Circus & Such

So can we just take a moment to appreciate the fact that we watched all of the videos below in my culture class today and they were all relevant?? Fantastic stuff, I tell you.

Above we have the traditional dance of the Basque country, called Aurresku, which basically consists of several very serious men doing cheerleader kicks. Also, my teacher demonstrated this last Friday when the internet didn't work, and it's a thousand times better in person.

And this is a flamenco song that she showed us because it's kind of adorable, the bride surprises her fiancé by singing this during the ceremony (the chorus is one that she belongs to when she's not getting married) and if you watch it, you get to pretty much everyone in the church start crying over the cuteness of the whole ordeal, including the sniffling of whoever is filming. It's fantastic. Also for the original, click here.

Also, when we got to the Plaza after class today, there was some kind of fair/circus thing going on, so obviously we had to stop. And get the only tall guy in the group to take photos for us because we were too short to get a good shot of the baby tiger. Pobrecito, I'm pretty sure he had to take a photo for everyone in the group because we are all super short. We're not really sure why there was this fantastic circus, but it was a nice little surprise after class.

Above, that's the stage they've set up in the plaza, bajo el reloj. That's where they've been having all the concerts all weekend, in honor of the festivals.

After lunch, Megan and I went to meet up with our friend Katie to get some helado (ice cream, which there are incredible amounts of here) at the Plaza before Megan had to go to work. This time I got lime flavor. Also one of the greatest things I've ever tasted, just saying.

Mi Casa

Mkay, I got photos of the apartment. Only a few, but there's not a lot of spaces to take photos of here… It's still adorable and cute though. 

Living Room

Left door is our bedroom, the right door is the kitchen

The front hallway–the first door is the kitchen again, second is our bedroom. The room at the end is the living room

Doors on the other side of the hall–bathroom & María's room

View from the back window of the kitchen

The kitchen from one angle–table & back door

Other side of the kitchen–oven, kitchen sink, etc.

View of our clothes drying from our bedroom window

And that's the place! It's fairly little and dense but very cute and livable. Not too far from the plaza, but far enough that things like the nightly concerts during the festivals don't bug us even a little bit.

Movie Time

Today, because Megan works at a movie theater in Tennessee, we decided to go to the movie theater. Also, everywhere we could shop and whatnot was closed because of the festivals. (Although we did go to the Plaza in the morning to see them ring the bells, and I got mojito ice cream, which was super yummy). 

Anyway, Megan and I ended up going to see a Sherlock Holmes movie that was out here. Probably not our smartest idea, because the real Sherlock Holmes does not run around shooting people and whatnot like Robert Downing Jr. does. So we were pretty confused, I'm still not 100% sure what happened in that movie. Actually, I'm roughly only 60% sure I'd say. But I will say that Sherlock got the girl, I think he caught the murderer, and Watson was actually a doctor in this one so that was cool too.

Moral of the story is, no more spending money on movies until we know we'll understand them. Still a fun adventure though.

Los Festivales

So I'm still not 100% sure if there's a real purpose to these festivals, but it mostly seems like an excuse for the ENTIRE CITY to flood the Plaza and surrounding area. I mean, there's the thing about it being the day of their patron saint, Virgen de la Vega, but we're not sure if there's more to it than that or not. I will say though, that the Spanish can give a fantastic fireworks show. Even though we were behind a lot of people and a row of very tall trees, we still got a great show! Here's a video, enjoy.

Also, here's a photo of the Old Cathedral at night because it's beautiful.

Also we went to a free concert in the Plaza afterwards, this guy Carlos Jean was playing. Cordis, if you ever actually read my blog, you should check him out. It was pretty good music, just super crowded so we didn't end up staying for more than an hour.

But we walked by the Plaza later at night and got to see the result of an entire town packing into the Plaza. 

Today's Adventure: Swimming

So today, after class and a lovely siesta, I decided to go work out. María told me about this olympic-size pool that was a decently short walk from our piso, so I figured it couldn't be that hard. And it really wasn't that bad… I just got lost for a while… and when I asked someone for help they weren't from Salamanca… then it was super busy at the pool so it was hard to actually work out… and I forgot my flip flops… and a towel… moral of the story is, I may not have died or anything, but it was a little bit of a mess. On the bright side, I now know what to do and what not to do. Half the battle, right?

