Dan on the front page of the Asturias newspaper!
Great article about the team and their successful season
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Last week, Dan had a few days off so we were able to take a couple of day trips around Asturias. The region of Asturias is truly beautiful, not only are there miles and miles of coastlines but also stunning mountains. Yay, lots to explore on those days off! I am sure Dan will be thrilled when he reads this. The only thing that might save him from endless day trips is the rainy season, which has slowly started to creep in...and possibly the fact that he has a pregnant wife! We shall see though! In my book, The Fitz Adventures in Asturias await! Part I : CudilleroOn a warm Sunday we packed up our little sports car and headed about an hour northwest of Oviedo, to a small fishing village of Cudillero. The coastal town is situated right between two cliffs and offers stunning views of the sea as well as colorful picturesque houses carved into the hillside. Legend has it that the town was founded by Vikings and even to this day it maintains some of it's Nordic roots. The best example of this is the village's own unique dialect called "pixueto," which is a mixture of an Asturian dialect containing words of Nordic origin. Lucky or unlucky for us, we didn't get to hear any of this unique dialect. Our basic Spanish skills only allow us to ask for directions and order food at restaurants. Just maybe, on our next trip to Cudillero we will brush up on our Spanish enough to be able to differentiate between Spanish and pixueto. One can only hope! We wandered around the town, took photos of colorful houses, and enjoyed observing the locals starring at tourists out of their windows. I also got to add to my Spanish door obsession (Hello, my name is Dominika, and I have an addiction to photograhing Spanish doors. Ha!) by photographing some uniquely colorful, vintage doors of Cudillero. (Feel free to check out the collection of Spanish doors on my photo blog. ) After our scenic walk we decided to sit down at Bar Isabel, located at the main square, for a seafood lunch and Spanish coffee. The weather was absolutely great (no coats required!) and my lobster paella alone was worth the visit! Part II: Playa de las CatedralesAfter lunch we decided to head to a nearby region of Galicia to check out the famous Playa de las Catedrales (As Catedrais), the English translation: the "Beach of the Cathedrals." The beach is known for it's famous rock formations that can only be seen at low tide. Visitors can wander around the beach and admire natural arches and caves in the cliffs. I have to admit, it was truly breathtaking, and knowing that it took thousands of years of waves crashing into these rocks to create such a magnificent natural wonder, was simply amazing. Unfortunately it did start raining when we got to the beach, but a little rain didn't stop us from exploringing this unique environment. If you do decide to go to Playa de las Catedrales, make sure to check when the low tide is going to take place. (Here is a helpful website. ) Also, don't get stuck in a cave! We might have wondered to take pictures, and all of a sudden found ourselves scrambling for the rocks when a wave washed into the cave. Luckily, we were able to get out within a few minutes but seeing so much water come toward you was a bit scary! Oh, and I think I found a perfect spot to take maternity photos, so who wants to fly to Spain to photograph my growing belly?! Any takers?!
Once in a while a magical thing happens to a basketball team, they go on an amazing win streak and no matter how hard the opponent tries to stop them, they always come out on top. The Oviedo Club Baloncesto team has had one of those seasons...unbelievable, unstoppable and full of memories. This is the team's first season in the LEB Gold and so far they have proven to be a force to be reckoned with. Since last season, they have been undefeated at the magical home gym of Pumarín. Fans have been showing up in record numbers and the team keeps pulling off magical, mostly last quarter nail-biting, heart-stopping, wins. The season keeps progressing and quite frankly I can't wait to see what else is in store! We have been so fortunate to be a part of this great organization with great management, coaches and most of all unbelievable teammates. So please sit back and enjoy a couple of photos from OCB's Saturday night victory over Palencia at the one and only, magical, Pumarín!
Spain has some awesome holiday traditions!! A day that is as equally as important as Christmas is Three Kings Day, which is celebrated on January 6th. Maybe a little more important to the kids of Spain because that's when they receive their presents! The Three Kings, Melchior, Gaspar, and Balthasar, (try saying that three times fast) arrive on January 5th from the far east upon hearing of Jesus' birth and bring gifts. Similar to our tradition, children write letters to each of the Three Kings asking for gifts. Shopping malls even have stands where kids can meet each of the Three Kings and personally ask them for a gift. Just like Santa! On the night of January 5th, families clean their house and prepare for the arrival of the kings. They leave out a little snack for each of the kings, along with water for their camels and horses. Each member of the family also has to clean their shoes and leave them out in plain view. At night the Kings deliver gifts and leave them next to shoes! Cavalcade of Magi - Three Kings Parade On the evening of January 5th there are parades all over Spain, celebrating the arrival of the Three Kings. Families and kids line the streets and watch the festive parade filled with floats, live animals and of course the Three Kings. Candy is thrown and kids scream at the Wise Men to remember to bring their presents the following morning. Ha! We had a great time watching the parade go by. Afterwards we enjoyed a nice walk in the city (it was 65 degrees even at 8 pm!) and took a couple of pictures by the Oviedo Christmas tree. Kings Cake - Rosca de reyes When in Spain, do like the Spaniards do! So we followed our friends lead and purchased a Kings Cake. Kings Cake are traditional Spanish cakes purchased on January 5th and eaten on the morning of Januray 6th, when everyone opens presents. There are two types of Three Kings Cakes you can buy in Asturias, a traditional glossy sweet bread cake that is served everywhere in Spain, and the Asturias type which is smaller and looks more like a puff pastry. Upon picking your cake, you also decide what kind of filling you want - white cream, almond, custard or a mix of any two. Yummy! The round cake also comes with two surprises, a bean and a little figure which are placed inside the cake. The person who gets the piece with the bean has to pay for next years cake (ha!) and the person who gets the figurine is crowned the "king" or "queen" of the celebration and will have good luck. Guess who got what?! Double that luck since we ate all of our grapes on New Years Eve! Our traditional cake filled with custard. Yummy! Perfectly pairs with coffee.
