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Published: April 2nd 2009
Last week I didn't do anything too exciting since I was studying for midterms. Unfortunately we won't get our grades back until after Semana Santa (Holy Week/spring break) so that's not for another two weeks. I had a nice break from studying on Wednesday when Ashley and I met Diana after our flamenco class at El Tigre, a popular tapas bar in Gran Via. There you can get a large sangria for 4.50 Euros which comes with a big plate of assorted tapas with each drink. I also got together with Ashley and Diana on Thursday night before we left for Galicia. We met at an Irish pub two blocks away from my house that I always walk by but never went in before, so that was fun.
Saturday morning we met at metro Colon at 7 am to depart. Thankfully, no one missed the bus. Carmela had ordered a more comfortable and larger bus than the one we had used for Cordoba and Segovia since this trip was much longer. We first drove for three hours and stopped in Leon, the capital city of the province Castilla y Leon. When we first arrived we had a few minutes to
grab a cafe. On our way to the main plaza where the cathedral was we passed a large building that was one of Gaudi's first designs. After seeing his most famous works all over Barcelona, we would have never guessed he designed it because it looked so different. Outside of the cathedral was a huge crowd of Catholic school kids and we were worried that they were swarm the cathedral so Carmela wanted to do the tour earlier than planned. As it turned out the school was doing some kind of poverty-awareness demonstration and they all held hands in huge lines and walked around the cathedral. Quite the sight! Inside, the cathedral was amazing. Carmela said it has over 700 panes of stained glass and I definitely believed it. My pictures didn't come out that well but the colors were beautiful. One of our tour guides later told us that it's great to visit the cathedral at different times of the day because different stained glass windows are emphasized when the sun changes position.
Next we toured the Museum de San Isidoro, which was a church with a museum that had all of these amazingly preserved Romanesque frescoes on
the ceilings. They also had a really cool collection of religious devotional items, etc. Then we toured a nearby government building where the officials in Leon have offices and we got to know a little more about the province.
Then we had an hour and a half for free time and a snack. I ate the sandwiches Patricia packed and then had a little racion of tortilla Espanola with Allison, Ashley, and Diana at a nearby cafe. Then we walked around the city to see more of the shops downtown until we met at the bus at 3 pm. We drove for another 5 hours until we finally reached Santiago around 8 pm. Most people slept but I couldn't really fall asleep so I listened to my ipod and watched the view from my window. We stopped once at a random restaurant off the highway because Tom had eaten Burger King back in Leon and needed an emergency bathroom break, which we all found hilarious. The north of Spain is very green because it rains often and there are a lot of cows and sheep.
After checking into the hotel we had free time until dinner at 9:30.
I had already showered so when Ashley, my roommate for the trip, was ready we decided to walk around the main center of the town which was a few blocks from our hotel. It was cool to see the cathedral at night and get a feel for the downtown area. The streets were very windy and we ended up getting a little lost but found our way back in time. For dinner Carmela took us to this well-known wine house and we sampled white and red wines from Galicia. Each group of four people shared a plate of different Spanish cheeses and another of meats. We also had different little cakes for dessert. All the food was delicious but I think I would've rather had something of more substance after traveling for so long.
Dinner ended around 10:30 and so we just decided to go out instead of going back to the hotel first. We found a little Chino (chinese) bar where we could all fit in the one room. Ashley asked if I wanted to split a jarra of sangria (like a big glass at El Tigre) but what we got was a huge pitcher! I was nervous
because I only wanted some and didn't want to get stuck with paying a lot when I didn't know it was tha expensive but apparently the whole thing was only 5.50 Euros. After that everyone else in our group started ordering them too because it was so cheap and really tasty! After we had been there for a while a group of young people from England came in and we all started talking since the room was small. They represented a company that buys wine and as a job perk they got to go to wine tasting events and so that's why they were here for the weekend. They were pretty entertaining and we had a good time hanging out but then they left without paying their tab which was obnoxious. We left shortly after they did (except we PAID) and went in and out of another few bars. We all got home around 2:30 am.
