Puttin’ On My Dancin’ Shoes

Friday, July 22

Shopping in Oviedo has been an adventure.

There are good reasons for that, such as the fact that it’s rebajas (month of sales!) or that the styles are different and things sometimes make me laugh that they’re even in stores.

And then there are bad reasons; such as the fact that sometimes you’ll love a skirt and then pick it up and realize it’s a pair of hideous goucho-esque pantaloons that are so popular here or the fact that Spaniards really don’t have clothes for the bigger gals.

So I knew going shopping on Friday in anticipation of my birthday could potentially be disastrous, but we decided to hit up the one mall in town we hadn’t been to and try it out.

The mall is literally all the way across town from where I live, and I’m not sure exactly, but it was about a 35 minute walk, so that’s got to translate to close to two miles.

Oddly, this mall is also the Congress building (Capitalism at it’s best?) and is shaped like a giant spaceship and/or the Sydney Opera House.

This is what the aliens did post-pyramids.

Luckily, I managed to find a really flattering full-length black cotton dress, I borrowed a necklace, and I bought/might be selling to Matilda a pair of wedges that are really cute.

So for my birthday, about six of us went out to dinner at this little café on some side street that we found, and then we went to Gascona (a district of town that is famous for it’s Sidra) and got a table and chilled and relaxed until nighttime got started and we hit up a couple of bars and met up with other people from the program.

To understand how nightlife works in Spain, here’s the timeline for all that:

Dinner - met at 9, walked around, ate at 9:45

Drinks in Gascona - 11:15 to midnight

Bars begin to open - Midnight, sometimes later

Spaniards return home - 5 or 6 a.m.

We didn’t make it quite the whole night like Spaniards, I believe we all made it home closer to 4:30, but that is by far and away the latest we’ve managed to stay out here.

And my birthday celebration was fantastic and full of people from our trip and good friends and fun and dancing.

Let’s just say, that nothing we did was illegal here! Overall, I think it’s going to be very high on my list of best birthdays of my lifetime!