Grand Tour Part III: Going Downhill

Saturday after seeing Santiago, I checked off two things that had been on my list of things to do for a long time. The first was finally finish my TESOL online course. Somewhat hurried and half-assed, but done and with a passing grade. 

The other thing was go up the tower at the cathedral in Lugo. This was thanks to a friend of a friend (Sarah's Spanish friend Alberto) who arranged the whole thing. Unlike more touristy churches, in order to go up the Lugo cathedral, you need to get together a group of at least seven people and make a reservation to have one of the employees unlock all the doors and give the tour.

The upper level of the cathedral was packed full of art that had been donated to the church over the years centuries and gave an awesome view down into the nave. From down below there's not much to see, since much of what was once open archways and windows was blocked up with stone to shore up the building after an earthquake. 

From the upstairs you can then climb the tower, which gives some unique and beautiful views of the city.

It was kind of a nice little goodbye for Lugo, since the next morning we got up at the "ass crack of dawn" and caught the bus to Gijón in Asturias.

Gijón is a mid-size city on the coast of the Bay of Biscay, (or mar cantábrico in Spanish. Don't ask me why it's a bay in English but a sea in Spanish) and just so happened to be the hometown of the study abroad student Heather's family hosted. Unfortunately she wasn't there when we were there, but we had fun anyway. Doing things like: going to a medieval themed market, getting sunburnt on the beach, and trying not to get kicked out of a museum for laughing too loudly.

We bought some strange food here

Looking at the Cimadevilla, or the old town of Gijón

She´s saying, 'hey, man. How you doin'?'

I wish I'd had the presence of mind to remember who it was that created this great work of art.

We also poked around the old Roman Baths, which were actually really well preserved, maybe due to the fact that they were only dug up in the last decade or so. It's kind of surprising that it's only recently that we've (at least in the parts of the world I'm familiar with) started heating our homes through the floor. Romans were doing that millennia ago, and dang! they were pretty clever.

Just some royal turkeys

The first whole day we spent criss-crossing the old town, so the second day we decided to branch out a little and rented bicycles for the afternoon. We rode to a park in the east part of the city where we checked out an aviary and had a picnic of ham sandwiches, then followed a path by the river down to the university.

Along the way, we noticed a few problems with my bicycle. The mud flap couldn't hold itself up, and needed to be jury rigged with a screwdriver and a hair tie (finally some sailing skills coming in handy), the chain fell off (twice), and for some reason it just kept getting harder and harder to pedal. But you know, I'm out of shape and maybe I was just getting tired.

It was Heather who pointed out that my back tire was scraping against the frame. At that point I decided I'd had enough and was ready to return the bloody thing. As we rode back down the path, at one point we came to a little hill, at the bottom of which there were three things: straight ahead there was some vegetation and then the river, to the left some mud, and to the right the path as it curved to follow the shore. 

Now this was a steep little hill, and I bet you already know where this is going. When I tried to brake, (only the rear brake worked) the bike immediately started fishtailing and I could feel myself loosing control. So, unable to make the sharp curve of the path, I decided mud was the nicest option available.