San Millan

Here are some photographs from yesterday's trip to San Millan with my roommates. In San Millan, there are two monasteries, one of which (Suso) is the birthplace of Castellano/Spanish and Basque. Of course all of the guides spoke rapid Spanish, so I got the jist of what they said but not everything. I went with my roommates, and afterward we visited my Spanish roommate's, Alicia's, pueblo, Banos de Rio Tobia. Her sister, Nuria, is one of the English teachers with whom I work, and I met her husband and three-year-old son. Then we went to the family's bodega beneath a garage and ate chips and olives and cheese and bread and drank homemade wine. It was a very Riojan day.

Suso, the older of the two monasteries, from Yuso. The monks lived in the caves that form the back wall of the monastery, and the oldest portion was constructed in 550 AD (!). It was then rearranged and added onto by the Benedictine monks who came later.

Sylvie, Alicia, Sascha, and Justen.

Yuso. The cathedral is under restoration.

more Yuso

the view from Suso

Suso itself

The cathedral of Yuso, the "newer" and larger monastery. It's under restoration so all of the important parts are covered in brown paper. I thought it was so interesting to see a cathedral in this state. Unfortunately, it won't be finished for another 4 years.

More of the cathedral. During the fall and spring equinox, the sun shines perfectly through that circular window and then through the circle above the doorway to make a perfect ellipse at the exact center of the cathedral. The benedictine monks were religiously obsessed with precisicion.

Original hymnals (is that what they're even called?). These books are at least two feet tall.

The pages of one of the song books. The writing is big enough so that it could be read from afar.

Yuso

I really liked this painted dome.

Alicia's father's bodega. This is where they store the wine. They have a wine-making bodega in the fields somewhere, I think.

me, Sylvie, Sascha, Alicia, and Justen

New Room!

I moved rooms at the beginning of this month when Robin moved out. I'm now at the end of the hall with an exterior window. Hurray for sunlight! And fortunately (knock on wood), the construction noises that had exceeded all possible expectations from November to January have calmed considerably. The only thing is, during the day there are construction guys outside my window across our terrace. So that's kind of weird. But I like having the extra space.

I also have two new roommates. Vanessa, the original espanola around here, up and moved to Bilbao while everyone but Sylvie was home for Christmas/the holidays. So for a while it was me, Sylvie, Robin, and Sascha. Then Robin went home for good because the term ended and Justen, an American auxiliar who came in late January moved in suddenly one Saturday. He's really nice, from just outside of Chicago. And then several days later, Alicia, a Spanish 24-year-old and the sister of one of the English teachers I work with, moved in. So we're a full house again. With a single shower. Which somehow works out.

Barcelona

Here are some pictures from my trip to Barcelona this past weekend. It was a delight:

A new restaurant, Big Fish, where we had wine.
It was really nice inside, particularly the restrooms.

Inside Santa Maria del Mar, Saturday.

Ew. Desigual.

The Boqueria, the market we finally got to visit.
Unfortunately all of the lunch counters were packed.

Particularly good street performers on the way to the beach in Barceloneta.
Note the weather. Gorgeous.

Another street performer, this one even better:
a Euro-hippie making bubbles from this string/stick apparatus.

More bubbles!

This one almost popped on Kara.

The beach and...

a mysterious bouquet and open bottle of champagne left unaccompanied.

Kara reliving her childhood.

Walking out onto the jetty with a sign that specifically said no people, no fishing,
and no something else. All said activities were taking place on the jetty.

A parallel jetty.

Happy hour. A brandy alexander (cheers, Phillip!) and a fruity bloody mary?

A store we've been into before, but I think the mannequins are funny and cool.

Dad, this is the olive products store where I bought your Ebro River salt.

I really liked the letters in the window.

The light blue cash register at the Champagnette (?).

An a-mazing dinner at Sikkim courtesy of Edgar (the best).

At the Crepes del Born.

A pretty bag for a sandwich.

Not pictured: the toddler that screamed the entire six hours of my bus ride to Barcelona. Also not pictured, the woman who decided it wasn't entirely inappropriate to yell at the toddler's mother and father multiple times and tell them that they were a bad parents, etc.

Also, while walking up La Rambla one of the days (it was Carnival weekend and many children were dressed up) we passed a little girl in a stroller wearing a white turban, black dress, white apron, and black face. Good one, Spain.

