Final Post, part II

From Brit:
1.) Favorite cathedral/church and why.My favorite worship space was in Fromista (I believe) where the interior of the building was quite simple compared to many places we had seen. I enjoyed its simplicity with the plain walls and only carvings near the top. A German group was touring at the same time as us and begin singing a hymn. It made this place of worship real to me.Favorite spot/place and why.
2.) My favorite place is a tie between standing alongside the water in the fishing village at night watching the lighthouse and peaceful village, listening to the waves crashing AND sitting on top of the rock formations at the 'end of the world' and (again) watching and listening to the water. It may seem ironic that these were my favorite places since we spent so much of our time touring churches and cathedrals throughout southwestern France and northern Spain...but nature has always been able to make me more introspective of myself and more at peace with what is around me. It seems fitting then, that these places were my favorite because I was able to really transcend the most here.
3.) Favorite food/drink.Everyone on the trip will laugh because they will know this answer...but any of the bread I had was FANTASTIC! I got dubbed the 'Bread Queen" because I was almost always the first to grab a piece when they set in on the table. There was never a meal where bread was served and I didn't eat it! My favorite drink would be any number of the red wines I tried.
4.) I really enjoyed the fact that so many old buildings remain and that everything hasn't been comercialized in the parts of Spain and France that we were in. Most of the churches and cathedrals are local worship spaces for people who live there. Thinking of all the people who had worshiped in one place blew my mind. As a business student, I was also intrigued by the spiritual tourism industry, especially in Lourdes. I don't think there was a street in Lourdes not lined with shops employed by spiritual tourism. Not to mention people EVERYWHERE in these shops. I related it very much to the Minnesota State Fair, because I've been there virtually every year I've been alive. So many people everywhere that it is near impossible to navigate a small group like our class, much less a vehicle, along the streets. But this place is real, and people believe. That is a concept that I am still in awe about.

From Amanda:
1.) My favorite church was in Muret. It was our first day and we just happened upon a small little town church and went inside. Compared to everything else we saw it wasn't big, or ornate, or significant. But it was a piece of history that also was quite obviously a church still in use. While we were there two women were singing a mass and there was a combination of historical architecture and modern electronics. Very cool and very real.
2.) My favorite place was the End of the World. I love the ocean, and I'm originally from the east coast, so to see the Atlantic from the other side was amazing. There was also a similar feeling of eternal and historical that could be felt in the cathedrals and historical places we visted, but the ocean is nature's timeless entity.
3.) My favorite food was probably the bread and sausage sandwiches we had nearly everytime we went hiking. It was always amazingly wonderful, but also gave the meal an atmosphere of pilgrimage.
4.) I was stunned by Lourdes. It was amazing for me to see so many people believing so strongly that which I could not comprehend. I even tried to figure out if the miracle of the Virgin’s visit to Bernadette “really” happened or not. Were there historical records of no spring existing before the event? How did no one else see the vision? And eventually I had to just let myself be okay with the fact that the people who believe believe and that makes it real. I

Final Post, part I

So I asked each of the pilgrims 4 questions and have compiled their answers in this and the following post.
The questions were:
1.) What was your favorite cathedral/church and why?
2.) What was your favorite spot/place and why?
3.) What was your favorite food/drink?
4.) Give a blurb about something you learned/discovered/realized/thought about on the trip.
From Allison:
1.) My favorite cathedral was in Leon, because the stained glass windows were absolutely amazing. I also liked that they tried to keep it as much of a place of prayer as a tourist attraction.
2.) My favorite spot was our first castle. There was just something about climbing clear up a mountain and gazing down at the beautiful view, and realizing that people actually lived here hundreds of years ago.
3.) My favorite food/drink would probably be breakfasts of French bread and Nutella.
4.) The thing that struck me most, learning about all the cathedrals, was how much human politics was involved in cathedral building. Certainly part of the reason for constructing a cathedral was devotion to God, but it was also a strong authority symbol for the church. If you were a poor peasant, it would seem unthinkable to disagree with people who had the resources to build something as grand as the cathedrals we saw. Also, it seemed glaringly wrong to me to have a representation of Saint James ("The Moorslayer") trampling people with his horse as the focus of a building dedicated to God, but it really shows the focus of the church at the time. So much of what we saw demonstrated that they were concerned with keeping the church free from heresy, but again, there were both religious and political reasons for that.

