EVS in Santiago de Compostela

Last week JB and me decided to do the Camino De Santiago. We had 4 days free in the holy week, so we wanted to use them to do this. We chose to go on the French way, and to start from Sarria on Thursday. To obtain the Compostela, you must walk at least 100km (also you can do it on a horse 100km, and with a bicycle 200km), and to do this on the French way, you must start in Sarria, which is 112km from the Cathedral in Santiago. So here is our story...

Every sunday I play football with erasmus students. We play at Campus Sur, at campo verde. The point is for everybody to have a good time. It's not really competetive, like this things can sometimes get. Everybody that comes can play, no restrictions on age, sex, race, or skill level. Usually it's really fun, but sometimes someone gets injured, which is common when it comes to sports. We play on grass, so many guys wear football shoes with studs. So, in the heat of the game, our friend Kenichi from Japan was hit with these studs on his leg (precisely on his tibia, the bone that connects the knee to the foot) and his skin teared open. A guy that works at the university restaurant had a car, so he transported him to the hospital. He ended up with nine stiches, but is good and getting well just fine. Still, it's a reminder that we need to be carefull.

On friday was Andrijana's slava. Ofcourse you are wondering what is Slava? Slava is a tradition connected to orthodox christian religion, and typical only for Serbian nation. It is a day when Serbian family selebrates it's saint. But when is this day? How does it work? It is not one day in a year, because every family chooses a saint to selebrate. For example St. Nicola's day is 19.12, St. George's day is 6.5... All the families that selebrates St. Nicolas make a selebration on 19.12. Usually, this tradition is carried from genration to generation on the fathers' side, so my father selebrates St. John, his father selebrated St. John before him and so on. On this day, we invite our cousins, neighbours and friends and make a fiesta. We welcome them with sweet grain when they arrive. After all the guest arrive we start with the ceremony. It can vary, depending on how much a family follows church rules. Somethimes a priest comes to the house to do the whole ceremon...

It's the 31th of October, or as we all know this day, Halloween. But in Galicia on this day for many generations a different holiday was held, The name is Samhain. This day marked the end of summer and beginning of winter, end of light and beginning of darkness. It is a day when live stock was pulled from the fields and into the barns. The live stock was smothered and preparations for winter began. Also, it was believed that on this day a door from the other world was opened, so the dead were able to cross and visit our world. On the feast, a special place was put in honor of the dead, but also people was trying to protect themselves with spells, potions and other. Shamain is also known as the Day of the dead. Yes, I know, it sounds like a zombie movie.. Today, Samhain in almost completly replaced with halloween, but in Ludoteca Marta and the monitores were equally concetrated on including both Halloween and Samhain in the programme for the children (at least I think so, my spa...

On sunday I was running a marathon! Well, it's not exactly a marathon, it more like a quarter-marathon.... The name of the event is Carreira Pedestre. It is a 12km race trough the city of Santiago de Compostela. It's open for everybody to compete, profesionals and amateurs (such as me). This was a 35th time this race has been held, and the record was broken with 6.388 competitors.

So, the other day i was walking to the big shopping center behind the train station. I needed to go there to apply for Carreira Pedestre Popular de Santiago. So I spend more then one hour walking (with no rain what so ever) to the shoping center and back. It is cloudy but really hot, so i carry my jacket in my hand. Sol sends me sms to buy water on the way back, but i decide to first stop by the flat to leave the heavy jacket and unnecessary umbrella. As I head for the store, I feel some drops but it's nothing so I continue. I finish shopping and as I leave the store, I see the rain of biblical proportions. It rains so hard, that there are rivers formed in the streets. So I stand on the door of the store, with no umbrella and no jacket and I waited for the rain to stop for close to half an hour. The point is: always expect rain in Santiago...

For the weekend we went to Madrid. When we landed, we went to metro and bought a ticket for two days. It turned out that the ticket only works untill midnight, not 48 hours like we expected. For example, if you buy a ticket for one day at 23.55. it will be valid for 5 minutes, but you would still pay the full price. Cl ub bing in Madrid can be quite expensive. Beer can be 9€, and cocktails are over 11-12€. But fortunately, we were introduced to the noble job called ˝Street boy˝. Street boy is a person who sells drinks on the street. So you can go out of the club with an excuse that you need a smoke, get stamped, and drink a beer outside for 1€ insted of the one inside for 9€. This is good if you like beer, if you want a Cuba libre, you might be disapointed. And this doesn't work on rainy days.