Last Journey through Spain

This past weekend we went on our last group trip...tear...it was a good note to end on. We have grown so close as a group and it will be hard to leave the people I have become such good friends with. The towns we visited were more historic than anything, there wasn't a lot to do so we spend a lot of time just hanging out together and reliving our favorite moments. Our first stop was Salamanca, a city with a huge university and beautiful plaza. Walking into the Plaza Mayor at mid day and seeing hundreds of college students was probably one of my favorite moments. We got ice cream and sat in the plaza for over an hour. There was a big Cathedral of course, but mostly we just walked around. The city had a nice vibe to it. Santiago was our next stop, supposedly St. James is buried in a Cathedral there. Catholics make a pilgrimage to this city to touch a pillar where St. James saw a vision of the Virgin Mary.  It was so cool to see pilgrims with big walking sticks coming from so far away and reaching their destination. We attended pilgrim mass in this beautiful church and heard really pretty singing from a tiny little nun. It was an awesome experience. Leon was the last city we visited, honestly no one is really sure why we stopped there. It was a small town with literally nothing to do! There is a church with a lot of stain glass windows that our professor wanted us to see. We had to take a tour lasting two hours in Spanish about the process of stained glass. I have to say it was not my favorite moment in Spain. We got back on the bus the next morning, the bus that we have hated for so long and realized it was our last long ride. We have had so many good/terrible times on that bus. Arriving home in Alcala is always a nice feeling, but this time it was bitter sweet. We knew our last week would be full of finals and soon we would be back in the states. Something we have been waiting for so long but now that its here we are not ready. I want to make the best of my last few days...I will always miss my trips here.

Castle in Coca, a stop on the way home, Oh and the castle was closed and our bus driver needed a 45 min break, the temperature suddenly dropped and we were freezing outside waiting to leave. All 24 of us went and stood in a gas station about the size of a bathroom. We saw one person in this town, the gas station worker, the whole time we were there!

                                                              Stained glass in Leon


                                            The Holy Grail, a stop on the pilgrimage to Santiago
                                           Santiago is known for some interesting seafood....
                                                            Cathedral in Santiago
                                                   Some pilgrims on their way to Santiago

                                               Cathedral in Salamanca

                                                             Relaxing at Plaza Mayor
                                       This pretty much sums up the best parts of Spain....helado!
                                                                      Plaza Mayor
                                                                Some of the girls 

                                                The final burning of the main statue

                                                       Just an idea of how close we were
                                                   Some of the statues...before being burned


                                      One of the smaller statues burning earlier in the night

Las Fallas

So one thing you learn about Spain very quickly is that they will give any excuse to throw a big party. This week was the Las Fallas festival in Valencia, basically the history of it is that during this time Spaniards would do a sort of spring cleaning and take their junk out to the street and burn it. Over the years people got into the idea of building statues out of the junk they were burning and have a competition over the best one. Now they don't build statues out of trash but put a lot of effort into them. These are huge structures that take months and months to create and in a few minutes it all burns to the ground. We arrived in Valencia at noon, there are parades throughout the day with bands and people dressed up in traditional Spanish clothes. Every hotel is booked months in advance, there are street vendors, tons of food and fireworks all day long. The city of Valencia is really cool to see, the architecture is really modern and there are tons of parks. I have never been in crowds like this before. If you put your arms up, you literally could not get them back down. I don't recommend it for anyone with personal space issues, people are definitely all over you. We walked around most of the day, got some really good treats, everyone enjoyed chocolate covered churros and croissants while I had some amazing gelato. Valencia is also known for its paella, it was so nice to get a small plate for a couple euros on the street. There is a lot of waiting around since the fires don't actually begin until midnight and thats only the smaller statues. The big main section doesn't go off until 1 or 1:30. We got a good spot right up front for the big show 2 and a half hours ahead of time. We stood on top of each other literally not being able to move an inch. It took so long to start the fire because the police kept moving everyone back because we were too close. I was almost pushed over by a cop forcing us back. There were a few moments when I wanted to just get out of there and forget about the whole thing, it was not the most enjoyable experience. Finally at 1:30 the fireworks started, these are unlike any fireworks I have ever seen or heard. The ground shakes so much you can feel your insides moving. So much smoke fills the street and the flashes are so bright it feels like you are in war. There are very few safety regulations here, so the fireworks were right over our heads. It was crazy, but also frightening! A stray fireball flew out of the sky right next to us and everyone started to scatter, I was almost trampled by the crowd and was suddenly very aware of the fact that if something happened, I would not be able to get out! Luckily the fireball went out, and we enjoyed the rest of the fireworks, we were covered in ashes though. After probably ten minutes straight of fireworks, they light this string on fire that goes across the street to the statue. It lights on fire immediately making huge clouds of black smoke. Once the enormous fire got going, you could feel the heat! It was honestly one of the most intense experiences of my life. The whole time your watching this your amazed at everything, the amount of people there, the months of work burning right in front of you, the noise, the heat. Its so crazy. We were exhausted, walking from noon until 2 in the morning when our bus showed up to take us back to Alcala. We arrived back home at 6:30 in the morning, a little hard of hearing and ready to go straight to bed. Although it was a little uncomfortable at times, and a little nerve wracking, it was so amazing. I can't say I would do it again, but I am glad I experienced this crazy tradition at least once in my life. 

