Spring Time!

I guess I have to appologize for not blogging in a really long time....  It isn't that I hve been too busy, it's the fact that I havn't really done much worth writing about.

Sanxenxo (for those wondering, there are multiple ways of pronouncing this but the easiest is san-shane-sho) went through a heat wave where it felt like a hot Albertan summer.  I tried to spend as much time as possible.  I spent lots of time reading on the beach and I am almost halfway through my spanish Harry Potter book!  I am using the dictionary less and less but not necessarily because I know more of the words but because I hate looking up words in the dictionary.

Evan likes swimming in the ocean ocean and I will go halfway in but it takes a crazy hot day for me to go in farther than that.  We found out that the ocean is 14 degrees.  Brr!

The heat seems to make everything better!  Surfing is so much more fun when whiping out doesn't feel like an icy punishment but a refreshing escape from the hot sun.  I got attacked by my board a couple of weeks ago and got a little gash on my head.  I didn't even know it was bleading i just though i bumped my head but then when i paddled over to the guys they started freaking out because I had blood running down my face.  I guess head wounds blead a lot.  Getting diluted by water probably didn't help how it looked eather.

A few weeks ago we went to a pretty cool festival.  Do you guys remember me talking about the fort that we visited a long time ago?  There are a few pictures on an earlier post.  The town there is famous for being the first european town to hear about  the new world.  They have a festival every year comemorating that event.  Young and old people dress up in mideval costumes and the town puts on a big re-enactment of Christopher Columbous's story on the beach.  It is a huge deal with thousands of people who attend.  The streets of the town are filled with the type of stalls you would see at a rennasaunce fair.  And it all happens after dark.  It was very fun and way more people than I expected.

Unfortunately the weather has got a little colder and I couldn't wear shorts and a T-shirt on my birthday like I had hoped (it would have been the first time ever)  My birthday was really fun, we went to the Serrano's and had great food and went exploring some ruins by the river near their house.

At the moment it is 'Holy Week'.  I can't say I am a huge fan of holy week.  Grocery stores are closed so were are running out of food very quickly, plus there are throngs of people everywhere!  Oh well, it will be over soon... I hope....

Take care all!

Prepped and Pampered

The weather has been pretty great the past week, I even had a beach day! It's perfect in the sun but as soon as you go in the shade its too cold for shorts (unless your a Viking like Evan). We celebrated valentines day last Saturday instead of Tuesday. Evan had his connections get me a deal on a spa package. It was green tea themed, I got a body scrub, (I thought I wasn't going to have any skin left by the time they were done with me) a relaxing massage and a green tea-infused bath. I have never felt so pampered in my life! Then that night we had supper at the restaurant. It was the kind of fancy meal that you see in the movies but rarely get to experience. It was complete with a confusing number of forks and spoons, many courses but all of them small, and a new aquatic creature that I don't plan on eating again. On a more serious note, in was a really good meal, and they even brought Evan some French fries. He didn't ask for them and it didn't fit with the facy meal at all but they know he loves them :).

In other news, we finally made it to Portugal! One of the teachers that Blae works with took us and showed us some great sites.... including but not limited to a large market where you could buy anything from a carpet to pots and pans, to a puppy. I got a belt that they added holes to right there at the stall. It's still a bit big though... (a problem I would like to remedy with chocolate). A lot of things were similar to galicia, like the streets and an old walled town but the food was more like Canadian food. We had steak for lunch and it was glorious! (It's easy to get steak in Galicia but they use different spices). It was a really fun day, going to lots of different touristy places.

I am plowing through Harry Potter! I forgot how ridiculous the book is... Maybe that's why I love it so much...  Now on to more important things!.... Pictures!

I don't know if any of you have heard of 'Carnival' but its basically a week of holidays where there are parties all over the place (different towns  have things happening different days) and people dress up, kind of like Halloween... except Carnival is way more important than Halloween to these people.  One day we heard music coming from outside and this is what i found:  (a bunch of kids on a stage, in costumes, dancing around to music.  It was pretty cute!)

The rest of the pictures are from Portugal.  The next three are of the fort with a little (Portuguese version of modern) town inside.

The view here is looking across the river into Spain.  It was absolutely beautiful.

Fairly self-explanatory...

