By embedding the video directly onto Blogger, all problems were avoided. YAY!
You may recognize some familiar faces from my Barcelona video, like Ana and Natalia.
In order of appearance:
Ana (always creepin)
Maria (Girl next to Ana in opening scene, and one who speaks Norwegian at the end)
Sonia (girl asking how to do the handprint to the guide)
Jenny (leather jacket handprint girl)
Natalie (Trying to smell Maria's hand?)
Mary Kate (sneaking into the shot with Maria and Natalie)
May (making prehistoric tools out of rock)
Mary Kate, Dixon, May and Luke (throwing Javelins, one after another)
Cassi (playing Orlando Bloom with the bow and arrow, as well as 'translating' Maria at the end of the video)
Carter (making fire with the guide)
Natalia (The one who is 'not cool' according to Ana)
Jenny (appearing once again, fetching a ball that rolled under an SUV)
Alex Ireland (The girl who's just trying to figure out who this Jesus guy is. Have you heard of him? He's pretty famous, I guess.)
Megan (warning Dixon of moldy candy)
Annette (the Becky blamer)
Becky (The Annette blamer)
Angela (the one dancing on the bus, and who has to 'piss like a racehorse')
Peter (the one slowly creeping up to the camera with a suspicious look)
Lindsey (The one in the pink scarf, who claims she needed to sit in the back row of the bus b/c then she could have BRAIDED)
Lindsey (in the leather coat and hood, who mocks the fact that they could have braided.)
So here's what went down on the trip:
We got on a bus at 8:30am and drove off to Burgos. On the way we stopped in Atapuerca, where archeologists have found the oldest human fossils in Europe, belonging to the homo antecessor species. When they found them, they were able to identify this species, since they had not discovered it prior to finding the fossils. This chart explains a lot.
We went to a site where a friendly guide showed us the typical evolution poster, of a monkey converting into a human. Then, we went on a "tour" of history, as he introduced us to evolving inventions and ideas along the way. It felt a bit like a caveman version of Donley's Wild West Town, where I go with campers every summer.
Along the way, he told us about early tools made of rock, and that three "entry points" or breaks in the rock, show that it was intentionally broken to be used as something, as opposed to a regular broken rock, which would have one or two "entry points."
He told us about cave paintings, about early homes, burial rituals, making fire, hunting tools like javelins and bows and arrows, and other things.
Then we hopped on a bus to the Atapuerca dig site, which was about 8 minutes away, which is seen in the video as us wearing hard hats. We wore them and looked at some high stone walls with lots of cards with numbers and letters on them where we are told fossils were found. It wasn't as exciting as I thought it would be. But I DID get to hold a real human skull, not just a reproduction of one. But it's not on my camera, so when Peter posts it, I will be able to show it to you.
We then ate at a restaurant (USAC paid for it), which had good lentil soup and flavorless, tepid fish. I didn't try the fish b/c it got to the other side of the table first and my friends described it as...well, flavorless and cold, so I wasn't really sold on the idea. But the prepackaged ice cream cups we got were good!
We went to Burgos and went to the Cathedral. It was just like the other bajillion cathedrals I've been to since being here in Europe, but still there were some interesting parts. Apparently whenever there was any sort of damage in the church, Spaniards like to blame it on Napolean. Usually, they are right. But sometimes it's just old and crumbly. One thing he told us was that there is a stained glass window from the 1200's, and the rest are from much later, since Napolean and his gang tried to blow the place up and consequently broke all the original windows, except for the one. And then they replaced the broken ones.
Also, in the chapel part of the church, there was a Jesus statue, where the head was "articulated" (as you can see in the video by the guide bobbling his head around at the beginning). It had real human hair and other human things which I can't remember. It sounds a bit gross.
Also in this Cathedral there was an original DaVinci, which is seen behind the guide in one clip of the video as well.
