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.

#######################

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.