Viajes

So I realize that it's been a while since I've updated this blog, but I'm in Spain!
While I'm here in Spain, I want to travel as much as I can. I already blogged about my trip to Santiago, but I've also been to Baiona, La Guardia, and Porto. I went to Baiona for the first time in February, for the festival of the Arribada. When Columbus discovered America, the ship that carried the news back to Spain arrived in Baiona. Since then, they've had a medieval festival there every year. People dress up in clothes that they would have worn in the 15th century, and there are booths that serve food and wine. They also act out a play of the sailors arriving on the shores of Baiona, which is followed by fireworks.


Some of the actors in the play.


There's also a medieval castle/fort in Baiona. During the day, there are families and elderly people taking a stroll around the castle. It's right next to the ocean, so it's really calm and relaxing and beautiful.















The view from the castle, and of course, the castle itself.
The castle has been turned into a parador, which is an old building that has been turned into a hotel.
During the night, the castle and the surrounding fields are turned into a massive party called the botellon. Teenagers will go to the grocery store and buy a large bottle of alcohol and a bottle of coke, because that's cheaper than going to a bar and buying a drink there. (the word botellon means "big bottle" because they take a large bottle of alcohol and share it between themselves)
The botellon in Baiona was huge, there were probably about a thousand people there.

A few weeks ago, I went to Porto, which is the second largest city in Portugal. I went on an organized trip with the university with all the other exchange students. We only went for a day, and it takes about 2-3 hours to get there, so I didn't get to spend as much time there as I wanted to. I'm planning on going back at some point, because there are so many things that I didn't get to see while I was there. It's a really beautiful city with a lot of history. It's also cool if you're a nerd like me, because JK Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book in Porto, and you can go to the café where she wrote it.
The Café Majestic, where JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

And I went to La Guardia this weekend. La Guardia is a city on the border of Spain and Portugal. The two countries are separated by the Río Minho, and up on a mountain in La Guardia, I could see Portugal. There's also an arqueological site there, with rings of stones where houses used to be.
Portugal is right across the river!

So, that's all of my travels so far. I'm going to Madrid and Morocco in about a week, so I'll hopefully be blogging about that within the next few weeks.