Octopus, Apple Pie & Waffles

by dmottier

Instead of beginning this post with my usual apology for how long I take to update this dang blog, I’ll just jump right into it and forget the “creative beginning.”

The weekend after my trip to Barcelona, I ventured over to Galicia with the Stetson crew. Soleil and I woke up at around 5:30 to ensure that we’d arrive at the train station on time (we always seem to show up late, no matter how hard we try) and we still managed to struggle getting there. Galicia is about a 5 hour train ride from Madrid, located in the northwestern part of Spain, just bordering Portugal. The autonomous community is famous for a few things; their seafood (especially the octopus), El Camino de Santiago and their constant rainy weather. We got lucky though, and somehow chose the one weekend out of the year with beautiful blue skies (I’m exaggerating… but it was the first time they’d seen the sun in two months). We were based out of Santiago de Compostela for the weekend, the capital of Galicia, where Saint James the Great’s remains are believed to be buried under the cathedral. St. James is the patron saint of Spain and is described as one of the first disciples to join Jesus. His grave became the destination of the Way of St. James (Camino de Santiago), one of the most important Catholic pilgrimage routes of the medieval times. El Camino has many different starting points and is one of the most popular pilgrimage routes today. In order to qualify for a Compostela, or complete the journey, one must either walk 100km or bike 200km. I won’t bore you with anymore details, but I encourage you to read more into it and consider walking– I plan on completing it one day.

Our 16th Century Monastery Hotel

Our hotel was an old sixteenth century building that used to be the town’s monastery, located behind the famous cathedral. The first day was spent touring the old city and learning everything I just told you above from a professor/tour guide. The second day was spent visiting other towns most people walk through during El Camino. We saw El Puente Romano de Ponte Maceira, El Pazo de Negreira, Cee y Corcubión en la Costa de Morte, Finisterre y Muxía. Everywhere we went that day was breathtaking. The closer we got to the edge of the cost, the more I realized why thousands of people venture on El Camino every year. Finisterre (translated to Spanish as “el fin de la tierra” and english “end of the earth”) was by far my favorite pit stop. The astonishing Cape is sometimes said to be the westernmost point of the Iberian Peninsula, (which we found out is actually Cabo de Roca in Portugal) and is often the last stop for many pilgrims on El Camino. Before America was discovered, Finisterre was believed to be the end of the earth, making the end of El Camino even more gratifying and valuable. Before I lose your attention again with more boring history and my newfound love for Finisterre, I’ll move on and post some pics so you can see for yourselves.

Finisterre

Muxía

The rest of our trip in Galicia was spent eating… naturally. We tried Pulpo (octopus) in both Finisterre and Santiago, picnicked in La Plaza del Obradoiro (the main square where the cathedral is located) with food we stuffed in our bags from the continental breakfast, shared some of the best paella I’ve ever consumed at some restaurant I should remember the name of and stuffed our faces with so many tarts and famous Santiago cookies. The weekend was a blast. We laughed harder than we’ve laughed in… well, in a week…, Kim taught us some new dance moves, Isabel (our director) gave us Spanish boy advice, and countless hikers inspired most of us to embark on El Camino de Santiago.

Pulpo

Santiago de Compostela

The following weekend Soleil, Abby, Emmie and I trekked over to the Netherlands for an adventure-packed three days. Our trip there was easy. A 2ish hour flight on an awesome airline (if you’re ever in Europe, take KLM, they give you SO much free food and drinks!), really nice airport and an easy train ride. The second we arrived at Amsterdam Centraal, Emmie knew exactly how to get to our hotel. This girl can look at a map for 30 seconds and is able to explain where everything is located (this is not an exaggeration). We stayed in a 16th century canal house located near the Jordaan area (for those of you who still have not made it to Amsterdam, that’s a pretty central, happening place). Since we wanted to save as much money as possible, we obviously booked a hotel for two people instead of four, so our experience in the hotel consisted of us “sneaking” Soleil and Abby in and pushing the tiny beds together to make one big one. It seemed like a good idea when we were planning this trip, and to be honest it didn’t end up being that bad, but this was three weekends ago and my back still hasn’t recovered.We arrived in Amsterdam late Thursday night, so we didn’t explore too much before passing out. Showering was also a bit of a struggle, but we managed to make it work and headed straight to a bike shop early the next morning. Abby has never really been a biker, and even expressed some hesitation before we left the hotel, but we all seemed to think it wouldn’t be a problem…

