Que Guay- Early Days in Cordoba

I have now officially been in Cordoba for a week and my trip continues to be wonderful. Let’s see how well I can recap the past few days. Mostly these days have been days of exploration. Lots of walking all over the city. And let me say that these have been wonderful walks and there will be many more to come. There is still a lot of the city I have not seen.

I left you last on Monday evening, so we shall pick up on Tuesday. Tuesday night was our first group event since we arrived in Cordoba. After a presentation by the teachers of the “cultural classes” available to us (guitar, cooking, sevillanas dance) we headed across the street from our facultad for a slightly awkward cocktail mingling hour where we were able to meet almost all of the Preshco professors. It was a nice idea, but the room was very crowded and loud and actually talking to too many professors wasn’t really much of a possibility. After the mingling session we walked a few blocks over to a flamenco performance! How wonderful! It was a pretty low-key theater experience with wonderful performers. Flamenco is such a passionate dance and we certainly saw a passionate performance. It was so rhythmic and precise, despite improvisational aspects of the flamenco tradition.  The performance was not over until around midnight, so I was feeling pretty tired by the end and pretty much went straight home and to bed.

Cleary I was very tired, because I ended up sleeping until 11:30 the next morning! Yikes. How uncharacteristic of me. After a leisurely morning, Pilar walked with me and Viola to show us where some things were and then we went over to Pilar’s mother’s apartment to meet her. Her apartment was huge and she was very friendly and very excited to meet us. Later Viola and I headed in to class in the evening for my history of song class. It was a little harder to understand the professor this time then on the first class on Monday, but I still think this is going to be a great class and I am pretty happy about the other people with me in the class and thus also with me in the chorus. Should be fun.

Thursday was our next group activity. Before our 6pm meeting time, Mary, Laura, and I went to a wonderful place we had found a few days before: Salon de te. It is an unbelievably gorgeous and cute teashop in/on one of the typical Cordoba patios. Everything is very Arab influenced. We decided to try the Te Andalusi since we are after all in Andalucia. It was delicious and I was so happy to finally have some tea! After our tea date it was off to meet the group. We took a group photo, had a sort of cocktail hour at a bar, and then were officially welcomed into the Universidad de Cordoba in an official ceremony or as our director said “Spain really values protocol.” After our protocol, was cena en grupo. I was pretty excited to have a group dinner, I had enjoyed them so much over the tour. We went to a Chinese restaurant and there was sooooo much food. I absolutely stuffed myself. After dinner, I went with a bunch of people to a bar nearby. We got there around 11/11:30, and it was still a little early for too many Spaniards to be there, but the place started to fill up shortly afterwards. I liked this particular bar. It was really laid back and cozy. But there was the drawback that is unfortunately everywhere here: it is perfectly acceptable to smoke pretty much anywhere. It hasn’t been too big of a deal, but on Thursday a lot of the people I was with were smoking and after a while it was starting to give me a headache. And of course, when I went home my clothes and hair smelled of smoke. Ick. Not my favorite part of European life.

The only downside of Spanish customs I have found so far: dog poop. No one picks up after his or her dogs here. You really have to pay attention to where you walk and it is always unfortunate to find a smeared specimen because then you know some poor soul stepped in it.

Anyway, as there are no classes on Friday, Friday was Mezquita day! It is an incredible building both architecturally and historically. The Christian cathedral was built in it when the Christian re-conquered Cordoba after centuries of arab rule. And what did the Christians do but tear down interior walls of the Mezquita and quite literally build a cathedral within the existing structure. Arab architecture collides with Christian designs. It is incredible.

Other than that, exploring, exploring, exploring. Yesterday I walked around with Viola and our friend Tara and after exploring Pilar invited Viola and me to join her an her friends for a midday cerveza. It was fun, but a little overwhelming because we met quite a few people and it was hard to pay attention to what was going on.  But it was a lovely Saturday activity. We were sitting outside in the square where Pilar’s mom lives. Pablo and Pilar’s friends’ kids where all playing. It was so relaxed and such a lovely lifestyle to have that as a weekend norm.

