I Can See Jesus from my Window

Tuesday, July 5

Today I climbed a mountain (I’m not being metaphorical; stick with me).

Let’s rephrase - today I climbed 2/3 of the way up a mountain in sandals, gave up, and walked solo on the way back down. I put in my iPod to help the time go faster and to distract from how bad my feet hurt, and the second song that comes on…

“Aint No Mountain High Enough.”

Believe me, the irony was not lost.

I was headed up the mountain, which is just outside of town, with a group from my program to see the replica of the Jesus statue from Brazil. I guess the one in Brazil is like 45 feet tall or something, and the one in Oviedo is closer to 25, but they still love it and it’s sort of a pilgrimage here to go visit it and look out over the whole valley that the city is in.

I still get props for trying right?

You can see this Jesus from all over Oviedo, including, as you might have guessed from the title of this post, from my window. It’s actually sort of served as a north star for those of us who can see it from our houses, because it is a good orientation for what direction you’re headed while walking around. And since the streets aren’t always clearly marked, it’s nice to have something to go by.

So now that I’ve explained why I climbed a mountain, I bet you’re wondering (or at least my mom is) why I tried to do it in sandals.

Well apparently, unbeknownst to me, my host mom has played host mom many times before, including for the past six months to a student from Ohio named Andrew. When I came back to our house on Monday night, Andrew was just here all of the sudden. Turns out, he had been on a backpacking trip across northern Spain, and she had apparently told me that and I utterly missed it. Call it a language barrier.

Anyway, Andrew leaves for home Wednesday morning; so naturally, Merce throws him a party on Tuesday for lunch, which is the big Spanish meal. So when I get back for my lunch, she feeds me really quickly and is like, “Oh yeah, my family is coming over.” (But in Spanish obviously.) I had no idea if I should stay or leave or participate or what. I definitely didn’t want to be in my room alone, so when they all arrived, I decided to leave. Don’t get me wrong, they were very nice, and one of her daughter-in-laws complimented me on my Spanish and said that I sound like I’ve lived here for a while, not just two days (utter lies, but a nice thought). But I was leaving in a hurry, and though I managed to grab my water bottle, I didn’t even think to change shoes. And then when I got to our meeting place and was wearing sandals, I didn’t want to have to go back to a house full of people.

Which brings me back down the mountain three hours later. I ran inside really quickly, said hello, changed shoes, got my laptop, and left again. I walked the few blocks down to Los Prados (the mall if you’re not a frequent reader of this blog) and I sat and used the internet for a couple of hours. I uploaded photos, updated my blog, replied to emails, checked Facebook, and googled some things about Oviedo I had been wondering. It’s amazing how much I rely on having constant internet at home, and how different it is to not have it.

But it’s also brought me to the important realization that I will not have internet every day, and that thus this blog has a small road block. The game plan, as you might have noticed, is to write a blog (thankfully Microsoft Word doesn’t need internet) every day and then post them whenever I have internet. I’ve started adding the dates so it’s easier to keep track of my mental state.

When I finally got back to the apartment after my internet binge, all but one of her kids had left. Andrew and I ate dinner while all of them talked. It was surreal, how fast they talk in Spanish and how fluent Andrew is. He could joke with them, interrupt them to ask a question, really anything. He was also incredibly nice to me, he could tell I could understand most of the conversation, but that I wasn’t keeping up enough to really participate, so occasionally he’d ask me questions about my life, explain stuff about his, and best of all, tell me the tricks of the trade with Merce. Between the three of us at dinner, we got my eating issues sorted out. Apparently, she just wants me to tell her comparisons for how I enjoyed things (such as this soup is better than the chicken from last night). Hopefully that will really help.

It was actually great to have Andrew around for the day, even though he leaves in the morning. It was sort of like living with a translator for both the language and the lifestyle. And Merce is much more animated around him, so we were able to have a livelier conversation and hopefully that will continue into the future as well.

So I guess overall, I both climbed mountains and moved mountains today, for all of the progress I feel like I made with Merce. Luckily, I’m only a few blisters worse for the wear.