Weekend up North

Hey there everyone! So I´ve been in Spain a little over two months now. You´ll be happy to know that I am still alive and learning. Coming along on the language and learning a lot. They say it all doesn´t come together until the third month so we´ll see if that holds true.

Schools been great and the people in it are very nice and helpful with my Spanish. My teachers enjoy asking me questions to try and get the American view on different topics. I have to try and stay relatively caught up on the news back home because more often then naught the questions have to do with current events in America that I haven´t even heard about. Makes you feel kind of silly when foreigners know more about the happenings in your own country then you do. I guess foreigners is the right word here being that well I´m the foreigner. Um okay well you get what I mean.

This past weekend was Halloween in Spain for me which was actually quite different then that in the US. For one they don´t really celebrate it. They don´t really understand the whole ´trick or treat´thing nor accepting candy from strangers. What they do instead is they take a four day weekend. Many people in Spain found it very weird that in the US we don´t actually get school off for Halloween being that we actually celebrate it and all. I would have to agree with them on this point but then I in turn asked them why they take two days off of school when they don´t even celebrate it. Asking this question however is like in part asking them why they must breath. Its a holiday somewhere and that's all there is to it. If it says something in the corner of your planner that is other then a full or new moon then school and work must be taken off. I must say that the Spanish way of living is really starting to grow on me. I can´t wait for the Chinese New Year, I sure it will be one crazy time.

So for the long weekend we took a little vacation and went up into the province of Cantabria which is just north of my province of Castilla y Leon. We spent the weekend relaxing and living in a rented out cottage in a beach community. During the days we would travel to the surrounding areas and towns with some family friends that live in Cantabria for part of the year. All the towns we visited were very old and dating back to the mid 1700´s. It was also my host mother´s birthday so we celebrated that on Saturday which was a lot of fun.

Got to go on some hikes and walks on the beach which were very peaceful and relaxing. Well it was most of the time any way. Growing up in Montana we don´t have a lot of beaches and I would say I am not highly versed in beach etiquette and even more so to that of Europe. Turns out when your walking along daydreaming then look down and suddenly see a naked man right there next to you the polite thing to do is to not jump in surprise and awkwardly shuffle away. It isn´t exactly warm this time of year on the north coast so I didn´t have a lot of forewarning before this one experience to remember the ¨clothing optional¨ part to European beaches. The temperature seemed to keep the clothing on of all people on the beach except for the one man who I some how managed to get right next to with out noticing. No one else seemed to give this man any mind however so my reaction was seen as a little peculiar and odd. My mother in Montana would tell me to live in the present which turns out is easier said then down until you have a naked stranger next to you. That seems to bring one flying back to the present quite abruptly indeed.

Lets see, some new food and drink I got to try this weekend. I got to try a sort of stew made up solely of sheep entrails and feet. That was interesting and a sort of thing you can say you tried once. I would say it requires a very select taste. Along the same lines is cow intestines which I would have to say taste like if you were to bottle the smell of a pasture. The Spanish seem to enjoy both these dishes however which I give them full props for utilizing all parts of the animal. Reduce Reuse Recycle and all that. Also I got to try a drink that Cantabria is well know for and takes great pride in and that is their cider. They have a very special way of servicing the cider which involves holding the poring device way up high in one hand and pouring it into a glass which you hold as low as you can. Its actually a sort of profession to be a person who can pour a very long stream of cider while getting it in the glass. The theory is that this some how makes the cider better when you drink it which to tell you the truth makes no sense. I think its just more for fun. Below is a picture of a little robot man that you can put on the top of your cider bottle that actually pours the cider from his little bottle into your cup. It isn´t a great distance in between but it causes the same effect.

There are also some picture below of some people playing a game that is solely to this region of Spain. It´s a kind of bowling which I won´t be able to explain very well with out you going and looking at the pictures first. So go now and look at the pictures. Ya? Good? Okay so there are two teams to a game with there being two people on each team. Each person has three wooded balls which are ruffly the size of a large grape fruit which I think you can see in the photos. There are also nine wooded pins set up (which can also be seen in the pictures) and are set up in the middle of pitch a little smaller then a tennis court. Now I´m going to try and explain how to play but its kind of complicated and I don´t think I even fully understand it. So they stand on one side of the field with one foot touching a certain decided upon stop. In the pictures this is the side with the red strip. So from there they throw their ball up in the air in a special way that when it lands it will spin and hit down as many pins as possible. In front of the pins there is a line which the ball has to go over and close enough to the pins to hit them. After each ball is thrown they reset the pins. Each person throws three balls and they count all the pins you hit it down and add that to the number hit down from your partner. But then from there you go to the other side of the pitch and from where your balls landed you have to put one foot then try again to knock down as many pins. They again reset the pins after each ball is thrown and all your teams point get put together for that round. Then the other team goes. They people who win are the ones who win the most rounds by knocking down the most pins. That's the basic lay out of it. There is also much more confusing parts of it that in later rounds they have areas where your ball can´t land and lines your ball has to get across or behind but ya that's the basic idea. Throw your ball with enough spin and force to hit down a lot of pins but with just enough that it stops rolling very close to the pins on the other side. Sort of get it? It was very funny to watch anyway because the entire time the teams had running banter against each other that was all very friendly. They even had a trophy that was made and which they play for. Very fun to watch.

So I think that´s all there is for now. Things are going great here and I´m really enjoying myself. I hope you all are well and you know where to find me.

Cody