cords with your trainers, and realy lift the
outfit with the red gold and green.
Happy Birthday to you.
xx

Back to school

Today I joined the community college for Spanish lessons, they all started three months ago so im a bit behind. Everone is very friendly and already have in jokes about the Africans being laid back.... as two pupils arriaved an hour late. I have homework to do and will be at school six hours per week, so I should improve some! This week we are going on a trip to visit the historic mines, Ide better learn the words 'HELP ive fallen down!'
No photo today so heres a bit of the epic nativity.

The dress code of fur

I snapped this lady in her fur coat and leopard pattern trousers, her expression is quite fierce so I presume she absorbed some animalistic powers, the fur coat is a must have for the over 40's. On the theme of fur, here is the cat refuge in a courtyard of the old Cathederal, people feed them scraps and there is a tiny kitten.

A new park with pine

A ray of hope and the weather has decided to be kind again, so we headed up the hill to a Roman-esque chapel. It overlooks Oviedo, we then walked through a parque Florida and had a winter picnic beside a pine forest and looked at the mountains from afar. We met an old local man who pointed out some walks we can go on to some village away from the city. We collected some pine branches and cones to make our own Christmas tree at home.

Rain report

It has rained for days, at one point I was stood under a bus shelter as it hailed, so I jumper on the bus and went to the super shopping mall where I did a bit of indoor walking. That night it stopped raining a group of about thirty youthes came out to have a fight below our window.
Later that night we went a music gig, saw a Norwegin noise duet and a good band from Barcelona called Coconut.

A morning in Aviles

We went to Aviles on the bus, it is Oviedo's ugly sister city with many factories and port industry. After walking around for and hour demotivated by lack of pritty plazas it seems that we just got lost on the wrong side of town. We found a beautiful park with black swans in the pond and some realy beautiful plazas and a funny fountain. We had morning tea in lovely bar with low ceilings and wooden beams and looked at the many photopraphs on the walls of open mic performances which is what the bar is obviously popular for. That afternoon in a gap in the rain me and Rob went for a jog in the park, surprisingly enjoyable.

A good stretch

Last night we played twister with some friends, left with aquing muscles

Another public holiday

Today I could see snow on the hills
nearby.Some marzipan sweets in the local cake place.
A scene from the nativity, with running water under the bridge.
For anyone that doest know, you can click on any of these pictures and view them a bit bigger.

Text

Im getting annoyed with the layout of this blog I cant seem to put the text where I want it ever.
The picture below is a walk I went on. As you can see the clouds came in and today its a wash out. Here is a small part of the nativity. As well as a rather odd looking beast which is guarding over the large scale nativity, oh yes we have nativity overload here.
My friend who is from here said he would like to some day be able to enjoy things that are presented in this city because they are good and brillient, and not just because it is funny through irony.

Overlooking Oviedo

My favorite hobby on a rainy day

One of the warehouses in Madrid that stocks
all the 10 000 Chinese shops around Spain. here are some choice items which I just had to have. I like looking in these shops because they are so full of colour and cheer up and dull day.

A gyro ball, which is very effective, I especially
like the description that ' it will lead to a new
and magical world' lets wait and see.

Illuminations continued

Illuminations

The festive lights have been turned on and the outdoor nativity complex is open. I will post a close up everyday like an advent callender... without the tasty chocolate.
Im not so thrilled about the music they are playing from speakers hung up lamp posts. It is a bit too invasive and somehow makes me feel like im stuck in a bad crimbo film with sound track and all. Above is the best bit, an all moving (with rivers and automated figures shaking figs off trees) 3 D wonder.

life is a film set

Since I arriaved here in Oviedo there has been a film crew on my doorstep. Im not sure what or who is making a film but they havent asked me to be in it yet.

For today the blog is pink for world Aids day.

The nativity under construction

This is in the Cathederal Square round the corner from our flat. Week two of constructio.

Sunday ramble

We wandered out of town up a hill and found great views, The rural small holdings are just fifteen minuets walk from our city flat. The pity is that there is huge urbinisation going on and these unflattering tower blocks are creekping ever closer to the mountains. We only took pictures of the good view.

A very flat walk

The horse in the field greets all the walkers on this path,
a restored coal railway track. It runs 25km and follows a river. You pass through a number of tunnels which have automatic lights which turn on when you trigger the sensor.
In true Asturian style the weather closed in and we got very wet.

A red squirrel in the tree

A friend for Heike

After visiting the bears Paca and Tola, we went to a place called Entrado, and found this lovely horse, she had a prime spot, the football field at the foot of a mountain.

we went to visit the bears

Ibe learnt to say b for v

Some grafitti in the bus depo

I caught a bus to Leon, two hours through the mountains and we arriaved to a place I would describe as im batween Sobiet Russia and Baisingstoke. Freezing cold, everything was closed, 2pm on a Saturday. Ate our picnic with purple hands and suaght refuge in the contemporary art centre. Saved by the warmth, pitty about the art.

Masters at work

This is my work in progress, my brain mappings which have evolved into 600 punching words to support my application for a masters in art. That said time for a culture break.

Facing the direction of all the smells

A little dog waiting in the market

odd things from the shore

Friday night and we thought we would have a leisurely snack in the local seafood joint.
What we didn't know was that this would soon turn into an episode of jungle challenge.
Being conscientious diners we ordered the dishes which were 'in season' being sea urchins (oricios here). I stood on one of these in Greece twelve years ago. Have you ever seen a squashed slug, multicoloured and squidgy! Well this is what I ate, little spoonfuls of goo, if you're lucky you don't get bits of crunchy shell in a mouthful too. Soldiering on, armed with a mug of beer we finished the mountain of horrors. Only to be presented with some kind of speciality of claws, these resembled something prehistoric, I passed on these, but Rob took up the challenge, they were succulant at least, as Rob got squirted in the face several times in his attempts to extract the 2cm of edible morsel. I won't be revisiting these dishes again.