Santanilla del Mar

Hey friends!
It's been a good week!

School is pretty amazing! I seriously have been learning so much! My mind was blown when i learned this so let me possibly blow your mind too.
During the roman empire we had roman numerals (I, IX, IV, etc...) Roman numerals dont have a number for 0.. the Arabic people introduced the arabic number system which includes a 0 and is the number system we use today.

You know how they determined the value of the numbers? by how many angles they had! COOL, huh? as you can see... 1 has 1 angle. 9 has 9 angles, and 0 has 0 angles. COOOOOL! 

So there are some beautiful parks here in Oviedo. I have a lot more time on my hands than I used to. I don't know where everything is and I don't have a ton of responsibilites which is a concept I'm not very used to. It's very different from my go, go, go lifestyle. But I took a few hours to go sit at the park next to a beautiful fountain and reflect and write in my journal. It was so great! 

El Parque de San Francisco

Yesterday was my first Espicha. Thats basically just a big party where you eat a lot of food and drink cidra (more like water for me, but that was pretty tasty too!)

 Um. you can sit in really cool barrels. yes please!

And there was a little dancing too. It was quite the night! 

Saturday we started off the day taking a bus ride to Santillana del Mar.
Ok let me help you out with some Spain Geography a little bit. I'm right above the A in Oviedo. we went to the east a little by Santander. It's by the coast and it's beautiful!!

We started off in Santillana del Mar. It's an old medieval town. SO cute! cobblestone road and cute little shops. This weekend happened to be the international puppet festival. We only had one hour or so there so we didn't actually see any puppet shows, but that would've been sweet, i'm sure.

However, Some street performers performed the most beautiful music. We all had to just stop take a moment and listen and take in the moment.

AND!! You know it's going to be a great place if the chocolate menu looks like that!! 

Oh my! I bought some for my suitcase. If it doesn't make it home.. sorry, not sorry :)

We stopped at Comillas. We ate and we visted the summer villa of King Alfonso XIX.

It's a beautiful place!! Look at that stained glass! 

It also had "El Capricho" a beautiful mansion built by Gaudi. We weren't able to go in, but it was still a beautiful place! and this amazing church that was right next to it. Guys! this place is INCREDIBLE!

 But lets be honest. I think my absolute most favorite part of the day was this amazing overlook of the beautiful ocean at Llanes. umm. Guys! Pictures don't even do it justice!!

Pictures don't really do it much justice. You really just have to come see it for yourself :)

Happy Sunday!! have an incredible week!! :)

Happy Holiday!

Hey! Happy Holiday! I'm still not exactly sure what holiday it was today, but it was a good day!

I started off at the parque de San Francisco

This band was so cool! my favorite part was the conductor! 

(I don't think this has sound. very sorry!)

So everyone in Oviedo went to a park. This park is (you can probably guess what adjective i'm going to insert here) BEAUTIFUL! It's high above the city.  We hung out with members of the branch, we all brought food for a picnic, played some uno :) and some volleyball and then hiked to El Cristo. It was a good hike! 

Look at that view of Oviedo!  the photo doesn't do it any justice! 

El Cristo! 

and just in case you need to sit and rest there is refugio! it even has magazines inside. Just in case. 

This is place is beautiful! 

week 1

I've been here a week! It is so beautiful! I love this place! It is SOOOOO Beautiful!!
I have loved getting used to the culture. I could get used to this eating lunch at 2, taking a siesta, finding some delicious dessert to eat, and then eating dinner and going to sleep. I get it!

So. Clara. She's my Spain mom. She's wonderful! I haven't gotten to know her very well yet, but on thursday,she came in as I was finishing my lunch of meatballs and rice, and cooked herself this meal.

(Sardines... She ate the bone and everything.)

she even let me have a taste. it was... fishy...

Lets take a moment to rewind. I started that entry like 3 days ago. I've decided this is going to be like my Spain Journal- instant pics in my journal!! It's going to be great!

Since that entry. I spent 5 hours walking with Clara and her boyfriend. If I could tell you one thing about Clara its this. She loves to walk. we walked for 5 Hours!! I think I walked 10 miles on Sunday. My legs are going to look great when I get home! :)

I've learned a lot here for sure! I'm excited to come home and share my experiences in Relief Society. I'm already planning this lesson in my head.
So.. For those who don't know and those that do. I am reallllllly not map savvy. You can ask any mission companion and they will tell you. So. when i got to Madrid I didn't really know where I was going, but I knew I had 2 map savvy friends who could guide me around the city. I would just follow them, that was fine, but then I came to Oviedo. I'm on my own. I don't have anyone to follow around all day. Clara can't walk me everywhere, and I can't rely on google maps to tell me where to go. I have to figure it out for myself. It's hard sometimes. I carry around my map, and luckily for me I've only gotten lost once. but HOLY COW! So grateful that I live so close to campus. it's like home, but better. It seriously takes me 3 min and 30 sec to get there. and it's a straight walk!
When I'm at home, I'm usually the leader.. lets go here! follow me, but here, I feel like it's the complete opposite and it was frustrating at first, but it's getting better. I'm learning my way around the city (and i found an amazing map app called forever maps that shows you where you are without wifi. IT'S INCREDIBLE!)


