{"id":9343,"date":"2017-10-03T18:01:19","date_gmt":"2017-10-03T22:01:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/social.rollins.edu\/wpsites\/letters\/?p=9343"},"modified":"2019-07-10T18:17:22","modified_gmt":"2019-07-10T18:17:22","slug":"finding-that-happy-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/2017\/10\/03\/finding-that-happy-place\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding that Happy Place"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mi historia empieza un Jueves. Yo necesitaba unas vacaciones (si, yo se que estoy en Espa\u00f1a pero todav\u00eda las necesitaba) entonces Mary y yo compramos billetes a Santiago de Compostela y La Coru\u00f1a para el fin de semana. Llegamos a Santiago de Compostela a las 9:00 mas o menos y fuimos al hostel se llama <\/span>Albergues Semenario Menor (16 euros cada noche). Hab\u00eda muchos peregrinos en el hostel y con mis <\/span>pantalones tipo cargo y mi cabello loco, parec\u00eda una peregrina tambi\u00e9n (un hombre me dijo \u2018buen <\/span>camino\u2019). La primera noche, no vimos la ciudad, solo comimos la cena que Mary hab\u00eda tra\u00eddo en nuestros cuartos. Pero el d\u00eda siguiente, exploramos la ciudad y me di cuenta que Santiago de Compostela es un lugar especial. Es muy dif\u00edcil explicar porque tienes que ir a Santiago de Compostela para entender completamente como es, pero voy a intentarlo. <\/span><\/p>\n

Imagina que estas sentado en una plaza. El sol se esta poniendo y hay m\u00fasica de gaitas en el aire. Todo a <\/span>tu alrededor son personas: ancianas, j\u00f3venes, familias, parejas y peregrinos. Todos est\u00e1n hablando en otros idiomas: ingl\u00e9s, ruso, aleman, franc\u00e9s y espa\u00f1ol. Cierras los ojos y escuchas todas las voces diferentes. En tu mano tienes un bocadillo gigante de jam\u00f3n y queso. Sabe delicioso. La luz del sol poniente esta calentando tu cara. Respiras el aire libre y olvidas, por un momento, todas las cosas negativas en tu vida. Eso es Santiago de Compostela. Estar all\u00ed, me hizo feliz. <\/span><\/p>\n

He o\u00eddo una frase hecha, \u2018Hay algunos lugares donde uno se queda y otros que se quedan en uno\u2019 creo que esto describe Santiago de Compostela perfectamente. Estoy segura de que volver\u00e9.<\/span><\/p>\n

I needed a vacation (yes, I know I’m in Spain but I needed one nevertheless). Thus, Mary and I made plans for a weekend trip to Santiago de Compostela and La Coru\u00f1a. We planned to leave Thursday and spend the rest of our long weekend exploring the new cities. Thus, at five o\u2019clock, we got on an ALSA bus heading to Santiago de Compostela. It was a pretty <\/span>nice ride (I definitely recommend the ALSA bus company-very roomy seats with strong wifi and a lot of good entertainment). We got to Santiago de Compostela around 9:00 and headed straight to our hostel Albergues Semenario <\/span>Menor. We didn’t really do anything the first night except eat some sandwiches Mary had brought for dinner. The following morning however, we went to the Pilgrims Mass in El Catedral de Santiago. The place was packed to bursting! There were pilgrims from all over the world, singing together and listening to the bishop (who happened to be from California). It was awesome. Afterwards, we explored the city and I soon fell head over heels in love with Santiago de Compostela. <\/span><\/p>\n

Imagine for a moment that you’re wondering around an old plaza. On one side of the plaza is a beautiful <\/span>hotel that looks like it emerged from an entirely different time period and right next to that hotel is a ledge overlooking the town below. The sun is setting, casting a golden glow on all your surroundings. The faint music of bagpipes wafts through the air, mixing with the sounds of a hundred different voices. <\/span>You can discern half a dozen different languages from the surrounding conversations: Spanish, English, Russian, French and German. In your hand you’re holding a huge bocadillo (basically a sandwich made from a fresh loaf of bread). It tastes delicious. You close your eyes and let the warmth from the setting sun fill your eyelids and, just for a moment, you forget all the negative things in your life and just exist. That is Santiago de Compostela. <\/span><\/p>\n

It’s no surprise to me that it is the end destination for the El Camino pilgrimage. To me, it’s like the embodiment of inner <\/span>peace, except you don’t need a calmed mind or knack for meditation to find it. It’s just there, <\/span>welcoming everyone who is lucky enough to find it. <\/span><\/p>\n

Now before I end my blog post, I should probably talk a little about La Coru\u00f1a. I think that if I had gone there before Santiago de Compostela, I would have loved it more, but after Santiago de Compostela it just seemed kind of- meh. It’s a nice city, there are some cool plazas and buildings whose stonework look strangely like lace, but I wouldn’t exactly call it the ’embodiment of inner <\/span>peace’. That’s not to say there aren’t cool things to do in La Coru\u00f1a. Mary and I visited a fascinating museum fortress-prison (free entrance!) called San Anton and also saw the Planetarium and Body Museum. Overall, La Coru\u00f1a was rather difficult to get a read on. It felt more like an American city than Santiago de Compostela, but at the same time it was entirely different. I think I would go back if only to get better acquainted with the city and its vibe. <\/span><\/p>\n

Thanks for reading and sorry for the wait. I joined a volleyball team last week (I know, I can’t believe it either!) so I’ve been pretty busy. I’ll explain more in the next blog<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mi historia empieza un Jueves. Yo necesitaba unas vacaciones (si, yo se que estoy en Espa\u00f1a pero todav\u00eda las necesitaba) entonces Mary y yo compramos billetes a Santiago de Compostela y La Coru\u00f1a para el fin de semana. Llegamos a Santiago de Compostela a las 9:00 mas o menos y fuimos al hostel se llama…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":515,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oviedo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/515"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9343"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14656,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9343\/revisions\/14656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}