I'm back in Toledo. We drove back from Galicia yesterday after lunch. So now I can upload photos. I'll go back to the last few posts and litter them with pictures soon. Speaking of photos, the view during the drive back from Galicia was unexpectedly impressive so I dont have any pictures. The landscape changed dramaticly every few hours. Green mountains, then rolling plains, then jagged rocky mountains, then very flat and dry countryside. Also, I saw more wind power generators and solar panels in that 6 hour drive than I have ever seen in my whole life. We passed literally hundreds of "windmills" and at least 20 solar arrays, not to mention a few castles. But as Eddie Izzard said, "we're up to here with fucking castles!"

Before I close the Galicia summer vacation chapter, I want to post the photos that I couldn't before and use them to sum up everything that I wasn't able to post before.



On one of the last days in Galicia our tios (tios means aunt and uncle and it's much faster to type, to read and doesn't sound retarded) took Lucia, Blanca and I to Santiago de Compostela. It is a very impressive city.

There we met with our tios Rosario and Vicente and our cousins Vicente (17), Daniel (15) and Pablo (12). I couldn't get many good pictures because it only stopped raining at night and it was too dark in the cathedral.

Beach:

Pictured above are my cousin Juan Pedro, Maria (Blanca's friend) and Lucia. We spent a lot of time on the beach in the morning before lunch, even though it's not very warm in Galicia. Personally, I think it's way too cold to swim. But it's nice enough to wade into the water and catch some tasty crabs. We later ate them with rice.

According to my sister Lucia, my cousin Manolo pictured above is the typical Spaniard. I'll be living with him during the school year.

That's my cousin Mercedes' daughter Teresa and her husband Eduardo.


Walking:
After lunch and siesta (nation-wide nap time) we usually took a walk.

Here's a picture of a bunch of us on one such walk. Left to right we are: Teresa, Blanca, Mercedes, Eduardo, myself, Lucia and Manolo.


These are my tios Lola and Manolo. This is a good opportunity to explain a few short froms of names. Lola is a short and familiar form of Dolores. Manolo is Manuel.

Portugal:
One trip to Portugal is a requirement during a vacation in Galicia. On the border between Spain and Portugal is an economic curiousity: Everything is extremely cheap. No one is sure exactly why this is so and why it didn't end with the introduction of a common European currency, but there it is.

My uncle Antonio waiting for his wife to make some purchases.

Well, there's not much more to tell and only a few more photos but if I'm tired of this already no one else will be too interested in the rest of them.