You may have noticed the title of this post. It means that there are good conditions for surfing according to the web, but I haven't actually heard any surfers use the term. That might have something to do with the whole Spanish thing.... But who knows?
I love surfing. It is probably the most difficult sport I have ever tried, but one of the most rewarding. Evan and I have gone out quite a few times lately. I day-dream and night-dream about surfing. "Gerardo the ninja soldier" (Evan's fault) is a hilarious but tough teacher and he keeps on pushing us out of our comfort level. We are finally catching waves (well... attempting to catch waves) and not just white water now. When you actually manage to catch a wave (which is hard) and then manage to stay on your board when you stand up and you ride the wave down (which is super hard) it is like flying! The closest thing i can compare it to is snowboarding on untouched powder... really steep untouched powder lol. I'm Gerardo's favourite because I catch on to things pretty quickly but he says I think too much. The reason I think too much? Thanks for asking. Getting dumped face first into rushing, churning water after a 7 foot wave crashes on you isn't the most pleasant sensation. And he says they are small.... (level 2 or 3 out of 10!) Oh well... at least I can tell that I am staying on longer and longer. Also he keeps telling us we are lazy when it comes to paddling. On TV surfing looks hard because it looks so dangerous but I had no idea how much paddling I would have to do! You have to paddle to to get out (through the waves that keep pushing you back) you have to paddle to get a lot of speed to catch a wave, and you even have to paddle regularly when you are sitting still because the ocean's currents like to move you. Lets just say my paddle muscles are perma-sore. Gerardo says by the time I leave I will go up a shirt size because of all the muscles I am getting.
Another crazy thing that we did a couple of weeks ago, is we attended it a druidic ritual. It was basically an ancient halloween thing. First of all you have to understand that Galicia is very Celtic. There are a lot of Celtic ruins amongst the hills of Galicia. One thing Galicia is known for is the superstitions of the people. Witches and cauldrons are in all of the souvenir shops and not just around Halloween. There are certain dishes that are traditionally made in cauldrons. Except for a small group of people who were druids (yes they wore robes), everyone there was there to remember their culture and its origins. Basically what we did was we went on a walk called 'the walk of the dead'. We walked the path that the dead take when the 'grip reaper' (he said the banshee?) come to get them. We ate a piece of bread before we left to 'protect' us and we walked for about an hour on an old path out of the village and out to a field. I wish it was light out so we could have seen the scenery because I could tell it was beautiful even though it was pitch black outside. We had candles and flashlights to light our way because we started the walk around 9pm. When we got to the field, they made a druidic circle with some candles. The guy in charge (who was super nice and knew english so he translated a few things for me as we were walking) spoke a lot about the seasons. The lit incense so it's smoke could bring the words to the gods. The ceremony included some repetition about something to do with peace and everyone wrote things on pieces of paper that we wanted to remove from our lives and then burned them in a cauldron. We also ate an apple. Im not really sure what it symbolized but i think it had something to do with a pact that we made to try to be better people. After we walked all the way back we went to a small restaurant and ate supper (it started about midnight) and I was so hungry because I had no idea that it would take so long. The food was very good and very Galician. It came in many different courses so it took a long time and after we ate they started sharing stories and songs. We managed to catch a ride back at that point though. It was already 1:30 and it took almost an hour to drive home!
This is at 'Story Time'. You can see Evan trying to understand the man who is singing in Galego.
It was very cool to be able to experience other cultures and their beliefs. What a fascinating experience that I won't soon forget!
This is the link I took the photos from so click on it if you want to see more:
roteiro-da-pantalla-algunhas-fotos.html
