Days 1 & 2 since Rosa crossed the pond!

1 Día, 1 de Septiembre

Overslept to pick up Rosa from airport, takes about an hour on the metro to get from Puerta del Sol to the airport, and then there is a trek through the airport to Terminal One. Of course. I met Rosa coming out of arrivals after searching the taxi area to make sure she didn’t beat me out there…so after picking up Rosa, I had to go exchange my roll-y bag for my backpacking backpack…this was a challenge.

The people in charge of the lockers did not want to make this easy, so a lot of Spanish later…I have two lockers on two different sides of the room. The process of switching from the roll-y bag to the backpacking backpack was…imposible. I had my suitcase exploding everywhere, both lockers were open, and everyone could see me packing up my (ironed) underwear. About 20 minutes later my bags are finally packed (more or less) and I lock up my lockers, and we head back into the airport so Rosa can finally go to the bathroom.

We then did the trek (in the opposite direction) back to the metro so we could go the train station to validate our eurail passes and get our train tickets to Salamanca!!! We had a light lunch (sandwich and Fanta) at the train station, then we were on our way to Salamanca. The three hour train ride wasn’t too bad, except when Rosa was asleep and I was bored. I woke her up to see the giant wall in Ávila. We got to the Salmanca train station, and we were buying our night train tiket s to Barcelona, and after a brief Spanish conversation figuring out when the train left and what kind of seats we would have, I looked to Rosa and went “well?”…COMPLETELY forgetting Rosa speak Spanish. SO we FINALLY get into Salamanca, and we headed to our hostel/hotel via the Plaza Mayor and got settled in. And then it started thunderstorming. But, we headed out anyway, got some of the best ice cream in Spain, and then I gave her a quick tour of Salamanca, still in the rain.

We went to the catedral and saw the inside of La Catedral Nueva (I hadn’t seen it from the ground floor before). It somehow looks even bigger from down there. We were lucky that no tour groups were out and about so we had the cathedral pretty much to ourselves, which made the visit increíble. We then headed into La Catedral Viejo (the first time I’ve walked inside (minus a view from another tour we did). The inside of this cathedral, while not as tall, is still impressive. There is art from the 12^th century, and it was pretty great to see the difference in architecture. I had some practice with my Spanish trying to translate the signs on the walls J. After the cathedrals we stopped by the ISA office so that Rosa could meet my directors (and we could pick up our Casa Lis tickets), and they were all super friendly and luckily they were speaking Spanglish because I still forgot that Rosa doesn’t speak Spanish. Then we walked down to the toro y la puenta romana (the rain had finally let up a little bit). I explained the headless Toro and then we crossed the bridge and back, and it started thundering again. So, we headed back to the Plaza Mayor in hopes of watching it light up (one of my favorite things to see), however we were early, so we started walking to the supermercado (Carrefour). It started POURING on our way so we were huddled under an awning waiting for it lighten up enough to run to the store. We eventually made it, bought some water and “Train Snacks” and headed back to hotel to drop off our stuff, and I had to put on warmer clothes—the first time I think it has EVER been cold in Salamanca.

We went out to dinner at this little place right off the plaza. A futbol game was on, Salamanca v Somebody else from Spain…and the Salmantinos weren’t cheering for Salamanca! Crazy. I had melon soup (with some jamón in it), bacalao, and ice cream, and Rosa had melon soup, lomo and sorbet (we shared the deserts).  We walked back through the Plaza (this time it was lit up), then we headed back to the hotel, showered, and relaxed while watching the Spanish Disney Channel. (my luggage had once again exploded at this point).

 

2^o Día, 2 de septiembre

Overslept. Only a little oversleeping though, we had a big day planned. First things first, we got organized and repacked (a bit of work for me), and then checked out of the hotel and headed out into Salamanca, luckily in the sun this time. First we went to exchange Rosa’s money, then we headed to the main Cursos Internacionales building to see if my BULATS scores had come in. They sent me to the Juan de Encima. Who sent me to Anaya, who sent me to the Plaza de Escuelas Mayores, which sent me to the Plaza de Escuelas Menores. And they told me that, no, the results were not in yet. Between visiting these wonderful secretaries that kept sending me in circles, we stopped at my favorite pastry place and got out pastries para llevar, and ate in the Plaza de Anaya, with gardens and a great view of las catedrales. While I was in the Plazas de escuelas going door to door, I left Rosa in front of the fachada of the university to look for the frog. When I returned, it was still unfound, but did end up finding it pretty quickly J Lucky her J. Then we went into the university, and I gave her a pretty decent tour of the rooms and explained the stair case.

