Galicia Trip



Hi everyone. Here are some pics from our recent trip to visit Marta and Jesús in Galicia. We went over a long weekend due to a local holiday here in Catalunya. On the auspicious date of the 11th of September, Catalans observe their "national" holiday. On this date they commemorate the loss of their sovereignty to Castille some 300 year ago, which some of the more radical sepparatist groups still consider on occupying force. The commemorations themselves have the overall feel of a a collective funeral with solemn ceremonies punctuated by very loud demonstrations calling for independence. All in all, it's a great occasion to get out of town.


Galicia, on the other northern extreme of Spain is also an autonomous community with it's own language and culture. However, one does not detect the same vehemence of anti-Madrid sentiment that permeates the Catalan sociopolitical discourse. There are of course a number of reasons for this including the socioeconomic coditions, the climate, and the geography.

Whatever the reason may be, the effect is that the people are very laid back and easy going. Located north of Portugal, Galicia's Gallego language is very similar to Portuguese in its structure and tone. It also poseses a sing-songy rythmic quality that is absent in much of Spain.


The region has a landscape dominated by mountains descending to the sea that have been etched by ice-age glaciers to form "rías", the equivalent of the Norwegian fjords. This geographic coincidence, coupled with it's location on the northwest corner of the Iberian Peninsula has meant that Galicia has traditionally been a sea-faring culture. The region is renowned for its increadible variety and abundance of seafood. Indeed, the best seafood in Spain is here and much of the seafood consumed throughout the country comes from here.

In addition to all the things Galicia has to offer, what really draws us there are Marta and Jesús. They and their families are very dear friends of Steph and hers (and now mine). My first trip to Spain was to visit them and they and their hospitality have remained the standard by which I measure Spain's multicultrural, polylingual culture. It goes without saying that our experience there on previous trips made our decision to move to Spain a relatively easy one.




Relaxing with Marta, Jesús, and their son, Anton.


This trip consisted of lots of sleeping, eating, and drinking. Galicians are well known for eating and drinking well and in healthy (read: abundant) portions. Our main event was a sit-down dinner for Marta's birthday on Saturday night. On our previous trip two years ago, this event consisted of us starting dinner around Spain's usual ten-ish and were still on desert and coffee around 4 am! This year's dinner was not quite as obscene and we were able to finish at a more descent 2 am, record time.



Limbering up before dinner, Steph takes us to school in darts. Who knew?


So as you can immagine, we had a pretty cool time with lots of time for stuff like this...


The Fraziers in the plaza opposite Marta and Jesús' place in Cuntis.

Out and about in Cuntis

Anselm and his special lady friends

Marta and Anselm after a good lunch and a diaper change, what could be better

After several days of this kind of thing with great fish and seafood meals, we decided we would go and visit a Lonja (LON-ha). This is where the fishing fleet comes in and sells off their catch in lots to buyers for supermarkets, restaurants, and pescaderías(fish stores).

The afternoon fleet comes in.

There are two types of lonjas in Galicia, those for single-day outings and those for vessels that spend weeks out at sea. The one we went to operates every afternoon upon the arrival of the late daily fleet. The fish is auctioned off in lots to buyers in a reverse auction whereby an initial (high) price is set and the auctioneer lowers it until a buyer stops the price at his/her buy level. We tried to get our hands on some fresh fish for ourselves but the buyer we knew was tied up. All in all it was pretty cool to see the whole thing working.

The dock area was full of the fishermen's wives and children coming to greet the sailors. Note the trucks ready to take the fish. Some will be in Madrid and Barcelona restaurants for dinner that evening.

The Frazier men dockside.

Back home after a long trip, Anselm stretches out in the new crib.