And best of all, the Three Kings brought us the BEST present EVER, kicks from our little peanut! Ahhh! Now our little one is active and kicking like crazy...maybe we will have a little soccer player on our hands! We had a great time ringing in the New Year in Spain! Not only did we have family visit us all the way from Minnesota but we also participated in a unique Spanish New Years Eve tradition. For those of you that are Modern Family fans (we are total suckers for the show!), you will be able to recollect the episode when Gloria eats grapes on New Years Eve. When I first saw that episode I thought it was totally scripted or an odd Columbian tradition. Well little did I know that the tradition actually started in Spain in 1905! When grape growers in Alicante, city in Southern Spain, thought they could cut down on their large grape surplus by selling grapes on New Years Eve. So with one grape surplus a Spanish tradition began and now every Spaniard spends the first 12 seconds of the new year stuffing their face with grapes. Awesome! We were in! Our friends and their families invited us over for dinner to try some traditional Spanish cuisine. We had a great time enjoying delicious Spanish ham, cheese, white asparagus, pork tenderloin, soup and the best of all prawns from Huelva! Cris' dad gave us a demonstration on how to eat the little creatures. First you take the head off, suck out the "head juice" (ha! not sure what other term to use here!), then take the legs and shell off, and enjoy. They were seriously delicious!!! A sweet prawn and the "head juice" was awesome! Never in my life did I think I was going to be sucking prawn brains out but it was totally worth it. Delicioso! Our tiny grapes! Ha! Our hosts clearly didn't want us to fail our first time eating grapes on New Years! A couple of minutes before midnight we turned on the TV and watched the clock on the Casa de Correos building in Madrid strike midnight. Then on each chime of the clock we all ate grapes, one by one, until all 12 of them disappeared! Yay to good luck in 2014 for all of us! Traditional Spanish turrón for desert! Thank you so much for a wonderful evening and making us feel right at home! Muchas Gracias!!!!
Christmas Carols, the Lottery, Pizza Juan & an Argentine Parilla. Felices Fiestas de España!12/30/2013 This is our third year away from home during the holidays. We always miss our family dearly but it's also nice to experience Christmas abroad, mainly to see how other cultures celebrate these special occasions. This year we have been fortunate to celebrate Christmas in Oviedo, Spain surrounded by new friends. Spain has rich Christmas traditions and I wanted to drag Dan to anything Christmas related. I am sure he was oh-so thrilled but hey, you can't say no to a pregnant lady ;) We started off our holiday celebrations at Iglesia de San Juan el Real for a Christmas mass and a little holiday concert. The church is absolutely breathtaking! It was built between 1912 and 1915, and it was where Francisco Franco was married in 1923. We didn't know many of the Spanish Christmas Carols or for that matter understand mass, but nonetheless it was a nice evening spent in a 100 year old church. To keep up with Spanish Christmas traditions, we had to buy a ticket for the national Christmas lottery, the Lotería de Navidad. The Spanish Christmas lottery is the second longest continuously running lottery in the world (started in 1812) and has the best odds of winning. Yay! So we figured we can risk our 5€ to come out with a grand prize of 546,200€. The lottery is played a little differently than in the States, each ticket with identical numbers is printed multiple times. Then a business can purchase a specific number and sell those tickets to their employees or anyone who is interested. The lottery tickets vary, the most expensive ones cost 200€ each and include a ticket with all of the numbers or one can buy a part of the numbers for 20€.We played the "friends" way, where the club bought the main ticket and we all went in on it. That way each person gets their own part of the number and splits the main prize equally. I am sad to report that we are not millionaires, but it was worth a shot. Maybe next year Papa Noel will bring us a bag full of Euros! Spain is known for it's elaborate Nativity scenes and the one in front of the Cathedral of San Salvador in Oviedo definitely does not disappoint! It's spread out across two long wooden structures in the front of the church. I have never seen such a big Nativity scene! Each church in the city has their own version, most are a lot smaller, but each one is quite impressive. We spent Christmas Eve with some teammates and their families at a sponsor's restaurant, Pizza Juan. The food was amazing, lots and lots of Spanish specialities! In typical Spanish fashion, dinner didn't start till 10 pm and lasts till 4:30 in the morning. Wowza! The evening was truly special and we felt right at home. We are very grateful to the management, teammates and Salva (Pizza Juan owner) for welcoming us with open arms and showing us a great family time on Christmas Eve. Muchas Gracias! The following day there was an article about our Christmas Eve dinner in the local paper, La Nueva España. Very neat! The next afternoon we met up with a couple of teammates, their families, as well as the president of the team and his wife at an Argentine Restaurant, located half way up Mount Naranco. The views from the restaurant were to die for! Stunning Spanish landscapes, views of downtown Oviedo as well as breathtaking mountains in the background. Ahhhh, plus going to an Argentine Parrilla was a bonus! Meat, meat, and more meat! I actually gave up meat for six months before becoming pregnant....now meat is back on the menu - along with Cheetos, pizza and lots and lots of green olives! The baby wants, what the baby wants ;) The food at the restaurant was delicious (better than in Buenos Aires actually!) and we loved the English menu...especially the "attacked of pilgrim's scallops!" Ha! Gotta love lost in translation writing abroad! Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season! |