Galicia

Soooooooooo here's probably a super long post...that i'm just deciding to shorten and just tell the best parts...

Sunday we got back from Galicia. We had a minor incident on Friday...The program ends on Friday and then a bunch of us opted to stay until Sunday at Santiago de Compostela (northwestern Spain). I was so excited to find a hostal that was only 18 DOLLARS a night, each person! I found it before we arrived, so I booked it online, etc. So the bus leaves with all of our program leaders and we set out to find this hostal....
sidenote: People make pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela. They walk or bike 100 km at least to get there, so see the burial cite of St. James (although they actually don't even know if they are his remains or not). Also they swing this huge inscense thingy, they started it because they allowed the pilgrims to sleep in the cathedral once they reached the city and since they smelled so bad they had do put incense in the whole church. Also their symbol is a sea shell, and all of the little ridges on the shell stand for all of the different routes to Santiago, where they all meet up.
ANYWAY...so we get to this Hostal Seminario menor....it is huge on this big hill. We get there and there are pilgrims in line in front of us. Gross, dirty, sweaty pilgrims. We find out that you cannot talk in the room with the beds (oh yes, one room, at least 30 beds barely 2 feet apart) and that there is a 12 o'clock curfew. and you have to leave by 9:30 so that they can clean. Soooo we walk up, and it looks like a hospital from WWII. Bed after bed, and in these tiny little beds are PILGRIMS, old men, some scantily clothed, and smelly and the one that was supposed to be sleeping across from our assigned beds had a bloody food. THANK YOU BUT NO. So we RAN down to the internet and I then found a really, really good priced FIVE STAR HOTEL for us to stay at for the weekend. Then as we were leaving, there were 10 minutes left of internet. A woman was sitting there and I told her she could use the internet, but she said she didn't have the password or whatever, and I said she could use my last 10 mintues. She then says, "you are true peregrinos." yeah right, well whether i'm a true pilgrim or not, we got out of there FAST. Our hotel was more than amazing, with little bath robes and a SHOWER and everything! We spent the weekend just walking around the city, eating a TON. I tried octopus and shark and their queso de tetilla (nipple cheese....yes, that's what it's called...I'll put up pictures hopefully). And I just had a really great time, the cathedral is beautiful, there's this guy that is stationed near the church and plays the bagpipes for donations and you can hear him from pretty far away so it's like a celtic sound track (there are lots of celtic influences there).

Galicia had really cool things...first of all they speak Gallego, which is a mix of Spanish and Portugese (wow I can't remember how to spell that in English) but it's pretty easy to understand, although we really udidn't hear it all that much to be honest. Also, there is a lot of folklore about magic! They sell little keychains of witches everywhere, and little statuette things. So I bought a Bruja de Estudios, a witch to help me with my studies :) She's really cute and just hangs out on my desk.

Also, we stayed at a rural house. Like, imagine summer camp but in northern spain. It was really cool though, you could see all of the stars and we got to know eachother more as a group, I think. My favorite part, though, was the last night. They had a "surprise" for us...Queimada! It's this drink where you take basically straight alcohol, put in apple peel and limon and orange zest and a TON of sugar and then light it on fire for 20 minutes or so. The bowl lights up blue, and you know it's done when it turns to orange fire. Then you say this really creepy "magical" chant to get all of the bad witches away, and to keep the good ones. It was really awesome. Didn't taste so great (read: tastes like sweetened rubbing alcohol) but oh well. Then we learned some traditional gallego dancing! It was really fun.

On the trip we also went to the Torre de Hercules, one of the oldest lighthouses ever, we had a tour ON TOP OF the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, we went to a little town of St. Frances which was beautiful, you could see the sea, then we went to the highest cliff in Spain, with a visibility of 1 meter - we were literally in a cloud. The trip overall was really cool and I'm really glad that i stayed the weekend!!

Got back Sunday to start classes on Monday...Monday I only had one class though, my USP (universidad de San Pablo) class was canceled...because it was the first day of classes, no one goes to class...So yep. Then Tuesday, I got lost going to schoool. It was so pathetic. I've been there so many times! But our Metro stop just reopened after a lot of construction...Well each metro stop has more than one exit/entrance, and I couldn't for the life of me, find it. so I wandered around until I found another one....THEN once i got to the correct stop for my school, i left out of the wrong exit!! Then I asked a traffic guy where my street I was looking for was, and he didn't even know. blahhh. I was about 15/20 minutes late for class, but the professor didn't seem to care at all. It was just so annoying and I was sooo frustrated because what should take 30 mins took me an hour to do. But today I got there and back just fine...thank God.

Also, I got my USP student ID! So that's exciting. I had to wait in line with a bunch of other international students which was cool because they were speaking in German and Italian and some in broken English to eachother.

I haven't gone to my USP class yet, I have class on thursday, (tomororw) and i'm really excited to see how it goes! OH and also, everyone at my school dresses REALLY REALLY nice. Every girl I see, I want her whole outfit. And on my walk to school, I pass by Zara, H&M, Bershka and Mango is not too far either. and starbucks! It's really bad...Luckily they don't open until 10 so if I had an early morning I can't accidentally wander in, but I think this may be dangerous...

anyways, love an dmiss you all!! xoxo