Summertime Adventures August, Part 1

We spent the majority of the first week and a half of August glued to the TV to watch the 2012 Olympics.  I'm used to watching it in the USA where winning medals is so common it's not always a big deal and no one I know really cares.  It was different to actually watch the Olympics for the first time, and sorry USA, but I was rooting for Spain.  Every day we woke up and checked the schedule to see what events Spain was competing in for the day so we knew what to watch.  It was a slow, start but once the first medal was won in swimming things started to pick up.  It was really exciting and I got really into sports I have never watched before like: taekwondo, handball, and polo, and started getting into sports I had never liked before like basketball. All in all it was a great Olympics and I was proud of Spain and the USA, though my boyfriend's mom sure was glad when it was over and we stopped watching TV all day long!

When the Olympics ended we felt a little bit lost without following it everyday.  But it had been a nice few weeks to just relax and hang out together and hang out with our friends.  The past two times I visited we traveled a lot and saw so much that everything felt rushed.  It was definitely nice to have seen the main things in the area already and just enjoy everyone's company.

Talking with a few of our friends though we decided to take a day trip to Asturias.  It's the province to the west of my boyfriend's province of Cantabria and though I had been very close to the border before, I had never actually been.  We first stopped in Llanes, a town not too far over the border.  It is a port town and is known for its harbor and the colored blocks along the port.  I've seen similar blocks at other ports in Spain, and with my boyfriend being the good civil engineer he is, he tried to explain the use of them (which I take to understand is to help protect the harbor  from large waves) but with his engineering mind and subsequent explanation it was a little too complicated!  

Anyway, it was a very pretty area and we happened to visit on the day they celebrate the Fiesta de San Roque.  It was fascinating because everyone was wearing the traditional Asturiana outfits and there were people everywhere dancing and singing to traditional music.  There was also plenty of sidra, a drink I love that comes from Asturias, which is a apple cider type drink that has to be poured in a distinct way to taste correctly.  It was so much fun and I even bought some delicious cheese to have a picnic with later, can you tell the common theme of my love of cheese?!

After we left Llanes we went to a beach called Gulpiyuri which is a small beach with no ocean.  Instead the water comes from the sea through underground caves and tunnels.  It's still salt water and even has a tide!  

It was beautiful, but we came at high tide so there wasn't much of a beach left to lie on.  We all went swimming and even though it was small, it was pretty deep.  Once in the water a couple of us tried to sit out on some rocks, but the waves were so strong it kept pushing us off.  We quickly found out not to stay on the rocks anyway because a few of us left with some scratches, my poor feet included.  It was well worth it though because it's so rare to find a land formation like Gulpiyuri.  In fact, there's only a few in the world!

Next we tried to find the cliffs of Pría, which was quite hard.  The GPS wasn't working and we drove up and down different tiny dirt roads in tiny villages trying to find the right one.  Finally we found where we meant to go in the first place; it was quite the adventure just trying to get there!  The thing about these specific cliffs is that there are holes that have been carved from the water and when the waves are big enough water will shoot out of them looking like a geyser.  

We looked up when the biggest waves would be for the next couple weeks and it was supposed to be the day we went.  However, the waves still apparently were not big enough to shoot as much water as they usually do (apparently they can get big enough to throw people down if they're too close!).  There were some decent ones but usually all you could see was a stream of mist.  Although you couldn't see much, you could definitely hear it, and there were still very beautiful views from the cliff.

The Sella River

Before we went home we decided to stop by the town of Ribadesella.  This town is known for its river and the party that takes place at the beginning of August where people have a rowing race, and of course because it's Spain, drink.  We stopped by to take a drink ourselves and have some tapas but didn't stay for long because we were heading back to go to the parties of a village nearby Santander called Bezana where one of our friend's family has one of their restaurants, Pizzeria L'archetto.  There they had a lot of different foods to try and I of course got something with cheese, and it was delicious!  I had one with blue cheese and honey and another with goat cheese...he such a good friend that he knows how much I love cheese!!

Although my summer in Spain was starting to come to an end, I was glad we got to have a relaxing start of August.  Especially with so much left to do before I went back home!