One of the greatest parts about studying abroad is the community of friends and the people you meet, whether they are fellow American students, locals you have become friends with or even just random people you end up talking to when you’re walking around town.
The weekend of Oct. 3, the USAC crew took an excursion to the medieval city of Santillana del Mar, also known as the city of three lies, because it is not by the ocean, it is not flat and it is not holy.
Emily Vaartstra | Rawr
The USAC crew has been travelling through Spain. They recently visited the cities of Santillana del Mar, the city of three lies, and Pamplona.
While getting to explore these two beautiful Spanish cities was incredible all in itself, it was a lot of fun to get to spend more time with fellow USAC students, some of them I hadn’t seen since orientation. While befriending Spanish locals is high on my to-do list, the comradery among the USAC students is something I really cherish, because they are going through similar experiences as I am, and we can talk about common goals or tell interesting stories of things that happened to us and they can empathize.
In Santillana del Mar we visited the cave replication of Altamira, a cave filled with prehistoric paintings that researchers have dated back to the Paleolithic era. I know what you are thinking — a cave replication? What a rip off — which is exactly what I thought, until we got there and the replication was really incredible. According to our tour guide, José, the Neocave was reproduced with absolute fidelity to the original. The prehistoric paintings were replicated using the same artistic technique and natural colors.
The only changes to the replication was extending the height of the cave for tourism purposes. They made the replication in the first place because with the mass tourism in the ‘60s and ‘70s, the change in humidity and excess carbon dioxide in the original cave was starting to damage the paintings. They closed off the original cave to the public.
Following the cave tour was a walking tour of Old Town Santillana del Mar, which is one of the stops on the Camino de Santiago. The city is really rich in medieval history especially when it comes to the Inquisition. There was a museum of torture and that should tell you something.
The next day we went on a beautiful walking tour of Santander and then we were privileged to enjoy the fanciest looking meal, and probably the tastiest, I have ever had in my life — some kind of fried rice, duck, potatoes and a chocolate cream cake.
In between there was some school, obviously, but the next weekend I finally got to go to the city that was a big reason why I came to Spain in the first place — Pamplona.
It was incredible to explore the old part of town where the bulls run. We met a woman in a shop who was originally from Colombia and we talked with her for a while as she was trying to marry us off to her sons.
Back in San Sebastián, a friend and I finally made the hike up to the Segrado Corazón, or as most of us USAC-ers call it, the Jesus statue. The view of the city from up there is simply beautiful and makes me appreciate the city and its people even more.
Emily Vaartstra can be reached at [email protected]