That is all for now. I am off to explore the Cordoba Botanical Gardens with some friends. Hasta Luego.

Adios.

 

La Casa y Mi Dormitorio

El Piso

La Sala with the table set for lunch

View out the window/terrace 

The Very Narrow Kitchen

My Room in Cordoba

My Bed and the wall of closet (I occupy the center closet section)

Another View

¡Finalmente Estoy en Córdoba!

Hello from Córdoba! I have arrived and settled into what I think will be a very comfortable life here. From what I have seen so far, I love this city and I think it is the perfect size for me. I wish I could show you all in person how lovely the old parts of the city are. The streets are tiny and cobblestone, there are orange trees everywhere and oranges that have fallen into the streets, and I can’t wait till spring arrives and flowers add to the beauty.

My school is in the old section of the city, but my piso (flat) is not. I live just across a park from the center of the city in a modern area called Cuidad Jardin. A lot of other Preshco students are also in this area and we can all very easily get to school and everywhere else. Everything is walking distance.

Saturday morning our train arrived before the sun had even risen. Our host families were all there at the station ready to meet us. I am living with a 37-year-old single mom named Pilar Rodriguez, and her five-year-old son, Pablo (aka Pablito). As I mentioned earlier, I am living in the same homestay as another student in my program, Viola. Upon our arrival, Pilar was there to meet us at the train station, but Pablo had spent the night at a friend’s so we did not meet him until later. I really like Pilar a lot. She is really nice and understanding of when we do not understand her, which can be pretty funny. She speaks a little English, but she definitely does not speak English with us. And she doesn’t want us to speak English together either. But it is funny to be because she does not say “Español, Español,” she says “Speak Spanish.”  The first day with her I felt like I was being really quiet, but slowly I am finding myself talking more though I probably sound like a complete fool with incorrect verb tenses and awkward pauses. Oh well. When Pilar picked us up we gathered our things and walked to her apartment. She lives very close to the train station, which I can only imagine will be very helpful when I travel! The apartment is simple and pretty small, but Viola and I each have plenty of space. We have our own rooms and I must say that the streak of luck I have had with housing continued when we picked out of a hat and I got the bigger of the two rooms. It is cozy and I really like it. (Pictures/Video to come.)

After unpacking, we got breakfast with Pilar. Breakfast in Spain is very different than the breakfast I am used to: our first day it consisted of a toasted roll with olive oil and café con leche. That is all. It was great though. And yes, you read correctly, I drank coffee. I have now had coffee the past four days in a row and haven’t had tea. The lack of tea is kind of terrible, but the coffee has been good with lots of milk and sugar. Sugar packets hear are three times the size of ones at home. Clearly they like their coffee sweetened. After breakfast we walked around and got to see some of the city. The key that Pilar had made for me didn’t work, so we went to get a new one. Afterwards Pilar showed us to our school and walked us around the sites of the old part of the city, including the courtyard of the Mezquita. After the sites, we accompanied Pilar to the market complete with different stands for fruits, vegetables, meat, and seafood. It was a very different way to shop than I am used to, but pretty cool. One thing I did notice there was that I felt like a giant. People seem to be shorter in Spain and I towered over many.

The first day in the city was a pretty lazy day. Viola and I hung around the house watching bad American movies that had been dubbed. I am talking true lifetimes movies here. Why anyone would talk the time to translate them and bring them to another part of the world is besides me, but I do actually think they were more entertaining in Spanish then they would have been for me in English. Before dinner, Pablo came home and we got to meet him. He is absolutely adorable and a pretty well behaved kid, though he will certainly keep the home lively. While Viola was in her room, Pablo spent a great deal of time showing me his video games and teaching me how to use them. He is eager to share, has the greatest laugh, and smiles with wonderful dimples. Last night, Viola and I gave our gifts to Pilar and Pablo. I gave Pablo “Goodnight Moon” in Spanish, a version of “The Cat in the Hat” in both English and Spanish, and a Thomas the Tank Engine coloring book. I think he really enjoyed them and he was eager to begin coloring with Thomas. It also ended up being perfect that I got the bilingual Dr. Seuss because Pablo is learning English in school. He knows how to answer a few select questions. “Pablo, what is your name?” “My name is Pablo.” “And where are you from?” “I am from Spain.” “And where do you live?” “I live in Córdoba.” It’s adorable. As hard as it is to talk to Pilar in Spanish, it is even harder to understand to Pablo, but his English was pretty well pronounced. Of course it is easier to understand what is familiar.

