Portugal, fascinating theories, and failed burritos

The first Saturday in November my Spanish dad was like, "Let's go to Portugal!" So we went to Portugal.

We went to a town called Valença which is just barely over the border of Galicia and walked around a medieval castle-city area, with fortified walls and cannons and a moat. It was really pretty and interesting. Now it's basically entirely little tourist shops inside the walls. And the old city is really small but there were at least 3 different ancient churches within the walls.  I love that it's no big deal to just head to another country for a few hours. There's not a border beyond a sign that says "Portugal". (I do sort of wish that my passport would get stamped though). I did hear some Portuguese spoken, and it was so strange! Written, it looks fairly similar to Spanish and Galician, but spoken... the pronunciation is crazy. At least that's how it was to my ear. It seemed mostly like Galician spoken in the back of the throat. It was very cool.

stone streets

haha accidental mirror picture, and the ancient wall

And some more news on my cooking adventures... We bought a box burrito kit to try so I could "share some Texan culture". It didn't go great. Actually they were okay and perfectly edible, so I guess I can't really call them a failure, but they weren't exactly authentically delicious tex-mex burritos. Oh well.

The next day my dad took me to the birthplace of Christopher Columbus.  No, we didn't go to Italy... he was born in Galicia. (Also his name is actually Cristobal Colón.) At least according to a fairly well based theory here. (some evidence like the fact that every place he named in the new world coincide with similar Galician areas, he wouldn't have told the truth about being Gallego because the Spanish crown wouldn't have given funding if he had, he never spoke Italian, and several more things as well that support this idea). I'm buying it, although I'm not sure that having him born here is necessarily something to be extremely proud of considering he wasn't all that much of a hero in the end... But still, history is cool.

I told y'all it's fall.

How do you know when it's fall in Spain?

(First of all i'm able to post this in the middle of a Wednesday because we stayed home from school today because there was a strike. My town is too small for a manifestation where people actually hold signs and shout and stuff, the closest was in Vigo I think, but my sister and I just caught up on sleep and hung out at home. I must admit I don't fully understand how my sleeping in will help education reform, but okay.)

Also this title should really be "How do you know when it's fall in Marín?/in Amy's host family's house" but the more general Spain sounded better.

Being away from home when seasons change is a weird feeling.

The official start of autumn may have been back on September 22, but there wasn't a visible change other than on the calendar. However, by now I'm starting to notice some differences from the past couple weeks. 

1) My window fogs up in the mornings (and I draw hearts on it). (I only notice on weekends though, since on school days it's still dark when I get up).

2) The naval academy uniforms switch to black. This one is very specific to Marin. I don't know if I've said this, but the Spanish Naval Military School is situated here. This means that when walking around town you're likely to see small groups of uniformed men and some women out and about. Earlier, they always wore white, but now with cooler weather they wear a (presumably warmer ) black uniform. I haven't gotten any pictures though so these are from online.

not my photo, but this is the summer look

again not my photo and but these are the black uniforms. or dark blue maybe.

3) The scarves come out.  Yay winter clothes shopping!

4) Hedgehogs also also appear. apparently the dog food bowl is a warm and provides tasty meal (seems reasonable if you like dog food).

5) It's voting season here, too. Just a couple differences I've seen is how the candidates advertise themselves. I'm not sure why but instead of one big poster of their face and name, they fill up the same size with lots of little faces. And there are cars with speakers on top that just drive around announcing political news like voting dates or promoting a candidate.

sorry for the poor quality, but you can see what i'm talking about

again poor quality but see the speakers on top? this was just driving past my house, so the big gate bars were blocking the view.

6) The weather changes. More rain- maybe 40% of the time (I just made that statistic up). There are still sunny days though, and often it will drizzle in the morning and clear up by afternoon. This might seem like a negative to some people, but I like rain. Probably because from Texas it still seems like a drought is miraculously being cured whenever I see rain even though here one obviously doesn't exist. And it's just so peaceful and soothing

The fog fills up the valley so I can barely see the town and none of the river or mountains beyond. It's a strange feeling, like the house is being wrapped in a (somewhat chilly) blanket. One of my favorite things is watching clouds float down to eye level from my window since I'm on the hill. Oh yeah have I mentioned it's really hilly here? Well it is.

7) The water bottle doesn't go in the fridge. It's the details that count right? We keep a big water bottle to pour water from in the fridge- or we did in the summer. Now it's cooler and water is fine at room temperature so it can stay on the counter. No picture for this one (since it would just be a water bottle... on a counter. yay.)

[Edit: maybe I was too hasty in assuming a picture of a water bottle on a counter would be boring. You can decide for yourself.

 

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8) Halloween. Just like at home, the supermarkets here fill up with costumes and jack-o-lanterns. Well, it's just half an aisle, but it's still a lot considering they don't even really celebrate it. This j, but here the real holiday is Samhain or All Saints Day which I don't know how is celebrated (yet).

 

 This coming weekend I'm going to Ponferrada for an AFS orientation and I'm really excited!  It'll be great to see kids in some of the other cities and catch up since Madrid and I know it's going to be super fun.