Santiago Saturday

Oh, what a weekend. I started to celebrate a little early by skipping classes yesterday so that I could get my rest and be ready for last night´s festival. :) After waking up around 11, having my very Spanish breakfast of toast and coffee, I headed into town to get a few errands done (shampoo, money; you know, all the travel errands that don´t bother you when your traveling). I managed to run into my little group of girls that I´ve made friends with here, and made plans for the festivities. Oh what a day!

After going out and being part of the thousands that were 0ut and about, we found ourselves at a little cafe with sangria and beers all around. The park here is filled with rides, and cotton candy- like any good carnival should be. We decided not to actually ride any of them, mostly due to American Carnies who have affected all trust in carnival rides throughout the world. But, really this post has nothing to do with the carnival, and everything to do with why I was most excited to come to Santiago in July- FIREWORKS!!!!

So, picture walking up to the main cathedral plaza, two hours before the show, and seeing it filled with thousands of people! Wow, so the rumors I heard were definitely true- get there early!!! We managed to fanagle our way to a spot, where we could see most things, busted out the cards for a game of Go Fish (what else do you play with 3 people?), and began the wait. This is where Spain has no appeal to me at all. Two hours of smoking, pushing and loud people was a little rough. It´s amazing how really EVERYONE smokes. But, we endured it, and at 11:30 on the dot everything went black.

People began to cheer, a indescribably spooky music began to play, and the cathedral was lit up in a deep blue. From that point on, it was one of the most AMAZING experinces of my life. I feel that everyone should be here on July24th once in their lives to see what I saw. Lights, music and fireworks all in beautiful sync to celebrate the city and the story of Santiago; to create an unforgetable experience. Literally for one full hour the most amazing and beautiful live art I have ever seen was created. I tried to take videos (and when I go home will have to ask Joey to help me share) to capture what was happening, but nothing compares to standing there and experincing something like that. WOW!!!

So, at 2 am, we were very, very tired. We started to make our way back through the people drinking and partying in the park. I can only imagined they were there all night. I woke up to a park full of trash, beer bottles and wondered how that was all there for the religious festival? To each his own. I will post some pics and hope they show a little glimpse of my day for the dear Saint.

much peace. Trisha

p.s. I included a video from the Ojos de Brujo concert too!

Green...

Green is very apparent everywhere you go here in Santiago and in Galicia in general. It is known as the greenest place in Spain due to its weather. Everything is very lush to say the least. It started raining yesterday around 3:00 and has yet to stop! I´m not talking the Pacific NY kind of steady, hard, mist. I´m talking downpouring rain. For some reason we thought today would be a good day to take a leisurely hour to stroll to the mall on the opposite side of town. Yes, it poured the whole time. Yes, we were soaked, but yes, we did have fun. We decided the mall was a good place for the Compostelans to go because it gave them a chance to be out together even though it rains all the time. Over all is was a very modern mall and had a TON of great stores. We only saw about half of them before we hit a wall and need to sit andget some chocolate con churros. In Spain, the month of July is know as the month of sales. Every single store you go into has at least half of their goods on sale for 30-70% off. It´s a ridiculously amazing. I gor my eyebrows waxed for 2.80 euros! Very exciting!!

Okay, back to the green issue. I can´t speak for the rest of Spain, but at least in Santiago the town is insanely ¨green minded¨ in the ecological sense. On the streets at the edge of the old town, there are seperate recycling canisters for everything you can imagine, including organic waste! In the halls, rooms and bathrooms, of nearly all buildings, there are motion sensors to turn the lights on and timers to turn them off (a little inconvinent when you are on the toilet). People are very touchy when you have the lights on in the daytime at all. The sun rises at about 6:30(I´m guessing) and it doesn´t set till like 10, not counting the rainy days of course. So overall think of how much money and energy they´re saving!

Overall, I´m a fan. I do wish the rain would stop before Friday though...that´s the day of the biggest Festival in Santiago. They shoot off a ton of fireworks and have a light show and burn down a fake Moorish facade in front of the Cathedral, but I don´t know what happens when it rains? Hmmmm, I guess we´ll see :) For now I´m off...

The Spanish life goes on...