For all of you at home who know that I eat a lot, apparently this is false. Pilar has decided that Viola and I don’t eat enough. Her food is great and I feel like I have been stuffing myself, but her serving are sooo big. Pablo barely eats, so she jokes that she has to tell him to eat and then tell us the same. It is like eating every meal at Grandma’s house, always being offered more. Other people are encountering similar circumstances in their homestays as well. On Sunday, Viola and I walked around and explored the city with a bunch of our friends and we spoke at length about our different living situations. Everyone seems really happy with their host families.

 Today, Monday, marked the beginning of academics. While we have not exactly started classes, we have preview classes this week. I went to three different classes today and think that I am going to take a class on the Spanish song in the twentieth century. This means that as part of class I will also be participating in the University of Córdoba PRESHCO Choir. The Choir director seems great and I am getting pretty excited about. I wasn’t sure I was going to do it when it was extracurricular, but now that it can be a part of my class time, I am definitely doing it. I will have more to say about academics later when I have actually really started classes.

That is all for now. I hope all is well and would love to hear from all of you! Now that I have updated you, give me updates on your lives.

Adios

Photos at Parque Guell: Barcelona

With Rachel in Park Guell

Crowded with tourists, but still wonderful

Caitlin, Annie, Sam (all from Oberlin), Hannah, and Rayna (both from Wheaton)

The Tour Continues: Madrid (and its surroundings) and Barcelona

(Left: A View of Toledo, Hotel in Madrid)

I write to you now from the overnight train we are taking from Barcelona to Cordoba!  Soon enough I will have finally arrived at my destination, will meet my host mom, and will get all settled in. For now, I will try to recap on the past week of travel. (Warning: I am sure that this will once more be a very lengthy post. Sorry once again. I should really just update more frequently so I have less to say.)

So much has happened, it may be hard to keep track. I feel like I have been busy for almost every moment since I have last written. Since Salamanca I have been to El Escorial, Madrid, Toledo, Segovia, Zaragoza, and Barcelona. As we were instructed was necessary, we left promptly from the hotel in Salamanca at 9 am. We had a big day ahead of us and had to leave early to accommodate such a full schedule. The plans were El Escorial, lunch, and on to Segovia. From Segovia, we would then a drive to Madrid and a group dinner in Madrid. This is not exactly how the day went. We went to El Escorial as planned and it was one of my favorite places that we have visited. It is a mountain town with cute streets and very colorful buildings that we walked around briefly on our way from the bus station to the monastery and palace, which were built in El Escorial by Felipe II.  El Escorial de San Lorenzo is the name of the actual monastery. It was built to honor San Lorenzo, who had died for Spain, on a literal grill. The building thus is in the shape of a grill. It was freezing inside the stone buildings, but our tour guide did keep us moving. And the tour was great. The building is huge and amazing. I had heard ahead of time that the tour would include visits to the tombs, and I was slightly apprehensive about this morbid venture, but to my pleasant surprise the tombs were what amazed me the most. They were incredible. A majority of the building is constructed of white stone. Suddenly I found myself following many others down a dark marble staircase lined with bronze. And then we were in a sacred space. It was a circular room composed entirely of Dark Green and Rose colored Marble, detailed with bronze designs and accents. On one side of the circle were the tombs of the kings and on the other those of their queens. I really cannot convey how amazing this room was. The description we heard of the rotting room next door was not quite as thrilling, but not enough to distract me from the wonder of where I was standing. (sidenote: when touring Spain, and I am sure many other places in Europe and around the world, always look at the ceilings. We saw some of the most amazingly detailed and intricate ceilings on our tours, one of which was in this marble tomb.) The tombs did not end here. There were many others buried in this building, all of royal descent, though the rooms of these other burials were not quite as exciting as this first one. There was one tomb that was in the shape of a large cake that was the tomb of royal children who died before their first communion, which was sad, but very nicely made.  At the end of the tour we also walked through an unbelievable library and on into a chamber with arches that when you whisper into the wall at the end of the arch, the sound of your voice is echoed out the other side of the arch on the other side of the room. This was very entertaining for us to experience.