From Megan:
1.) The cathedral in Auch: the sheer size of it! It was difficult to imagine anybody being able to build anything that grand without modern technology and machinery. Then as you walk in and look up, there were the stained glass windows that let in the sunlight, showing the dust swirling around. There was a stillness about the place that was really powerful for me.
2.) The castle in Spain. It was really cool to be able to climb around on the ruins without anybody else being there. It was interesting to think of how many people had walked the steps that we did, or how many people had stood on the top of the tower looking out over the plains. It was one of the most beautiful places I'd seen. We could hear the chickens in the village at the bottom of the hill, and we could hear the church bells chiming the hour in the next village over. It felt like I was looking at the entire world, like I could see everything.
3.) My favorite drink was the coffee in Spain. With waking up every morning after a long day of walking, it was nice to have something to help us wake up. And it had taste!! American coffee can't even compete. My favorite food was of course the bread. But the strange thing that I didn't think that I would like was the pate, made of goose liver. Normally, I'm the kind of person that would politely refuse to try the strange dish, but I took a chance and loved it.
4.) Historically, the thing that attracted people to Christianity at the very beginning was the sense of family and community that was offered. When we were in a cathedral in Fromista, I believe, we witnessed this sense of commutiny firsthand. We had just entered the small cathedral, which was in itself rather plain in comparison to the other cathedrals we had seen, and we realized a really large tour group from Germany was there. All of us inwardly groaned, thinking that they were simply tourists and were going to be in our way. After a couple mintutes of looking around and avoiding running into the Germans, we noticed that they had gathered in the very front of the cathedral where the ceiling is the highest. They began to sing. In German of course, so some of us didn't know what they were singing. I looked over to my left, where 3 from our group were watching with tears running down their faces. I realized, and stated, that the group we were watching so intently was the church. The cathedral was just a building, but the people that are in the building make it what it is.

Arrival

Yesterday, we saw another castle:

It was, at one point in its history, a Templar Castle, and is now being restored in various stages.

Today, after a long journey, we arrived:

We went to Pilgrim's Mass at noon, saw museums, shops, and the Cathedral (which, for the record, has quite the amazing pipe organ). After a wonderful lunch, we continued looking around, and then returned to our hotel. Tomorrow we will head to The End of the World to see the world's oldest lighthouse, and to just chill. From there to Bilbao and back to Toulouse and Carcasonne.

Until the next,

Castles

We're in Leon now, safe and sound (and a little sunburned around the edges... and the tips of this pilgrim's nose and ears).
Yesterday we climbed a mountain:

It had an amazing castle-ruin at the top:

After explicit "NO CLIMBING ON STUFF!!" instructions, we were released to explore. It was amazing. One could really tell that it was a very defensible place to build a castle: you could see the valley forever!!
My personal favorite part was our pilgrims' lunch on the old castle wall, which consisted of bread, cheese, and sausage. It was delicious!!

After exploring some small cave-like holes in the hill on the way down, we had ourselves some ice cream, loaded ourselves into our trusted Renault (car) named Timmy and headed on down the road.
In Fromista, we sat at an outdoor cafe and discussed the effects of antiquity on our experience until the town church opened. We ended up in the church at the same time as a group of German pilgrims. And then they sang. There we were, looking around at this small town's church, and suddenly the space was filled with gorgeous, human, a capella voices. We figured out that they are probably doing this at every church they stop at, and we wanted to be adopted by them.
In other churches and cathedrals we have visited, we have encountered piped in music, to "enhance the atmosphere" of the spaces. It's an interesting concept, and one we have discussed at great length. Some of us prefer silence in Great Spaces, and some of us prefer the musical enhancement.

Well, siesta time is almost over, and we'll be heading back over to the cathedral area of Leon for some shoe shopping, yarn shopping, sightseeing, and, of course, dinner.

Until the next,

Lourdes

This is a picture of the whole group at Lourdes by the river. We have been pilgrims what seems like forever (in a good way), but really it has been such a small amount of time. Today we experienced a new height in spiritual tourism in our visit to Lourdes. It's the 150th anniversary of the miracle (Mary appearing to Bernadette), so it's a very busy and exciting place to be.

Tomorrow the pilgrims go over the mountain, to see what we can see.

Arrival!

We have arrived! We are safe and sound at Dr. Survilla's sister's wonderful house in Toulouse. We have explored, taken pictures, gotten lost (erm, "taken an adventure"), had real bread, and caught up on sleep. Yesterday we explored into the hills around us, and saw the Pyranees.
The picture is of us in the Minneapolis airport. The pilgrims are (left to right): Dr. Survilla, Amanda (holding Jaffy), Allison, Dani, Britt (holding MoosiePoo), and Megan.

More news and pictures as time goes on.

Here we go!

Well, we leave today on our trip. We're meeting to have breakfast together in about eight minutes, and then we'll leave for the airport. From Waterloo to Minneapolis to Amsterdam to Toulouse.

And thus, our pilgrimage begins.

Getting ready...

Well! We just had our final official pre-trip meeting. With many sidebars, jokes, serious discussions, and a tangible air of excitement, it is clear that we are in for a great trip. 

A little about the trip: We are going on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. We will begin the trip (the official part, at least) in Toulouse, France, arriving in Santiago around the 9th day of the trip, and then return by a slightly different route to Toulouse and head home.
The course is called the Anthropology of the Pilgrimage, and we will be taking an in-depth (and certainly hands-on) look at spiritual tourism, medieval and modern pilgrimage practices, as well as other aspects and methods of transcendence.

Countdown to take-off: 17 days!