Hola. I'm back. I'll try not to slack this much on my blog writing ever again! I have a lot of catching up to do, but I'm going to tell it all out of order, sorry :)
I had an absolutely lovely weekend in Santiago de Compostela. Santiago is in Galicia, a region in the northwestern part of Spain, just north of Portugal. It is part of "España verde," (green Spain) which is a very small part of the country, the rest of the country is "España amarillo" (yellow Spain) as my culture class teacher calls it, because it is just so dry and desert-y. Santiago de Compostela was just beautiful! Galicia is very different from the part of Spain I live in. Well actually every single region of Spain is very different. You travel a couple hours and you're in a completely new world.
 |
| The cathedral in Santiago de Compostela. |
Anyway, Galicia is also very interesting because it has Celtic roots. I don't know a lot about the history, I just know that the Celts lived in the area at some point and there is still a lot of Celtic influence in Galician culture. And there is SEAFOOD in Galicia. YUM. I don't know what happened to me, but I LOVE with seafood now. (I know my parents will be very pleased to hear this and at least one sister will be kind of disgusted and surprised.)
Once we got to Madrid, it was an hour long metro ride to the airport, a long walk through the airport, and then a long, long wait at the gate since our plane was delayed about an hour. There was lots of dozing in the metro, at the airport, and on the plane. But finally, at long last, we arrived in Santiago de Compostela! It was pouring rain. But I was happy! I like rain, and it was nice to finally have weather that felt like fall. On the bus ride into Santiago I couldn't see much because of the foggy rain, but I could tell we were somewhere new. It just felt different. How to describe it? I could see green hills and lots of trees and it all just looked very picturesque, even through the rain. It reminded me a little bit of western Washington.
From the bus station we found our hostal quite easily, then set off for a little exploration in the rain. We walked into the casco antiguo, to a little place that the hostal owner recommended for lunch. It was a great little local, family-owned seafood restaurant. And I had PULPO DE GALLEGO! OCTOPUS! I loved it, as you probably already guessed. Octopus has such a crazy, different texture. It's kinda chewy and rubbery but the middle part was soft and has such a great flavor. I also loved that it was purple. My friend Reng had some little clams and I tried one and it was very tasty. Right out of the shell. Yum. How I have changed. I never would've eaten one of those at home, haha.
After lunch we continued our walk in the rain. The old part of Santiago has narrow winding streets, kind of like in Toledo. So pretty! It could have dreary, what with all the rain and the grayish buildings, but I thought it was charming. It's another one of those cities where you can just feel how old it is. The cathedral there is one of the most important in Spain, because it is the final destination of El Camino de Santiago, the third most important Christian pilgramage in the world. Pilgrims have been traveling to Santiago for over a thousand years because St. James' relics are supposedly in the cathedral. So the city is full of backpacking pilgrims from all over the world, some do el camino for religious/spiritual reasons and some do it for more recreational/enjoying the beautiful scenery/finding themselves reasons. That was not the best explanation ever, so if you want to know more, look here.
The churches in Santiago also have a very distinct look because they are covered in moss and lichen, since it rains so much in Galicia. We went inside the cathedral briefly after lunch. It's very different! It's smaller the the cathedral in Toledo, but has much more historical importance because of El Camino. Inside there is a gigantic, kind of gaudy, golden, baroque altar and retablo, that the bishop had put in in the 16th century I believe. Pictures to come soon, I always fail at describing these things, pictures do the job much better.
Later, we were walking behind the cathedral and approaching these steps that went down to the main plaza. There is an arch that covers the steps, and under the arch was an old man playing the Galician version of the bagpipes. They're a little smaller and have a slightly different sound. (One of my favorite things in Spain is the street musicians, but more on that later.) Anyway, I was walking down these steps and it was absoutely pouring rain and I could see the green hills and the rest of the city off in the distance, beyond the plaza, and this hauntingly beautiful, sad bagpipe music was filling my head. And it was just one of those moments that gave me chills, it was so magical, beautiful, enchanting, and mysterious. How to possibly describe it? I realized that these moments are the reason I worked like crazy all summer saving money to come here. These moments are so worth it.
After spending most of the afternoon walking around in the rain, I was absolutely SOAKED. My rain jacket did not do its job, unfortunately. It's funny though because people in Spain don't really wear rain jackets, they just use umbrellas. So we spent some time at the hostal showering, warming up, and resting. Friday night we went out to a tapas bar. It was SO much fun! We went to this little street filled with tapas restaurants and picked one that looked delicious (all the different tapas are on display at the bar and they all looked soo yummy) and was super crowded (we took this as a sign that it was good). We sat at the really full bar, and with the help of a friendly waiter we pointed at all the tapas we wanted to try and just had a wonderful time. There were tasty little shrimp, a little steak, one that had three different kinds of cheese, more octopus, and just SO MUCH good food. And some wine. I want to go out for tapas every night! After that we enjoyed some time in a bar decorated with wooden Celtic carvings.
On our way to the bar, we happened upon a traditional singing group in the street. They're called tunas. Traditionally tuna groups were students who would sing in the streets to raise money for their school books and things. It was really fun though, there was a big crowd gathered around them and they were dressed in the traditional costumes and everyone was singing along with them.
Luckily, Saturday was a BEAUTIFUL day. No more walks in the rain. Our first stop was the cathedral to look at the outside in the daylight and read what our guidebooks had to say about it. (yes, I like doing things like that.) On Friday Santiago was like a ghost-town compared to what it was like on Saturday. SO many tourists.
After the cathedral we went to the market! It's a food market and we got our lunch there. Which was the best decision ever. People come from the surrouding villages to sell their produce there on the weekends. We got fresh, soft cheese, bread, chorizo, and lots and lots of fruit. I bought the best grapes I have ever eaten in my life from a little old Spanish lady. She didn't seem to understand me (or didn't want to?), but the younger woman who was talking to her understood me just fine. Anyway, the grapes were perfect, beautiful, and purple, that's why I had to buy them. And they're so good. The way grapes are supposed to taste. And they have seeds, which just makes them more legitimate as grapes. That makes sense to me, although probably not to anyone else....
We ate our delicious lunch in a park. It was pretty, there was a pond that was unfortunately full of giant white ducks and the lawn was like pigeon central. But the pigeons didn't bother me too much so it was really nice. The rest of the afternoon we walked more, went back to the cathedral again to go inside and look around more closely and then did a little bit of shopping. I finally bought a purse that I actually LIKE, surprises of all surprises. That night we went out for tapas again with some guys we met in our hostal who are spending the year in Santiago teaching English. They had only been there about a week and were stressing out about finding housing.
Next up, Spanish TV.
No comments:
Post a Comment