I am writing from the magical sala de ordenadores, opposed to the other one where the space bar doesn´t work on one computer and the internet doesn´t work on 3 others and sure enough, if you would like to add a question mark on 2 of them you can´t. So I found this magical computer room that I am not going to tell anyone about. Anyway, Spain is going well. I am now more accustomed to eating at 8, 2 and 10. It took awhile, and still the idea of toast for breakfast isn´t really doing it for me, but I realized yesterday that I haven´t had to grocery shop, cook or clean for almost 3 weeks! YAY for that!

I´ve offically started my second week of classes and this week began with two new professors. The theme of my cultural class is El Camino de Santiago, and the focus of this week is art and music. Next week is food, and I think we are all look forward to the gastronomy tour that is coming. At times I feel so overwhelmed by the Spanish, and at others I forget I am speaking it. It´s different to experience the language with only other language teachers (fortunatley none go around correcting everyone:).

To be honest, I don´t have many highlights. Oh, that´s a lie... I saw a film last night. It was called Un Novio para mi Mujer (a boyfriend for my wife). It was supposed to be a comedy, but knowing foreign films you can never trust the label. My friends and I thought it was much more of a drama than a comedy, but none the less happy we had Sunday night plans.

For now I am off to help a friend who is here who knew NO Spanish before coming. Pobresita, I cannot imagine.

besos a todos.
Trisha

El primer día de mis clases

I awoke this morning to a nice little knock on my door from a girl I met last night, who promised to wake me due to my lack of alarm clock. I can´t imagine she will do that everyday, so I plan to buy one today. The morning was nice and relaxed. I went to breakfast, in a cafeteria style place. There I had a very typical Spanish breakfast; crossiant, cafe con leche y una pieza de fruta. Wow, I just realized that I had began to type in Spanish (this is a good sign for me, but not so good for those who are reading, sorry). I sat with my new friend Beth, a girl from Romania, a girl from Portugal and an Italian girl!  Wow, so between all of us it was a surprisingly quiet breakfast.  We spoke about the deaths from the running of the bulls this week, and a bit about where we were all from.  After breakfast they broke us into our groups for class.  I am with a group of about 20 other professors/teachers from all over the world.  It's wonderful because we have to speak in Spanish.  Fortunately, I've made friends with a girl named Camilia who is staying in the room next to me and is in my class.  She is from Brazil and we speak very well together *that sounds funny, but my mind is already having a hard time with the language translation*.  Class was more of a meet and greet followed by a writing and reading test to see where we needed help.  Pues, I just came back from lunch with a guy from Romania and my new friend.  It is siesta here, then to a meeting at 5.  Chao chao todos. 

Santiago, rain and 25 years...

I arrived in Santiago this afternoon around 1. I was fortunate enough to have sat next to a professor from the university who was able to tell me exactly where I needed to go. I took a taxi to the university and realized it will be a great 3 weeks! For those of you who know me well, you know that I LOVE trees!! Let me tell you, the campus here is tree heaven. Some of the prettiest I´ve seen yet. I found the building that I am staying in and registered to get the keys to my dorm. Sure enough, I lugged my things up to the 3rd floor and unpacked into my rather simple accomodation. After unpacking I decided to walk around a bit and see Santiago on foot, despite the rainy day. I walked and found the cathedral. There were a lot of pilgrims there, and a good bit of tourist as well. I am really disappointed to see that it is surrounded with tourist shops and resturants. For something to be so spiritual, it is surprising to see that it ends with such commercialism. I suppose that is the world in which we live.

After the catherdal, I walked a bit more in search of an internet cafe or a place to buy an alarm clock (classes start tomorrow). Much like the US was 20 years ago, everything closes here on Sunday. I literally walked for about 2 hours around the city (which isn´t all that large) to find the internet cafe from which I write, and have yet to find an alarm clock. I did manage to find an Italian resturant where I treated myself to a pizza. Although I have done a good bit of traveling alone, it was one of the lonelist pizzas I´ve ever had. It´s my birthday, and you would think that travel and yummy food would be a good treat; they´re not. I sat alone in that Trattoria and realized that despite all the beauty this world offers, it is the people that fill it with beauty. This revalation has more meaning for me then a birthday afternoon; it shows me that life shouldn´t be lived alone, despite my many attempts to believe so. And I guess it is only those moments alone that can bring such a revelation.

As for the rest of the day, I am going to head back to my new place and do a little laundry. Maybe even meet someone that looks friendly in my building. :) Much love to all of you who are following me. Enjoy the ones you are with today!!

