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.