As I mentioned yesterday, we're in Galicia, the province of Spain, related to the Galician people,

Gaelic people.

They speak a form of Spanish that is actually the mother tongue behind Portuguese.

So for example, when you see a sign for a church, Iglesia,

here it Igresia, like in Portuguese. So it's interesting to see the signs and the language change as we move from the middle of Spain over into the western north corner of Spain. Sounds much more Portuguese and the people look a little more pale,

a little more white, a little more Irish than we've seen so far.

It's also interesting to hear the bag pipes.

Another reminder that we're in a Galician part of Spain,

their bag pipes look different. They're not like the Scottish bagpipes with the

plaid covering. They actually, the ones I've seen, I've seen two sets so far, they look like

leather. It's probably the stomach or some internal organ

emptied out from a pig or a cow or something and there's pipes that they play on and

there's some drone pipes. I think someone told me there's less drone pipes on a Galician bagpipe than on a Scottish bagpipe.

So it's interesting to see that Gaelic Celtic influence in this region, but today I want to talk about a monastery

a Benedictine monastery that we attended in Samos and huge glorious Benedictine monastery,

two cloisters in it, amazing architecture,

amazing art, even though it burned down in the last century, they rebuilt the interior

and they repainted it and the paintings are a little modern. If you follow me on

Instagram, you'll see that I put some up. It a little bit more modern style but they cover the

traditional elements of Benedictine piety in the life of St. Benedict, for example

the episode of St. Scholastica, the twin sister of Benedict praying for a storm

so that Benedict would stay one night with her so they could chat, talk and pray together.

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