Pension San Simon Santiago de Compostela

A slow morning saw us arrive in A caruna around 2:30p for a quick tour. A beautiful city where we had an excellent lunch (more kids running through the streets while we devoured raciones and wine. Yum!!) A 6ish departure for our long drive to Llanes in Astoria. We finally ...

... the "Um, are you planning to sleep tonight" comment.

And excellent dinner of seafood paella while the kids ran around was followed by a drunken night of dancing with the locals. Hillariuosly fun until 3am. Seriously.

                           

... including real "pilgrims") we were back on the road to A Caruna where Ev had found a seaside campground. Back on Spanish time we had an delightful meal of Spanish tortilla (potato omlette) around 9:30 and the kids were in bed by 10:45. Yikes!!

                     

... drove to A Garita de Herbeira, the highest cliff in Europe. As we drove up the mountain, we passed wild cows and horses and pretty rolling hills with purple flowers-- I was reminded of the Scottish countryside. However, when we got up to the top, a huge cloud had descended onto the mountain, making it extremely cold, wet, and WINDY! We literally had to bend over double to fight our way across the fields towards the cliff, at which point we realized that A ...

... I didn't think that we were standing on top of some ancient monster skull, but the tower was pretty and had a nice view, so we enjoyed it. We then got a brief walking tour through A Coruna and were set free for lunch. Since we still had our bolsas, Liz, Lauren, Kaitlin and I sat in the main plaza, the plaza of Maria Pita, and ate our lunches. Maria Pita is like the Joan of Arc of Galicia; apparently, several hundred years ago, A Coruna ...

... each other.

Mass ended at 1:00 and then at 1:15, several priests brought out the botafumeiro (google or Wikipedia the term botafumeiro). This is a massive, silver incense burner that is tied to a huge pulley and controlled by 8 men called tiraboleiros. (Thank God they can tie a good knot!) They light the incense and the tiraboleiros pull the botafumeiro up and start it swinging across the pews. This is a ritual that started ...

... games. But, at all of the required cultural events, it is hard core. We have NO idea what is going on and are ecstatic to pick up every 5th word (on a good day). We are begging for some TPR, scaffolding, realia, or any SDAIE (Specially Designed Academic Instruction in English) method known to man. Can you give us an outline in advance so that we can at least translate it and know what we are going to be dealing with ...

... re wanting reflections on the whole trip, well, ok. It was certainly a great experience but I would never want to do it again like many people were. Too many other fun things I want to do in life. Tip #25: Do not plan more than one extra day in Santiago. There isn't really that much to do there. Unless you love to puzz.

We arrived in Santiago around 10.00am after a night at Monte de Gozo from where one could (in medieval times), on a clear day, see the spires of Santiago Cathedral. We didn´t actually see any spires yesterday and I was way too tired to go yomping around looking for any cathedral spires - decided I would get my fill of looking at said spires once I got here - especially as we got 6 days in town. We duly found the pilgrim office and presented our credentials and got the ...

... as "barbarians" because we do not use bidets and he does not understand how we clean ourselves after going to the bathroom. He also explained his theory that the most important verb in the English language is 'get' - you can out pretty much any 'little word' after get and create the meaning you need. When in doubt, he uses get. It actually works pretty well. Monday we made our way back to Santiago to hop back on the plane to Barcelona. Although the ...