Espicha

Friday, July 8

First of all, I can’t believe it’s Friday already. One week of school down out of four.

It’s utter insanity how quickly the time has flown.

But in celebration of our first Friday here, the program threw a large espicha for all of us to attend. An espicha is a large party, particularly one that includes Sidra.

We all met at a bus stop a few blocks away from campus, got on specially rented buses, and drove to Tierra Austur, a local restaurant and bar.

They gave us free sidra and wine and a bunch of tapas, or appetizers. It was great to try all sorts of local-made cheeses, sausages, and bread, as well as calamari, tortilla españa (like a quiche, but very specific), and a few other foods. All of it was delicious and the place was so cool.

Here are a couple pictures:

Some of the food. Chorizo, jamon, tortilla espana, and quesos.

The chandelier thing they had out of wine bottles. Anyone else think my mom is going to make one?

Some of us inside one of the huge barrels. Me, Matilda, Maddy, and Craig. 

Anyway, after the official espicha, we all went out around the town. One of the students from Mizzou lives with a host brother named Santiago. He’s 17, speaks English, is about to start college and knows everything about Oviedo and the area. He’s a lot of fun and has also become our unofficial tour guide.

Santi took us to some bars and a little dance club he knows, and we all just had a great time. It was fantastic to get to really know the people on the trip.

Being one of only two relatively sober people for the night, I had the pleasure of helping everyone walk home. It was actually really fun, and walking around in the cool night air in Spain feels great.

By Spanish standards, we were complete babies because we all got home at around 2. You wouldn’t think it, but in fact my 50 plus-year-old host mom was still up, watching American movies on television. And while I went to go hit the hay, she was still going strong. Crazy!