Salamanca,
Can you believe it is already February, I can’t and I do not like how quickly my time as a Spaniard is flying by. I left you on Wednesday and as I reflect on the rest of the week days nothing outstanding comes to mind. Thursday was spent buying bus tickets to Salamanca and shopping around/playing cards in the afternoon. That night was our typical fiesta night as a group, we had high hopes to practice the ancient art of Karaoke but unfortunately that dream did not become a reality, but in good time I am sure. Friday morning nine a.m. class is always rough, but luckily I am back in bed enjoying my Spanish siesta by eleven a.m. We discovered a website called project free tv, this website is ruining my life in that I have at my disposal hours and hours of American programming and I no longer need to watch full house and bob esponja, its beginning to take a toll on my sleeping. Amparo woke me for lunch and I spent the afternoon skyping my parents on their 22 wedding anniversary and talking to my madre. Friday night we headed off to the spaceship mall, a huge mall that resembles a launch pad for a rocket, or a giant clam shell, the debate continues. We shopped around for a while and indulged in gelato and burger king French fries, obviously the meal of champions, or grease starved Americans. We had received news that a giant party was going on at the stadium that day, were young people literally party all day and all night so obviously we had to check it out before dinner. I have never seen so many drunken college students in a huge stadium before and it was amazing, the party was in full swing when we arrived around eight and people were beginning to stumble home to dinner. There were boxes of wine and crushed glass everywhere, a huge mosh pit consumed the middle and it was just all around incredible. Unfortunately we missed the party in that after dinner most people head to the bars, but we will be keeping our ears open about more outlandish celebrations in Oviedo. That night I went to bed early in preparation for our Saturday morning 7:30 a.m. departures to Salamanca, people are starting to get very angry about the early morning bus rides.
I don’t know why six a.m. is always more unpleasant than anticipated but four zombie, sluggish ladies met at the train station ready to get on board and sleep. I thought my chair was broken for the first half of the ride and attempted to sleep sitting straight up, until half way through when Carrie offered to switch me and we discovered that I was simply weak and the chair was more than capable of reclining. It was a five hour bus ride to Salamanca complete with about five stops in other cities to drop off and pick up people. I really enjoy the bus rides through Spain, I have seen some of the most beautiful mountain lake scenery imaginable and watched old stone fences and crumbling churches pass by. There is so much history here and everything feels so ancient. The smaller towns still reveal what I imagine to be a peasant village with sheep in the fields and herders chasing them around with horses and dogs. Also I see many people tending to their small gardens with old fashion ho’s and mending the huge stone walls.
We arrived in Salamanca around 12:30 and splurged on a taxi ride to our hostel, instead of trying to navigate our way on a map, it was only one euro per person. When we arrived at our hostel, Hotel Reise, the man behind the counter only had reservations for yesterday and said we were not scheduled to stay there Saturday night. Of course everyone gets really quiet and scared and it’s up to Elizabeth to be the demanding American. I told the man I knew for a fact that I had made the reservations for Saturday night and already paid an eight euro down payment on the room, after refusing to move and demanding to see my online reservations we were put up in a lovely room with four beds and a private bathroom. As we unpacked we opened our windows and were surprised to hear traditional music floating in from the streets. It was then I realized I had forgotten my bocadillo on the bus and I was in desperate need for some lunch. We decided to head down and see what source the music was streaming from. We were greeted by many old women dressed in traditional Spanish garb declaring it was the day of the woman, dia de la mujer, and we, as women were welcome to walk with them and join their festivities. We followed them as they sang and danced their way to the main plaza. We made a quick stop into the grocery store to grab our lunch, chips and chocolate, the meal of champions, before we found the Plaza Mayor. In the plaza tons of people were gathered, woman in all sorts of outfits were standing in circles dancing and singing with each other. Each circle group had one man dressed in traditional black clothes that was beating a drum and playing a recorder at the same time, pretty impressive. The women were absolutely adorable to watch they were clapping and stopping and more than happy to pose for pictures. We stayed for a long time at Plaza Mayor just watching and laughing and trying to figure out what the festival was about from the old men smoking cigars and watching from the sidelines, the only thing we were able to conclude was that it was a festival for woman, further research is underway. We decided next to wander the beautiful streets and sandstone building of Salamanca in search of the cathedral.
