Day 37
Good morning, class! Today’s new vocabulary word is “horreos,” which is the name for these very distinctive elevated rectangular shaped grain (and other goodies) storage structures in Galicia. (It’s pronounced like “Oreo,” like the cookie! This makes the vocab word today very easy to remember, as by definition the horreos are stuffed just like Oreos!)
Mostly the size of about a small car, horreos are made of either wood or stone with the building materials spaced a bit apart in the middle so the air can get in. The elevation apparently helps keeps the field mice* away and all the air holes keep things ventilated. (This palace is DAMP, just ask my iPhone.)
Often they have symbols on the sides or on the tops. Christian symbols are popular but there are also some with art that has older roots — a lot of sun symbols and fertility stuff, for example. Fun Spain tip! If you overhear a guide using the word “folk art” to describe something that’s 2,000 years old, he means it’s pagan but is too squeamish to say.
Over the last day or so, horreos quickly became my favorite thing to look for because they’re all different and I have never, ever seen these before. Apparently they’re not much used for actual farm produce anymore, but if someone has one on their property it makes a decent storage shed anyway — firewood is the most common thing housed in them now.
*A note about the mice. Have I been here too long? Because Spanish mice are freaking adorable! They are the size of a two Euro coin and weigh probably just an ounce or two. I point my headlamp at the ground when it’s still dark in the morning because I am so scared of stepping on one. They dart in and out of the grass so fast you just see this tiny brown blur. I only know what they look like because I’ve seen a few dead ones, curled up on the side of the road like they are taking a little siesta. When I was really young did my parents read books to me about mice having naps? There were a few in the rotation, right? I’ve been thinking of this whole trip because the dead mice are so sweet and weirdly precious and familiar, like they’re illustrations in kid books. Yes, I know that’s weird! And thanks, parents, for reading to me when I was small. It makes me stare at small dead animals on the side of the road now. :-)