OK everyone, so I've had it pointed out to me that people hadn't been commenting because blogspot automatically requires membership to the service to do so. I've turned that feature off and everyone can now comment but I have opened another account in case that doesn't work (I ask that you still put your name just so I know who to comment to). The username is sauteedmushrooms (because they're delicious!) and the password is madrid (no capital letters or numbers or anything fancy like that). If you comment I can promise that I will respond in some way or another. I apologize to those of you who already set up accounts so you could comment, if you would like to close them you can or you can start your own blogs, and I promise I'll read and comment on whats going on in your life. I hope that you will all continue to enjoy my blog and again, I'm sorry for being a little salty that no one was commenting when it was really all my fault. (And again, thanks Emily and Margaret for letting me know about the problem).

This is a very short post just to let people know that I have uploaded the majority of my photos to flickr.com. The exact address is http://www.flickr.com/photos/katyhutch/ and I recommend you check it out if you have any interest. If you have questions/comments about any of the pictures, if you want a larger copy, or if you just like one of them you can comment on it on flickr, comment on it here, or just email me with the question/request and I'll respond forthwith.
¡Disfrutan!

This post is going to be long so I apologize ahead of time and if you would rather just look at the pictures, I promise I won't be too hurt. A lot has happened since last Thursday. On Thursday, we went on an architectural tour of the cathedral. As I mentioned two posts ago, Santiago is the final resting place of the Apostle James and his body is kept in the cathedral. The cathedral itself is a mixture of the medieval period and the Baroque. The outside of the cathedral is the Baroque section. The above picture is from a park a little ways away from the cathedral (the pretty building in the background) but its hard to fit the whole thing in the picture at the same time (plus I haven't posted any pictures of myself yet so I thought I'd throw that in there). The inside has a variety of style ranging from the medieval (the cathedral was originally built in the 12th century) to the baroque. I don't have a lot of good pictures of the inside of the church (flash is prohibited) but below the one of me in front of the cathedral is a picture of one of the medieval architectural features. The church is composed of many small chapels surrounding a large one. The cathedral is full of strange traditions, but it was a little awkward to have our lecturer ignoring the announcements requesting silence and denouncing the traditions as hogwash (only more eloquently and in Spanish) within hearing range of the people who had waited in line for a long while to act on them.

Friday was fairly uneventful, but on Saturday we went on an excursion to the city of La Coruña (the city pictured to the left). La Coruña is a city much like Santiago only a little more modern and right on the coast of the Atlantic.

Our trip began in “La Casa de los Peces,” the city’s aquarium which features a variety of fish from the area. One really cool thing about the aquarium was that it had a tank that held some species of sea life (like starfish) that you could actually touch. There were a bunch of really interesting species of fish, like the rock fish to the left. There was also a room with jellyfish illuminated with various colored lights (as you can see in the photo to the left). There was a special exhibition on the cultivation (both natural and artificial) of pearls as well which was really well done. The best part was that there was a guitarist playing soft classical music as you perused the exhibit. There was also a room that extended out into the ocean so you could see the marine life of the area in it's natural setting. The room was decorated like Captain Nemo's space on the submarine in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and the staircase that descended into the room had posters with various book and movie covers. It also had an outdoor part with seals and octopus (featured left). The seals were, of course, adorable but the octopus was disgusting...I really don't understand the fascination with octopi in this region.
The other really cool thing we did in La Coruña was visit the Torre de Hercules. The Torre de Hercules (pictured to the above hopefully) is the oldest lighthouse still in operation. It is built on the foundation of an old Roman lighthouse but is done in the Neo-Classical style (it feels like I'm learning a lot about architecture). When you enter the lighthouse, you can walk past part of the excavation of the ancient foundation. The story goes that Hercules slew Geryon there after three days and three nights of continuous battle. Another rumor is that on a clear day, you could see the green shores of Britain from the top, but it wasn't clear when we were there so no confirmation on that one. The stairs you have to climb to get to the top are very narrow, and you have to go two across (one up and one down because there's only one set of stairs) so its kind of a scary experience. But the view from the top is absolutely beautiful. The picture of the city at the beginning of this section is an example of the view. After the Tower of Hercules, we more or less just had lunch and sat on the beach. Of course, I managed to get sunburned as always, but it prompted me to buy my own sunblock.On Sunday, we had the day free so my friend Lan/Lara (the nice girl from Harvard, see the picture of us above) and I went on an excursion to a couple of neighboring cities by train. The first city we visited is called Pontevedra and is about an hour away. We left really early and got there in time to have some breakfast. We then went on a walking tour of the old city, which was really beautiful (the picture of Lan with me is from Pontevedra). I highly recommend stoping at the tourist information booths in cities you visit because they can be so helpful. We saw the house of one of the authors we had read for our literature class, Ramon del Valle-Inclan and I had my picture taken with a statue of him (see above). There was also a junk fair in one of the plazas, but we didn't buy anything. I almost bought Minna a National Geographic in Spanish about the forests of Minnesota, but the guy was only selling them as whole year sets.After we visited Pontevedra, we took the train for another half hour to the biggest city in the province, Vigo. Unfortunately, the size was one of the only things Vigo had to offer. The city itself was rather industrial (the picture above can give you a little of an idea, although I chose the most beautiful one from the trip that has any of the city in it because, like I said it was kind of ugly). Unlike the other cities that I've visited in Spain, Vigo did not seem to take pride in itself. It had a lot of graffiti and there was a broken phonebooth (meaning the glass was all over the ground) for the entire time we were there where in the other cities we've visited, it would have been cleaned in about half an hour. We came back after that, mostly exhausted, but we still wandered around Santiago a bit before heading back. There was a "circus" festival going on that we stopped to watch for a bit and although the Barefoot Monkeys (Vassar's circus troupe) seemed to be a little better, it was still a fun show.

