Oviedo

So let´s go over the things I have now in Oviedo:
Apartment - check
Class schedule - check
Pending lawsuit - check...wait...what?

That´s right, I´ve learned a valuable lesson which may or may not cost me €250. The apartment that I thought I was going to rent when I saw the pictures online from the U.S. turned out to be a true rat-hole, in the most atrocious sense of the word. It was cramped and dark. The room I was supposed to be renting had bunk beds and a wall full of closets that actually turned out to not be that useful, since they were not actually deep enough for clothes hangers to fit. The window was about 2 x 1 ft., with a lovely view to an interior patio surrounded by large, gray, prison-like walls, and the space itself was barely big enough for three people to stand. It felt like I was renting an elevator. Also, when we walked in there was a boyfriend sitting casually on the couch (at least that´s who I think it was...it´s anybody´s guess since he didn´t introduce himself), and when I went back the next day my future roommate had hopped over to Germany and left garlic and onions and their peels on the table in the kitchen and cigarrettes in the ashtray. What a wonderful welcome gift! But the best part was when I lost my keys and ran all over the apartment looking in every possible place until I realized that they had fallen through a hole in the middle of the couch and were resting comfortably on the floor. So, add ¨sticking hand through a leather sofa¨ to my list of things I did in Europe.
So I didn´t sleep there at all, but the girl is saying that verbal agreements are legal contracts in Spain and that I owe her the whole month´s rent since she told other people no since I said I was coming, and that she´ll sue me if I don´t give her all the money by tomorrow. Everyone I talk to says that since I didn´t sign anything there´s really nothing she can do. I feel bad and am vascillating between losing all the money and only giving her the equivalent of the time I had the keys, which hasn´t even been a week. I want to puke when I think of both the apartment and losing 250€ for absolutely nothing.
But apart from that I found another apartment which is 100% better...50€ cheaper, closer to the university, and entire wall of window in my room, new appliances, two bathrooms, closets I can actually use, and a landlord who is only a year older than me and is already introducing me to his friends, some of whom have turned out to be incredibly helpful in helping find things on campus. I think we´ll get along well...so far he´s been very honest and direct. I even got to meet his parents because they were helping clean the apartment up when I came to visit and his mom was so cute and friendly.
So I´m happy for the moment, but the only thing is that we haven´t gotten internet yet so I STILL can´t post pictures. I start classes tomorrow. I´m finally excited about them. This entire time the fact that I´ll be taking classes has really been the part I´m least excited about, but after talking to some people in the university, I think they´ll be interesting. I´m just not sure what I´ll do with all the free time it looks like I´ll have. I wanted to take a translation course here but I´m not sure if it´ll conflict with the doctoral course I´m taking.
When I can finally connect with my laptop I´ll be sure to write about my adventures in France post-Paris. Lourdes was absolutely magical even though most of the time I was soaked through to the bone (although paradoxically practically the only time I was dry was after getting out of ¨the¨ baths there), I spent a ridiculous amount of time trying not to get poked in the eyes from the umbrellas of European women trying to avoid getting their fur coats wet, and everyone kept speaking to me in Italian, only about half of which I understood, and if I responded to them in Spanish they gave me the strangest looks. My trip from Lourdes to Toulouse included a two-hour long intense but good-natured argument in a mix of Spanish and French about Christ´s divinity and original sin with a French guy named Raphaël who knew the Bible surprisingly well and swore he was unaware of exactly which heretical group he belonged to, in which a French Franciscan Friar for the Renewal and his mother got involved. Afterwards he bought me two coffees and offered to buy me food and even helped me with my luggage, which was unexpected and nice, although we drank the coffees in a kind of awkward silence.
And then followed quite a tiring journey, although it went through what I decided was the perfect place to live. On the left of the bus were snow-covered mountains and floating patches of mist and on the right was a bright blue ocean, and in-between were what looked like centuries-old houses in tiny little towns that each had at least three churches. And the sun was shining and I felt like I had accidentally wandered into Lord of the Rings...the good part...not Mordor...
When I got to Oviedo I met my friend Bohumira´s mom and sister who totally welcomed me and were very nice in showing me around and letting me stay with them.
So...I have a couple more hours to decide how much money to leave this girl and continue to unpack my things. The weather here is gorgeous and is completely the opposite of everything I had heard about Oviedo before. All anyone could ever talk about was rain and cold, but ever since I got here the sun has been out and it hasn´t been all that chilly, although I am glad that I brought my coat. The city itself is beautiful and it really is so easy to walk around, except that the almost universal lack of street signs or plaques or anything that might provide some information about where you are located sometimes does present a problem, especially with old, narrow, winding streets.
The academic process hasn´t been all that difficult, either, except that apparently it is universally recognized both inside and outside of my department that the guy that I´m supposed to talk to (the one in charge of my studies here and who is supposed to sign off on my classes) is never in his office. I have the feeling that I won´t meet him until the day before I leave, and until then he´ll remain a phantom whose existence I doubt from time to time, although he is one of my professor´s cousins and she said that he likes to party and will probably take me out drinking. All in all, everything I´ve heard about this mysterious character has led to a kind of a strange impression of him so far.
Alright, on to decide how much money I´m going to lose!