Review, Romería, and Continuation Period

I named this post after the period that's coming up, but I'm going to start with the period that just ended, the intensive period. We had three weeks of intensive language classes, as the name suggests, and it was good. The classes were well done, so while I was a bit tired of intensive classes (I do not recommend that other people try to do seven weeks of intensive class in a row, it gets rather tiring.), I also kind of enjoyed the classes.

This last weekend, we went to a romería, a local festival that is basically a short pilgrimage to a shrine nearby. It was lovely. The people were garbed in their traditional dress, on horses and on foot and with some carriages carrying food. There were also donkeys carrying stuff. There was music and conversation as they walked, and then I suspect that there was dancing at the end, but we left because of the rain. We watched them set out and then hopped in a bus to go to the end point and wait until they got there, but most of them walked or rode horses or carriages the whole way. Here are some pictures of the romería.

The cart carrying the image of Mary they were taking to a small shrine on their pilgrimage.

One of the food carts.

The part of the crowd that was ahead of us when they stopped to pray at noon. (This was just about where we turned around to take the bus to the end point.

Some people on horseback at the end of their journey. I was sitting on a hillside, looking down.

Now, the continuation period is starting, and I'm going starting my new classes and my tutoring work with an 8-year-old child nearby. I should meet him and his parents this week, and I'm talking to his parents about the specifics of that. Yesterday was the first day of class, so nothing's really happened with that yet. I'll let you know how my classes are in a week or so.

As far as photos, I just uploaded quite a few. There are new pictures of Salamanca here, pictures of Segovia here, and pictures of the romería here.