We then headed back to the cathedral to do the Rooftop Tour…we walked around the tops of both cathedrals (winding staircases! AY!), had great views of Salamanca, and we got to walk around the top of the inside of the cathedral and look down on where we had been walking around yesterday. I gave a shortened version of the tour I went on in Julio (i.e. me trying to remember everything that I learned). After the cathedrals we headed to Huerto de Calixto y Melibea, the jardines de la Celestina. I summarized the tragic story and we walked around the gardens and then headed to Casa Lis, an “art nouveau” museum, with lots of Picasso (toro drawings, paintings, a copper looking thingies), figurines, fans, jewelry, furniture, freakishly detailed glass vases and the like, and a giant Stained Glass center that was the entire center of the museum (The  main attraction of Casa Lis-check out Rosa’s post card).

After Casa Lis we headed to ISA to borrow some wifi, make reservations for Rome, print reservations, and email mom to tell her I successfully picked up Rosa and we were headed to Barcelona tonight. After that we had lunch at a restaurant I have walked past everyday for the last two months on my way to class. It was delicious, I had bistec, enalada rusa, y tortilla frances. Rosa had cabrito (kid/goat). Very yummy lunch. We then headed to Valour for chocolate con churros, and then stood outside the cathedral looking at the fachada for the astronaut (not the original fachada, astronaut put in 1991) for a good thirty minutes. The astronaut remains unfound. Guess we’re coming back!

We then picked up our bags that were being held at the hostel and WALKED to the train station…not too far, to my surprise and enjoyment J We took a train back to Madrid so we could catch our night train to Barcelona (where I am typing this now). Nothing too exciting happened at the train station, I bought a sandwich that looks delicious (Rosa already had hers). We are settled into our train more or less (waiting for them to turn the lights off so we can sleeeeep). En la mañana-BARCELONA!!!

 

End of Salmanca...

So much has been going on in Salamanca! Finishing up classes and exams, packing, and saying goodbye to my Spanish home.

To catch everybody up:

Jess and I did a day trip to Ciudad Rodrigo (about an hour bus ride away from Salamanca) just to check it out. It was pretty neat-the city was celebrating its 200^th anniversary of something Napoleon related, and there were Spanish flags, French flags, and British Flags all over the place. The city seemed to have two parts, the old and the new. And by old I mean Old like Salamanca Old. There was a fort that we walked all the way around, and we took lots of pictures, and then we went for an adventure down to the river, and then accidentally ended up in the barrio. So we turned around and walked back up the huge hill we had come down to see the river, and then found their Plaza Mayor, which isn’t as awesome as Salamanca, but is still pretty neat.

I found a new favorite treat, Happy Hippos. Happy Hippos are a white chocolate/crispy delicious thing I found in the supermarket, and I can’t really describe what about them is delicious…maybe it’s the fact that they’re hippos...

Mari Paz started making (at Jess’s request) this delicious concoction of white rice, tomato sauce, fried egg (sunny side up), croquetas, and farinatos. THE most amazing mezcla of flavors I have ever tasted. I’ve mentioned the croquetas before, but farinato’s are special to Salamanca…they kind of remind me of a Slim Jim because they’re salty,  I wish I could describe it more, but its pretty impossible. Even Mari Paz had difficulty explaining to me what exactly I was eating-and I’m still not sure. But we had this deliciousness at least once a week for the last month we were there.

Jess and I spent a Sunday walking around Salamanca and searching for the places we had learned about in our classes.  One of which was this place:

There is a Spanish story about this garden similar to Romeo and Juliet…tragic ending for everyone involved.

This session, instead of having a soccer game (with me sliding across the gravel) our Summer 4 group had a volleyball game…but Summer 4 was the only group here so we had a competition amongst ourselves instead of against summer 3 (like in Soccer). It was a whole lot of fun! Our team was a powerhouse and was undefeated…almost. We decided to play one more game (after winning a lot and then giving another team a chance) and that  is the game we lost L But, it was still a ton of fun, and then we played more fun games like 2 on 2 and 4 on 4 until dinner.

My last week in Salamanca we went on a tour of the University of Salamanca, and I felt like I was walking through Hogwarts at first. It was very cool to see the inside of the university (its not used as a university except for very important events), and the library:
which was designed by the same architect who designed the Plaza Mayor.

This brings me up through my last week in Salamanca and into my trip to Granada to see the Alhambra, meet Meredith Leal’s friends, and check out southern Spain.

The Alhambra was incredible. I spent 3 hours walking around the Alhambra taking a bunch of pictures, and I could have spent more time there, except I was getting very hungry for lunch. Which is where I am headed shortly. Tomorrow I am visiting Meredith’s old workplace and meeting some more of her friends! I’m staying with some of her friends, and they have been more than wonderful. We watched movies and hung out last night, and this morning I made a new friend. I opened my window to let in some air and a cat came in my room. Speaking of, it has come to visit me again and is staring at me from the top stair of the staircase that leads to the loft where I’m sleeping.