This was a really cool catholic (church/cathedral?) at the top of a big hill, you could see it from really far away.  We drove up and looked inside.  The inside was beautiful but we didn't take pictures because a mass was going on.

Keepin' On

So, the biggest thing that has happened since my last post is that two weeks ago I strained my shoulder surfing.  It was an overall bad day of surfing for me, a combination of very cold weather, a different and much smaller board, and large waves.  (well, large for us, but small for our teacher).  It was all worth it though, because afterwards, we went to a local board maker's shop!  Gerardo was getting a couple of new boards made for him and he wanted to stop by.  The board maker was super nice and showed us the different steps of making a surf board.  First, he starts with a really big piece of rough material (a very light wood usually) that is board-shaped. (he buys them like that)  Then he has a huge variety of planes and sanders to make it the exact shape he wants.  After that, he covers it in a cloth coated in resin to make it stronger.  Next, he adds the decals or designs that he wants (using special paper or cloth) then he coats it in more of the resin, lets it dry and then adds the fins!  I'm sure I am missing steps but that is the gist of it.  His shop was really cool, with half finished boards everywhere.  Some of the boards were so pretty!!  It's probably a good thing I didn't have 800 euros lying around!  I really wish we had a camera to take pictures so I could show you guys.

So anyway... I took some time off of sports and added all of it (and then some) to video games.  I think I'm getting addicted...  but, we went back surfing yesterday!  My shoulder isn't perfect yet, but its fine if I'm careful and it feels so good to be exercising again!  There were no waves so we practiced some technique and did some surfing related cardio.  It was actually really challenging and quite fun!

In other news, I bought Harry Potter in spanish!  I haven't even finished the first chapter yet because it takes me forever to read one page.  My goal is to finish it before we come home, but I might have bitten off more than I can chew... (five pages down, two hundred forty-four more to go).  Spanish is coming along slowly, my vocab is getting OK, but I need more confidence while talking.  Its strange... I can listen to a conversation and catch most of what is going on, but as soon as someone directs a question to me, my brain tuns off immediately. Even if I would normally know what they said and how to answer, I just freeze.  Its very frustrating!

Time is going by so fast, we are more then half done our stay!  It makes me sad but at the same time I am looking forward to coming back.  I don't ever want to leave the paradise that we have settled into, but I miss my family and friends and I kinda feel like my life is on hold right now.  Plus, I have a long list of restaurants that I can't wait to go to.... oh, Red Robin....

Anyway guys, keep me posted, don't make me beg!

Evan's Valentines Day Present to me!  It was sooo yummy...

The fountain show at Barcelona:

Back in the Saddle

I know I have complained about laundry before, and although I have come to terms with my situation I must make my displeasure of new developments known!  For almost four months I have done the laundry and hung it up to dry outside.  For four months I have not had any incidents, unless you count occasionally dropping something and having to run down three flights of stairs to get it.  Apparently, I was lulled into a false sense of security, for lately seagulls have felt the need to soil my clean laundry.  Not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES in the past two weeks!  As we all know, bad things come in threes, so I hope and pray that this is the end because I just put a fresh load out to dry a few minutes ago.

In other news, Evan has been very busy since we got back teaching private english lessons.  He know has 7 students (I'm pretty sure) and teaches 11 extra hours per week.  This has reduced our stress over money a bit and given us hope that we actually might be able to backpacking northern Europe before we come home in the summer.  Teaching also has its perks!  (for Evan at least) one of his students who sees him four times a week manages a four star hotel here in Sanxenxo.  Evan had a complimentary hour long massage today!  (don't worry, I'm jealous too) plus the other night he was offered food, he asked for fries and was brought a large plate of steak.  (seriously!)   So, yeah...

The other night, the Music teacher at the school Evan works at took us up north sight-seeing.  We saw a bunch of ruins and more beautiful scenery.  He showed us the remains of a series of towers that were used as warning beacons when the Vikings would attack.  For those of you who have seen the Lord of the Rings movies, it is just like when Gondor needs help from Rohan and they light the beacons!  The Vikings wanted to pillage Santiago de Compostela because the Catholic church had a lot of wealth there.  We also saw more castros (the little circular huts that celtic people lived in).  The scenery at the castros was amazing because it was right on the edge of a rocky out-crop over the ocean.  Unfortunately, we didn't get very good pictures because it was dusk when we got there and pitch black when we left.

