Goodbye, land.: Spanish adventure #1

I have to be honest here, this week has for me been the most vacation-like vacation. In my family, tradition has been always having control, planning ahead and visiting every single attraction and monument, walking the mountains and doing as the romans do. This has given me excellent skills on navigating in foreign countries with maps, books and articles on the internet. So what happens when I don't speak the language, the internet has not heard of the city and none of the maps will ever situate north on the upper side of the map?

Adventure.

Disclaimer #1

I can not remember which days was spent on which adventures, regarding they were never actually planned. They will be ranked after rememberance instead.

Disclaimer #2

This has absolutely nothing to do with sailing. If you're looking for sailor things, come back in a week and we're on it!

Disclaimer #3

I blog for the sole purpose of updating my beloved ones on what happens in my life. I therefore do not spend time on editing or making this perfect blog with perfect amounts of words, pictures and funny things. Maybe I will someday, but as for now I highly prioritize sailing and seeing the world. In other words: Sorry about strangeties. It's not on purpose.

Spanish adventure #1 - Pilgrimage

After being told that the fantastic Santiago de Compostela could be reached by train in only 40 minutes, I set out on my first (?) real adventure. I knew there were some rails on the lower side of the map - whatever that means... Fortunately, the city is on top of the map, so the only big road that lead away from the city would eventually lead to what I thought was the railway station.

Internet told me to take the bus to the station, but on the map it didn't seem that far. I decided to leave my map and my english at home, and go by foot. After about two hours of searching, uttering "no comprendo" and trying to find the entrance of the station, I realised the rails was for cargo only. A woman could tell me that the real railway station "es muy facil", and that it was only ten minutes in the exact direction I was coming from. After yet another hour of to and fro I managed to enter the bus station. "Estacion del tren?" "No, es la estacion del autobus." Muchas gracias, now if you could point me in the right direction this time...

Now, in the last and fourth hour a woman asked me if I could see the enormous clocktower. Of course I could. Well, that's the station, senorita.

Headache count: 3

Hola chicaaaa count: There really is no way of telling. I'm considering dying my hair darker.

The map at Santiago station said that the city would be right upwards, which reminded me that following tourists would be a much more effective way of finding what I searched: the church where Virgin Mary occasionally shows herself in flesh and blood. Using the sun and large buildings I managed to make my own map, and remembering how many minutes I spent on each direction made me able to have perfect control of where I was. Now I just had to find the attractions and plot them in. Fortunately, Santiago is full of people with "where is Virgin Mary?" written all over their bodies. Easy navigation.

For better chances of spotting the lady, I decided to have a maximum pace of "old lady standard" and not know when the train would go home. My gut feeling took me to many wonderful and lesser visited parts of the city, but when I found myself watching the setting sun on a farm (Santiago is a big city, folks!) I realized it was time to go home.

Santiago is a city with thousands of pilegrims visiting every day. This is their final goal, and all the people are therefore very tired, very satisfied and extremely happy. I could do nothing but smile the entire day. The satisfied sensation of the people is something that I would recommend anyone to experience. Very rare nowadays.

Finding my way home in Coruna was a lot easier and took about 1/6 of the time it had to get to the station. People with a fast pace are hurrying to something important, and the majority of important things happens in the city. Easy navigation.