Saturday we had breakfast at 9 am and were leaving at 10. The breakfast here was definitely not as good as the other hotels we've stayed in but at least the Spanish always have pastries! At 10 we got on the bus and
drove for about an hour to the beach. The majority of the group went to a cafe on the beach and had tortilla espanola (as you can tell, this is our default snack!) We walked around and took pictures of the beach and town. After about an hour we boarded the bus again and drove to a nearby town called O Grove (El Grove). Some things were spelled differently because in the north of Spain people speak Gallego as well as Spanish. Patricia is from Galicia and she said she can understand it but can't speak it. The root of the verbs are the same but Gallego has a slightly different vocabulary. We went to a cafe for a little snack of French fries paid for by Carmela and Maria Angeles before our boat was ready.
We boarded the boat which went out into the sea passing by all of the fishing traps. The boat crew showed us what they looked like and also let us go to the bottom of the boat where glass panels let us see out into the water. Then we had a delicious lunch of steamed mussels fresh from the sea! I don't really
like seafood but I thought this would be the place to eat mussels since they were so fresh and I actually enjoyed them. We also had some white wine. The bus driver came along with us and he and Carmela were signing along to the old Spanish songs from their youth that was playing on the boat, which was funny. The lunch on the boat was definitely something I wouldn't have done on my own in Spain and so far everyone has said it was the highlight of our GW weekend trips!
After the boat the bus driver took us a few minutes down the road to the beach where we got out and walked around. The sun was finally shining (it had rained off and on that morning and Friday night) and we had a good time just running around and being silly. Nick and Tom decided they wanted to fully enjoy the ocean by stripping to their boxers and diving into the cold water! We couldn't stop laughing. When we got back to the bus everyone pretty much fell asleep until we got back to Santiago. I got off with Mark and Jarrad at the main plaza
to walk around. At 5:45 I left them to go to the cathedral for 6 pm mass said in Gallego. (I really wanted to hear what it sounded like, but when I told Patricia at dinner I planned on going she laughed at me asking why I would want to go when I can't even understand the whole mass in Spanish, haha.) Interestingly, I was surprised how similar it is to Spanish. The mass was good but a little distracting because people were still touring the cathedral during it. Also, there is a large statue of St. James behind the altar and the cathedral's tradition is to huge it by going up the steps behind, and so every 10 seconds of so I would see a new pair of arms reaching out around the statue.
After mass I walked to the hotel and took a hot shower. Dinner was at 8 pm in the hotel and we had mashed potatoes, veggies, and bacalao (cod I think?) which is a very common Spanish dish. I was sitting next to Jordan and Ari and they passed on it since it had all the scales, head and tail still on but I
decided to try it. There were incisions on its side so you needed to carefully slide the meat off of the fish bones. Jarrad covered up the fish's head with mashed potatoes so he could concentrate on eating it without it staring at him!
When we finished eating we all followed Ari to a sports bar the concierge recommended to watch the Spain vs. Tuekey soccer game. Sezen actually skipped the trip to go to the game with her family and of course Ari had to watch it since he is Turkish so we all thought it would be fun to go too. Thankfully we all found a seat at the bar and it was really cool. Spain was supposed to win and did with a score of 1-0 although the Turkish goalkeeper was outstanding. It was funny sitting next to Ari because he would randomly mutter and curse in Turkish since they were losing. When the game finished we popped in and of some different bars until we stayed in one for the rest of the night. It had an upstairs floor with its own bar that was empty when we arrived and so we had it all
to ourselves.
