My First Class

courtesy of  blog http://www.thoughttavern.com/camino-de-santiago/

My first  class is all about the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route that stretches from France to the Northwest of Spain. In class we are spending two weeks talking about the history, legends, and origins of the Camino, as well as modern significance and cultural implications. Then we spend the last 5 days of class walking at the very end of the route, barely seeing any of it, but ending up at Santiago de Compostela.

I am really excited about this class. Not only because I love backpacking, but also because the professor is awesome, the class group is great (and small, which is good for backpacking), and the history and context of this pilgrimage route is really fascinating. I'll explain all of these things briefly:

1. I love backpacking. I haven't exactly done a lot of it, nor can I prepare my own bear bag or anything. Regardless, I really love backpacking, for more reasons than I can mention. I love being outside for such a long period of time, and I love the sense community that develops while on the trail, with the people you're with, as well as people that have walked before you and will walk after you. This route is centuries old, so I'll be joining a very large community of people from all over the world that walk on this trail for all sorts of reasons.

2.  The professor is awesome. Salva (Salvador) seems very smart and easy going, and he is able to relay information is such a way that a three hour class seemed much shorter. Aside from that, during our break today my friend and I ran into him at the cafe when we went for coffee, and he bought our coffees and talked to us for the whole break.

3. There are nine students in the class, four of which I have already met and liked. I think if it was any more people it'd be a harder to develop a class identity in such a short amount of time. Additionally, they're all the kind of people you know you could spend a week with and not feel any frustration or aggravation (Either I'm correct now or I'll swallow my words in a few weeks...vamos a ver).

4. The route is really interesting. It's the primary reason that Spain is catholic, because theoretically St James decided to travel through the Iberian Peninsula (which at the time meant travelling to the ends of the earth because they didn't know about the American continents) converting people as he was directed to do by his leader, Jesus...all of this according to the bible, which often lists James as one of the three most important Apostles, along with his brother John (the baptist) and Peter (the first pope).
Anyway, James, or Santiago, is the patron saint of Spain, along with the Virgin of the pillar (Pilar) who appeared to him and told him to continue and not give up in his travels.

 It's interesting for me to learn about all of these Catholic things in Spain, because my own understanding of religion is Spain is heavily influenced by my understand of the Church's role in the Spanish Civil War. I know my grandfather and his father were both against the Catholic Church in Spain because the Catholic church sided with Franco, and often was corrupt and hypocritical in their personal experience. In literature about the civil war, a lot of others highlight these faults of the church, so I've also learned a lot about the atheists of Spain and those that gave up on the Catholic church. Now I get to look more closely at the origins of Catholicism in Spain and perhaps understand its relationship with the people and the culture more accurately.

So that's how my class is going. If I haven't managed to make it sound as interesting as I think it is, at least you can be glad you're doing something else with your summer.