Spain, Gijón & Covadonga, day 7

A park that we always passed on the way to church.

More food.

During Easter, they always have the most elaborate chocolate displays in the store windows.

I used to do grocery shopping here every week with my first companion. Lidl's is a lot like Aldi's (if you're familiar with that). I had never been to a grocery store like either when I first got to Spain. I thought it was the strangest store! And I assumed that that was how all grocery stores must be. This was just one element to add to my culture shock. Then my second companion (Chad's sister) came along & she took me to a regular grocery store. Still very different in many ways (for ex., buying or bringing your own bags, no peanut butter to be found, & cartons of milk that sit on a shelves unrefrigerated), but much more like I was used to.

This was our church. It was kinda a big deal that it sat on its' own lot & wasn't in an apartment building. Nearby wards would come to our "capilla" during general conference just to hear the words of our prophet. What a sight! Families driving from hours away, lunches packed, decked out in their Sunday best. Every room was occupied. We all listened with joy to the words of our prophet. There are 4 sessions of conference- 2 on Saturday, 2 on Sunday. We'd watch previous sessions that had be pre-recorded (note, the time change) & if I remember right, we got to watch one live session on Sunday. Those were times to remember. I remember feeling so blessed that I'd actually been to general conference in person, whereas these saints were just excited to watch a session live.

And you may notice that I like to throw in occasional pictures of our car rental, just to keep you in shock of how tiny it actually was. (Please note: the cars next to our rental is the standard size for cars there...& they are generally smaller than the cars we drive here in the states!)

So, what do you do when you want to keep rats, mice & other critters out of your house? You just build your house up on stilts! Duh! No, but serious, that is what they did. Kinda crazy, huh? Oh, & in case you're wondering where we are- good question. We were misdirected by GPS & ended up WAY off coarse on someone's farm, which according to GPS, should've been our hotel.

Parador de Congas- our hotel near Covadonga. Paradores are historical buildings that have been converted into hotels. This particular one used to be a monastery.

Roman bridge in Congas de Onís.

Then we headed up to Covadonga, which is just up the mountain...maybe 6 miles??

Basílica de Santa María la Real de Covadonga.

Do you see Chad??

Then we climbed the mountain even higher to go to "Los Lagos" (The Lakes...creative name, huh?). I'd actually been here as a missionary. We'd paid one of the tourist buses to take us up to Los Lagos, but when we got to there, everything was completely covered with fog! No visibility at all! Now, having gone there with visibility, I'm wondering if it was good or bad that it was foggy that day. That road was treacherous! Narrow road, steep cliffs and in many spots absolutely no guard rail! I was so scared we were going to blow right over the edge.