First Day in Oviedo

Today has been a very busy and interesting day! We started at the flea market this morning which was pretty cool although it was in a kind of questionable part of town. I bought a couple things to take home from the flea market and then we checked out of our hostel. We didn't really know how to discuss the whole check-out process in Spanish with the person working at the desk so when we got down stairs we handed them the key and said, "Adios!!". I stopped and looked at them for a minute hoping they would see my backpacks and realize this was my attempt to tell them I was checking out for good (we had to give them our hotel key every time we left even if we weren't checking out). They said "Adios!" back and I assumed that was sufficient. We took the metro to the bus station and waited for our bus. The bus we were taking to Oviedo goes all the way to Gijon so "Oviedo" didn't appear on the screen of places to go... Long story short we just about missed the bus to Oviedo. When I found out we weren't at the right platform I ran up to a woman and asked her where the bus for Oviedo was. For some reason I was able to speak Spanish to her better than I have thus far on my trip. I suppose if I'm in a stressful situation I figure out what to say pretty quickly! We barely made it to the bus but it was a very pretty ride to Oviedo. It was interesting to see the landscape change pretty rapidly once we got out of Madrid. Madrid is full of pretty buildings and definitely has a more fast paced lifestyle but as soon as you leave the city it immediately becomes a very green and open landscape. There weren't a lot of towns in between Madrid and Oviedo. Once we started getting closer to Oviedo we started getting into a more mountainous region. We drove through a lot of tunnels through the mountains which I thought was really cool. The landscape is completely different here from Utah. It's quite cool here and it has been raining for the last couple of days (I found this out from my host family which I will go into detail about in a minute). Once we got to Oviedo we found our way to the Universidad de Oviedo where we will be studying in Las Casas de las Lenguas. We all sat in a big group and waited for our host families to come pick us up. We were all really nervous and didn't know how to approach them when they arrived. In Spain when you meet someone for the first time it is polite to kiss them on each cheek (they don't hug like we do in America). So when my host mom arrived I walked up to her and then kissed her on both cheeks... It worked! She walked with me from the University back to her apartment and I understood almost everything she said to me, including our conversation about how well I understood her but how I have a hard time responding. Her apartment in Oviedo is very small and the rooms are really close together. They don't ve a lot of open space like you would see in an apartment in Utah. She has a daughter who is 25 who speaks a little English although both of them speak Spanish to me. My host mom told me I have a strange last name and I told her it's Irish. I'm pretty sure she thinks I'm from Ireland now. So far it's gone really well and both the mom and daughter are really nice. I think we are about to have a light dinner (at 9pm) It's so different living in Spain and it has already been an awesome experience. I have my own little room with a closet and desk and my family has wifi so that's a bonus! I'm going to walk to school tommorrow for my first day of classes! I'm really excited to be here and I'm sure eI will have some fun stories to share soon :)