16th - 18th August
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Well, guess what? we were told that this bus trip would take us 11, 14 hrs at most, ummm, SEVENTEEN hours later, we got to Galicia, Santiago De Compostella...but you know what, it was well worth it..

Santiago is a little (well, its the capital of Galicia) tucked away in the mountain side of Spain towards Portugal...the weather has been completely different to that of the rest of Spain, raining and very wet wet wet...yesterday and today was raining and all i feel like doing is eating, so it looks like all that sweating and eating bread and cheese only for lunch is all being put right back on again! (why oh why does chocolate and rain mix so well?)

Cathedral of St James

these were tombs where people were (and still are) buried...there was a whole level which was a graveyard in the Cathedral

The scenery is beautiful and the city is centred around an amazing Cathedral that has been built in honor of Saint James, one of Jesus´ 3 beloved apostles. We have been to museums (as there is nothing else we can do since it is raining!) and I have learnt a lot about what happens here in Santiago. The amount of Tourists supercedes that of Barcelona..they are all on Pilgramiges here..everyone has a walking stick with a shell attached to it, this is the symbol of Saint James and what he used to take with him on his pilgramages

Walking sticks used for Pilgrimages, Shells were the symbol of St James

Detail of work gone into building this Cathedral is unbelieveable as you can see

We went to many museums while in Santiago, mostley because the weather was pathetic but we like to say that we wanted to because of the knowledge and information we would gain from looking around (jokes, that really is my main reason I love museums!) so, we went into the Cathedral and there were 3 parts to this museum, one was a palace, below is a little bit of the section of the palace

View from the Cathedral

It was very eerie (whos eerie mum? haha! miss you!) i actually felt like i was living in the past, the rooms were small and dark and there was a dungeon at the bottom which kind of freaked me out, its funny, when u stand at the doorway looking in, you can actually visualise the people and where they were having dinner and where the animals were sitting blah blah blah, or maybe thats just me, I was telling Anita that im guessing this is where they put the huge banquet table and this is where the goats would sleep and this is where the woman would be sewing her husbands varigs and she was looking at me with a blank face...OK, so its just me...NEXT

We walked around Santiago a bit afterwards because we soon learnt that no matter what you do you are always caught in a bit of rain, my paboojuh's were soaking wet as well as my whole body but we got used to it in the end and stopped dodging the rain drops. BY the way, i feel like im at a cattle farm while overseas...you cant walk in a straight line without bumping into people, there are people everywhere and they are all just EVERYWHERE, if ure in a rush, forget it cos youre going to be late, doesnt matter...it annoys me a lot cos im a fast walker and i keep getting bruises on my ankles from the mums pushing babies trolleys into me...grrr

About the Cathedral again, we lined up for 45 mins to get into the main hall and go up to the altar...we actually didnt know what we were lining up for, that was the funny thing, but yup, cos people were lining up we thought it must be good! it ended up being, as I said, a little trip up to the main altar to hug the HUGE gold statue of St James, so Anita (kindly) let me go up first since we didnt know where we were heading and then i followed suit and hugged the gold statue of St James, some people kissed it some people hugged it so tight, but it was an interesting and moving experience.

I later learnt that there are 3 places in the WORLD where they do these pilgrimages and Santigo is 1 of those special 3 places...I am so glad I went there and had a look...

going up to the altar to kiss st. James, not knowing what to expect at this moment, but if its in a Cathedral, its always good!

Oh! another thing i noticed about Santiago..A LOT OF BASKETBALL RINGS
I was so happy! BUT no one was playing...and trust me, i took photos of the courts...man, i really miss playing basketball, I wonder how my U19 boys are doing, if anyone knows, email me and let me know!!

Not happy Jan, all these courts and no balls!

i feel like im behind bars! haha

We have been sleeping at around 9:30-10:00pm most of the nights to catch up on all the sight seeing, we never have enough energy if we stay up late, sad i know, but we have seen so much of all the cities we have been to and its all worth it...

