Yes! One more country I have conquered! 
Just kidding ;) I've been to Portugal. Our tutor Luis took Sabrina and me on a short trip down the river Miño and across the border. We did "village-hopping" until we reached the coast. Unfortunately the weather was a bit rainy but still, it has been a nice trip! The small Portuguese towns are adorable and not so different from those here in Galicia. We went along the border and it was noticeable how many fortifications there were on the Portuguese side. It seems like they really needed to protect themselves from Spanish attacks in the past!

Reaching the delta of the River Miño we went home via Baiona at the coast, where you can find a huge fort at the sea and a replica of one of the boats of Christoph Columbus, the Pinta, which has been the first one that announced that they found land on the other side of the ocean back in 1493.

Nearly two weeks ago there also was the "Festival Arteficial", a music and art festival in town. We helped with the preparation and we sold tickets during the event. I don't have fotos of the concerts but there will be a video and I can post a link of it when it is finished so you get an impression of what it was like :) 
I do have some pictures of the fair, though. We also organised a little music and painting workshop where everybody could simply let out their creativity :D 
Additionaly we installed a table called "A Casiña de Cambio", the little house of exchange. It is an idea I got from Germany and I would love to implement it here in Ribadavia. The concept is the following: If you have anything at home that you might not want anymore, you can put it in the house of exchange. And if you spot something you like, you can take it with you! I think it's a great idea to animate people to be active in a way that is not limited to the world of enrichment and profit. We now put all the stuff in the office to have the "house" here, created a facebook page and if the people like and use it, I plan to built a real little house of exchange in the streets of Ribadavia! Let's see how it goes!

Next time I will tell you about the "Festa da Istoria" which starts today!

Three and a half months have already passed by and so I would like to tell you a little something about my learning process of the Castellano. 
I remember that when I first came here I understood next to nothing. Well, I have never attended any Spanish classes before and only taught myself some basic grammar and vocabulary. So I always listened very very hard when the people were talking to pick up as much as possible. My talking skills did not exceed the greeting and presentation. Furthermore, I wasn't able to tell if someone was talking Gallego or Castellano. I was limited to single words. 
What did I do to improve my Spanish?
- watching TV with subtitles (depending on the difficulty I changed the audio or subtitles into English)
- reading Disney cartoons
- learning vocabs with my mobile or cards
- making posters with grammar rules

With all this I got better. Slowly. Step by Step. The Spanish classes I attend twice a week do help, as well, but are definitely not sufficient if you want to make a faster progress.

After two month I understood more or less everything the people were saying and I could hold the Gallego and the Castellano apart. By "understand" I mean that with the help of the context and some logic I could figure out what people were talking about even though I might not have understood everything. And of cause you also make mistakes with this strategy. However, the most frustrating thing was, that I couldn't participate in a conversation because I just wasn't fast enough. So until I processed all the data input in my head, built an appropriate sentence and opened my mouth, the people were already talking about something totally different. This is why I didn't really enjoy to go out because I felt stupid just sitting at the table without being able to understand enough. Or sometimes the people thought I'm bored or so because I wasn't talking although I was fine. When someone asked me a question all of a sudden without any context I mostly didn't understand. Yes. This was a period of FRUSTRATION!

I started to speak to my flatmate Sabrina in Spanish after hmmm... about one/one and a half months, I guess. Or at least I tried :D By now, we only talk in Spanish!

I also started to listen to the audiobook of Harry Potter in Spanish. I know these books very well and so I understand everything. It is an awesome listening practice!

After three month then I felt comfortable enough with my language skills to actually make conversation with people. It's no problem for me anymore to just ask when I don't understand a word or a sentence and when someone starts to talk to me the first thing I say isn't "Sorry my Spanish is very bad" anymore. I can speak without thinking about it too much. I make mistakes, but everybody understands what I'm saying or might be trying to say :D I'm reading Inkheart from the German author Cornelia Funke, which isn't too difficult too read and I, myself, am surprised that I can read fluently enough to enjoy the story! I've read the book before but I don't remember much of it.

I have the biggest problems with the tenses. Especially the past tenses...I always mix them up and don't know which and how and when...but I'm working on it! :) It's impossible to make a proper conversation without being able to use the past tense!

This was a lot of text :D so to make this post more interesting I add some pics of the food I cook from time to time to prove that vegetarian food is not boring!
When I have time to cook or bake I really enjoy doing it!

There is not much going on during the week in Ribadavia. This is why we try to use the weekends to do trips as much as possible!
Last Friday we went to Vigo, stayed there over night with a friend I met through couchsurfing and got to know some of Vigo's night life. Saturday we drove up to Catoira where a Viking festival took place. On our way we stopped in Cambanos. There was the albarinho wine festival and it was a big difference to the wine festival in Ribadavia when I arrived. I think this was mainly because the people who come to Cambanos are much younger and so there was much more of a "party" atmosphere.

We camped in Catoira. There was a stage with local rock bands that actually were not that bad. Many people brought their Viking costumes and and 1am there was a fire show with a so called "Queimada". This is a Galician tradition where they speak magical words over a drink distilled from wine and flavoured with fruits, coffee beans and spices. Everyone could taste it! It's very strong but sweet because of the sugar. The after taste is delicious.

We partied until four or five and went to bed. Sunday at 12am was the great "Desembarco" where people re-enacted the attack of the Vikings on the towers of Catoira. Many people came to watch but I found it a little disappointing. The "Vikings" basically just screamed and shouted and the three boats were powered by a motor. However, I enjoyed the weekend although it absorbed all my energy and left me dead for the next three days :D