                                                           My favorite...paella!

                                                             Just some of the crowds!

                                                         The city of arts and sciences

I realize very few people know the geography of Spain, so I thought I would show a map of the country so you have a general idea of where I am. Madrid is right in the middle, I live in Alcala just south of Madrid. I have been all the way down to Sevilla, over to Alicante, up to Barcelona and Zaragoza and just this past weekend I was up North in Bilbao. In two weeks I will be back up to the very north west on the border of Portugal. I will have covered every corner of the country by the time I leave.

Basque Country

This past weekend we explored the Basque country of Spain visiting 5 cities in 3 days. The country is broken up into regions that are very different in weather, landscape, culture and language. Catalan and Basque are different dialects of Spanish, Catalan is spoken in Barcelona and Basque is spoken in several areas in northern Spain that we visited this week. Both are hard to read and understand but luckily for us everyone speaks Spanish as well. It is interesting to see all sides of the country.

                                             The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao

This river runs through Bilbao, you can see rowing teams practice all morning
There isn't much to do in Bilbao but the architecture is very cool
San Sebastian was one of my favorite places, its a popular vacation spot in Europe. It was beautiful, and the beach was warm. It was so good to be back in the salt air and just sit on the beach watching surfers out in the water.



The water was freezing, we tried to put our feet in and we didn't last very long

There is a legend in Spain about St. James seeing the Virgin Mary on a pillar. Some catholics make a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela where St. James is buried, its related to the pilgrimage to Mecca for Islam. Most walk, some bike but it takes days to get there. This is one of the stops on the pilgrim trail, here you can receive a stamp as proof of your voyage. We saw a few pilgrims walking with huge backpacks and walking sticks while we were here. 
These fields were beautiful, even though it took us an hour out of our way up a very windy road to get here


We stayed in Pamplona for one night. This is where they have the running of the bulls every year in July. The festival is huge for the city, everything stays open 24 hours a day, there are parties and thousands of people come from all over the world to witness or participate in the running of the bulls.
One of the streets on the course where the bulls run
Burgos was a small town on our way to Pamplona. Here we stopped at a cathedral and saw a statue of El Cid. Cid is a famous conquistador in Spanish history who conquered a lot of Muslim controlled areas.

  El Cid

                                             Cathedral at Burgos

Im down to my last 3 weeks in Spain, I still have a few more journeys to go on but I have experienced so much of the country. Its amazing how every area is so different. I never thought I would be seeing this much of Spain, it makes the hours and hours on a bus very worth it. 

Barcelona

                       

Ali and Me in the Gaudi park in Barcelona, even though you cant tell from the pictures, this park was so cool. It sat up on a hill overlooking the ocean, it also had structures all around the park that made the park look like a children's story. 

On the way back from Barcelona we stopped at the Monserat Monastery, it is on top of a beautiful mountain isolated from everything.



There were hundreds of repentance candles at the monastery
In Barcelona there are these amazing fountains that only go off on Friday every half hour. Music plays in the background and colored lights change, it was probably the coolest thing I have ever seen. My favorite part was when they played Disney songs in Spanish.



The beach in Barcelona

One of the days was so nice, we got to just sit in the park and rest from walking 12 hours everyday
Me and Ben in the park

Gaudi designed a lot of buildings in Barcelona, these are a few of his apartments, everything was inspired from nature
The Gaudi chapel, it was not finished when he was run over by a street cart and it has still been in construction ever since. They try and work off the plans he left behind but its been a long process.



The harbor


The huge open market had everything you could think of. Every part of every animal sells, stomach, liver, oh and the infamous pig legs.

The seafood was still moving on the table