Orientation Trip! September 25-28

Dear Friends and Family,

After arriving in Madrid, I met the other students in my program as well as some of the staff. We then spent the next four days with each other traveling to the north of Spain in the cities Burgos, Comillas, Altamira, Santianna del mar, and Leon.

BURGOS was our first stop after leaving Madrid and upon arriving we visited the Cathedral. An important theme of our orientation trip was the Camino de Santiago, which is a pilgrimage that thousands of people make each year through the north of Spain. The journey ends in Santiago de Compostela where the remains of St. James are. Burgos is an important stop in the Camino de Santiago (as well as Leon). (Note: I think, but am not sure that Burgos was a capital of a province a long time ago). We then had an incredible lunch, which probably lasted for an hour and a half. (I will talk about food during the orientation trip later).

COMILLAS was our next stop and the location of our hotel for two nights. Comillas is right on the coast and our hotel was right on the beach (see picture). We then had time to wander around, so of course we went right to the beach. After getting my feet wet in the Cantabrian Sea (sounds so weird in English, because in Spanish it's El Mar Cantábrico), I wandered around with my friend Hayley. We saw great views of the sea and the town and eventually found some interesting ruins. It turns out that a church was destroyed (I forget why), but then the remaining pieces were turned into a cemetery. Comillas also happens to have one of two works of Gaudi outside of Barcelona. Like all Gaudi architecture, it was kind of weird (see pictures). He constructed it for a family friend or an in-law as a vacation home. Now, it's an expensive Japanese restaurant. Night life, as we found out, in Comillas is kind of quiet. But we did manage to get some sangria at a bar called "La Perla Negra" (the black pearl).

ALTAMIRA has caves with cave paintings from a long time ago. The actual caves are closed to the public, but we went to the museum.

SANTILLANA DEL MAR is a cute little historic town very close to Comillas. The roads were kind of hard to walk in because they had uneven cobblestones. There was also a church (we went to lots of churches on this trip).

LOS PICOS DE EUROPA or "the peaks of Europe" are a mountain range in the north of Spain. We took a 12 km hike on our third day through a very beautiful path. Parts of it were incredibly steep.

LEON is the capital of the Leon province in Spain. There is an important cathedral here, where the Camino de Santiago goes through. Also, there are some good Tapas bars.

Love,
Rosalie.