Semana Santa at Camino de Santiago
Its already end of april, which means my study abroad in Spain will be over, the time is approaching. every April, in Spain, there is a long holiday called `Semana Santa` , which means a "festival to commemorate the Passion of Christmas." The last week after Christ enters Jerusalem, is sentenced, died and resurrected is called "Semana Santa".
During the period, all the nation gets around 10 days holidays. so my friend and I were planning to go to Santiago de Compostela, which is famous for walking as a pilgrimage.
so ,we decided to walk around 230km(over?) from Ponferrada to the final destination, Santiago de compostela.
It is said that the pilgrimage has started from around 10 century, and from the time, the popularity of it increased, and it continues till now. The original objective of the pilgrimage was based on the christianity, religious things, but now it is changing into kind of activity of walking, hinking, so we can meet many people from around the world on the way to the destination.
Most of the scenary that we can see on the way are nature, such as going inside of a forest, grass field, farm, river, mountain, and we walk, following the signal of shell. shell has become the symbol of not only the Camino de Santiago, but also, St. Jacob. The origin why shell is the symbol of pilgrimage is said to have several meanings, one of them is that when Jacob`s corpse was carried by a ship, there were a large number of shell attached to the bottom of the ship, so since then it is said that shell has become the symbol of the pilgrumage.
My aim of this journey was to get some experiences that ive never done. It can be anything. For me, walking for around 30km average per day was also my new experience. During this journey I used only English and a little bit Spanish, was also my new experience. And the experience I felt so hard on the way because of my bad condition I got on the way on my feets was also the one. So what I want to say is things that I got there were all new experiences. what we had to do till get to the final destination was already decided that just keep going with the shell sign. Its so simple. On the way, when we feel tired, then take a rest on the ground with nature, when we get hungry, then stop by some place to eat. But there was a one thing that we must follow, that was we needed to keep walking no matter what you get tired because of the date. We had only 8 days to walk actually, so even though how much we are tired, theres no choice, but walk, even though its bad weather. So the Camino de Santiago (The road of the Santiago in Englsh) teaches us a lot through these experiences. It was more than I expected befofe going there. It's like, challenge, hardship, pleasure, joy, meeting new people, continuity, success, and so on.
