Galicia

Last weekend our group took a trip to the region of Galicia, in northwestern Spain, to visit Santiago de Compostela (former tourist destination of ye olde religious pilgrims) and the countryside. Before going I had to do my final project on the region, so I'm pretty much an expert on the matter at this point, and by expert I mean I know way too many random historical facts and all the stereotypical reasons why people from Madrid think they're cooler than people from Galicia. Which may be true on some level. However, as far as food goes, I think Galicia may have Madrid beat.


I can't believe I'm starting this post off with food. I didn't even intend to, I promise. This probably has to do with the fact that yesterday was Thanksgiving and my brain is still saturated with gravy. (We went out to dinner at a restaurant that serves American Thanksgiving food, so I did in part get to celebrate this wonderful holiday thank goodness. Although apparently Spanish people think Thanksgiving includes clam chowder...) Galicia has really really delicious bread and cheese, but they are most famous for their seafood. I know, I don't like seafood, but I did indeed try Galicia's most famous dish, octopus:

Those are some straight up octopus tentacles right there. Also wine in a bowl. Have you ever had wine out of a bowl? It's pretty cool but difficult for those of us with smaller than average hands...

Anyway, the region of Galicia is really different from the rest of Spain because it's so rainy, making the landscape really green and woodsy. The first day, when we were in Santiago, it was chilly and rained constantly.

You can see in this picture that most of the buildings are made out of stone instead of the cute white buildings of southern Spain. This is because the region is basically overflowing with stone and they have plenty to go around. It also is probably useful for when it gets cold in the winter. Fortunately for us, the weather was perfect the next two days while we were in the country seeing things like these gardens:

The gardens were part of this castle-like mansion, made of stone of course. They were really pretty with all of the autumn colors. That day we also got to visit our director's family house! We all ate lunch with him and his brother's family and walked on the nearby Camino de Santiago, which is where the pilgrims used to (and still do) walk to get to Santiago. The last day we visited an old monastery:

And then we returned to Madrid! Next week two of my classes will be ending so I have finals to study for. Great. But I also have a ten day trip to France to look forward to, so I think I'll make it through :)

More Roma

Some text to go with those pictures....


Rome was incredible, of course. Everything was just so...Italian. The pizza and gelato on every corner. The beautiful old churches and ancient columns on every block. The Italians yelling at each other while gesturing wildly. The problem with traveling places is that it always makes me want to go back and see more, and Rome was no exception. We were there for almost a week and saw all the main sights, but there's just so much more to the city!


Something that Rome does 100% better than Madrid: the food. Obviously. Something that Madrid does 100% better than Rome: public transportation. I later found out that all the old stuff in the city center makes a metro system near impossible to construct without annihilating some precious artifact, which makes sense I suppose, but before I figured that out I did not appreciate walking across the entire city every day to get back to our hostel. It was a blessing and a curse though because walking around a city really is the best way to get to know it. It also made me appreciate the Madrid metro system that much more. There are so many available stops around here it's ridiculous.


The monuments were as you would expect, I'd say (awe-inspiring, momentous, what have you). We actually got to go to the Vatican for free because it was the last Sunday of the month, but had to get up early and wait in line for two hours. Definitely worth it, though, because they charge so much for that kind of thing and of course we don't get the EU discount. I actually preferred the more outdoorsy things we saw just because they weren't what I had seen in pictures and on TV so many times. Also it's always nice to see a couple trees after living an urban area for a few months. Tivoli was especially nice because it was outside the city. Such a refreshing way to end the vacation!


Especially because now I have about a million tons of work to do. Pardon me, a million kilos. Or maybe it just feels that way because I haven't really been doing any work up until now. I've been doing things like going to Rome...

Roma

So I decided to take a little six-day weekend to travel to Rome for my birthday. Wow.


Things we did other than eat and walk around:

The Colosseum 

The Roman Forum

The Pantheon

The Trevi Fountain

The Vatican

St. Peter's Basilica

The Giancolo

The Villa Borghese

Piazza del Popolo

All Saints' Day is a national holiday in Italy, and since everything in Rome was closed we took a day trip to the nearby town of Tivoli, where we saw:

Villa d'Este

Hadrian's Villa

Those are the brief highlights! More detailed post will follow at some point. I decided to spare you the enticing pictures of all the food we ate. You're welcome.