It looks strangely tropical for winter... this is a little chapel.

Evan wanted to know how I got up there... 

We have been surfing a couple of times since we got back.  I can actually follow a wave sideways now! (if it breaks slowly)  Last time, when I thought I was surfing alone, Gerardo followed me and tried to push me over!  You can imagine my surprise!  He says he does that to everyone but that most people loose there balance and whip out.  I told him it was because I live with Evan who forces me to stay on my toes.

So, life has pretty much gotten back to normal... some days are chilly, some are warm.  Evan wears shorts through it all.  Representing Canada I suppose...

Italian Exploits Part 2

For those of you who are not up to date, this is the forth post about my Christmas Vacation so check out previous posts if you are interested.

Ok... So I left us in Florence... well, we took the train to Rome, and after finding the way to our flat we... actually i don't remember exactly when we did things anymore... I suppose I waited too long for all of this writing.  Oh well, our flat was in an interesting part of town.  It was kind of sketchy to say the least.  We were on the 5th (or 6th if your canadian) floor and right in the centre of the staircase was a tiny little elevator.  It fit two people comfortably.  Needless to say we all got well acquainted with stairs in Rome.  Our place was nice and roomy and finally a place with 2 queen sized beads instead of one queen and 3 single beds.  (I feel that it should be noted that Mom and Dad were very nice and let us have the queen in Florence)  We were really close to the metro and we used it a lot.  They said that they kept trying to get more metro lines going but every time they would start digging new tunnels they would find more ruins.  Which kind of 'ruined' things (haha!).  

One of the first things we did in Rome was go to the Colosseum.  While we were looking for the end of the line a guy came up and asked us if we wanted to join their tour.  It included the Colosseum and some other ruins (I apologize, i can't remember their names, just that it was the centre of rome back in the day).  We took it and the tour turned out to be very good!  Both of the guides were very interesting and fun to listen to.  The Colosseum is a really cool place and we were sad that we couldn't see it in all of its glory.  I don't think Evan will ever forgive the Catholic church for stealing all of the marble from the Colosseum!  I learned (and saw) that there were tunnels below where the games would take place and there were trap doors to let live things out (and dead things in...)  the floor was covered with sand which is where we get the term 'arena' (because arena means sand).

At the end of our Colosseum tour we were given the option to join another tour the day after.  It was of the Vatican, which was one thing we were planning on seeing anyway.  We joined the tour and are kind of sad that we did because it was much more boring than our first one.  It was a three hour tour and more than half of it was spent outside of the interesting places, looking at pictures and models of the interesting places.  I understand that talking is forbidden in the Sistine Chapel but that is only one place!  We skipped come cool rooms because we 'didn't have time' (duh!).  Anyway, the Vatican was really cool and the Sistine Chapel was way different than I though it would be.  It's just a huge rectangular room.  I though it would be more like the churches and cathedrals I have seen.  Michelangelo's Paintings of the creation on the ceiling are fantastic!  Saint Peter's Basilica is supposedly the largest christian church in the world.  It is amazing!  You know all that missing Marble from the Colosseum?  Its there!  There are beautiful sculptures everywhere, lots of memorial tomes, and even the remains of a dead pope under some glass so you can see him.  (Kinda creepy if you ask me...).  When all is said and done, the tour had its good points but I think we would have preferred to see the vatican on our own time.  Maybe its good we didn't see everything, because it gives us a reason to come back!

Other places that we went to in Rome are the Spanish Steps (and the really expensive designer shops in front of the steps), Trevi Fountain (and nearby we bought a water-colour from an artist of the Colosseum), the Pantheon, Plaza Navona, and i probably missed a couple of places but those are the important ones.

One day in Rome, Dad rented us a car, and us 'kids' drove it down to Pompei.  We spent the day exploring the ancient city.  It was fascinating being able to see how the volcano destroyed everything, yet preserved it much better then if it hadn't happened.  You could easily imagine people walking down the streets, eating at the little cafeterias and sitting at the out-door theatres.  They found people shaped holes in the volcanic rock where people curled up and died.  I wonder if the people were blissfully ignorant of what was happening until the last few moments, or if they knew that they were doomed and also knew they couldn't do anything...