Nieva de Cameros

Some of the kids from CRA Moncalvillo, where I teach on Tuesdays, are presently at a one week English camp in Nieva de Cameros , and Rosa, Bea, Myrian, and I went to check up on them Tuesday morning. It was an uneventful trip, but Nieva de Cameros is beautiful. It's off the highway that runs from Logrono to Madrid, N-111, which is windy and has picturesque Riojan towns. This one is extremely small; we asked at the camp if there was a bar where we could get coffee and the answer was no. There are two bars in town and they only open on the weekends. Most people in Nieva work with sheep or cows.

The "camp" was actually an old boarding school I think. The building was very pretty, and the kids seemed like they were having fun. Most of the counselors were male hippy-types around my age. I only talked to one of them, Nathan, from Portland. He had just finished hiking the Camino de Santiago 2 days before arriving at the camp. When I asked him where he lived, he didn't have an answer. At the camp for this week, I suppose. He was nice. It's weird how speaking American/Canadian English makes me feel closer to people now.

There was a small shake up at camp Monday night. One of the girls took someone's shampoo (the teachers all took care to point out that the girl whose shampoo it was is from South America) and wrote "hijo de punta" on the mirror (which means son of a bitch) and then spread the shampoo all over the floor. Pretty bold for a 5th grader.

After standing around with the kids for an hour or so, we took a walk around the town and then to a small hermitage before heading back to Entrena. See photos below.

inside the "camp"

in town

some of the kids waving from the camp

the walkway to the hermitage

outside the hermitage

the view

more of the view

the hermitage

San Sebastian

This past weekend I went to San Sebastian for Saturday day and night and most of Sunday. It was an interesting trip; I´ll have to go back as a) it rained literally the entire time save for maybe and hour and fifteen minutes over the course of 30ish hours and b) Jennis´grandmother passed away on Saturday and she caught a train to Barcelona to catch a plane to the USA on Saturday after lunch.

So anyways, we had to wait until 10 minutes before 10 am to buy our bus tickets to San Sebastian because they weren´t sure if the buses would travel due to the snow. See below.


We drove alongside snow plows sometimes and then others we went about 40 mph on roads that were yet to be plowed. It was pretty.

When we arrived, we were picked up by Kara and her Basque boyfriend, Imanol, from the train station and dropped off at the hostal to deposit our bags. Then we headed to a tapas bar for lunch. The tapas (and food in general) in San Sebastian are rumored to be the best in Spain. The tapas were different from those in Logrono because in each bar there are maybe 15-30 different choices (as opposed to about 4) and most of them were some sort of bread topped with cream topped with seafood. In Logroño, they´re all about the meat on skewers.


After lunch, we fought the wind and rain and visited the Playa de La Concha. This is what the beach looks like on an ideal day in San Sebastian:



Even though it was freezing and horribly windy, people were still surfing. We walked the Hotel Londres, one of the luxury hotels on the beach, to drink a coffee, which was nice and elegant. Afterwards, we rushed to get Jennis on a train to Barcelona, which we did in a matter of about 60 minutes.




Then Kara, Imanol, and I took shelter from the weather in our hostal, where we rested until dinnertime. After dinner, we happened upon a large celebration to mark the beginning of Carnival that involved singing and drag. There were hundreds of men and women dressed as ¨gypsies¨and banging pots and pans and singing traditional Spanish and/or Basque songs. They were all gathered in a plaza, and on our side was a horse and carriage. The horse grew tired of the singing and the people, etc., and all of the sudden started bucking into the crowd, knocking over some speakers and generally scaring the beejesus out of everybody for a total of 20 seconds. Later, people continued to walk directly behind the horse, which seems like a bad idea anyways, regardless of previous behavior.


The singers then moved to the streets and formed multiple parades. Then, Kara, Imanol, and I sat in an Irish pub for a little while before going to bed around midnight. Trekking in rain and turning umbrellas right-side-out can really wear you down.



The next morning, Kara and I got breakfast a lovely pastry shop frequented by the owners of our hostal. Who, by the way, were the most adorable mother and daughter. If you are ever in San Sebastian, please stay at Bellas Artes. The daughter, who owns the hostal, was insistent that we see the nicest rooms and request them next time we stay there. AND she gave us a triple room for the price of a double. Below, see Kara and me in the owner´s favorite room. She was very enthusiastic about photographing us in the room.

I had a chocolate souflee for breakfast.


Kara and I spent Sunday walking around San Sebastian. We visited the other beach, which is apparently more for surfers, and ate some more tapas for lunch (see photo at top of post).