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 :)