... Anyway... on to less depressing matters.  We returned to Rome late-ish that night and Mom, Dad and Dave left really early the nest morning.  Evan and I didn't leave until that night so we left our bags at the train station and did some more exploring.  We know that we would like to go Back to Rome some day because it is such a huge city with a rich culture and history.  I don't think it is possible to see all there is to see!

On our way back home to Sanxenxo we stopped at Barcelona and Spent a couple of nights at the sketchiest hostel I have ever been in.  To be fair it is the first hostel I have ever stayed in, at least it was cheep and we had our own room.  I can, however, say that the bed was the worst I have ever slept in (or didn't sleep in) and Evan says there were cockroaches in the bathroom in the morning.  We really enjoyed Barcelona, but were disappointed to discover that we arrived on '3 Kings Day'  which meant that everything was closed.  We explored though and have decided that the public transportation in Barcelona kicks butt.  We managed to catch a water fountain light and music show which was very impressive.

By the time Evan and I made it home to Galicia, we really missed the friendly people and familiar language.  I never thought I would say that I missed Spanish, but Italian was like starting from scratch all over again.  We are so grateful that we had the opportunity to go to Italy and we are already looking forward to a return trip... (in the far distant future)

Holiday Adventures Part C "Italian Exploits 1"

Well... I can't say I envy those of you in Alberta at the moment.  I see so many Facebook statuses that are complaining about the freezing cold and almost as many that describe what happens when car meets ice.  Know that you have my condolences, but also know that it hasn't been crazy warm here either and we don't have central heating.  We just have little heaters attached to the wall and the main one is lacking an extension cord so we just wear lots of layers.  Plus if we don't open the window at least for a bit every day, it gets way too humid in our apartment!

I believe that next on the schedule is to describe our trip to Italy.  If you haven't read the previous to posts, you might want to, but it's up to you.  It was an awesome trip, and it was very cool to see so many places that we have read about in books, seen in movies or (in Evan and Dave's case) explored on video games.  It was pretty cold the entire time we were in Italy, most nights it got below freezing and we would find a little ice in the mornings. (I know... poor us...)  We had Gelato a few times and it was good but I'm not sure if we found the really good stuff.  I don't really care though, because I had Nutella Gelato.  My life is complete.

The first city we traveled to was Venice.  It was probably the best place on the trip to go as far as shopping is concerned (unless you want a leather jacket, then go to Florence).  Venice is famous for their Murano Glass, which we saw a lot of and I think it would be really cool to have a sculpture one day, but they are sooo expensive that I kind of doubt in the likelihood of this happening.  They also had a lot of shops selling quills and stationary and wax seal kits.  I kind of regret not getting one of those wax seals.  How cool would it be to send a sealed letter to somebody?!  There was a huge variety of masquerade masks.  I bought a cheap one but unfortunately, it didn't make the trip home.  I wore it on New Years Eve in Florence though!  While we were in Venice we saw the Grand Canal and St. Mark's square/ cathedral (which you could go into for free, but you had to pay if you wanted to see any of the 'extras' like St. Mark's tomb).  After that we toured the Doge's Palace.  Practically every wall and ceiling in The Doge's Palace was a piece of art (and there were a lot of rooms).  It was a very interesting place.  The palace contained a fantastic weapons collection and Evan thought he had died and gone to heaven, also we got to see the dungeons and you could see the graffiti from hundreds of years ago.  Florence was really cool to explore, it was like being transported to another time.  Crossing the little bridges over top of the waterways that serve as roads and squeezing through the tiny, twisty streets was an entirely new experience for me.  Venice is a really cool city, but I think it was my least favourite of the three.  Not because I didn't like it, but because after a day it all the streets and shops started to all seem the same while Florence and Rome had a little more variety to offer.

