The other week we all got a lovely four day weekend, thanks to the public holiday el Día de todos los santos, All Saint's Day, which is celebrated on the 1st November, which conveniently fell on a Thursday, which gave us such a long weekend. Everyone apart from a few people went home from the residence, so it was quite quiet for four days, but it was long enough to get the bulk of my work for Durham done, so every cloud....
The weekend after that I went to my roommate Anxo's house for the weekend. He lives in a little hamlet, just outside of a town called Lalín, which is, according to him, in "Galicia Profunda." Well one thing I can say is that "Deep Galicia" is fer-reezing! When we went out I had to put like four layers on and I was still cold! Anxo introduced some of his mates on the Friday night and we went out for a bit. When we were in one bar this man came up to me and asked me in English if I were English because he used to live in America and then he was talking to me for ages outside, quite drunk, much to Anxo's amusement. His dad used to own a club in Lalín and apparently he's quite a legend there haha. But Lalín is a really small place and everyone knows each other, which made me feel a bit like I proper stood out, especially when the barmaids asked me what I'm doing in Lalín, a bit confused that a non-Spaniard had walked into Galicia Profunda. Saturday Anxo drove us both to Ourense, where a few from the residence were staying because one of the Noelia's parents were away for the weekend. We got a little bit lost trying to find them and saw a lot of the little villages surrounding Ourense until we eventually found the group, who were at a botellón up some mountain (just for laughs I think), and went to where Noelia lives but we couldn't stay for more than a few hours because we had to get back for a birthday meal for one of Anxo's friends. Saturday night was a lot better, because I already some of the people. One thing that made me laugh is when Anxo was talking to someone and she was explaining something to him in Galician, and I was like, in Spanish, yeah you remember, it was last Thursday haha, cus I'd understood. Gave him a bit of a shock as I've just been saying I don't understand Galician because I don't really want people to talk to me in it, but then I proved I do understand some of it. At the end of the meal they gave us shots of a drink called licor café which is "a typical Galician" and is a coffee based liqueur, but strong! A few weeks ago it gave one of the girls from the residence quite a bad night, so I was a bit weary drinking it in shot form with a lad who wanted me to be a lion by finishing it - clearly it had started to affect him too. Last Thursday we did shots in one bar in Vigo and one was a mixture of vodka, tequila, brandy and licor café, words cannot describe the burn in your throat after drinking that, and stupidly it took me two attempts to finish it. lad.
Then the Monday afterwards my parents came to Spain for 5 days. Proud of Dad for getting him and Mum to Vigo from Santiago Airport and into the hotel despite the fact that it's a compliment to say that his Spanish is limited and Mum's just shocking at languages (she once ordered eine one-of-them s'il vous plait in Luxembourg, true story). So Monday and Tuesday I showed them around Vigo, where I live and all that bits and saw a few places that I hadn't seen myself, for example the iron-age settlement (castro) at the top of the big hill, which I'd never been to before. Unfortunately Wednesday was the European wide Huelga General (General Strike) which was a lot more severe than I had expected and we couldn't really do anything at all. I live in Vigo's main street and at about 1am people were setting off firecracker bombs and throwing rubbish everywhere and putting up posters and then in the day time there was wave after wave of protest marches up and down the city. We saw one group of people arriving at the port, which must have defeating the point of the not spending money part of the strike as they arrived on a commercial boat...but the party/union's name was CUT which we thought was quite funny as that's exactly what they're protesting against but yet they're waving flags saying CUT in English. On the news there were reports of police violence and all sorts going on, so Vigo was relatively calm, even though a fire was started in the doorway of a shop that dared to open, it's right next to the residence (see picture: pic.twitter.com/njE7OAUd). It's a shame that they had to see Spain in such a position, whatever they say it's not a nice image for tourists to see, but I suppose it's the reality of the country's situation at the moment. Anyway, the next day they went off to Santiago, which I think they enjoyed and then back home. We managed to find one restaurant open on Wednesday evening so we ate there, it was actually alright despite being called CornerHut. The woman inside found it quite amusing that mum said gracias every time she bought us something, cutlery, napkins, sauces etc I think. We English are just very grateful people!
Not that much more has happened folks, uni's uni, haven't put my foot in it or anything to comment on tbh.