After that, we got to the hotel and settled in. Of course, being college students, all of my friends went straight back out to the grocery store to buy vodka, boxed wine, and coca cola (Kalimotxos, which are wine and coke mixed together, are super popular in the Basque country).
I didn't want to be left out of this pre-party bonanza, so I bought myself some pineapple juice and oreos.
We went back to the hotel and "raged." And by raged, I mean "tryed tossing gummi candy into peoples' mouths," "got ready to go out," as well as "drank my juice and ate cookies."
Many hours passed, then I went out with the Lindseys, Jenny, and Tara to eat tapas as dinner. I just ordered a platter of Croquetas for myself. They taste like a mozzarella sticks, but instead of cheese inside, they taste like mashed potatoes and cheese and there's ham in the very center. I am not even sure if that's what they are made of. They just taste that way. And I like to keep thinking that, or it may ruin one of my only favorite foods here in Spain.
We ran into people like Dixon, Megan, Angela, Luke, Dave, and Cassi along the way to the bar area when we left, as well as friends I made on the Madrid tour from Bilbao (the overnight trip was for the SS program and the Bilbao program...we stayed in the same hotel and went to everything together), like Adam and Brett. It was great to see Adam and Brett (who you might recognize from my trip to Barcelona...they are in that video!). I haven't seen them since my trip to Barcelona at the beginning of the semester!
After a long night out, we went back to the hotel. My roommate was drunk and puking, and our hall neighbor (a USAC student) was trying to get into her room without a key by banging on the door hoping her sleeping roomie would awaken. (Note: We later found out no one was in the room, hence why no one answered.) My other friend was "sexiled" momentarily (exiled from their room b/c the roommate was having sex), until he was let back in about 20 minutes later.
So yeah, they partied PRETTY hard.
Oh, did I mention that there was an 8am 3hour hike the next morning? Yeah, well it was fortunately optional...only about 30 or 40% of the entire SS/Bilbao group went on the hike. 99% of those people were extremely hungover. Especially since people came home around 3am.
After the hike on the path to Santiago de Compostela (a famous pilgrim hike that allowed a free ticket to heaven if you did it from the start, literally. There are many entrances to the hike, since it can start from as far as Germany or France. I am not sure what the whole rules for that heaven deal was, but I do know that back then, no matter where you started from, you could get to the church and get a free meal and shelter for the night), which was a foggy, cold, wet experience, we got to a bar where we warmed up a bit before heading back to the hotel. Then we had a bit of time before our 3pm lunch at the hotel (a grand feast of spaghetti with red sauce, roast chicken and french fries, salad, and natillas[a delicious pudding type dessert]). I used the time before lunch to go shopping for souvenirs and then playing spoons in the hotel lobby with Luke, Dave, Natalia, Ana, Angela, and Katie.
After lunch, we hopped out, saying goodbyes to our Bilbao friends (probably for...forever, sadly).
And you might wonder how nice the hotel was. It was very nice. How nice, you ask? Well, when I asked for the oh-so necessary match box for our family collection at the front desk, they instead handed me a LIGHTER with the hotel name, number and address on it. CLASSY!
Oh, and on the way home we stopped at Dolmen de Aizkomendi (Egilaz) which is basically very similar to Stonehenge. It is a rock formation that dates back to way back when, when there wasn't the machinery to construct such a heavy, large thing. It was pretty small, but still cool.
Oh, and on the way out of the narrow path that lead us here, our bus had some MAJOR issues doing a three point turn. It turned into about a 213-point turn, most of which just wedged us more and more into a perpendicular position to the road, with a tree in front of the windshield and a deep ditch behind the back tires. We had to evacuate the bus so the driver could get us out of the rut. Literally.
He also may have wanted us to leave so he could get his bearings since everyone was fearing that we would fall into the ditch and then have no way back home.
And I know what you are thinking: YES, there is video footage of all of this going down. I will post the "failed 3 point turn" video as soon as I am done editing it, which should be soon.