After Venice, we took a train to Florence.  Florence was a great place, the apartment we stayed at was fantastic, in every way... especially location.  It was a block's walk to get to Uffizzi Gallery, which was an experience!  It was so strange to go to an Art museum that was so crowded!  I was trying to imagine that many people at an art gallery in Edmonton.  Then I realized that I have only been to the University of Alberta's art Gallery.  I resolve to go to more when I get back.  I must say though, one reason that this gallery was so packed was because there were so many famous pieces of art.  There were tonnes of beautiful statues too.  It's kind of funny because the statues and people in the paintings often lacked clothes, but when you go to the Vatican, most of the statues had little leaves covering the 'essentials' that were added afterwards.  We spent new years day in Florence which is when I wore my red mask everywhere.  There were four different squares that had four different types of concerts going on.  We went 'square hopping' but my favourite was the alternative band that had a trombone :).  People kept setting off firecrackers which had such huge bangs, that you would feel them deep in your stomach.  It scared us the first few times but they went off so often that we got used to it.  The problem is, that the idiots didn't stop for the entire night!  That was the only point that I regretted our central location...  There were lots of cool buildings to see but most things were closed on New Year's Day.  One day I think I would like to go back and see more of the museums and churches.

I will stop here because this is getting pretty long so I'll talk about Rome next time.

Holiday Adventures Part B

For those of you who haven't read part A, go ahead and skip down to it and come back to this later.

The reason this took so long to come out was I had it mostly written and I left it on the computer and Evan decided it would be good idea to restart the computer, so I felt a little discouraged.  then I figured out i could get it back but I read it and it was terrible.  So here you go, a slightly less terrible version.

Anyway... the trip... So after we made it back to Galicia, we rented a car and drove to Sanxenxo from the airport.  I was super happy to see Evan again!  It's strange to go even 5 days without seeing him.  We didn't waist any time showing them around.  I have to say that it is a great experience seeing a place for the first time and falling in love with it, but its so cool to be able to share that place with someone else!  It was like I was seeing everything again for the first time.  We traveled along the coast, pointing out all the different beaches that we have surfed at.  Once we made it to "a Lansada", (see pics below) we explored the ruins that are on one end of the beach for a while and then we walked a ways down the beach.  While we were there there were tonnes of surfers catching waves, so we told Mom and Dad to imagine that they were us. (except we aren't as good lol) and we had a blast looking for shells.  The beaches here are perfect because you have really soft sand most of the time but there is always a line of shells running down the beach so you get to find treasures.  Unfortunately, there gets to be a lot of garbage washed up too, because people are pigs!

Anyway, the next day we woke up early and traveled to pick david up from Vigo.  The poor kid was so tired but we dragged him around anyway.  We were already halfway to the fort and celtic remains (see pics below).  We had a breakfast of yummy pastries and hot chocolate.  The hot chocolate here is very thick and rich.  It is very close to melted chocolate. Aka; I love it!  Also the pastries here are very good, they are similar to ones at home except for one called a "napolitana" which is very common here but i have never seen it at home.  It is made of flakey dough and has chocolate (Nutella textured) filling.  Anyway, forts that are like castles are always cool to see and Dave powered through.  The celtic remains we fun, we did a bit more exploring than last time (because the tape stopping you from exploring was mysteriously missing this time).  I found a piece of pottery that I hope is really old but you can see the finger markings one one side which is cool.  We were sad because the little museum at the top of the mountain was closed.

After driving along picturesque coasts to arrive back home we settled in for a relaxed christmas.  Christmas was great,  church was only sacrament meeting, and we were able to introduce my parents to a few friends.    We didn't even open presents until late.  We had the crackers that mom made (which always have fun treats!) and Evan and I had a couple of presents from home.  Thanks to Christy (Evan's mom) for the Canadian ties!  My goal is to find the perfect occasion to wear mine.  And thanks to Christine & James & Boys for the peanut butter and KD powder and everything!  We have already plowed through one jar of the PB.  I think I'm malnourished from only eating peanut butter and jam sandwiches!  Also, thanks to everyone else for the pictures and cards!

We spent some time in the old part of Pontevedra and in Santiago de Compostela.  We showed them all the places we thought were cool like the Cathedral and some more ruins we also did a bit of shopping of course.  Evan only had one thing in mind though... a knife.  He found one, its a special kind with a special name and maybe if I'm lucky he will comment below what it is.  It sure looks fancy anyway.

Mom, Dad and Dave lucked out because the weather was very well behaved while they were here, it hardly rained at all!  It was really cool to share our little piece of heaven with my family.  So you all know, any other friends or family have an open invitation to do the same!

Part C; "Italian Exploits", coming soon!