Spring Break 2010

Well, I haven't been around Oviedo much in the last two weeks. We have been on Spring break for the last week and a half or so. My friend Ashley and I spent the first weekend of our break in San Sebastian. San Sebastian is just about a half an hour train ride from France and right on the Bay of Biscay. It has two beautiful beaches, one for surfing and one for hanging out at. It is surrounded by two mountains on either side, which we went to the top of both! We stayed in a hostel that was run by some surfers, which was fun. They were really friendly. After we checked in we walked around the city a little bit and saw the beach at night! The first day we spent hours watching the waves come in. The bay was a lot rougher than normal and the tide was really high. So we hung out and watched the ocean come in and hit all the rocks while we took in some sun! Then for the night we rode the tram up to the top of the mountain and watched the sunset. The next day we went up the other mountain where there is another statue of Jesus (but the one in Oviedo is better).
We spend the evening writing notes in the sand and watching the sunset and talking. It was a really neat town, but a long bus ride back. We did have some excitement when our bus got stopped and was searched for drugs!

I spent Tuesday and Wednesday hanging out and packing clothes for Antequera. It is a town close to Malaga (on the complete opposite side of the country. I saw the northern coast and then went all the way to the southern!). Thursday morning I got up at 3:45 am to get on the bus at 4:45. We took off to Gijon to pick up the rest of the group. My church here has two churches, one in Oviedo and one in Gijon. Then we started our twelve hour ride to camp. We stopped every 4 hours our so, until the bus broke down! We had to wait in the middle of nowhere until a replacement but came! Our bus driver, Pudi, was pretty sweet though! When the other bus got there, we got all of our stuff switched and then not 10 minutes after we had gotten back on the road, we got pulled over. It all turned out alright though. We finally made it just in time to catch the end of the first chapel. After this we talked for a little while and then went to sleep!

I woke up at 7:45 the next morning and took a shower, then we all went for breakfast. We had toast and hot chocolate. It was delicious! We went the the first chapel. The worship was awesome. It is really cool to sing praises to God in Spanish! I was exhausted after it was finished though. Here the chapels are about 3 hours long. We had lunch and then I went to a workshop on the Holy Spirit. It was an interesting experience. We had doughnuts for a snack and then had another evening chapel. By the end of this one I was literally dead, but the night did not end there!!! We had "noche del talentos" Every church had at least one song, skit, or something to do. It was really fun, but lasted until 2 in the morning. I slept really, really good!

Then Saturday morning I woke up to a cold shower...but the hot chocolate at breakfast made it better! The first chapel I had trouble focusing because I was so tired, but I took an hour nap after lunch and that made the rest of the day go much better! I spent the rest of the break playing volleyball. We went to our workshop for the day called men and women of God. It was a good reminder of what a woman of God should look like. After supper we had evening chapel where we spent a lot of time in prayer which was much needed. It was really good to get to know some of the girls here, and we really bonded that night.

The next morning we had breakfast and then went to our last chapel where he used a powerpoint, so I was able to focus and understand more of what was going on. The whole weekend was about how we need to have the fire of God in us and we need to extinguish the fires of the world. It was our send off chapel. Then we had paella for lunch in the biggest pan I have ever seen in my life! It was way cool. We had a long bus ride back, but everything went smoothly this time. We got back to Oviedo at 5:30 in the morning and I slept until noon this morning! I'm just really glad that this weekend was exactly what I needed for encouragement to finish out the semester!