hmatt's blog

• Tomorrow morning the Decenso Internacional del Sella begins! It will go right past the house I'm staying at in Bode, Spain. Hooray! #

This part of Spain is so spectacular. There are so many natural parks around here and I can hardly wait to post the pictures I’ve been taking.. however, due to the http://www.descensodelsella.com festival beginning tomorrow morning, the library where I get internet access will be closing early.. like in ten minutes (at 2pm).

I know I keep writing this, but expect a huge deluge of posts upon my return to the States on August 11th. I’ve been writing tons of stuff, but I wanted to reference photos and they take too long to upload first.

Anyway, I’ve got the traveling bug and I am eager to come back to Europe. Next time I want to visit touristy spots.. like Rome and London and Barcelona and such.

I know that my experience here has been unique as the places I’ve been to aren’t typical tourist destinations.. well for American tourists (there are tons of European tourists). It has been kind of fun to be one of the few Americans in this area for a while.

Of course that’s all changing as I watch this area transform in to a giant fiesta. It is going to get crazy!

On my run this morning I already saw TONS of people parked out everywhere and tents popping up all over the place. This quiet town now has a party atmosphere- and this is only the beginning!

• Went to the beach yesterday, today up into the mountains to the lakes up there! #

• I'm safe and sound with family: I'm now seeing Cangas de Onís for the first time!! #

I haven’t been posting much because internet access is quite limited around here.. unless I want to pay for a cafe or catch the library at the appropriate hours (and hope their connection works).

Now that the Edge program is coming to a close, we’ve all moved into the same place for one last night together. I’m leaving for Oviedo tomorrow night, and today I’ve been catching up on some research things that have been on my to do list for a bit..

One of which is a quick way to create text files.. I’ve decided that this is the simplest solution to sort my plans and such (especially since my handwriting is so bad).

After a quick search I found http://news.softpedia.com/news/How-To-Create-New-Text-File-in-Finder-140373.shtml

Which is EXACTLY what I’ve been wanting for a while. Using this and TextExpander to quickly name the file by date- and I’m good to go.

I do have a list of what I’ve been doing since my last big update.. it is quite a doozy, and there is a lot to share.

I have a 12 hour bus ride tomorrow night, and then there’s the same amount of time for my plane ride home August 10th.. – A big thing to think about is how I’m going to answer the question:

“How was Spain?”

So much has happened, and I get to figure out how to encapsulate it all into a few minute spiel..

The quickest answer would be: “God is amazing.”

= )

These last couple weeks of the program are packed with activities. Tomorrow (thursday) Nick, Jacqueline and I are traveling up to Valencia to visit the science museum, which looks incredible!! http://cac.es/

Friday Jacqueline, Lauryn and I are going to visit the fortress at Alicante and then on to a barbecue at the home of an English couple we met at a party.

Next Thursday I’m joining Elí and Nick to visit http://www.aqualandia.net – the biggest waterpark in Europe.

I was starting to get stressed, trying to cram all the things I still want to do before I leave Altea… but it looks like everything is going smoothly now. = )

• I watched the world cup in Benidorm last night with thousands of Spaniards. That was amazing. #

The trip to Alicante was so interesting! There was a wonderful park area with outdoor workout machines. I wish they had those things in the US! They were amazing, it was like a playground for adults!

The ‘floats’ aren’t moving like parade floats. They are just sitting in the street really. From my vantage point I could see the edge of one catch fire, which was fine because I didn’t want to get wet because my camera and iPhone were on me. It was fun to see everyone having such a good time. I heard a couple catchy Spanish pop songs, and I have no idea how to find out what they were, but I’ll have to ask someone at some point. There is this ya-ya-ya song that I kept hearing the kids sing it during the San Juan festival.

This day and the 26th were free days and I took the time to finally combine all my many to do lists. It was a huge undertaking, but it was so nice to see all of my tasks in one place, and the progress and research I’ve already done in a folder of resources and such. Technology is great, because you can copy things easily, but it is also easy to have duplicates and clutter. I was able to cut through it all. It was nice to get through it all. I also evaluated what it is that I want to accomplish in my time here. Although the vision has changed slightly, I still want to be able to meet people easily. (at the time of this writing, I still haven’t done this too much, but I still have the rest of the month).

8pm we met at the art gallery and introduced ourselves to Steven and Brady. As we sat in the round a woman came up and happily chatted with the group, while Arianna and Xara translated. She was so bubbly.

Later that night we moved all of our stuff down to the guy’s place. It was supposed to open the week before, but there is some law in Spain that prevents a tenant from getting kicked out until they are ready to leave. Noah and Brady had to carry the bed, and Ariana thought it was great fun to watch. = )