So I'm finally going to finish the section on Santiago and start on the section about Madrid because tomorrow, two of my friends and I are going on an excursion to Granada and I'm sure my next post will be ginormous.
The first excitement that I have to talk about was our field trip to the roofs of the cathedral. We started by entering through a beautiful old castle that is connected to the cathedral (although I'm still not clear on the reason for the two buildings being connected. When we got to the great hall of the castle, there was an awesome exhibition of old books (I tried to get a good picture but I have issues using flash around works like that for fear of fading them or ruining them somehow). We then continued through the church and went up the stairs until we reached the roofs. From the roofs it seemed like we could see all of Santiago. It is possible to go on the roof tour without a special guide and I highly recommend it for anyone who happens to be in Santiago. The view is truly amazing and its pretty awesome to think about the fact that for a long time, the chruch didn't have any locked doors and the pilgrims went up their to burn their rags (and get rid of disease) at the end of their long journey.
After our journey to the roofs of the cathedral, we continued on to the Royal Hospital (I think I mentioned it before but maybe not). The Royal Hospital was built by the Catholic Monarchs to house the poor and sick pilgrims in a time where hospitals did not exist as separate institutions. The courtyard were where the healthy pilgrims could find shelter and the sick pilgrims were taken care of on the higher floors. The building was separated into two sections-the left side for men and the right side for women. The hospital also features a beautiful chapel with some amazing limestone carvings. Unfortunately due to limestone's tendancy to dissolve in water and the high levels of humidity in Santiago, some of the statues are missing pieces. The hospital has recently been converted into a 5 star-Gran Lujo (extreme luxury) hotel but still offers breakfast for the first ten pilgrims to arrive there every morning.
After we finished at the royal hospital (our visit had to be cut short because our guide really likes to talk and we still had another place to visit) we went on the the Church of San Martin, part of a monestary just across the street from the cathedral. We didn't spend much time there but we did get an idea of how beautiful the church was. The altar was done entirely in gold work, and the places where the monks sat were extremely intricately carved. If we had had more time there, I'm sure I'd have more to say about it but all I can really tell you is that it was beautiful.

On Saturday, we had our final exams which were much less difficult than you might imagine; we were told to pick a topic from each class and write no more than single double-sided sheet on it. I was very happy with the way my exams turned out and think I did pretty well on them (I still haven't seen any results). That evening, we went out for dinner at this pretty cool restaurant that gave us way too much to eat. After desert, we tried a typical drink in Galicia-Queimada. I've included a link to the Wikipedia article on it because although it really is very interesting I don't think I can relate it very well and I don't have any pictures of it. After that, we went out for Karaoke but the place we wanted to go was too full so we went dancing instead.

We left Santiago early the next morning. I've already written an entry about my arrival here in Madrid so I won't repeat any of that. Yesterday we went to the campus where we'll be studying for some initial orientation stuff. The day was much too long, without really accomplishing much. It was way to hot to wander around; I heard from someone today that it reached 39 degrees celsius (102 fahrenheit). Today was a free day, which I'm using to take care of some errands and meet up with the girls I'll be travelling with tomorrow. I'll post again when I return from Granada.

Que os duermais bien.