Monday, yesterday, we both eventful and not eventful. I had my first real doctor visit here in Spain yesterday. I'd had a sore throat since Friday morning, and when I woke up, not only was it worse but I was having difficulties breathing well so I had Mihai, the program director take me to the doctor. Of course, what I hadn't realized was that "the doctor" meant I was going to the emergency room, but there weren't any gunshot wounds or anything, mostly just people who looked healthy. It turns out my tonsils are filled with pus, meaning I have a throat infection so I'm now on antibiotics. Its amazing how efficient and inexpensive the health care system is here though. For example, my whole doctor visit cost about as much as my co-pay would in the states and my three types of medicine (antibiotics, ibuprofen, and throat gargle) cost about as much as antibiotics do in the states. After that, I rested in my room for a while before I went out for a tour of "The Baroque City." I'm not going to include pictures from that because, for the most part, it was a lot of the same stuff we'd already seen, but I learned a lot about city planning and the creation of a city in earlier eras. (If you would like to see pictures, just say so in the comments and I'll respond). Today, we watched a movie called La lengua de la mariposa (The Tongue of the Butterfly) which was really sad but still a good movie. I recommend that you watch it if you'd like to learn about the time before the end of the Second Republic/the beginning of Franco's regime. If you want to know more about anything, feel free to ask me any questions you may have.
As they say on the Simpsons, Vaya con Dios.

As of Tuesday night, I have a cell phone here in Spain, although I’m going to request that people from the states not call me on it too often because it’s expensive to receive international calls. Just in case, the number is 692422967 (don’t forget the 01134 if you’re calling from a different country.) I got my phone at a really cool mall that was basically an enclosed square shape with a huge open air courtyard in the middle. The strangest thing about the mall was the fact that the upper levels (3-6) are apartments! I think it would be great to live in a mall-you’d never have to leave the building to get anything (especially since this mall had a grocery store). It was a really long walk to get there but it was through the beautiful Santiago so it wasn't too bad. I also bought a really cute pair of shoes for 10 euros.

We have started our language and culture class, which mostly consists of us learning useful phrases and asking questions about what is "mal educado" or bad manners. The teacher of that class is a really nice woman who doesn't seem much older that us, despite being the subdirector of the program here. She's also teaching essentially the same class to another group, from Colgate, who are doing essentially the same thing we're doing (starting here and then going on to Madrid).

Yesterday was a really interesting day because we went to el Museo del Pobo Gallego (Museum of the Galician Society), an ethnographic/anthropologic museum about the region we're in. This is going to be the first time I actually post pictures for you guys. The museum is based in a converted convent built over three centuries.


The church part of the convent was built in the 14th century by the Domincan Friars. It's a beautiful gothic church with some very typical features according to our guide. I fell like my Spanish is really improving a lot because, despite the unusual vocabulary our guide used, I could understand pretty much everything he was saying. The newer parts of the church were completed in the 17th century and are more Baroque in style. There are some really beautiful altars in the church, and one of the best preserved things that the monks' books sat on in the church (sorry, I'm not sure what the word for that is.)

The coolest architectural feature of the church was a set of three spiral staircases going up to a beautiful balconey overlooking the city (see the picture at the top. The spires in the background are the spires of the famous cathedral here.)























Because it's an ethnographic museum, there are tons of exhibits on the everyday life of the people in Galicia. We started in a section that focuses on imigration and the reasons for immigrating and moved onto a section on traditional costumes and beliefs. The weird straw thing above is a raincoat which is supposedly so affective that even in a downpour, not a single drop of water would get through. The creepy looking things above are wax representations of various body parts which would have been left on an altar to ask for assistance with an physical problem with that part. There were a lot of model houses and buildings to give you an idea of truly traditional Galician villages. The last section was on jobs that are traditionally held by the Galician people. Of course there are all of the usual professions, but for the women there is the most beautiful lace work, which is done the the way you can see to the left.

Today, we're going on a guided tour of the cathedral here. I'll post about that next time with any good photos I manage to take. I actually have to leave now for that (I've used my entire siesta writing this post and making it look pretty) but I'll be sure to post again before too long.

Que os encuentrais bien.

