New Haircut!

It's been a while (just about three months) since I had my last haircut... and I was beginning to look pretty shaggy. Abby and I found a place on our walk to work that advertised cheap men's haircuts. We went there one day and it was closed; but, luckily, we went to the place next door. The haircut was slightly more expensive but Pedro the barber did a very nice job. I didn't tell him, but I think that Pedro has become 'my' barber here in Spain. Abby took pictures of my haircut experience... which I will hopefully share with you sometime later.

We started decorating our apartment for winter! We cut out snowflakes and put them on our purple wall (it looks very nice, if I do say so myself). We also have up some cheap strands of garland and a 6-inch Christmas tree. I don't think we'll have presents under the tree this year... but that's okay.

So, anyways: Abby and I took several excursions out of Logrono this past weekend and we also went to a concert. We packed our weekend full because we hadn't really gone anywhere since our San Sebastian trip at the beginning of the month! It had been too long, so we needed to be busy again.

First, on Saturday, we went to the nearby city of Vitoria-Gasteiz in the northern autonomous community of Basque Country (Pais Vasco). It was an absolutely lovely little Spanish city, with cathedrals, museums, narrow cobblestone streets, and ancient walls, buildings, and other architecture. I took a lot of pictures, and I wrote captions on them so that you can know what you are looking at. Look at my pictures site and select my 'Vitoria' album.

Pais Vasco (Basque Country) is a autonomous community in Spain where the people have a very distinct culture. The Basque language is called Euskadi, and it sounds more like Russian than Spanish. Maybe I've explained this in a previous blog... I don't remember, but the Basque culture is very very ancient and distinct from every other European culture (or language). Because of this, they are very proud of their heritage, and some of them consider themselves and their autonomous community separate from Spain. They do share a lot of things with Spain, however, in that the Spanish language is widespread there (along with Euskadi). Basque Country reaches up to the sea, so they have nice beach towns there, and it also borders La Rioja (our autonomous community) in the south, so the terrain is similar to that of La Rioja, with rolling hills, small mountains, small pueblos (towns) all over the countryside, and wide valleys lush with vineyards and other crops.

Vitoria is about the size of Logrono, which is quite large, actually; and, so we didn't have time to see everything in our seven hour tour of the city. We visited several museums, ate lunch, shopped a little, and walked around in the cold rain all afternoon. Yes, we had the good fortune of taking our excursion during a rainy day. We got quite wet, but we were able to find things to do to keep out of the rain and cold.

Anyways, I write more about what we saw on my pictures link, so check it out.

We returned that evening to go to a benefit rock concert in Logrono. Last Saturday (it was the 1st of December) was actually the international day for AIDS prevention, or SIDA as it is abbreviated here in Spain. We went to see two bands that were performing: one, called China Latina, was a local band from Logrono, and the other was a band from Guadalajara (a city near Madrid) called the Despistaos. China Latina was good... a mix of rock, funk, and reggae (they played a cover of a Bob Marley song). We were very tired for the Despistaos' set, and their music was much louder and less melodic, so we left for home early. We figured we had already donated to charity, so we didn't feel bad about not staying for the entire concert.

The next day we got up and got ready to go to a small town in La Rioja called San Millan de la Cogolla. The special thing about San Millan is that there are two legendary monasteries there where ancient texts had been discovered and it is believed that it is the birthplace of the Spanish language (Castellano). Interestly enough, they believe that the Basque language (Euskadi) had its beginnings there also. So, it was the tenth-year anniversary of the monasteries becoming some kind of special program of the government... and the government paid to have buses bring citizens from Logrono to the monasteries for free. This trip also included a free tour of both monasteries.

We were excited to go, we had our cameras ready, our breakfast still digesting in our stomaches, and we got in line at the bus stop mid-morning to wait for the buses. It was a very cold morning, and to make matters worse, the government only sent one bus... one bus, which could only take about 70 of the 150 people waiting in line, could not take us either, because we were numbers 80 and 81. But I haven't mentioned yet that there was a bus scheduled to come later on that afternoon. So this next time we went an hour-and-a-half early and found ourselves first in line... a line that was much warmer, and much friendlier--since we met several of the other people in line with us and talked to them throughout our trip.

We made it on the bus, and it took us to both monasteries. One, the older one, was originally built out of a cave on top of a big hill in the forest. It was really a beautiful area, with snowy mountains within site, and the valley down below--where, later, they built a second, much larger monastery and, today, the village of San Millan de la Cogolla is located. San Millan is actually the name of Saint Emiliano, who lived in the ancient monastery on top of the hill. His tomb is in the ancient monastery today... that monastery is called Suso. The lower monastery within the village is called Yuso. Yuso is much larger... with a church, a sacricy, living quarters where nine monks are still staying today, and (believe it or not) they built a high-class hotel that is attached. Some people on our trip didn't like the fact that the hotel was attached... but, what can you do?

Pictures are going to describe the monasteries better than I am able to, since the Spanish tours were a little too fast to pick up everything. Look at my pictures site again and select San Millan de la Cogolla to check out my photos.

I have to go now... we have things to do things to do always things to do. But we're happy staying busy. I shall update again soon, as I we are leaving for Milan, Italy, this Friday and we won't be back until next Wednesday (at 2:00 am in the morning!).

More pictures coming soon. And Christmas activities start soon here in Logrono! Maybe we'll even get some snow... though it's doubtful. Everyone stay cool this holiday season... we'll be thinking of you.