Snowy mountains, castles, and a fountain of wine

Last weekend, To culminate the end of the not-so-studious "study week" IES took us to Navarra, an autonomous region of Spain. Like the U.S., Spain is broken up into separate states, called autonomous regions, each with their own pride and some with even their own language. Barcelona is in Catalonia, where there are some of the most extreme nationalists.

We were all apprehensive about IES's choice to take us to Navarra. My host parents said "Why are you going there? There is absolutely nothing!" and even some of my professors admitted "Yeah, I don't know why they picked Navarra." Nevertheless, it was another opportunity to explore the country.

Navarra was different from parts of Spain I have seen so far. It is much more rural and FREEZING. It was the first time I had seen snow abroad. I guess I have become so used to my tropical paradise in Barcelona I forget that it's still winter in other places. After getting home today from my sunshine walk in shortsleeves, I heard from Pat that it's snowing in Tulsa. Hope everyone is staying nice and warm!

In Navarra, we stayed in Pamplona, the capital, but actually spent most of our time on the bus touring small towns. In Navarra, there are several significant stops for the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, which I found that very interesting. One of the stops is in Ayegui, which is very small and charming and houses a wine vineyard. We toured the winery and saw LOTS of wine.

And got to drink some too! There was a wine/water drinking fountain for the pilgrims. How genius is that! As you can see "vino" is the left tap and "agua" is the right.

We also saw some sweet Spanish castles in other towns, and I should definitely be a Spanish princess so I can live here:
In Pamplona, where we stayed, the main places we saw were the bull ring and the cafe Ernest Hemmingway frequented. Hemmingway was very inspired by Pamplona and set some of his works in Spain (correct me if I'm wrong English majors out there). The big festival in Pamplona is Dia de San Fermin, celebrated with crazy bull runs through the streets. Not the ring. The streets. With actual bulls. Check out the photo link to my picassa albums to see pictures of Pamplona and more of Navarra.