Hoping to Snap a Shot of a Celtic Warrior Someday

Castros de Baroña: Celtic Ruins

This is one of my favorite areas in Galicia. And I never get tired of coming here. I've probably been about 10 times or more since I've lived here. For one moment you actually feel like you've gone back to another time in history. 700 B.C to be exact. It's all grey, misty and mysterious...like a fairytale.

Castros de Baroña: Celtic Ruins (2)

The closest I could find to Celtic Warriors

Rocks in the cove

View of the Rias Baixas from Mt. Curota

View of Mt. Curota and a "Toxo" (typical Galician shrub)

La Ribeira Sacra: Our Semana Santa Getaway

This year for semana santa (the week leading up to Easter), Jose and I went to the Ribeira Sacra in Galicia with his son, Sergio. We were only able to stay for one night, because we waited to long to book in a "casa rural", and all the rooms were already booked for the other days. But it turned out great, because we had beautiful weather on Thursday and Friday morning (the days we were there), but then it got cold and rainy again. Here are some pictures of the trip.

Ribeira Sacra is a beautiful wine producing region all along the Rivers Miño and Sil. We visited the San Estevo Monastery, drove through windy mountain roads lined with oak and chestnut trees, stopped at the river overlooks, visited a castle in Castro Cadelas, ate deer and octopus, drank wine and took a ride in a catamiran through Sil Canyons.

Galicia never ceases to amaze me...

Secrets

I've always tried to fit in the best I can in Spain...meaning no flipflops, baggy T-shirts or baseball hats in the street. Most people don't even realize I'm not Spanish/Galician until I tell them my name. But my secret lies within our computer room...

The other day a technician from R, our internet provider, came to fix a problem we were having. He walks into the computer room, looks around, looks at me with a confused look on his face and says..."You're not from here, are you?"...I wonder what gave it away?

After chit chatting for awhile he assumed we were friends and says, "American soccer sucks." To which I reply, "Yeah, but Spanish basketball sucks."

Lunch in Portosin

Well, the rain seems to have cleared up for at least one day. We woke up this morning to sunshine and blue sky. Days like to today are slim, so we had to jump on our chance to get out and smell the fresh air and feel the sun on our faces. We went with Jose's parents to the beach for lunch and to take a stroll. I forgot to take the camera, but it was a beautiful day. We're back in Santiago now. I hope this weather sticks around for awhile, because natural selection was starting to set in, and we were beginning to grow gills and webbed toes.

Torrential Rain

The other day in one of my more advanced classes I was teaching them weather vocabulary. Words like scorching, snowdrifts, mild. But this past week I realized that here in Galicia they really only need to know words like gale, blustery, hailstones and torrential rain. That's what we've gotten here lately and it just keeps on coming.

Pulpo a la Gallega

Yesterday Jose had an itch for Pulpo a la Gallega (Galicia Octopus). We both love it, but we normally eat it in a restaurant. While I was putting together the new shelves I bought for the laundry room, Jose went out a bought a whole octopus. So today we popped the sucker in a pot! Here are some photos of the process...(looks gross, but it is oh so good)

Recipe (for those who are up to the adventure):

1 whole octopus
olive oil
rock salt
spicy paprika

1. Boil water in a large pot (copper pot preferably)
2. Once water boils dip the entire octopus into the water and take it out 3 times (so that the skin doesn't get to mushy)
3. Let boil for about 30-45 minutes.
4. Take pot off the stove and let stand (still in the pot with the water) 30 minutes.
5. Cut up into bite size pieces and place on dish (preferably a circular wooden one)
6. Add a little bit of olive oil on top
7. Sprinkle with a little rock salt and spicy paprika
8. Serve with toothpicks
9. mmmmmmmmmm...good

Swimmer's Ear

My weekend consisted of spending 3 hours Friday night in the Spanish ER waiting for a doctor to tell me I had swimmers ear and to give me some ear drops. Here you normally make an appointment with your doctor during the week and they'll see you right away, but if you need to see a doctor at night you have to go to "Urgencias" the equivalent of the ER at the hospital. You tell the secretary what the problem is, then you wait with about 50 other people in the waiting room until they call you in for "classification". That's where they decide the urgency of your illness. (Of course, people who are injured really badly don't have to go through this process...they are rushed straight in to see a doctor.) Then you just wait to be called. The waiting room is full of flu victims, sprained ankles, broken ribs, ear aches and things like that. Normally I would have just gone to the pharmacy down the street to pick up some ear drops, but Jose insisted that a doctor tell me what I needed. We Americans tend to self-diagnose and self-medicate, but the Spaniards go to the doctor for EVERYTHING. So we preceeded to wait for 3 hours for some ear drops. However, I am happy to say that my ear ache is finally getting better, and I can now chew solid food without being in excruciating pain.

For Ashlash, who's never home when I call...

Oh how I love her, let me count the ways...

1. Having old 80s movie marathons and then reciting them constantly over the years
2. Being the only person who would eat at Taco Bell with me
3. Eating candy until our faces started to sweat
4. Sneaking the above mentioned candy into movie theaters
5. Opening Mountain Dew cans in the theater(which had also been snuck in) during the Pepsi commercial right when the man opens his can on the top of a mountain
6. Leaving strange, scary sounding messages on our answering machine for fun, and then dad's boss calling and being completely bewildered by the messages
7. Taking me shopping and spending her own money on me when she didn't have to
8. Hanging out with me on the weekends when she could have been out with her friends
9. Her Sally voice
10. Locking me in the play room in Wilmington
11. Taking me to a New Kids on the Block concert
12. Taking me on Spring Break with her and her friends
13. Making tacky, plastic earrings in the oven
14. Buying a karaoke machine and singing together for hours on end
15. Her Patrick Swayze poster :)

And the list goes on...