After the tour at El Escorial and a quick lunch, we were back on the bus, but not headed for Segovia. The bitter cold at El Escorial was little compare to the snow that was falling on the mountain road leading to Segovia and so our itinerary had to change. But no worries, we were able to reschedule this now optional excursion. And so off we went to Madrid where the hotel was ready to welcome us early. I was really happy to have a slightly more relaxing day and be off and settled in Madrid. After checking into the hotel a bunch of us heading by foot over to the Prado museum. We did not have too much time to look around before closing, but it was still enough to see some great art and I really enjoyed seeing Velasquez’s “Las Meninas.” It was much larger than I had anticipated and seeing it in person made me really appreciate the details of the painting. After the Prado was a very entertaining group dinner at a restaurant just down from our hotel. At dinner there was a man who came to speak to us about customs of Spanish nightlife. This was a highly entertaining conversation which really peaked during the question portion when one of the boys on our trips asked if “grinding” was a type of dance common in Spain and in order to have his question answered, he was asked to and did in fact demonstrate with one of the adult women leading the group. When later trying to say that was embarrassing he said, “estoy embarazada,” which means “I am pregnant.” Once again, he was embarrassed.

We were in Madrid for four nights. During our time there we were staying in a hotel right in Puerta del Sol, which is the exact center of the city. It was a fun location to be in. We were walking distance from everywhere we wanted to be and were able to do a great deal of exploring around the plaza mayor and palacio real (royal palace). On the first full day we did a bus tour of the city, which I unwillingly fell asleep during. I felt really bad about falling asleep, but the brief nap turned out to be essential to my day. I had woken up that morning feeling really sick and I almost opted out of the day of touring, but after my little snooze I was feeling much better and ready for the day. Still I spent most of our trip around Spain stuffed up. I never went anywhere without tissues, though each day was better than the last. While I was awake and actively participating we saw some amazing sites. We then did a walking tour of the palacio real where I had quite literally the best tour guide I have ever had. She was incredibly animated and her Spanish was really easy to understand. It was a really fun tour around a very lavish building. A few nights later, while walked around with some friends we passed the palacio while a big event was letting out. We saw police escorts guarding cars leaving the palace and we later learned we had infact seen the King and Queen leaving, as well as the President of Argentina. Pretty cool stuff.

Other Madrid highlights: La Reina Sofia (modern art museum). I got to see Picasso’s Guernica. I was really happy to see it, but must say that I think the best part of the museum was the photography. I also liked getting to see some Dali, as crazy in person as I expected. After going to La Reina Sofia, we met up with my friend Sarah’s friend Javier, who is from Madrid and she knows through an exchange program from her high school. He brought one of his friends with him and it was great to really get to hang out with some Spaniards.

That night after I got back to my room, I read my friend Steve’s newest blog post and learned that he too was in Madrid! What a fantastic turn of events. I emailed him immediately and was able to meet up with him the next day. We went back to the Prado, walked around for quite a bit, went into an amazing park that Steve told me had once been Royal hunting grounds (let me just say, in Madrid they know how to create and maintain a wonderful park). After our wanderings, Steve and I met with some of my friends from the program as they were finishing chocolate con churros, and then the two of us headed out for some actual dinner. I was great to see him and catch up with his travels.

