Finally Maggie, Olivia and I hiked up to El Cristo which is a gigantic statue of Jesus, similar to the one in Rio de Janiero but not nearly as huge. It was the longest hike of any of our lives. We took the long way up which consisted of several wrong terms and some 90 degree inclines. It was essentially a stairmaster for about 3 hours! We were exhausted.. plus the humidity just made things awful. Luckily we made it up there and we could not be happier. We took the rough way up which nobody else in the program had the guts to do and we think it made it wayyy more rewarding. We walked by a lot of interesting and beautiful things that made the trip much better than taking a bus 75% of the way there. We felt like true Spaniards hiking up to the top. About half way through the trip we all decided that we deserved to eat something super fatty and delicious after such a huge hike, a 12.3 mile day, and that place was McDonalds. Of course you do not come to spain to eat McDonalds but after over 3 weeks in a foreign country you want something that resemebles home. Even my host mom mentioned how good it was! So we all gave in and had it the next day… it was FANTASTIC! Plus they use 100% real beef and have some of the strictest food policies here in Spain so the food was even better. I had never been so happy to eat fast food before… or have a drink with ice cubes 🙂 Anyway.. back to the hike. Once we got to the top we could over look the whole city and it was gorgeous! You could see just how compact Oviedo is snuggled behind beautiful green landscape. It was one of the best feelings to stand up there after seeing how far away we had hiked from. The Cristo was even better in person than we thought and the fence right infront of him had dozens of “love locks” hooked onto it that were really adorable. We enjoyed our accomplishment and then had to look forward to the next 2 hour hike back down. It was a great evening spent with new friends talking about everything from boyfriends to beauty secrets. These girls have been the best people to hang out with in Spain because we are always on the same page and it is always a funny and interesting time when we are together.

3 hours later

WOW