Wow, I must say you guys really inspire a girl to post more given the astonishing amount of interest you've shown. But despite the fact that I get the feeling that none of you have even looked at this yet I'll post again. The day after my last post everyone else arrived and despite the fact that a lot of the group is from Vassar, I really don't know very many people. Ali and Julia both know Aapta and I know that the rest of you have at least met Seth Tannebaum, but the others are all more or less new faces to me. So far everyone is really nice and friendly and of course I've made friends with a couple of them. There's a really nice girl on the trip from Harvard who actually knows Abe Reisman, a friend of my from back in the day. After everyone arrived I went on a variety of walking trips throughout the city with the newcomers; I'm actually pretty good at navegating already but thats not much of a feat considering how small the city is, despite the crazy layout.
For those of you who don't know, Santiago de Compostela is supposedly the resting place of Saint James the Apostle (Santiago means Saint James). Because of that, since at least the 12th century (and I think earlier though I'm not sure) there have been tons of people who come here on pilgrimages. In fact, the people in Canterbury Tales are on their way here. The old part of the city is a very typical medieval city whose focal point is the HUGE cathedral and various other religious sites, mostly smaller churches: again, once I have some good pictures and put them on my computer I'll make sure to post them somewhere that everyone can access.
While we're in Santiago, we're taking a couple of classes every day to get accustomed to Spanish and using it in a more formal setting. My first class of the day is Galician literature (Galicia is the province in which we are located). We're reading a variety of styles meant to give us an idea of the literary tradition and evolution of Galicia. That class has written assignments pretty much every night as well as some reading. The other class is "the History of Spain." I must say, it is a little weird to spend only two weeks learning the entire history of a country but it seems like it might work out. We're also taking a "class" about culture and language, which really means we're going to be taught what is expected of us in the homes, what Spanish kids do for fun, and how to order food a drinks (and other useful things we may need to know, like words to use if we have to go to the doctor).
Other than the classes, groups of us have been paired with Spanish students who are taking us around the city and showing us the cool places to go for food and nightlife. We went out for dinner last night to a "Pulperia" which is a place that sells octopus, among other things. I have to say I couldn't bring myself to try the octopus, it just looked absolutely disgusting. They don't even try to cover up the grossness with friedness or anything else that might actually not make it look disgusting. I am going to try other kinds of seafood while I'm here, though we'll see if I actually like any of it.
I still haven't figured out the cell phone situation yet but I do have internet access for now so if you want to contact me thats definately the best way to do so. I do have a Skype account, although we're 6 hours apart (from the East coast) and I'm often not around because I'm off enjoying the fact that I'm in a different country but if you do get Skype and want to talk to me, you should let me know and I'll try to "call" you when I am actually online. Anyway, I've given up my siesta to post this and now have to get going to the culture/language class I was telling you about. It occurs to me that people who don't know Spanish might not know but Inseños isn't a real word...it's just meant to sound like both Madrileños and insane. Please guys, don't just look at this post, comment, or I definately won't keep this up because I have no way of knowing if you have any interest and if no one does I'll stop wasting my time. I <3 you all.
Os escribiré pronto. ¡Adios!

I’m posting this before any of you will have the opportunity to read it because I have not yet given out the information regarding this blog but this was my first day here and I thought I’d share what its like so far. My flight from Chicago to Madrid was pretty crowded but I had a decent seat and it really wasn’t as bad as I was concerned as it would be. I’m not a big fan of Iberia and I have good reason (ask about that if you’re curious, it’s a long story). My flight left Chicago a little over 45 minutes late and was 25 minutes late arriving in Madrid. I had to, literally, run through the entire airport to catch my connecting flight to Santiago de Compostela, where we are spending two weeks before returning to Madrid.
I arrived more or less without a hitch and took a cab from the airport to the residence hall we’re staying in here. We each have our own rooms which are a little small but have a big window and, most importantly, their own bathrooms complete with showers!! I was the first one here from our group here so it’s been a little lonely. Fortunately, Mihai, the program director, was already here with his family and they took me around the city for the day. We mostly just wandered around until lunchtime when we stopped at a restaurant for some basic Spanish lunch food. Then, I came back for a short siesta. After my siesta, I went with Mihai and his wife to a really awful Spanish movie called Dias Azules. It was a story about 3 brothers who are selling their vacation home...but really it was about a bunch of idiots drinking too much and driving and how they really don’t change despite being seven years older. After that, we went for tapas before returning to the residence hall.
The city itself is beautiful; I’d never been to this region of Spain before but it seems to be covered with beautiful farmlands and some really great groves of some kind of tree I’ve never seen before. The city itself is filled with cobblestone streets and old buildings. We saw the cathedral, which is so massive you can’t really tell where it ends, and lots of plazas. I’m planning to take lots of pictures and put them all online; I’ll let you know more about that when I get it worked out.
Anyway, I hope all are well and I’ll write more later. Feel free to email if you want a personal response…(I’ll respond to emails I’ve already received tomorrow, I just wanted to get this out before I forget anything.
¡Hasta luego!