Ok. So I am way excited for my classes! they are Spanish literature and film and Spanish art and history. As I've been here I've been learning a lot. I have a lot of questions (ask clara, ha ha. I ask some random questions and she has no idea. So.. I have a lot to research)

Corie at school. 

Something really interesting is how religion is here in Spain. So this is what I've kind of learned so far. So back in the day in 1939 during the Spanish Civil War Francisco Franco took total control of Spain. He was a defender of the catholic religion so therefore everyone was forced to be Catholic. Until 1975 when he died. So therefore, many in Spain are Catholic, but many now are atheists.. It was interesting to go to church and to talk to the missionaries and just to see the demographics of the branch. Most of the people there weren't even from Spain, Many were from South America. The missionaries say they don't teach many Spaniards.

Speaking of Church. I love that anywhere you go in the world, you can go to church. As soon as you walk in you feel a peace like none other. You walk in and immediately people just love you, they want to invite you to dinner and love you even though they just met you. These people here are the sweetest! Tuesday is a holiday in Oviedo so they invited us to picnic with them. Wednesdays they have FHE for the YSA and on Fridays they have FHE for the whole branch. They have 2 sets of missionaries and we are excited to help them out as much as we can while we are here.

I want to talk about the beautiful excursion we went on on Saturday. OH MY AMAZING! So we hopped on a bus and went to Congas de Onis. This was where the first capital of Asturias was. It was a cute little town.

                                                                                                 

                                                                                                                         la capilla de Santa Cruz.    
A few of the group on the bridge

A few locks of love. :)

So I could never be a bus driver. We had an amazing bus driver. Imagine the roads of big cottonwood canyon, but more narrow, and more windy, and picture yourself in a big bus. yeah. It was a little nerve racking. but after 45 min we made it.

This picture doesn't do it any justice, but HOLY COW! beautiful!

 to the picos de Europa. Picture the sound of music. fields and fields of green and tons of open space. There was some songs sung from the sound of music. it was great!

 So Picos de Europa I do believe was the first national park in Spain. they have roaming cows and mountain goats everywhere and they don't really mind the people. So of course we had to get in a few cow selfies. :) They all had bells so you could hear the bells in the distance.

one of the most beautiful views i've ever seen!

Look at that little guy! so cute with his little bell! 

breathtaking! So beautiful!! You guys! the ocean is on the other side of that mountain! 

Then we went to Covadonga! This is where they have the 7 fuentes del matrimonio. Legend has it if you drink from the 7 fountains you'll be married within the year. Many of you are probably wondering if I did it... well.. Maybe... :)

That is one beautiful iglesia!! It is on top of the mountain and breathtaking! 

So.. Sunday was a good day. You probably heard about it on facebook. Yeah. after church I went on a walk. So. Not only was it election day in Spain, there was also a big soccer game Real Oviedo was playing in some semi final match. the town colors are blue. funny. I didn't happen to bring much blue. oops. So some people in the group were going to meet up at a plaza to watch it together. Clara said she would take me, but I ended up at the wrong place where no one was. She was going on a walk with her boyfriend and I said I would come. If i would have known how long it was going to take I might have just gone home, but it really was beautiful and it gave me a lot of time to ponder the beauty around me. yeah. um. we walked for 5 hours. 12k. thats almost 8 miles. Yeah. But it was good. will I do it again? probably not very soon. 

A tunnel! when i entered I said "HOW COOL!" then had to explain what cool means in english, but in Spanish. It was quite interesting. 

el camino verde

This is called a Panera. It is a little house looking thing that sits on 6 pillars. They are everywhere here. they hold crops, like corn. 

After that walk I decided I deserved my churros con chocolate. So worth it!

Oh man! there's so many incredible things about this place. I've learned so much and can't wait to share the rest of my experiences! 

Hasta luego! 

Madrid

So aqui estoy en España! it is so beautiful here!!!
So.. I got to the airport on Sunday morning. Left this guy for 6 weeks. Good thing for skype :)

Got to JFK at 6ish and left for Madrid at 7:30. there were about 10 other people in the program on my flight. It was a good flight! I felt like they fed us every hour (not true, but thats what it felt like). I slept a tiny bit, but you can't really sleep very well on a plane. Ever. especially if there is a baby sitting behind you. He didn't cry that much and he was SUPER cute! so it was ok.

Anyways.. Meg, Emily and I stayed together in Madrid. We were seriously like 2 minutes away from the plaza de España! It was so cool! We actually got off the metro and sat there for like an hour before we could go to our apartment. It's a pretty busy place.

So We stayed awake all day! I may have dozed off a few times, maybe there were people staring at us at dinner wondering why we were dozing off. No big deal.
We also visited El palacio real and one of the most beautiful cathedrals I've ever seen!