While in Madrid we also had outing to both Toledo and Segovia. Let me just say straight off that I absolutely love Toledo! Everything is old with cute little streets. I found it really comfortable there and much calmer than the hustle and bustle of Madrid. Though I must say, even in as big a city as Madrid, where the streets are crowded and quick, the Spanish lifestyle is overall so much more relaxed than the American, that there has never been a time so far when I have felt under any sort of pressure. In Toledo we toured a few churches and old synagogues and saw some of the most famous work of El Greco. The day was lovely and went very smoothly. I really felt I was getting into the swing of the schedule of a Spanish day. This was certainly an adjustment too because the day is structured much differently here and goes much later.

I also enjoyed our trip to Segovia, though this was only a half-day trip and so felt slightly rushed towards the end. We did not tour as much in Segovia and I was okay with that because I was really started to feel pretty toured out at that point. In Segovia we saw el alcazar. Fun fact: it is the palace that the Sleeping Beauty palace of Disney was based off of.  The tour was slightly dull, but at the end a bunch of us climbed the tower and were able to get a pretty great tour of the top of the castle and of Segovia, which was wonderful.  I don’t know what the news coverage was like in the US, but the day that we went to Segovia was the morning of the car bomb in Madrid. As we were on our way out the city the bombing took place and we saw police drive by us and close off the road. They were searching every vehicle leaving the city to make sure no suspected people were able to leave the scene. It was a little scary to see the police and have them come onto our bus, but they were nice to us, and we were easily on our way, driving through beautiful mountains.

After our days in Madrid, we set off on the bus once again. This time was our longest driving day yet. From Madrid to Barcelona on a bus is about 8 hours.  We broke it up into two four-hour sessions of driving, stopping in the middle in Zaragoza to tour yet another cathedral. This time, the church visit fell during the time of one of the masses. While it was weird to be a tourist while a mass was going on, it made visiting the church so much more powerful to hear the mass and have the entire space filled with organ music. I loved it. Everything was so familiar for me, despite the language difference. After the tour, I ate lunch with a few friends including my friend Mary. When Mary was in high school she was host to a Spanish student who boarded at her high school and would come to her house over long weekends. Laura, the student, lives in Zaragoza and met us for lunch. She was hilarious and very energetic. It was very nice to meet her and once again have an opportunity to talk to someone who is from Spain.

Then it was onward to Barcelona! In Barcelona we had a much less structured schedule and lots of free time to explore. I got to see Alyssa and Greg (friends from Trinity) who are currently studying abroad in Barcelona. Seeing them was wonderful. The second time I met up with them we also got to see Elizabeth and Melissa who have been studying at Trinity Barcelona all year. Elizabeth hasn’t been home since September! I don’t think I could do that, but she is loving it.

The first full day in Barcelona, we did a tour in the morning and I officially fell in love with Gaudi. We went to parque Guell and I absolutely loved it and loved hearing everything that our tour guide had to say about it.  The tour also took us by La Sangrada Familia, the catedral de Gaudi, which is still being built. The next day a bunch of us went back to the cathedral and some were able to climb up into the towers for an amazing view of the city. Going up made the entrance fee completely worth it, even though you had to pay another 2.50 Euros to go up.

The next day I walked down to the water and spent several hours hanging out at the beach with friends from the program. I touched the Mediterranean! Overall it was a relaxed visit to Barcelona and very enjoyable. I am excited to go back and spend more time there this summer! (For those of you who might not know, I am working with ASA programs in Barcelona for the month of July. 

I realize this was not a terribly detailed account of Barcelona, but you have read through quite a long post by now, and I must admit I am quite tired. So I am going to stop for now. I will write again soon with first impressions of Cordoba!

Hope all is well. 

Adios

 

 

Unos Fotos de Salamanca

Sorry, these came out in reverse chronological order, and I couldn't figure out how to fix it. Oops. From bottom to top: the walled city of Avila, "El Tuna" de la facultad de Derecho de la Universidad de Salamanca, The Plaza Mayor, Some of the intricate stone work that fills Salamanca (this picture is on a church that was just across the street from our hotel), and lastly a picture of a Salamanca street

Bienvenido a España

Hello Everyone! You are currently reading the first thing I have ever written from another continent. I am going to try my hardest to keep the posts coming on a semi-regular basis, but I will admit upfront that I do not have the best track record for maintaining journals over long periods of time. Demand from others should keep me on track this time though, so please feel free to read as much or as little as you desire.

