Miscellania

Well, I've kind of slacked off lately on the blog-posting. No reason really, I've just been lazy. So, here are 10 miscellaneous photos from the past couple weeks or so.


#1) Breakfast. Some mornings I have enough time to make something nice, like a fried egg sandwich with onions and cheddar cheese. And two or three tiny cups of tea.

#2) At the Aquarium. I've been back to A Coruña again since my post about it, and one of the places I went was the aquarium, where they had a big tank of octopuses. I took a bunch of photos, but most of them were blurry. This was the best one. There were a bunch of little kids there too, and I found it hilarious that their parents kept telling them, "¡Mira! ¡Qué rico!" for all of the exhibits. "Look kiddies! Look at all these rare, beautiful animals! So delicious!"

#3) A Cat. I found her in Fonsagrada, she was super friendly.

#4) Milus. That was the name of the tour guide at the Torre de Hercules (well, the name of his Roman character at least). He was very bubbly and charismatic, and had a lot of interesting things to say about the history of the tower and the area, and the symbolism in the mosaic we're standing on. He's the one in the saia (Galician version of the kilt).

#5) Compass Rose. The mosaic we were standing on. The images stand for Scotland (thistle) Isle of Man (three legs) Ireland (shamrock) Finesterre (skull) Galicia (chalice w/sun) Santiago de Compostela (shell) Greece (winged snake) and one other one (diamonds)

#6) Rua Ramon Ferreiro. The main street that goes from my neighborhood to the center. Off to the right is a Gadis, my favorite grocery store.

#7) Don Leon. A chain of cafeterías/pastelerías/panderías. Coffee shops. When you go to a Don Leon or any other coffee shop and order un chocolate, you will receive a cup of melted chocolate. It's warm chocolaty pudding goodness for less than 2 euros.

#8) La Xunta. the Xunta (pronounced shoon-ta) is the Galician government. This is one of their buildings in Lugo, which is the capitol of Lugo province. The flags are, left to right: Galicia, Spain, Europe.

#9) Goodies. As a Christmas gift, all the teachers and employees at the school got a box of sweets. There were two types of sweets: almondy things (turrón and marzipan) and polverones, which translates to something like 'dusties.' They are little crumbly cake things, mostly flour and sugar. Also, raisins and dried figs.

#10) A fig. Figs are pretty common here, but fig newtons are not.

Cathedrals

First, some required listening. (right-click, new tab) It's quiet, but it will get louder.

As you probably know, Spain is a Catholic country, and has been for pretty much as long as Catholicism has been around. As you also probably know, I am not much of one for religion, but I can absolutely appreciate a place dedicated to quiet introspection and tranquility, especially with a little bit of history thrown in.

There is a cathedral in Lugo, special because it is the only cathedral in the world where they are allowed to keep the host on display all the time, not just during the host part of the ceremonies.

At night, it gets lit up, like most impressive historical things do. 

There's a church in Fonsagrada that I go past to get to the school every day, so I figure that's worth a mention as well, even though it doesn't have the papal seal of approval.

Notice there's a Camiño de Santiago symbol above the door in the bottom right corner (looks like a clam shell). I suppose technically you could say that I have been on the Camino, since part of it goes through the town and along the highway for a stretch. But been on is very different from done.

Now we get to the real reason behind this post: I went on another field trip today with my coordinating teacher, to the coast this time. One of the places we stopped was the Basilica of San Martiño in the town of Foz. The first stage of construction started in the fifth century, with more additions completed up through the seventh.

Classic romanesque style.

Unfortunately it was closed when we arrived, so we did not get to go inside.

After poking around the outside of San Martiño, we headed east to Tapia de Casariego in Asturias, where we got a little lost, had lunch and went for a walk.

A departure from the theme, I know, but it was so pretty I had to share.

Next we headed back west, to A Praia das Catedrais. We didn't get there until around 6pm, and both the light and my camera were failing, so I didn't get the chance to take as many photos as I would have liked. 

Rain on the water.

This one is blurry, I'm sorry.

Julián waiting while I climbed to the top of one of the catedrais, as the storm rolls in off the water.

I hope the music timed out well with how long it took to read the post. :)
ps. Here's a link if you'd like to see all the photos from today a little bigger than I can put here. photos

Visiting History & Free Beer

First the history.

One of the things I did this past weekend was take a trip with Julián, my coordinating teacher, to the Castro of Viladonga, a place well-deserving of its cool name. 

Viladonga is a small town about 25 minutes outside Lugo and is home to some cool ruins and a decently good museum.

There's Lugo in the bottom left, and Viladonga in the top right.

We saw a double rainbow on the way there when we stopped to get fuel (diesel, not gasoline). 

Between stopping for diesel, admiring a rainbow and getting slightly lost, we didn't get to the site until 6:30 or so, and it was already getting dark out, so I'm sorry my photos will be kind of crummy. But like Julian said, it's more of what isn't there than what is there that makes the place cool. 

So, two views of essentially the same thing. The village was about half the size of a football (read: soccer) field and was surrounded by a earthen wall, maybe 20, 25 feet tall. Inside the wall, you can still see the foundations of the stone houses where the people lived. They were tiny by modern (and especially American) standards and had only one or two rooms each, with maybe 50 houses total, all butt up against each other with streets in between.

The museum had a model of the village showing how it must have looked when the houses were still standing. You can see a fence around the top of the wall and farmlands/pastures outside. 

The village is called a castro, and the people who lived here were part of the 'casto culture'--a group of people who lived in the northwest corner of the Iberian peninsula during and slightly before the Romans took control of the area. 

