I just went on the most wonderful trip! A friend of mine decided to move back to Alicante, in the mainland of Spain, so a bunch of us decided we would accompany her and make a road trip out of it! I had never been to northern Spain before, so it was quite the experience :)
After spending 7 hours in the airport in Barcelona (I dont get the residents´ discount that all the other islanders get so I often have to buy multiple plane tickets in order to pay less), we finally took off for Santiago de Compostela, Galicia. Looking out the airplane window, I was amazed to find how green it is in the north. I had heard it was a lot different climate-wise than in the rest of the country, but I never expected such a drastic difference. The majority of Galicia and Asturias is as green as western Washington. It was soooo beautiful, and being there made me feel "at home".
Today I´m only going to talk about Galicia. We went to sooo many little towns in three different provinces, so I don´t want to bore you all with a ten-page blog:) I'll continue later though...
sooooo....
There were 5 of us. Encarna, her friend from Santiago Jose Maria, Anna (the one that was moving), Bea, and of course me. The first night we got there kind of late so we just went out for some tapas. I was surprised to find that they serve FREE tapas with your drink there like when I was studying in Granada... and they were soo good! I tried pigs ear, which was new for me, and besides the texture I found it surprisingly ok. We had spicy mussels, xorza (a kind of seasoned pork meat typical from Galicia), and some delicious caldo (soup with greens), among many other things. Thats the great thing about tapas... because they´re so small you have room to try all different types of new things. We also tasted some delicious Galician wines, which had a very distinct flavor compared to other Spanish wines I´ve tried.
In the morning we went to visit the Cathedral, which is one of the most well known cathedrals in Spain because it is at the end of the Camino de Santiago. It was gorgeous. Surrounded by tall gates and made out of a darker grey stone, it´s actually a little scary looking. I really do like gothic architecture like that.
I was actually very fortunate because while I was in Santiago on the way back to Palma, I caught the "Botafumeiro", which is when they swing this 80 kg incense dispenser across all the tired and unwashed" pilgrims that make it there. It's used as a sign of repentance and prayer. Apparently this tradition is hardly performed anymore. Encarna was practically in tears because she apparently hadn't seen it for fifteen years... it was really pretty cool to see. Everyone was really moved in the audience. The botafumeiro is at the bottom of this picture, although you can't really see it that well...
We also went to Lugo. They have even more and better tapas there than in Santiago... We went there to visit a friend of Jose María's, named Xan. He showed us all over town, and took us to all his favorite places. We had lots of octopus, which is typical in Galicia. They put paprika all over it... delicious. I also got to meet some of Encarna's friends from way back.
We also got to see the ancient Roman walls that surrounded the historial district of Lugo. You can walk around on top what was once the entire "city" of Lugo.
On the way back from Asturias we went to Encarna's house to visit her family. I had heard a lot about them before I got there, so they were just as I had expected. They live in a smaller town on the coast called Ribeira, and only speak gallego in their home. While gallego is a dialect that is relatively similar to castellano, it was not that difficult to understand most people in Galicia. However, Encarna's parents have the thickest accent and speak soooo fast, so I got only about 80% of what they were saying. I still had a lot of fun there with them though. We went to the Saturday market, walked along the beach, and ate home-made seafood empanada made especially for me with cornmeal instead of wheat flour. We went out to dinner with her sister Maria and hung out with her brother a bit too. It was a great ending to a wonderful trip.
Next time I'll tell you about the middle of the trip:)
No comments:
Post a Comment