I also apologize in advance if any post (including this one) get to be ridiculously long, but I do hope they will be entertaining for you. I cannot entirely believe the whirlwind that has been the past few days, but I will try to capture it for you.

Tuesday (the day of my departure) I woke up from a rather unsatisfying night’s sleep. Of course, my good luck, I had developed a cold the day before my flight and ten-day orientation tour in Spain. I spent the morning finalizing my packing, buying decongestants, and steaming in a frantic attempt to lesson the pressure building up in the sinuses.  Despite my sniffles and headache, I was ready to go nice and early and Mom, Dad, and I left for the airport at 3pm, a whooping 5 hours and 20 minutes before my flight was set to depart. Second stroke of luck, despite the 50 degree weather on Monday, it was snowing on Tuesday and so all precautions were taken to ensure that I would not come anywhere close to missing my flight. Luckily despite the snow, the roads were fine, and we did not hit much by way of traffic. We got to Newark airport and Mom and I went in to check in while Dad parked the car. Mom then went on to fill our a slightly excessive number of luggage tags (incase any fell off), Dad returned from parking, and then it was time to say goodbye. This goodbye was more like the typical “dropping my daughter off on the first day of college” goodbye, then the one that actually occurred on my first day of college. At college I am only an hour and 15 minutes away from home. This trip is my first time being away from home for such a long period: exciting, but also slightly intimidating to the traveler who has not yet departed.  Mom and Dad stood and watched as I went through a quick and easy security check and then I gave them a final wave and started off towards the Gate in the Boonies of Terminal C. C 98, it was actually the farthest gate possible.  There were only a few people at the gate when I got there (I was really quite early) but I quickly realized two girls a row away from me where PRESHCO students and I introduced myself. From then on the hours in the airport were full of introductions, as I was taking a group flight with many other students from my program. Because of the snow our flight was delayed 40 minutes.  Not a huge deal, but the hour and a half that we spent on the plane itself before actually taking off was more aggravating. Somehow we landed in Madrid only an hour late. I am not really sure how that worked out since we left at least two hours behind schedule. The flight itself was not that bad. I took Nyquil, watched the Secret Life of Bees, and was able to sleep a bit (though certainly not a full night’s worth). My running nose and clogged ears were bothering me, but not too unbearably. That is, until the landing. As we started to descend I felt like me ears were going to explode. It was terrible and took quite a while after landing to wear off.  I didn’t feel very well, but who cared, I was in Spain!

After baggage claim, we were met by several members of the PRESHCO staff, who were standing just outside the exit with big signs and extremely bright yellow baseball hats. Everyone was very friendly upon our arrival and we handed much-appreciated water bottles and then shown to the buses: one for our luggage to be sent off to Cordoba and one for us to embark on our tour. We were also each given a personalized bag that contained an orientation binder full of information, maps of the cities that we go on the tour and a huge map of Spain and Portugal, and a sort of directory with name and picture of everyone in the program this spring. It seems like a really nice group of people and I have met several people I really like. As I was told to anticipate, the program is almost entirely made up of girls, with a ratio of about 35 to 3, girls to boys. This makes sense when you realize that the school that sent the greatest number of students to this program is Smith.  In addition to the orientation manual, the welcome bag also included a travel sized umbrella, our pay as you go cell phones (complete with modest balance), an adapter plug, tissues, a poncho, a lanyard with a name tag on it, and the most exciting item of all, our very own bright yellow PRESHCO hat.  Everyone played with the phones, figuring our how they worked, and I among others called home to say very quickly that I had arrived safely.

