HARDCORE 4 LIFE

Time for a hyperactive entry. To-day, we went to a small town to meet the mayor, who is apparently responsible for pulling some strings so that we would have somewhere to stay during Expo time. Most of the girls came in dresses to look nice, and on the bus before we were leaving, we were told that we were also going hiking, to which AJ said something to the effect of, 'That's what you have to expect on this dialogue: dress for meeting a mayor AND hiking.' Indeed. We ran and changed, but I just grabbed a change of clothes, and I ended up using only my shoes, because why not hike in a soy-silk dress?

We bussed to the small town, another of which I don't know the name, los torros something? Ah, Torres de Berrellén. They mayor gave us a lovely little tour. She was a very tactile person, which I love. She thought that I understood much more Spanish than I did (I'm quite good at, if no understanding, knowing when to nod or comment in order to look like I understand...), which was both a compliment and then an awkward conversation.  The town was colourful, and an old male villager kept inviting us around to places as well. I noticed that his frail hands were gnarled as he curled them around each other behind his back. His partially-toothless, almost guileless smile was so sincere as he informed us of a plethora of things that we could never understand, as they were all in Spanish...

We also saw some graffiti. I need to devote a whole post at some point to street and aerosol art.

After a lovely complimentary breakfast of coffee and pastries at a local taberna, we bussed again to Montecayo, which is the largest peak of the Iberian range of mountains. We heard all about the mountain and its history, its flora, and more things in Spanish.

We also saw some goats. Maaa! Maaa! There was a chick fight.

Minimal hiking, some trees and water--it was pretty much just like home, except with less water. There were even ladybugs everywhere, like swarming on the screen door for a month in summer.

We drove a few metres to the monastery. There, we got a terrific tour from a woman who was self-conscious about her English-speaking abilities, but they were top notch. Also, she was adorable, which made any forgotten words totally excusable, with her cute searching in the air for them.

O, silly religious people. Seeing the stones marked with 'A,' 'R,' and a key was interesting. Also, there used to be stairs. 

Other than that, the monastery was a gorgeous, austere place until the monks decided that less austerity was probably not going to be that distracting, and they Baroqued-out.

All in all, I think that the concept, like that of organised religion, is laughable.

I did, however, learn some new things:

--Monks are even more ridiculous than I thought.

--No talking, except for in two separate areas.

--Confessing all your sins means the sins of talking in those areas, eating, and even snoring, which everyone knows are all sins.

--If you have sexual thoughts, then you have to make yourself bleed to forget them.

--Were I a monk, I'd die of blood loss in less than a day.

--Just like Santa Claus, god and big brother are watching you all the time.