MADRID

Well, thank God we didnt miss our coach to Madrid cos we would be cutting it THIN as we had to catch the Plane home that day...

Listen to this story...

Ok, last day in Santigo, we were taking it easy, we had planned to leave at 8pm to catch the bus from our hostel, its only about 20mins bus ride to the Autobus Estacion, our coach was to leave at 9:45pm (umm, we had checked this over and over again during the day counting the time out on our fingers just to be sure, you know, that maybe the ink might smudge and the time might change, i dont know...we have learnt a BIG lesson from missing our caoch to Barcelona)

Sooooo...we ended up doing our grocery shopping and getting to the hostel 15mins early, so 7:45 walked up the stairs (all 4586.4 of them!) and kocked on the door of the little old ladies hostel to get our bags which were inside...umm, wow, she was taking her time in answering the door...so i thought, you know maybe shes stuck on the toilet or something..so rang the doorbell again...no answer...ok, me first! ill start stressing first! so i started stressing...Anita was laughing a bit but you should have seen the way i sprinted up the stairs to the next little old lady with the hostel...knocked on her door and i must have looked like a freak cos she was like "what what??" and im like flapping my arms trying to demonstrate in my non spanish speaking way that the lady downstairs isnt HOME and my BAGS are STUCK inside her hostel and we have a coach to CATCH to MADRID! wow, i never knew i could communicate so well with my arms cos she so understood what i was saying and went upstairs to the OTHER little old ladies hostel to ask her where the original little old lady was...here we go again...i started flapping my arms and pointing downstairs and both ladies were like "si si si si" (i was asumming they understood me) and shrugged their shoulders and they didnt know where she was...cue Anitas time for stressing, and this girl doesnt usually stress as easy as me, but HELLO...she was downstairs talking to 2 people who had just come out of our hostel and had heard the bell ringing and door knocking over and over again bt of course they didnt open the door..how nice of them!

We were thinking about the best way to knock the door down without breaking the hinges and making the little old lady cry (seriously!) when i heard Anita shout out that the little old lady was coming up the stairs! man oh man, Anita hugged the hell out of this little old lady (i think she now thinks either Aussies are the most friendly species or we are just damn crazy!) it was 8:10

It was 8:30 when we left the hostel (i think we flooded her toilet! so we sprinted outta there) I dont think we left a good inpression about aussies to this poor little old lady, first she gives us the room for the wrong night then we hug her when we see her and leave her toilet blocked when we leave, umm, i think shes probably got a sign outside her hostel saying something like "no kangaroos allowed EVER" great...well, at least we made our coach!

When we came back to Madrid to catch our Plane home, we went to the Mueso El Prado, and boy was i happy i went, it is one of the most popular and important musems in Europe... the paintings were done in the year 1300 - 1800's and the artists of the time were so talented! not like the artworks that you see nowadays at the art museums, a 2 x 2 metre white canvas with 7 black dots scattered across it, wow, how talented would you have to be to do that?? (cough cough choke CHOKE)...I saw this peice in the National Contemporary museum in Madrid on the same day, seriously, they wasted a good peice of wall for this artwork...i was going to go pluck it off the wall, walk up to the front desk and hand it in..."ummm, pardon, I found a peice of rubbish hanging from your wall, you mind putting it in the bin for me por favor grasies? i couldnt find one big enough to do so myself" It really annoys me seeing crap like that in museums, they use their names to make millions not their talent...(obviously)

Museo El Prado (definatley worth seeing)

oh! and went to the National Contemporary art museum and saw the actual Guernica, by Pablo Picasso, this was amazing since I have studied this in highschool and the whole class had to do a project on it, so it was cool to see the original, i had goosebumps!...its HUGE and i took an illegal photo of it (who me?? hehe)...there were 3 guards around and you couldnt get too close to it, 2 security cameras as well, but i got away with it...i dont think i could have survived in an overseas jail with butch women, so im happy I did...