Things are pretty compact in Salamanca and we were standing in the shadow of its immaculateness in less than ten minutes. I had read in Rick Steves that you could climb to the bell tower of the cathedral for 3.5 Euros so obviously that was our first stop. Italy has given me a lot of church climbing experience so I was prepared for whatever stair situation Spain was prepared to throw at me. The stairs were not numerous but we did get to stop in a bunch of historical rooms, enter the cathedral in the top sections and look down at the interior, and explore the roof top. I am quite proud of my pictures but it isn’t too challenging when every way you look at the church it’s glorious. After spending a lot of time challenging each other in the artistic picture game and fighting pigeons we decided to trek to the old Roman Bridge that crosses the river Tormes. On our way we stopped into a civil war museum, because it was free, and saw some pretty interesting mannequins set up like they use to in secret society meetings. These puppets had on black cloaks then eyes from computer paper taped to their faces, unfortunately the eyes were never even and often space way to far apart. After our boredom in the museum we continued to the river Tormes. In my class intro to Hispanic lit this last semester at UNI we read the famous Spanish story Lazarillo de Tormes and what do you know but right next to the bridge and the river Tormes is a huge statue of Lazarillo and the blind man. We took several pictures to send back to our professor. I have forgotten to mention how beautiful of a day we had in Salamanca, the sun was brightly shinning and we spent the next hour basking it its rays while lying on the ancient roman bridge. It’s set on the outskirts of the old town so we had a great view of the city.
Eventually we headed back into town and meandered around exploring other churches and monuments. The cathedral opened up for visitors and we spent time on the inside of the beautiful church in awe of its size. Stef, the atheist Jew, was especially impressed. On the outside of the church in the beautiful façade is an astronaut, during a restoration a man thought it would be funny to add an astronaut about twenty years ago and it has become somewhat of a game for people to locate him. Salamanca is a huge university town and the old university buildings, the first in Spain, are everywhere. Christopher Columbus visited here before he sailed to the America for advice from the professors. After poking around in the many university stores and seeing many Universidad de Salamanca sweatshirts and t-shirts we found the main entrance to the university. On the university façade there is a frog located on one of the skull decorations. It is said if a student can locate the frog without help they will succeed in their exams. I cheated and followed the pointing figures of the other thirty people there so we will see how this semester turns out. The frog has become a huge deal there, aka the star of all Salamanca mugs and t-shirts. Next we found the old sandstone public library and the front is covered with shells.
The sun was setting and we were getting a little sleepy and chilly, siesta time obviously, so we stopped back by the grocery store to pick up some dinner then headed back to our hostel. After enjoying peanut butter sandwiches, chips, bagel bites, and more kinder sopresas it was time for a nap. We awoke around ten, haha great nap right and decided we would play so games in our room before hitting the town later that night. We enjoyed many of Carries crazy card games and talking till about one when we decided we would go see what Salamanca had to offer at night. After wandering for a while and growing more tired we simply concluded we need to go to bed and returned to our hostel.
We awoke the next morning around nine, Salamanca is great for sleeping apparently, and Stef, the atheist Jew and I headed off for church around ten thirty. We went back to the cathedral and got to sit up front in the gated area as about thirty of us celebrated mass. We had about eight priests at the altar though so the service was beautiful and I was actually able to comprehend some. After mass we met up with the other girls for some last minute shopping, more basking in the sun, then enjoying ice cream at the Ben and Jerry’s bar. My madre texted me again saying she hoped I was having fun, and everyone was jealous again! Our bus departed around two and the bus ride home was more beautiful and fast than the bus ride there. That night my madre and I had a long dinner, she demanded we talk for an hour since she knew I was speaking English all weekend and so we spent time talking politics and how we both didn’t like talking politics but our crazy mothers did.
All in all Salamanca was a fantastically relaxing, beautiful weekend with great company. Everything was ancient and foreign and made me so proud and excited to be learning this different language. Things I have learned Spanish wise this week include:
1. Zapatero is the President of Spain, his name means shoemaker.
2. Fat people do not just exist in the United States.
3. It just became illegal to smoke in public establishments on the first of January, no one is happy.
4. Cookies are common place at breakfast.
5. Bring your own toilet paper to bars!
See my pictures at:
Miss you,
Elizabeth
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