Walkin our bikes

Amsterdam should be named the biking capital of the world. Maybe it is and I just don’t know it, but they do not mess around over there. The biking lanes on most roads are bigger than the car lanes and stop lights at crosswalks have bikes on them instead of people. The first few minutes on those dinky rentals were pretty horrifying, to be completely honest. I’m used to watching out for people when I bike around a town, but watching out for other bikes, on roads that are clearly only big enough to fit a car and a half, has never really been a concern of mine. And to add to it, our bikes only had backward breaks.. (you know, where you can’t peddle backwards to relax yourself and stopping is not possible if your walking your bike or simply trying to climb onto the darn thing). In the first ten minutes Emmie wiped out. Okay, it was somewhat intentional because we somehow got behind a stopped truck and realized too late that there was no way around it. Emmie was in front and tried to casually squeeze in between the sidewalk and the truly entertained young man taking boxes out of his trunk. She realized it wasn’t possible and thought stepping off of the bike might be easier. Since there was no way of stopping the awkwardly large piece of medal, Emmie collapsed to the ground and the laughing began. We spent most of that trip laughing, as we seem to do on every trip we take, but something about this weekend was extra comical. After finally getting the hang of our bikes, we spent the rest of the day being tourists. We took pictures in front of the IAMsterdam sign, visited the Van Gought museum and Anne Frank House, had AMAZING pancakes and Dutch apple pie and biked through the Vondel Park. We fell in love with Amsterdam. The city is so quaint and the people are unbelievably  friendly. That night we stuffed our faces, per usual, and explored some more places that make Amsterdam unique.

Saturday morning we returned our bikes, went to the grocery store to get food for a picnic and headed to the Brussels after lunch. Emmie found a great deal for a room in a five-star hotel right in the center of town, so we decided to spice up our trip and check out Belgium for the night. The city is very different from Amsterdam, as most of you know. It was beautiful, though. We walked around and saw the Grote Markt (famous square), explored an outside flee market and went in to every chocolate store in sight. Dinner was delicious and for dessert, of course, we had belgian waffles. After some more adventuring we went back to take advantage of the nice hotel and it’s hot water. The bed situation was the same as the two nights before, only a step-up on the nice scale. I slept horribly that night, but it’s all part of the adventure, right? Yeah, sure.

Grote Markt

Since there was more to see before our train back to Amsterdam, we woke up at the crack of dawn and checked out of the hotel early. Just picture this: four girls wondering the streets of Brussels with backpacks on, carrying grocery bags filled with Nutella and peanut butter at 7 o’clock in the morning. Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do to see a city in only a few hours, I guess. We payed a visit to the Royal Palace, took some pictures by the gardens and then headed to the train station. On our way there we had an interesting encounter with a local Belgian… well, I’m not sure if encounter is the right word or if he was even a local, but both are irrelevant to the story. Four girls walking in a row, no one but a hobo in sight, all chit-chatting away about our time in Brussels. All of the sudden, a strange figure about two inches taller than myself bumps my shoulder and reaches for my camera in one rapid movement. Luckily, I have a good grip on the strap and am able to yank it back before he runs with it. Instead of bolting the other way, kneeing him in the crouch or whatever you’re supposed to do when someone tries to rob you, I freeze, let him take my phone instead, and scream bloody murder. My over-exaggeration makes Soleil freak out and she echoes my scream. Only, Soleil is actually tough and I’m a wimp, so she starts running after the guy. Meanwhile, Emmie thinks I just got stabbed so she screams at the top of her lungs, turns quickly towards me and knocks Abby over with her backpack. Emmie decides running towards the thief is not a good idea and screams for Soleil to turn back around. At this point, I am screaming so hard I start crying (let me reemphasize that it’s about 8am) “just leave us alone, give me my phone back.” Soleil gives up on attempting to tackle the dude cause she knows we’ll all freak out, and as she turns around, he follows her towards us. Now, Soleil goes into automatic surrender mode; hands up in the air, eyebrows raised to her hairline, heart racing a million and two miles an hour. That’s it, we’re gonners. He’s gonna get us all and I won’t ever be able to see my mom again. Okay, I don’t think we all felt THAT threatened, but you get the point. He motions for us to calm the eff down and offers me back my phone. I don’t trust him, and neither does Soleil, so we point to a bench and command various times “DROP IT.” The rolls have now reversed. This man mimics what Soleil and done minutes before and backs away with his hands above his head. He comes closer again only to tell us to calm down and Abby, who has been on the floor this whole time, stands up and screams “GOOOO!” He left us alone and went on his way.From that moment on, and to be honest still to this day, we have been a bit paranoid. Even promoters on the streets who come up from behind make us jump a little.

Royal Palace

Our last day in Amsterdam was wonderful. We walked the parts that we hadn’t seen on the first two days, passed through the Red Light district, got a few souvenirs and ate… again.

Will update you soon on the past couple of weeks.

-D