  Emily (some brighton people may know her as bug), me, and Catherine in front of the palace.
We went on a tour. Holy cow!! every room so ornate and beautiful! I could live there

 Look at that ceiling!!

A beautiful cathedral!! 

We also went to the museo nacional del Prado.

This museum is probably the largest museum i've ever been to! and luckily for us, Moday was free museum day. So the palace and the prado were both free (YAY!) 

We only wanted to spend 45 minutes in there because we wanted to go to bed, but like I said. LARGEST MUSEUM EVER! I couldn't have run through everything in 45 minutes. 

So we walked everywhere and were super tired, went back to our little apartment and slept, and slept, and slept..

Yeah 16 hours. probably the longest i've ever slept in my life. I was on the top bunk (which was really high). I didn't want to get down to look at the time, so I just waited for someone else to wake up. When they finally did we made bets as to what time it actually was. I came closest! I said 12. 1! Can you believe that?

So when we did get out and moving we explored more of the city. Madrid is a beautiful place! a lot of people! reminds me of NYC. 

We went to Ell Parque del Retiro. It's kind of like Central Park big and SO beautiful!! 

 This glass building was beautiful!!

 So outside the glass building was a pond with turtles in it. I sat down next to a guy from Cuba feeding bread to the turtles. He was nice and shared his bread with us and picked up a turtle for me. ha ha.  I held that turtle! Crazy experience!  Pics will come later. 

This is a statue of Rey Alfonso I believe. This was also right next to a beautiful pond. where pirates just happened to be rowing by. No big deal. 

 Here's another cool edificio. It's in the middle of a round about. 

And here's probably one of the best views of Madrid we could find. Yep. Its beautiful!

 Here's a temple. We were too late to go inside, but i'm sure it was beautiful too!

So this morning we left Madrid and headed to take the train to Oviedo. it was a 5 hour train ride, but oh my goodness! so beautiful! (lets play count how many times Corie says beautiful. Sorry! I'll try to use more vocab)

It's not everyday your train ride takes you into the clouds. COOL!

Look at the cute little city! CUTE! 

So I made it to Oviedo. I've been here for 4 hours. I met my mom for the next 6 weeks. Her name is Clara. She's an older single lady, has 2 grown children and she is a cook at a senior home. Her cooking is AMAZING!!  I'm excited to get to know her more. 

I'm almost excited to overcome jet lag. Hopefully sooner than later.

Anyways.. Here's to an amazing 6 weeks en España! 

the busy life.

I guess maybe I should update this blog every once in a while, huh?

**Disclaimer.. I started writing this blog a few weeks ago. Sorry. just posting now.

So, yes! Life is good! 

I want to share kind of a continuation/confession from my last post. So, that day that I met with the Bishop and I wrote that he put things into perspective for me and I realized that I was where I needed to be at that specific time. 

So... I walked into his office, but it was the whole bishopric. I thought to myself, hmmm... this is pretty serious. They asked me to be the Relief Society President. You could say I was in a little bit of shock. They told me they would call me at the end of the month, so I had a little bit of time to find my counselors.  

It was an incredible experience to choose my counselors. I would make a list or have a sister in mind and I remember having a pretty good list for my presidency, but when I went to stake conference a name came to my mind when I wasn't even thinking of it and realized very quickly who the Lord wanted to be in this relief society Presidency. 

So. I waited a month and we were finally called. :)  We're not going to be a full presidency for very long. My 2nd Counselor was just called to the Rome Italy Mission! YAY missions! She's going to be one incredible missionary. My secretary just got engaged. last week. and my other secretary is moving home in the summer, so i'll have to start this process again very soon.
My ward is incredible!! so many people are moving in and out all the time that it's hard sometimes to know who's staying and who's leaving/has left. assigning visiting teachers is quite puzzling.  But I love this calling! It's such a good learning and growing opportunity and am so excited to serve.

So Yes, Relief Society President, Full time School, (Pretty much) full time work, and making time to be with Jesus, which btw is going incredibly well. Couldn't imagine life without him.
So yeah! Life is good!

Also... I am student teaching in the fall and I'm very excited for that opportunity!
I got an email about 2 weeks ago giving me the opportunity to do an internship instead of student teaching. They emailed 20 people with 10 spots. I knew I could get the spot and this is a really good opportunity! It's half salary and considered your first year of teaching. It would definitely be a challenge, but one that I am ready to take.
So I met with the advisor and he explained what I needed to do- take classes in the summer (during Spain). So I thought about not going to Spain, but that same day went to my Spain meeting and told them about this job opportunity to which they informed me if I didn't go I would still have to pay. hmmm... If i'm going to pay for it I decided I might as well go.
So.. I gave up the internship opportunity and am still going to Spain. It will also be a good opportunity!
I am student teaching next year somewhere in the Salt Lake School District. I'm not sure which school yet, but i'll keep you updated!
I am also very excited that the semester is almost over... I have one french final left. YAY!!!