This weekend our whole BCA group took a trip to Santiago de Compostela. Its in the northeastern part of Spain and apparently usually has Atlantic-type weather (rain), but it was sunny and nice almost the whole time we were there (friday p.m. to tuesday a.m.) The reason for our visit was to study the architecture there for our art history pre-semester course. We flew there as a group, which kind of boggles my mind still, because something like that just wouldn´t make sense in the U.S. Anyway, it was a great time, for the most part. I looooved the Cathedral there (de Santiago, you could look it up online) which is fairly famous and which constantly has pilgrims arriving on foot from all over. We saw a lot of people coming in with big back-packs and walking sticks, etc. Also, there are several old monostaries and the university is quite old as well. Its fun to be in buildings built before the Americas were, well... something. Discovered by other people? Anyway. We also had lots of free time to wander about in the narrow crooked streets of Santiago. I hadn´t realized how much Celtic infuence there is in that part of Spain. Its a completely different culture from Catalunya (Barcelona) and they also have another language that they speak there, in addition to Spanish. Quite cool. I also went dancing one night with a couple other girls and we had a good time. Though I wanted more latin music. =) The pieces of the trip I didn´t enjoy so much were walking around in a group of over 30 people and being such obvious tourists/foreigners. I´ve never liked that feeling, and its worse when I´m in a big group. Plus then you have all the annoyances of splitting off into little groups to do things and trying not to leave people out etc. But this was our last real group activity, and from now on our schedules will be more individual. I´m hoping to make Spanish friends and find some fun things to do around the city. This weekend is a holiday, so there should be plenty of opportunities to hear live music, etc. And maybe I can go dancing again.
Classes started today and this morning I had a literature class. I think I´m really going to enjoy it. Its a BCA class, so there aren´t other university students, but tomorrow I am going to a Spanish class at the university, so we shall see how it goes. =)
I guess thats it for now. I hope to put up some pictures of Santiago soon. Thanks for the comments and emails, I love hearing from you!!!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
we studied the big cathedral in Art History! it definitely is famous and beautiful. although i think for the past forever they've been renovating it more often then not.
your trip sounded freakishly like sst trips: lotsa gringos and not much personal exploring time. hopefully you won't have to deal with that too much.
enjoy behlla barthelona!
celtic? that's ridiculous. and really cool. i had no idea. well, i hope your time is still being awesome for you! you need to learn some Spain-ish dancing, so you can teach us.
-david paul
Post a Comment