They were a bronze age people and made all kinds of metal tools, pottery and glass things. In the museum, they had needles and keys on display that they had dug up at Viladonga. I was really impressed that people 2000+ years ago were blowing glass and making keys etc, and had to keep reminding myself that the Romans and other folks had been doing that stuff for even longer.

Speaking of the Romans, it's neat to note that in the older castros, or the older buildings in the castros, are round, while the newer ones are square, like Roman buildings. The archaeologists also found tons of Roman coins and other Roman artifacts at Viladonga, showing that at least by the time the castro was abandoned they were more or less integrated into the Roman empire.

Although by the end the castro culture people might have been considered Roman, there is some proof here too of celtic origins, mainly in the jewelry uncovered at Viladonga and other castros.

http://aaviladonga.es//imagenes/1319200470.jpg

 All in all pretty cool. The whole museum was in Galego of course, but they did have translation sheets and I probably would have learned more if I had bothered to read the English version.

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One of the things I did this morning was run some errands before meeting my carpool. Stop by the bank, pick up some groceries... This became a mini emotional rollercoaster.

First was worry and confusion as the girl at the cash register put a case of beer in my bag that I had not I had not intended to buy. 

Second was relief and enthusiasm when she explained that it was free--a promotional holiday thing. So, of course I was like 'free beer? Way to go, Spain!'

Third was disappointment when I got home and looked at my free gift.

Estrella Galicia Sin. I guess now I know why it was free.

Snow Day

My carpool nearly died coming home from the school yesterday coming down a mountain road covered in 2 inches of snow at about 25 mph, fishtailing and drifting into the oncoming lane... But we didn't die! Because Carmen, the teacher who was driving, is an awesome driver. 

This was Fonsagrada on Monday. It started snowing in the late afternoon, and was sticking by the time my carpool left at a little after 7pm.

Of course the Xunta declared that there would be classes all week, so everyone went on Tuesday. The Xunta is the Galician government, seated in Santiago in the western part of the Autonomous Community and is in control of the education system, including snow days.

And this is Tuesday! I took this photo right before lunch, so maybe 2:10, 2:15 ish, and it kept on like this even after we left at around 5.  When we arrived, there was a little snow on the ground from the night before, and it was just starting up again with a few melty flakes. 

A lot of the students live outside the town in the surrounding villages, so the busses came after lunch to take them home. The ones who live in Fonsa stuck around til the end of classes, which meant the teachers had to stick around as well.

one more snow picture from tuesday morning

Today, the ones who live in Fonsa did show up, but I think that was only like 7 students and 3 or 4 teachers. 

Galego: curso de iniciación

So, last week the Galician teacher at my school was kind enough to lend me some introductory materials for learning Galician. For clarification: in English--Galician; in Spanish--gallego; in Galician--galego. 

The only problem is that the books are solely in Galician--no Spanish translations. But I don't think this'll be that big of a problem.

But at least I'll be able to pronounce everything!

O paisaxe

Last week I went on a field trip with the students to some of the surrounding villages and a waterfall, about 12.5km in all. I was pretty impressed with the students for hiking so far without complaining too much!

Here's the route we took!

This is the village where we started.

A neat rock formation

Looking down on the Rio Lamas

A little church, still in use today. Very typical.

Walking under the chestnut trees.

Proof I was there! Note, I didn't take all of these photos. Some were taken by the other teachers.

One of the villages from a distance.

The waterfall. Two of the boys decided to go swimming in the pool underneath it, even though it was november and raining.

At the end, the bus picked us up and took us back to Fonsagrada

A Coruña

Alternate title: Look at my Vacation Photos!

So, this past weekend was a long one, and I took the opportunity to make a trip to A Coruña, which is a city of about 300.000 people (FYI, in Europe, the use of commas and points in numbers is reverse of that in the states) in the northwestern corner of Galicia. It's considered the starting point of the 'Costa de la Muerte' (Death Coast), where there have been millions of shipwrecks over the centuries (I made up that number). But, I don't remember whether the Death Coast proper is to the north or south of A Coruña. Either way, it's near here that there was a big tanker spill about ten years ago.

Despite that, it's a very prosperous, modern city with lots of tourist attractions. 

I went with another girl from the Auxiliares program, Laura from Ireland. We took the train, which took about 2 hours. We'll take the bus next time.

Train station in A Coruña. The blue thing on the far wall is like the town crest. It was on everything--manholes, trash cans, signage...

After getting off the train we stopped for coffee and churros (a Spanish thing, not a Mexican thing, apparently), then went to the Parque de Santa Margarita, in the center of which is the Casa das Ciencias, a science museum for children. We had a blast anyway, and it was only 2 euros to get in! The written portions of the exhibits were in an interesting mix of Castellano, Gallego and English. Some had all three, while others had only Castellano and Gallego, while some were either Castellano or Gallego, or a mix of the two.

Did I mention that A Coruña is on the sea? I'm not sure what the tower is on the end of the point--I'll have to go back and check it out next time.

We saw some real surfers too, but these ones were a little easier to photograph.

One of the main attractions in A Coruña is the Roman lighthouse, called the Torre de Hércules. It still is a functioning lighthouse, and you can go inside if you like. Laura and I did not, because we were going to meet up with one of the teachers from her school and didn't have time. 

One of the main pedestrian streets in the town center.

In front of the town hall. It's quite a bit bigger than the one in Lugo.

This is Maria Pita, the town hero. She drove out the British in the 1400's or something. Pretty badass! In the statue, I think she's about to spear some poor British soldier on the ground.

We only saw a small part of the city, so we'll have to go back another day and check out some of the museums and the aquarium.