Sunrise in Gijón

Shortly after we moved to Gijón and had witnessed some lovely sunsets, I told Phil that we need to get up early and watch the sunrise (Amanecer in Spanish). We are not necessarily waking up before sunrise kind of people, so aiming to see the sunrise at least once, was a fairly reasonable goal.

My mother recently made a comment about how late the sunrise is in here, compared to Missouri. Not having a job or anything in particular we have to get up early for on a regular basis means I usually roll out of bed somewhere between 8:30 and 9:30 a.m. so I had no idea when the sun was rising. I told Phil that we should take advantage of the late sunrise sooner than later since Spain participates in daylight savings and we’d soon be moving our clocks forward an hour (the last Sunday in October to be exact).

Earlier this week I happened to see that the sun was rising at 8:35 and thought, now is the time. Getting up at the crack of 7:00 to watch the sunrise is waaaaaaay better than, well it’s better than getting up before 7:00. We decided the best place within in a reasonable distance to watch the sunrise was in front of the Hotel La Colina (which I mentioned in this post). The hotel is about an hour walk from our apartment, so we decided to take the bus and then walk back. We accidentally got off the bus a few stops too early (in our defense, there were three stops with Providencia in the name) so ended up having about a half-hour walk to the hotel from the bus stop. We did have a lovely view of the city as we climbed the hill (escalar, escalar).

Luckily, we’d given ourselves plenty of time. As we neared the hotel, we saw the faint, baby blue light slowly begin to illumine the eastern sky. We rounded the corner of the hotel just as the horizon began to glow orange and pink.

As sat on the wooden bench perched perfectly on a flat patch of grass overlooking the sea, arms wrapped around each other (both out of love and need for warmth), I caught myself in the moment. I called attention to it in my mind and instead of holding on to it, I just lived it. It is difficult sometimes, because we are living such amazing experiences, not to try to hold on tight to each one. The thing is though, you can’t fit very much into a white-knuckle fist. So, when I catch myself (I don’t always catch myself) holding on too tight, I simply take a deep breath, feel grateful, and jump out of my head and into the moment.

The sun was up by 8:34 and shortly thereafter, we headed back toward Gijón along the cobblestone path. As we walked through the rolling hills, the sunrise followed us and we were able to experience it a few times as it peaked over one hill to the next.

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I was STARVING by the time we got back into the city so we stopped at one of the many cafe’s and had desayuno (breakfast). Often (constantly) when we are walking, I point to various cafe’s, restaurants, and sideria’s and say, “Oh, that’s a cute little place” or “That place looks nice,” always finishing with “we should go there.” This morning we went “there,” to cafe El Viejo, a cute little place. I am not sure if I’ve mentioned this before or not, but Spain has THE best orange juice. It is always a fresh squeezed glass of sunshine. The fact that it is served room temperature and not cold, does not even touch the deliciousness factor in the slightest. In fact, I think the only reason they don’t serve it cold is because constant moans of delight would annoy the waitresses.

We enjoyed our morning so much, I think we may try to see another sunrise before the end of the October. L-I-V-I-N.

*I didn’t forget about my Florence post. I just wanted to type this one up while it’s still fresh in my mind.