Well today was quite the day here in Oviedo! School was just a normal day until my conversation class began. So each day we have a new topic that we discuss (movies, entertainment, literature etc) and today's topic was modes of communication. A Simple, normal, and pretty boring topic that I really don't have a strong opinion about. The conversation started out normal until we got really off topic and it turned to education (keep in mind this is a room half full of people from the states and about half from Germany) which got a little more intense because they were for sure stabbing the education system in America....and then it proceeded to head down the path of RELIGION!! YIKES...as you can imagine this conversation took a turn to awkward town really fast. Basically it turned into the Germans accusing America of not being a free country because we are not allowed to teach one type of religion in our schools and how we can not discuss religion in the class room etc etc. We all tried to explain that that is a freedom for us but they did not understand. One of the guys even asked us to answer this question...he basically said "So if you had to choose between being able to practice your own religion or not having religion taught in school you would choose not having religion taught in school?" All of us tried to explain that we do have freedom of religion and that is why we can't strictly teach about one religion (except in private schools etc). We even went into depth about how at our university we can choose to take religion classes and that we learned about all different religions in highschool but it had to do with history and blah blah blah...needless to say it was very hard to explain in spanish lol. I actually really enjoyed conversation class today because it was so controversial! I was able to stay really active in the convo! Anyway, after that I came back ate lunch, took a 20 minute siesta, and then headed off to meet my conversation partner! I was really nervous because I had no idea what to expect! Luckily she was such a sweetheart!! It was really fun to talk to her in spanish and in english...i think this is going to help me a lot! We talked about the movies that she has seen in english, twilight, our travels, our studies, and other stuff! She even has heard of "On the Rocks" an acapella group at University of Oregon that is really good! I had no idea that they were that good to get all the way to Spain! She was really excited when I told her that that group was from my university! it was really neat! After I hung out with my conversation partner for about an hour and a half I met Reme so that she could take me to the herbal thingy place. She was soo helpful and I ended up getting some fruit pill chewy thing that I am not sure what it is at all, but well see if it works haha. After the herbal thingy place Reme took me out for a beer and we sat at the cafe for about 2 hours! It was really fun! I was impressed with myself that I was able to hold my own on the spanish front for over two hours! We talked about all the cultural differences between here and the states and the different traditions etc. It was really cool talking to someone who has visited the states multiple times so she knew what I was talking about when i mentioned stuff from home. After our little date I walked around by myself to get back to my dorms. It felt really nice to be out and about by myself and knowing where I was going and stuff. I was in such a good mood and then I came back in my dorm and say the SADDEST thing I have ever seen. A dead kitten :( I was NOT okay when I saw this, I was devastated. Luckily it wasn't gatita, but it was a really cute black kitten with white paws...SO SAD. Sorry to end on such a depressing note haha...but anyway tomorrow we are hopefully going to a new beach near Oviedo called Luanco! It is supposed to be really pretty! Hasta!


PS I WANT THIS AHORRA