Our friday

Wind museum, Olive Oil museum and then the Monsestrio de Pierda. These were the three main activities we participated in today.

We first started out by visiting a wind museum. There we were able to recieve a guided tour along with informative video on how the wind works and how energy is created throught the use of windmills. Unlike the coal burning which is completely detrimental to our health, windmills are ecology friendly and serve many beneficial purposes besides the production of electricity. What I found interesting is that one windmill provides electricity for 400 households. In Spain, 10% of the power is created through windmills. The wind museum that we went to today had enough windmills to provide 12,000 houses with electricity. This is a lot. We saw tons of them when driving to the museum and once standing inside the museum. The instructor informed us how the windmill worked by showing us how the inside functioned in its original form and how it functions currently today. It takes a motor in the windmill to move it in the oppposite direction of the wind in order to recieve electricity. It was quite interesting.

Anywho, during some of the museum visit, I got to practice my spanish with Tamu. Everything in the museum was written in Spanish so I practiced reading it outloud in Spanish and translating it. Tamu filled when I needed the help.

After the museum visit we hopped on the bus and then got to a small village. We walked through it for sometime until we got to an Olive Oil museum. This museum was crazy. Let me explain. Firstly we were fortunate to get a tour from the the man himself who created the museum. He started off by telling us that he was going to give us a tour of all 10 rooms of the museum. After spending over an hour in the museum and only reaching the 2nd room, our professor told the guy to speed it up and that we didn´t have a lot of time. So we were saved to say the least. But to summarize it in full...we got a whole lof of information about OLVIE OIL. This guy was crazy about olive oil. I mean he knew everything there was to know about it. How it was made by the Arabs and Romans, how it is made now, the smells and the plants in which it comes from. The different types of oil, the many different forms that it could take (whether it be something you put on your bread, to hair oil, lotion, or soap). He knew everything and had a ginormous storage of oil. Then at the end he gave my professor a book on olive oil - which he had written- and then he showed us historical paintings he had done around the museum - of which he had placed himself in as well. tehehe. It was insane but fun.

After this museum we went to lunch. It took us near an hour to drive to this resturant which was not that good at all in my opinion. As a group, we sat outside to eat, but the bad thing was not only the menu..but it was the fact that there were so many bugs. Yup..thats right..the flies here are ridiculous. As soon as we got our food like 7 flies swarmed to our plates and started fighting and working together in order to take some of our food before we did. It was terrible. And naturally I freaked out. I was in such a bad mood I was about to throw my hands up and say "Ive had enough..Im out of here" or just move to an inside table by myself. But Tamu pulled me close and both of us took turns swinging at the flies while the other was trying to eat. Naturally I was a lot less calm however... (side note: today I was able to get a close up look at disgusting flies and I noticed that they rub their hands together while tasting whatever they are tasting. Yuck..disgusting little creatures. They look like little devils while they are tasting your skin or tasting your food for that matter. Thank God that fish were created. For those who don´t know..fish eat these flies among other insects)

After lunch was over we then headed to the Monesterio de Pierda (aka The Monestary of Stone) to do some hicking. This park as Tamu calls it..I just call it a really big forest with a ginormous rainfall..was soooo beautiful. I loved it because the paths were easy to walk on, there were places to sit and rest, and the scenery was just gorgeous. The coolest thing we got to do there was to walk under a waterfall. It was amazing. The waterfall was massive. Yeah we got somewhat wet, and it may have been freezing at times..but it was worth it. It was so cool. It was my first time being under one. We also got to go in caves as well. It was good stuff. Tamu thought it was the best park he had ever been to. After spending 2 hours there..our day was finally coming to an end. We hopped on the bus and headed back to the dorms. This time Tamu was knocked out sleeping while I was awake reminising on all our adventures thus far.

What a good way to end the day :)