Sunday morning we ate breakfast earlier and met at 9:45 to leave for our tour of the Plaza and the cathedral. Our tour guide first brought us to the five star hotel in the same plaza as the cathedral, which was originally built by King Fernando and Queen Isabel as a hotel for the pilgrims. After St. James' remains were found (the validity of this is up for debate, but now it's scientifically impossible to prove) pilgrims began to journey to Santiago and people have been making the pilgrimage ever since. The sign of the path is a seashell because legend has it that St. James rescued a drowning knight who was covered with shells when he resurfaced. The most popular beginning of the pilgrimage is across Spain on the border with France but there are a few different paths. My guidebook says it is so well marked that people say you don't even need a map (although it is highly recommended!) Pilgrims can stop by a many restaurants and hotels along the way for a free meal and night's stay. They even have their own "passport" that gets stamped proving they made the journey. As the
For my sister Jenna
Spaniards love the King!end of the pilgrimage, the cathedral of Santiago gives out certificates and has a mass at noon in the pilgrims' honor. There is a large incense burner the cathedral is well-known for and takes many men to hoist up with a pulley and it was originally used to freshen the place up since the pilgrims smelled so bad by the time they arrived!
Inside the cathedral we looked at the architecture. In the front there is a likeness of St. James carved into the column and its feet are worn from centuries worth of pilgrims touching it when they arrived. There is also a custom for students to learn their foreheads against the statue of Mateo, the architect of the cathedral, to get some of his genius to rub off on them. It was roped off so we couldn't do it but Maria Angeles assured us we were intelligent enough to get by on our own, haha. We took stairs down behind the altar to the crypt that held St. James' remains. Then we waited in line to hug the statue of St. James which was fun.
After the cathedral tour we had about an hour for free
time. I went with Jordan and Ashley to a cafe our tour guide had recommended and we got tea and danish. Then we walked to the nearby park where you could have a great view overlooking the town below the cathedral. We went back at 1 pm to the hotel for lunch and had soup and trout. The food was good but I was definitely ready to get back to Patricia's cooking after all that seafood!
We left the hotel at 2 pm for our 8 hour drive home. We stopped at a rest stop for a half hour for a snack and I ate more tortilla espanola. It wasn't too great but it's hard for it to be bad! We had about two hours left to go and I was starting to go a little crazy but luckily Maria Angeles had brought a movie for us to watch. It was a Spanish movie called "Mar Adentro" which was based in Galicia and had a soundtrack full of music from the area (who knew the Spanish played bagpipes?) She put on the Spanish subtitles so we could understand better.
The movie was based on a true story about
a man who became a quadriplegic after diving into the ocean and breaking his neck in his early 20s. He had sued the Spanish government to try to change their laws on euthanasia because he thought he deserved the right to decide to die if he was miserable with his disability. He lost the case but wrote a book about the ordeal and eventually committed suicide with the help of his good friends.
I asked Patricia about it at dinner and she said the movie won a lot of awards but she didn't care for it because it was sympathetic to his cause which was against Catholic values. This reminded me again about the constant struggle Spain seems to be having between its Catholic roots and modern day outlook. I saw in the paper Monday that there was a huge pro-life rally over the weekend in Madrid. I asked Patricia about it because I didn't completely understand the article and she explained the Socialist government is trying to change the abortion law to allow a woman to have one at any point in the pregnancy and for any reason (right now you can't have one after a certain number
Leon and Santiago 051
Unfortunately I couldn't take pictures of the old frescoes. of weeks and it has to be for a medical reason). She explained that the other smaller independent political parties often side with the Socialists who now have the majority in congress anyway and so it's a real possibility in the near future.
Tomorrow morning I am leaving for Semana Santa vacation. I will be going with Ashley and Susan from my program to Paris, Florence, and then Rome. I'll be staying with my friend Nikki from high school who is studying abroad in Florence with NYU and then I'll be meeting my GW friends Matt, who is studying in Friedberg, and Marissa, who is studying in Geneva. I am fortunate enough to have gotten tickets to the papal mass for Easter thanks to Matt who included me when he asked his priest friend from home who has connections at the Vatican! So I will be seeing the Pope say mass two Aprils in a row which is really special, except now the second time is on Easter! The only thing that would make this semester better is getting to see the Phillies' home opener, but I guess I can't have everything!
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Christine
non-member comment
Wow!
You get to hear the Pope say mass on Easter!!! That is so cool! Have fun with all of your travels.