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.

The Greatest Thing Ever

I went to my first professional sports game on Tuesday. Not only a professional sports game, but a soccer game. Not only a professional soccer game, but a European soccer game. Not only a professional European soccer game, but a REAL MADRID GAME. (real means royal here, not real, in case you were wondering)

Let me tell you the story. It was the night before the game, and I saw that some people had posted about it on Facebook. I really wanted to go but figured it would be ridiculously expensive. I decided on a whim to ask someone how much he paid for them, and lo and behold his friend was selling two tickets for cheaper than usual! So I convinced my roommate to go with me and less than 24 hours later there we were, sitting in the second row of our section (the worst section, but still the second row!) watching some of the greatest soccer players in the world crush the opposition like it's their job. Which it is.

You must realize that, although it doesn't seem like it now, the above story was really very dramatic and suspenseful while it was unfolding. I mean I REALLY wanted to go to this game. Really a lot. You can ask my roommate. I was freaking out before, during, and after. Still am. Time for PICTURES!

The advertisement for the game (we played Lyon, France):

The field/stadium before the game:

 Us before the game:

Me staring intently:

Our side taking a free kick:

Their side taking a free kick:

People straightening up the turf at the half! You don't see that on TV!

Now you feel like you were there, right? Ok, I took a lot of pictures. But it was that great. We were sitting next to some true madrileños who were cursing the entire time, making it easy to tell how the game was going in case I suddenly forgot. I'm not really sure what all the fuss was about considering that Madrid wins almost all their games and they easily took this one at 4-0. Truly an impressive team.

Day Off

Wednesday was a national holiday here in good old España, which is usually nothing too exciting because there are national/regional/local holidays around here just about all the time. This one, however, was kind of a bigger deal than the normal ones, it was the Día de la Hispanidad, otherwise known as Columbus Day. Yes I see the irony here. I in fact added to it by spending the day doing incredibly un-Hispanic things.


First off, I slept instead of going to the parade. Ahem. But I heard it was nothing special. So there.


Secondly, my roommate and I ate Indian food in the "multicultural" neighborhood of Madrid, Lavapiés. First spicy food I've had in this country, and quite delicious at that.

Thirdly, we went to the least Spanish museum in Madrid, the Thyssen. It was free! Most museums are free for students at least one day a week, but not this one, so that made it pretty sweet. What made it not so sweet was the long line and early closing time. I'll just have to go back another time...

Lastly, and most Americanly, we made brownies for a girl in our group whose birthday is this weekend. Yes, I said brownies. We had to go to the more upscale grocery store, El Corte Inglés, to find brownie mix. Yes, we made them out of a box. Later that night we realized we didn't have butter. So we went to the grocery store in the middle of the night. I happened to be wearing a pajama shirt, shorts, and flip-flops, with my hair unbrushed and looking rather unkempt. No, I could not have looked more American. No Spanish woman would be caught dead in that outfit. No Spanish woman would even own that outfit as a matter of fact!

We did make the brownies in the most Spanish way possible, though. That is, in a cardboard "mold" because brownie pans don't exist here, in a toaster oven because our real oven doesn't work. Too ridiculous? Proof:

I actually ended up quite thankful that we didn't have a real brownie pan, because it wouldn't have fit in the toaster oven. The sides of the cardboard one had to give a little as it was... In the end they actually tasted quite nice though! Since tupperware is also hard to come by, we put them in a big plastic container that formerly held crackers. Like one of these. Altogether a great experience I'd say. Happy Columbus Day.