As we drove out of Madrid I tried as long as I could to observe the scenery, before I fell asleep (everyone passed out on the bus ride). We are going back to Madrid tomorrow and will actually get to see the city, but for now and from the view from the highway, it seems to me that Madrid is covered in Graffiti. And it looks great too. There is a lot of graffiti here and it is in all the right places. It never looks like vandalism. It looks like art. I should now note that when we arrived in Madrid the weather was mild. Not warm by any means, but not particularly cold either. After about an hour and a half on the bus, I woke up to find snow both on the ground and in the air. This was a little disorienting. I fell back to sleep for a bit and then woke up just before we arrived in Ávila. Ávila was merely a pit stop and a chance for lunch when we were all told we had to wear our sweet new hats to get food.  Though we had no time to explore, we did get a really great view of the walled section of the city. The walls were built around Ávila in I think the 12^th century and were quite a site to behold. It was the first of many things that I learned about in my Spanish class last semester to appear on this tour.

After Ávila we continued on to Salamanca, where I am currently. Salamanca is gorgeous. I love it. Though there seems to be plenty to do, I am trying to fight off my cold as quickly as possible and so I have be playing it pretty low key since we have been here, but I still feel I have seen a lot and I have certainly enjoyed all of it. We are staying in a absolutely beautiful hotel. It is one of the examples of old buildings that have been converted in recent years into a hotel. The center of the building was once an outdoor patio and is now a furnished indoor lobby with a high and huge skylight. My roommate in the hotel is Viola. She is also going to be living in the same homestay as me and it has been really nice being able to get to know her a bit over the past two days. She is a student at Smith and her family lives in Boston, though she is originally from Albania and moved to the US when she was 15. She is nice and I think we will get along pretty well. I have also made several other friends and seem to have a group already forming, though I am trying to get to know as many people in the program as possible. Yesterday we has a few hours of free time when we arrived at the hotel. Viola and I explored a little bit around the area of the hotel, but mostly staying in. I took a nap, as did many of my fellow travelers. Then we had a group dinner at nine (this new eating schedule definitely takes some getting used to). After dinner we had surpise entertainment from a musical group called a “Tuna.” A tradition in Salamanca, the Tuna is a group from the Universidad de Salamanca, the oldest university in Spain. The city is very much centered on this university. The group that we saw perform was from the Facultad de Derecho (Law School). They were great and incredibly entertaining and interactive.

After dinner a few people were going out to bars, but others of us were a bit too tired to venture that direction. Instead we decided to just walk around and explore a bit before bed. The city was beautiful at night and remarkably well lit. My friend Mary commented that she felt like she was on a movie set.  All the stone buildings are so remarkable and intricate and have really stood the test of time. We walked on to the Plaza Mayor, another incredible piece of architecture and a famous aspect of Salamanca.

Luckily I slept very well last night for a full eight hours and am now feeling considerably better, though I am still stuffed up and taking it easy. Today we had an orientation meeting that lasted for two hours and nearly put me back to sleep. Afterwards we headed out on our own for lunch, a much needed pick me up.  This afternoon at four we had our formal tour of Salamanca. We were divided into two groups and my group was guided by Lorenzo, a very entertaining guide, who was very good at interacting with us in a completely understandable way. On a side note I am finding most of the language understandable which is a good sign and even as I have been writing this post I have thought a few things I was going to say in Spanish before I typed them for you all in English.  That sounds impressive, but take few to really mean a very few. Still, it is a promising sign. Back to the topic at hand, Lorenzo showed us all the sights and told us the history of this incredibly old student city. The tour ended back in the Plaza Mayor and afterwards I headed off with Mary, Laura, Rachel (all three from Smith) and Sarah (from Trinity). We went into a café for some té ,café, y churros, and we ended up staying for quite a while just talking and getting to know each other. I have really liked spending time with all of them.

We then went back to the hotel with just enough time before dinner for me to now be sitting in the lovely lobby of the hotel writing this post.  We leave Salamanca tomorrow to travel to Segovia and then on to Madrid and our next hotel (where I will actually be when this post reaches you, as I do not currently have internet access).

Sorry for the length of this post, but I hope you enjoyed it. I hope all is well with all of you and I will write more soon to tell you more of my travels!

Adios