The last Friday of February, I was talking with my best friend, who I hadn't seen in the flesh since December. That was last year! She perhaps jokingly suggested we meet up that same weekend in the middle: Asturias. I took her up on that offer, a spur-of-the-moment trip to Oviedo/Uviéu. The back story is we had been there a year and a half ago, except since it was rainy and things were closed, we didn't see much. We didn't even see the cathedral! Or go to the sidra street! Since then, I've been to Oviedo a few times with my friend as a tourguide, so this time I felt prepared to give my own tour. But for those who have had me as a tourguide, they know it's not really my calling. Whether it's oversimplifying the translation to English, or just forgetting the importance of certain buildings, tours just aren't my forte. But I tried.
Saturday morning we arrived on separate buses to Oviedo. By this time I had a good idea of how to get us to the real center. We caught up while having breakfast at a confitería were the señoras of Oviedo go, apparently. We are the future señoras of Spain! Then we headed to the center area with the old and new markets and city hall. I recognized the area from a visit with my parents last year, but could only remember two measly facts about the place. Funnily enough, we ran into my only friend from Oviedo who was able to tell Lauren some fun facts (and remind me of them, of course). Then Lauren and I strolled some more, enjoying the lovely architecture. Lunch included fabada (Asturian bean stew).
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| Hola, cachopo! |
Feeling content with the fact that we had already seen more in a few hours than on our last visit, we went to our snazzy hotel to have a nap. It was raining, anyways. The receptionist thought I was Galician. Toma acento! Afterwards, it was getting dark, so we decided to visit the Asturian Museum before it closed. Nice, but we rushed through it. And then: sidra time. Luckily we went to have dinner before 10, so there was a table for two without reservations. Score! We knew we wanted cachopo, a big piece of meat, topped with cheese and then breaded. By big I mean for two people. I'm seeing a theme here with Asturian cooking--solitary dining is not an option. After dinner, we rolled ourselves out to another sidrería. Lots of sidra and lots of girl talk. The best part was getting to have a night out with Lauren and talk about every little thing, just like when we lived in the same city. After ingesting about 50 apples worth of sidra each, we were ready for a night on the town. And then rocked out til 5AM. Ah, España.
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| Lovely Avilés street |
Sunday we set off on a little trip to Avilés at a surprisingly decent hour. That city is precious, I would definitely live there for a bit. It seems very calm since it's even smaller than Lugo. But the architecture in the center is charming. Maybe I would get bored, but who knows. Anyways, thanks to our handy-dandy personalized Avilés map we saw all the top sites. Trying to make up for all the money we had spent the night before, we had lunch at Burger King haha. Back in Oviedo we played the waiting game. We were exhausted, but had to wait for Lauren's ride back to Santander. So we sat for two hours in a bar like a couple of loons: drinking fresh-squeezed orange juice and practically falling asleep at 5pm. But bestie time was so worth it.
