London

A few weeks ago I spent a couple of days in London (I've been lazy with updating this blog).

I really didn't do anything out of the ordinary. Here are a few snapshots.

Chan d'Arquiña

I went along on my school's end-of-course outing, to a place on the top of a mountain on the Morrazo peninsula called Chan d'Arquiña. In the map below you can see my area of Galicia, which is called Rías Baixas (lower rías or lower bays). We were on the peninsula north of Vigo. Looking north, you could see the Ría de Pontevedra, the next peninsula, and actually all the way to the Ría de Arousa and the next peninsula after that!

The picture above faces north, and you can see all the way to Vilagarcía d'Arousa.

This picture faces west, and displays Moaña from above.

Here's Vigo.

The Puente de Rande, a bridge which I crossed every day.

This is a prehistoric megalithic structure that is the "arquiña" in the name Chan d'Arquiña.

These horses have owners, but are allowed to go free most of the time, so they are semi-wild. We actually saw a few horses that had wooden hobbles attached to their feet to prevent them from going too fast or far away, a practice that is illegal.

Praia Castiñeiras II

This beach is on the north side of the Morrazo peninsula, right next to praia Castiñeiras, where we went the other week. Technically, I think it's actually named San Xián (the name Xián is the equivalent of the Spanish or English "Julian"), but all the beaches are next to each other and barely separated.

Something else I would like to post photos of is San Xoán, the festival of St John, which coincides with the Summer solstice. On St John's Night, everyone goes to the beach and makes bonfires. We went to Samil, in Vigo, and it was really a special experience. There were thousands of people on the beach, and hundreds of fires stretching down for miles. The air was hazy with smoke. The moon was a sliver in the sky which soon disappeared. My friend has some photos; hopefully I can get them and post them here.

Río

Some photos from an excursion to the river... We took the car to a little villiage and then descended by foot down a sort of gully to the river. The water was very cold and moved quite fast. There were miniature waterfalls. We swam to the other bank and walked around and found a deep pool under one of the waterfalls, about ten feet deep, into which you could jump. 

Islas Cíes II

I went to the Islas Cíes last October on a cloudy, chilly day. When my sister came to visit, we went back, and the weather was perfect. The beach you see here is called the Praia de Rodas. It's in a perfect curve, has crystalline water, is very clean, and is not crowded (because you have to ride a ferry to the islands to get there). We arrived early and had the whole beach to ourselves!

We hiked up to the lighthouse

de Cangas á Praia Castiñeiras

One teacher who works at both my school and my friend Eric's school invited us on a coastal hike. We went with a dozen people, including my sister, who was(is) visiting. We started in Cangas and walked a path along the coast...

Una profe que trabaja en mi cole y en el cole de mi amigo Eric nos invitó a una caminata costera. Fuimos con una docena de personas, incluyendo a mi hermana, que me está(ba) visitando. Partimos de Cangas y seguimos una senda por la costa...

Then we crossed the Morrazo peninsula at its narrowest point, reaching the village of Vilariño. 

Entonces cruzamos la península de O Morrazo en su punto más estrecho, llegando al pueblo de Vilariño.

From Vilariño we continued along the coast, which was very rocky. At one point we reached a seemingly impassable point. Luckily we had a percebeiro with us (a guy whose job is to harvest a certain kind of barnacle which is a great delicacy here) Here you can see him helping some of the others pass...

Desde Vilariño continuábamos por la costa, que era bastante rocosa. En cierto punto llegamos a un punto que parecía impasible. Por suerte estábamos en compañía de un percebeiro quien nos ayudó a los demás a pasar...

Three hours later, here we are at Castiñeiras beach

Y tres horas más tarde, aquí estamos en nuestro destino, la playa Castiñeiras

Día das Letras Galegas

On Wednesday we celebrated Día das Letras Galegas, or the Day of Galician Letters/Literature (the day itself was Thursday, but we got school off). As you can tell if you've followed this blog, Galician language and literature is one of the major sources of national identity here. Galician Literature Day is a yearly public holiday, and every year it's devoted to one (dead) Galician writer. This year's honoree was Valentín Paz Andrade. Below you can see a sort of puzzle-mural. I drew a large portrait of Mr Paz Andrade, which we then cut up into rectangles, each with a Galician word on it. On another piece of paper, we drew a grid, each rectangle of which had a matching Galician word. The kids painted their rectangles in warm or cool colors according to a simple paint-by-numbers type scheme, and then had to find the proper spot for their piece and glue it down.

Here you can see some decorations for the holiday.

néboa = niebla = fog

choiva = lluvia = rain

xoia = joya = jewel

garfo = tenedor = fork

ovella = oveja = sheep

froita = fruta = fruit

orballar = lloviznar = to drizzle

amizade = amistad = friendship

nai = madre = mother

agasallo = agasajo = kindness

xoañina = mariquita = ladybug

agarimo = cariño = care

ledicia = alegría = happiness

bolboreta = mariposa = butterfly

ruxido = crujido = crunch

colar = collar = necklace

bicar = besar = to kiss

abelá = avellana = hazelnut

reloxo = reloj = clock

lúa = luna = moon

Outside we went around from tree to tree and labeled them with wood signs bearing their names in Galician. And as you can see there was a Galician band (bagpipe, drum, tambourine).

Correlingua

Last Monday we went to Correlingua, a sort of pro-Galician-language festival. Kids from all different schools in the area came to the center of Moaña, about 1,500 in all. All the kids wore shirts decorated with a Galician word. First there was a fiery pro-Galician speech that kind of surprised me but was apparently not of any interest to all the kids who were eating bocatas and yogurt and so on. ("What language do you speak at school? What language do you speak at home? What language do you speak with your friends?" he bellowed. "Galego," the kids answered dutifully, with 90% dishonesty.) Then a band played some Galician music and we all danced (we've been practicing the dances in gym class). 

Día de Fátima

Yesterday was the day of Our Lady of Fátima. I didn't actually know this beforehand, but as we were returning from the beach my friend told me so. She lives farther down my street, right next to the Church of Fátima, so she knew there was a little festival there on the feast day. (It's probably the closest church to my house but not the one I go to, which is Santiago o Maior.) Later on I was sitting in my living room and heard something going on below so I snapped some pictures out of my window. It was a procession heading towards the Church. Above you can see a giganto-rosary. Below an image of the virgin and various clerics including "nuestro obispo Luís."

Praia de Barra

Today we went to a beach called Barra, which is on the Morrazo peninsula past Cangas. It was really nice. The landscapes were incredible: you had the light green of trees, the evergreen color of the mountains, the bright turquoise sea, the blue of the sky. There were sailboats sitting just off the shore. Beyond the ría you could see Vigo and the hazy coastline stretching down to Nigrán, Baiona, and eventually Portugal, and to the right you could see the Islas Cíes and the still shapes of a few big cargo ships. Use your imagination though, because I couldn't take photos: it was a nude beach!