Navarra, Spain

Last weekend, I traveled to the region on Navarra in the northeast corner of the county of Spain. The trip was mandatory for my Spanish 418 class, Spanish Culture and Civilization. It was refreshing to be staying in Spain and seeing some of the incredible sights here in this country, however I have to admit, I was not looking forward to the trip, since I really knew no one in my class and couldn't imagine enjoying a weekend with a bunch of strangers. Boy was I wrong!! The trip was a blast and it was a breath of fresh air to be out of my circle of friends, to meet new people and to have a unique experience. We are spoiled at SLU since so many people here are from Missouri that we can always find someone we know, someone who is not Spanish and someone who speaks English!!  Aside from this, the trip was a SPANISH class trip, so we were encouraged to speak the language as much as possible, our tours were in Spanish and our teachers spoke to us in Spanish. So it was a great time!! 

We left on Friday from SLU's campus and boarded a bus for our roughly 5 hour ride to the town of Roncesvalles.  We were scheduled to leave at 9 AM, but three kids were late so we were forced to wait until nearly 10 for two of them to show up. I made a point to get up at 7:30 and to run there at 8:50, but had I known we would just wait around all day, I would have just slept in until 9.  I only knew a few people from my class and sat next to this kid, Jesse, from Wake Forest.  He was from the other section of the 418 class, which I found out is taught by my Spanish 420 teacher, Dra. Ángeles! She is an awesome older lady, super fun and spunky! She took to Jesse and I and talked to us all the time about the different sites, etc. They dropped us off in a hole-in-the-wall little town to scavenge for lunch. A few of us went against the grain and headed away from the nearest restaurant to find something different. It turns out the town was closed down for a "fiesta" holiday and eventhough they had countless bars, we were only able to find one real restaurant for lunch. A common thing in Spain is the "menú del día" or menu of the day, which is like a small scale cruise ship meal, in which you choose a first course, main course, and dessert, along with wine or beer. We did that for 10€ each, had a great carbonara and fried chicken, as well as an entire bottle of chilled red wine (weird), which Jesse and I got to split! Haha!! Ángeles later told us that if they serve you cold red wine in Spain, it is usually poor quality. Either way, it hit the spot, we got back on the bus and made our way to Ujué. The purpose of the trip was to observe the influences of the Romanesque and Gothic movements in Spain's architectural history, while traveling a portion of the famous Camino de Santiago. More on that later. Ujué was a cool little town, with interesting architecture and windy cobblestone streets. We got a tour of the cathedral and it's architecture, as well as the area around the church. Afterwards, we were back on the bus heading north. This stop-and-go travel brought back memories of being in Europe with Jenna in high school! We arrived in Roncesvalles around 5 in the afternoon. This old town was made famous during the Middle Ages as pilgrims from around the world flocked to it as the first stop in Spain on the Camino de Santiago.  This is a famous pilgrammage typically made by Catholics, beginning someplace in France and entering Spain in Roncesvalles, then continuing westward for over 750 km to the town of Santigo de Compostela where the body of Santiago is buried. It gained fame during the Reconquista in Spain and is popular again today as thousands of pilgrims come to Spain to make the Camino, both for personal achievement, as well as penance. The town consists of about 5 buildings, one of which is a huge hostel where we stayed. We all quickly made our way to the little bar/restaurant for a beer before dinner.  Ángeles and our actual teacher walked by and she said "no te emborraches" (don't get drunk) with a feisty wink.  haha!  Afterwards, she proceeded to dink several glasses of wine with us as we ate dinner and got to know each other better.  So fun!   This was the night when the whole group really got together and made the trip fun!  We had enormous rooms in this hostel with living rooms and kitchenettes, so we bought bottles of liquor from the bar and had a party with almost everyone in one of the largest rooms. We had people from SLU, Wake Forest, Saint Joseph's, Baylor, Kansas and more!  The drinks made me attempt to command that everyone spoke in Spanish, saying "¡mando que todos hablen en Español!" but it didn't work too well!  Haha! 

Paisaje de Ujué, Navarra, Spain

La Fiesta de Roncesvalles

The next morning, Saturday, began with a tour of the the cathedral, chapel and crypt of Roncesvalles, not to mention several nauseous estudiantes.  The second stop was a monastery quite a ways outside the town. There, we got a comprehensive tour of the building and the grounds from a girl who spoke a mile a minute, which kept us laughing the whole time.  Luckily, Ángeles was there to translate from crazy Spanish to useful Spanish for us to at least learn something.  We found out that the monks that live there are 4 or 5 of an order of only 200 still in existence in the world. They are reprimanded for speaking incorrectly, they can only shave three times a year and are only allowed to bathe their extremities, not their whole bodies.  They are completely self-sufficient and spend their time farming, gardening, reciting 120 daily prayers and tending to the hotel, which is inside the monastery.  What a life!!  Our final stop for the day was the slightly larger town of Estella.  We had a walking tour of the town that afternoon and saw three more churches, taking note of the architectural influences (románico y gótico), as well as the specific arches (de medio punto y apuntado). We ran across another town fiesta, in which little kids were "play" bull fighting with a young bull on a leash while their parents watched and cheered them on.  Wild!  Since we were in a larger town, we planned to go out to an Irish bar near out hotel, so we bought some wine and beer for the hotel, ate dinner in the restaurant and hung out in the rooms until we got kicked out for being too loud.  The Irish bar was fun!  And once again, I found that excellent beer, Desperado's, which has been stalking me here in Europe.  A couple of us met a really interesting couple outside the bar who we talked to for a long time about Spain, Spanish language and our studies. 

La Corrida de Toros para los niños

On Sunday, we visited a winery on the way back to Madrid.  There, we got a really awesome tapas lunch with endless wine from the famous Rioja region of Spain.  We had ham, cheese, croquettes, bread and peppers to nibble on and got surprisingly full!  We then got a tour of the winery's "bodega" or cellar as well as an explanation from one of the employees on the basics of wine and the difference between the different categories: joven, crianza, reserva y gran reserva.  Afterwards, we stopped to purchase some of the local wine and boarded the bus for home. We had to stop a couple hours for a mandatory 45 minute break for the driver.  Not 20 minutes after that, we found ourselves pulling over yet again in a deserted parking lot and our professor, Aitor, saying "tenemos que parar por un problemita con el autobús..." (we need to stop for a little problem with the bus..). Before we knew it we were all out of the bus watching the driver climb inside the engine compartment to fix something... Surprisingly it worked and we made it home safely to Madrid. 

Las Viñas de Rijoa

The next day in class, Ángeles asked if I had drunk all three of my bottles of wine yet. Haha! No! I do have them earmarked for gifts, but at this rate, they could be gone by the end of the month.

Right now I am on another plane (I think my 11th flight of the trip..) on my way to Munich, Germany for zee Oktoberfest. This should be an interesting and exciting trip!! 
Keep in touch.  Missing everyone badly. Hope all is well at home!