June 19--a dog, Polo Camino, and Pulpo

The walk was quite nice today--we saw some beautiful flowers, met the sweetest dog ever, and I got a TON of sellos. So I just have to talk about this dog a little bit because she was just so sweet! So we were walking past this pasture that was probably four feet higher than the Camino path, and we just all of a sudden see this black shape slinking toward us through the tall grass. At first I couldn’t tell if the dog was friendly, but as soon as I whistled at her, she got all submissive – low to the ground, ears down – and her tail started wagging. I don’t know exactly what her job is – but she KNOWS that to do her job, she has got to stay on HER grass, so she leaned as far over from this pasture as she could while still staying on the top part of it so she could get as many pets as possible 

It is so interesting that no matter how close we seem to get to Santiago, it still feels like small town Spain. We are literally in the last 25k of the trip, and the town we stayed in is as cute and quiet as can be. 

Once we got there, the rest of the day was spent doing homework, napping, or eating lunch, but we did have one thing on the schedule later in the day. The program was giving us 40 euro to spend however we wanted at the souvenir shops in town – on BYU’s dime! The only requirement was that we had to buy some sort of shirt that represented the Camino that we could wear for pictures tomorrow. Before the scheduled time when we were meant to actually make our purchases, Emilee and I went out to scout out the possible shops and find the merch we liked best so we made SURE we could get it before anything ran out. Although there was a very touristy shop in town, we liked a small, locally owned artistic store better. It had a more limited selection – but the shirts were a higher quality material, had better designs, and just vibed better. Because we had 40 euros, I ended up not only getting a shirt, but a sweatshirt as well. The name of the store was Polo Camino – we think because it is a play on words. In Gallego (the dialect in Spain that is more or less a mix of Spanish and Portuguese) the word Polo means chicken, and then the Camino is the Camino, so the store that sells Camino polos (shirts) but polo also means chicken, so the mascot is a chicken. In addition to getting a very tasteful white t-shirt to wear, I also got a Polo Camino sweatshirt! All thanks to BYU not spending all the program money and having some left over to give all of us ;)

I have to say, the store was just such a great place, I really liked it. The cardboard signs with the chickens, the fun little comments on everything, the creative designs and refreshing change from the “made in china” souvenir shops we have been seeing just made me really happy. Plus the guy selling everything was the actual artist that design all the shirts, so it was also super cool to talk to him. I was glad I got quality materials, supported a local artist, and did it all not spending my own money ;)

Dinner was a highlight just because it was so different and a new experience. We went to a Pulperia. Pulpo in Spanish means octopus, so this place basically specializes in octopus and squid. Now, I have to say, having swum with both squid and octopus, and seeing how intelligent and unique and individual each octopus is, I had some moral qualms about eating them, but I felt obligated to at least try it because it is a Galician tradition. Although the Calamari (squid) was pretty good, I definitely enjoyed the octopus better, which is unfortunate because I just couldn’t eat more than 2 pieces of octopus because it felt so wrong to be EATING something I respect and love so much under the water. I also have to say, I can only eat so much fried food, and they had already given us Croquetas (fried cheese thing with Spanish flavors) for primeros, then we had Calamari which is fried, and then we had Pulpo which is also usually fried, and it just got to be a lot of heavy stuff. But, of all the seafood we have tried on this trip, I think this was DEF my favorite. It had great flavor and honestly the texture really added to the experience.

The night ended quietly, finishing up homework and going to bed. Only one day left!