Santiago de Compostela

OK, so the week after we went to San Sebastián we went to Santiago de Compostela with a group that organizes trips for international students. This meant that it was both really cheap and that we were on a bus that left at 7 in the morning on a Saturday full of Italians and French students that hadn't ever gone to bed.
As appetizing as spending a day on a tour being herded around with 100 rambunctious Europeans seemed, I managed to escape with a small group. A couple of my Belgian friends had a friend from Belgium studying in Santiago, so we went with them and he took us around to some of his favorite places.
I *loved* Santiago. There was something about the air there. When I breathed, I was breathing in the atmosphere of centuries of faith, dedication, and sacrifice that it took to walk hundreds of miles. It was almost like the vigor of the inner lives of each single pilgrim over the course of centuries had contributed to building up this destination. This was the first place in Spain where I felt like I witnessed something vibrant and alive. The present moment is not ashamed to live off the past there...in fact, it simply cannot avoid or deny it...but at the same time doesn't treat that tradition with a rigidness that cannot permit new growth, which I feel happens in Oviedo and ends up making the faith something dusty that should be in a museum and not something with relevance to daily life.
Many people seem to find reasons to do the Way of St. James today that have nothing to do with faith at all. I have to admit that I don't really understand that, but I still felt inspired when I saw the backpackers arrive at their destination with a look of true appreciation in their eyes and joy on their faces, as they took some time simply to lay in front of the Cathedral and contemplate it. I felt like I shared something with them, even though I didn't know where they were from or why they had made the journey they just came from.
This is the view they were admiring:
This Cathedral is gorgeous. Every picture of it looks like a postcard. The inside was pretty impressive as well.
This is a random side altar I thought was pretty.
This is the famous and painfully politically incorrect St. James the Moor-Slayer.
Of course, the most impressive thing were the remains of St. James the Apostle that rest inside the Cathedral, which I was able to spend a good, long time with since the group I had escaped with were cool. As I was walking into the little room where those remains are, I was struck by the feeling that one day I have to do the Way of St. James, and that I should convince my friends to come with me. (I seem to have gotten my friend Carla on board and we are planning for summer of 2011...anyone else interested?)
Here is a random street that I liked:
After the Cathedral, we went to a park:
Magical? Why yes, it was.
This is the university campus. I was very jealous of the students.
On the whole, on every street corner there seemed to be a beautiful little church.


After Santiago we went to the Tour of Hercules, which according to the Romans was actually built by Hercules himself. I wasn't really all that taken with it. From there we went to A Coruña, which is on the coast but was extremely uninspiring. I only took one picture there and it was the blandest ocean photo I've ever seen, that doesn't even deserve space on the internet. After Santiago, it really just couldn't measure up.

San Sebastián

Ahhh...one of the most gorgeous beaches in Spain, according to the Spaniards. Combine this with a castle and a giant statue of Jesus on top of a mountain, as well as the most complicated and delicious little snacks you've ever seen, and you have quite a lovely day trip to San Sebastián, in Spain's Basque country, near the French border.
But before being able to bask in this lovely and relaxing view, I managed to get us lost in quite a hilarious misunderstanding that may take away my "intrepid traveler" status.
In order to get to San Sebastián, we decided to take two night buses so that we wouldn't have to pay for a hostel to spend the night. As a result, we rolled into the Basque country half-asleep at around six in the morning. It was around the time we were supposed to be arriving, and I groggily heard the driver announce something that sounded suspiciously close to "San Sebastián". Not wanting to wake up in France by accident, I hurriedly woke up Danielle, my roommate, and we scrambled off the bus.
This being Spain, we knew nothing would be open for another three hours, so we wandered in the dark in 37 degree weather in search of any place that might have a bathroom. We found a band of drunk adolescent Basques that told us to follow them and ended up at a dance club STILL OPEN at 7 in the morning, but when we tried to use the bathroom we noticed that, while people continuously streamed into that one-seater, no one ever came out. Of course, we could barely perceive this since we were forced to take off our glasses, which had immediately fogged up from the smoke upon entering. Feeling more than a little suspicious, we settled on wandering around and trying to find something, anything, that would correspond with the map in my guidebook. Around daylight we were able to find refuge in a café which, although offering very good croissants, was also apparently the favorite hangout of a thin, drunk man slurring obscenities in a mix of Basque and Spanish at an electronic slot machine. For those who don't know, Basque is completely unrelated to Spanish. In fact, they don't really know where it comes from and remains almost a complete mystery to linguists. So it wasn't all that much fun when this guy decides to yell at us in this mysterious language. The only thing we were able to understand was something about the Japanese and the fact that he was probably asking for money from us. I pretended not to hear him, feigning attention at a news report on what Barack Obama thinks about Kurdistan, while Danielle got quite scared. We fled to the bathroom, and expressed our disappointment at not finding the beautiful beach we had heard about by making the following faces:So after having freshened up, we wandered around for quite a bit longer. We ended up following a little old lady who, being very pale and seeming frightened when we asked her where we could get a taxi, and who later completely disappeared in the distance next to a factory, we decided might be either a ghost or a figment of our tired and overactive imaginations. Next to the factory we ended up running into a Romanian cook who was still drunk but had to be at work soon and didn't know where he was either, but luckily he was able to lead us to a taxi. We jumped in excitedly, asking to be taken to the castle. "Very well", the driver said at first, but when he went to put the car into gear he realized he had no idea what castle we were talking about. I showed him the map in my guidebook.
"Ohhh...you want to go to San Sebastián!" he exclaimed, proud that he had figured out our request.
"Yes!", I shouted enthusiastically. And then Danielle and I exclaimed in unison, "But...where are we now?!?"
It turned out that we were in Eibar, about half an hour from where we wanted to be, and it would have cost more to get to San Sebastián in a taxi than the 5 hour bus trip we had just taken from Oviedo. Luckily there was a bus to San Sebastián and nice people that helped us figure out how to take it. I didn't even take a picture there. It was pretty much the opposite of picturesque.
But once we got to San Sebastián we were able to take in the following views:

After meeting up with a friend from Berea, we decided to saunter over to the mountain/castle. On the way were some beautiful old buildings which I enjoyed taking pictures of.

Also, we walked past the port:

Our final destination, though, was Jesus.
The castle was also pretty cool:

And of course, what trip would be complete without taking some time out to relax on some artillery?
On a side note, heaven only knows why, but the mullet is in its renaissance here in Spain. At the castle I was able to snap a picture of the famed mullet/dreadlock combo, one of the most heinous mullet variations:

yep, still here!

Hello everyone...saludos desde España!
I just wanted to leave a small update. I have been so busy scooting around Europe. Since my last post, I have gotten hopelessly lost in a small town in the Basque country, breathed in the magic of Santiago de Compostela, seen the tombs of St. James, St. Luke, St. Mark, St. Lucia and St. Anthony of Padua, the largest relic of the true cross supposedly in existence (90 centimeters!), leisurely floated down the Grand Canal in Venice, sang "That's Amore!" at the top of my lungs with cheerful Italians while holding a bottle of cheap but delicious Italian wine and strolling down medieval boulevards in Bologna, experienced all-you-can-eat pizza and pasta, ate just about all the gelato I could stand, narrowly escaped an earthquake, deftly navigated country mountain roads in northern Spain where apparently all it takes are three buildings to make up a town and road names don't actually exist the way we would like them to.
I promise I will post pictures very soon!