Para Vigo Me Voy

Wow! What an incredible day!! I awoke at the not desired time of 9 am(despite requesting a wake up call for 8 that came at 10) and realized I would not catch the morning train to Vigo. So instead, I watched some horrible Spanish cartoons in honor of Saturday morning, then was on my way. I immediately loved Vigo. I am so wishing I would have stayed here instead of Ponteverda. I arrived around noon and walked down to find the port. I must say my reaction was something like ¨WOW¨ when I saw the coast here. It is a beautiful town, and I spent the good part of the afternoon walking around the shops and bargaining for some sunglasses with a guy from Senegal and then enjoying something called ¨Toffee Glory¨, mmmm. At 3:30 I borded the boat to Las Islas Cies, and from there I will take the story over with pictures because words simply can´t describe...

Pontevedra...the solo journey.

Well, after waking up in our super cool Moon Hotel this morning, we decided it was best to part ways for a bit. It has worked out that there wasn´t quite as much time as I was hoping for to walk the camino, and also, I´ve been fighting this sore throat/cold thing for the past few days and decided to stay back from the 4 days of walking. So, that left me a little lost as to what I should do. After Joey and I parted ways (which was sorta sad), I hopped a train to a little town called Pontevedra. It´s pretty here. There is this great bridge I get to walk across to get into town from my hostel. The river that ends here in the town is beautiful and is set infront of amazing mountians. The whole journey through Galicia has proven over and over again that some of the best mountian views are here! Tomorrow´s plan is where the excitement comes in... There are 3 islands that are natural parks of the coast and I am planning on busing down to Vigo and taking a boat to one or two of them!! :) I love boats, I love water and most of all, I LOVE ISLANDS!! After that adventure I will be sure to post photos from it (and the past week). For now, I am off to stroll around this little town and then get ready for my day in the sun tomorrow. (Joey, if you read this, I am bitter that you have the sunscreen now that I packed) And I guess that means I am off to buy some sunscreen as well. Skin-cancer free in España :) Trisha

Londres a Laguardia, La Vida Lujosa (London to Laguardia, the Life of Luxury)

Wow, so where do I begin? Joey and I have had some amazing past few days. We arrived in London early on the morning of July 4th. To my disappointment, there were no signs of celebration here- not even a single sparkler. I suppose they may still be bitter we claimed our independence and all. But none the less, London was filled with sleepy moments, lots of time on the Tube (which was under construction, making things a bit inconvient), and then there were a few good moments too. ;)

We had the chance to see Stomp at the West End. Both Joey and I loved it! Who would think that people could beat on random objects for almost two hours and be so entertaining. After our show, we managed to walk to the Tower Bridge and have some fish and chips right infront of the Tower of London. It was rather surreal.

Things really came to life for me when we flew into Spain on Monday. Within our first five hours here we managed to have cafe con leche, tortilla española, a Fanta (which is way different here than in the States), and a Napoletano de chocolate. All of these are things that make Spain what it is :) Besides eating, we have honestly lived it up for the past 3 days.

We stayed in Laguardia, a small medevial fortress town, for two nights. I fell in love with the place. There is an ordinance there that makes the streets only available to pedestrians, and thus much more enjoyable to walk on. The town was so quaint and wonderful that we found ourselves walking around it multiple times. It is known for being a vineyard town, and so with that, we managed to drink a bottle of wine or two.

Surprisingly the hotel we booked for 40 euros a night, ended up being spectacular! We had a balcony that overlooked incredible mountians and vineyards on both sides, and was directly across from the cathedral built in the 13th century. So after a day of wine tours, an AMAZING Rijoana meal, and a nap; we mustered up the energy to go out in the town and buy wine, bread and cheese for dinner. So we sat on our balcony drinking, chatting and soaking in life.

There is so much more to come, but for now I have a bus to catch.

Besos a todos! Trisha

El Camino through Northern Spain

It feels great to write again and share that I will embark for my summer in Northern Spain on Friday. I was so fortunate to win a teaching award this past year to study in Santiago for three weeks- that I congratulated myself by buying a ticket to London and then tacking a few days onto the beginning part of July in Spain as a little pat on the back. :)

The plan as of now includes a 4th of July celebration in Trafalgar Square, Stomp in a London Theater, some time in Bilbao at the Guggenheim, wine tour in Medieval Laguardia, a bus ride across the whole Northern Coast of Spain and then a 4 day hike down the coast into Santiago (all before I start classes).

So keep up with the blog, I am looking forward to some amazing moments to share along the way :)