Santiago de Compostela, Spain

I spent most of my Thanksgiving on a train to Santiago.  It was dark when I got into town (not hard to do in the winter, plus it was an 11 hour ride), so I took my first taxi of this trip.  I haven't been in a car for 6 weeks.  Strange, seeing as my life seemed to have revolved around my car back in the States.  Ok, it wasn't quite that bad, but it is definitely different here. 

Santiago de Compostela is known as the end of the camino de Santiago.  Since the Middle Ages pilgrims have walked or ridden horses across Northern Spain to pay homage to the remains of St. James.  The cathedral has almost a mystical feel to it.  Maybe it's just the weary and worn out pilgrims that are so full of excitment to finally have made it.  There were a few milling about as I was there.  The cathedral is the main site to this town, so I spent the rest of my time wandering through strees in the main area of town.

I feasted on grilled prawns for my Thanksgiving dinner, with their heads still on, I might add.  I still can't get used to that one.  The tv behind the bar at the restaurant had on a story about traditional American Thanksgiving meals being served in parts of Spain.  Mostly in bigger cities like Madrid and Barcelona.  I couldn't understand all of it, they talk so fast!  I got a couple of words and the pictures shown on the screen.  I guess I always thought of Thanksgiving as an American holiday and one that the rest of the world wouldn't really care about.  Evidently not. 

And Black Friday is widespread as well.  The paper in the cafe the next morning was full of ads for Black Friday sales.  They even called it Black Friday.  Weird.  I always knew of Black Friday as the day after Thanksgiving.  But if you don´t celebrate Thanksgiving, how do you know when Black Friday is?  Do they know it as the last Friday in November?  Hmmm.