That's really the most exciting story I have so far. My mother requested a photo of my living quarters and my host mom… here's the living quarters, I don't have one of María quite yet. I'll work on that. See if I can get a whole family photo with Megan & David too. That just requires everyone being home at the same time… which could be difficult!

So that's my side of the room. There's a little closet to the left where, miraculously, all my clothes fit. The bed is kind of messy right now because I just kinda dump my stuff and then clean it up before I go out at night or go to bed. There's a bunch of books on the shelves that others students have left, so I won't run out of reading material! And those are Megan's legs, I think she was sky ping with her boyfriend when I took the photo. Also, the calendar is from some other students she had, but it's a Colorado calendar! It sounds like she's had a lot of students from Colorado, both Boulder & Denver. Oh, and they're kinda hard to see, but on my bottom shelf there's a tumbler glass from Jamba Juice, and Megan has one on the right edge of the photo. A student left María those so that the students can fill them up before they go out for the night, and then they don't have to worry about waking up María if they want water when they get home! Genius, those kids.

Also, I just realized from going through some of my other posts that you already have photos of the bedroom. Currently I'm super shy about taking photos of the apartment because I dunno if María would be okay with it (yes Daddy, I know I should just ask her) but I'll try to get on that!! 

I'll hopefully take some photos of the free fireworks and free concert tonight, so I'll post those tomorrow! Chau!

Fantastic Views

Today in conversation class, the randomly chosen topic on the handout she gave us was about… the environment and being green! So it was basically like being home, talking about saving the planet and whatnot.

We took a real siesta today, and it was fantastic. Hour long naps are way better than half hour laying-there-almost-asleep times.

Then we took an actual tour of the cathedrals, where we got to see the old cathedral, and then go up the towers! So I've now been on the roof of the old cathedral, on the second level of the new cathedral, and on the roof of the new ones. Here's some photos to demonstrate, because this was just super cool.

The Old Cathedral

Turns out, Franco's headquarters were in Salamanca, and this is the house where he used to live. The super nice Audis & Opels you see are there because there was a big meeting of all the ministers of education from all across Europe at the university today. Oh and the princes came to the University as well. So there have been policia everywhere for the last three days, just standing around and making sure no one's doing anything crazy.

Looking muy española today

This is what happens when they take us on roofs...

See that stripe in the middle of the photo? That's the balcony that goes around the entire church that we were standing on. Now see those white dots at the bottom? Those are people. Yeah it's that high up.

Earthquake problems. But it's been like that for several hundred years so, y'know, no worries, right?

Salamanca! Those big towers on the left are the Universidad Pontifica, which is a private college of the Vatican, if I recall correctly. The Plaza Mayor is on the left half of the photo somewhere, and my apartment (aka mi piso) is wayyyyy out there. But it is in that direction.

Adriana y yo

Salamanca's really unique because they have two cathedrals, which doesn't happen in like 95% of the cathedral-owning world. It's because they had the "Old Cathedral" which housed the original university. But then, because Salamanca is such a fantastic city, people started coming from far and wide to live in Salamanca. And with that, mass became a lot more crowded, as well as all the other functions the cathedral had. So they started building the new one, which was supposed to replace the old one. The thing is, and I'm not sure if you've noticed, but these things are large. And back in the day, they took a long time to build. So, three centuries later when the new one was finished, they were no longer like, "Hey, this old cathedral is small and slightly useless, let's replace it." They were more like, "Hey, this is a pretty sweet piece of history we've got, let's not tear it down." I'm sure it happened exactly like that.

Anyway, so we did the tour, then went to ISA and took this "pretest" that we'll take again at the end of the year to see how much better our level of Spanish gets. It was basically the same thing as the other test we took. Woo.

Then we came home and María's mom was here visiting, so we met her and talked for a short while, until they started arguing about the telephone service María's mom uses (everyone picture trying to explain technology to your parents…) so we snuck off to our room until dinner, which was a very delicious sandwich. Ham, tomato, lettuce, mayo, and delicious bread.

Tonight, Salamanca's big festivals to honor their patron figure Virgen de la Vega begin, so it was super busy when we came home for dinner. We'll probably go out and sample the festival a little later. Hasta luego!

Five Minutes

Things I Did Today:

• Went to class, required coffee to actually wake up. Mmmm café con leche. More milk than coffee, still worked!
• Ate a very large lunch of a very good carrot & potato soup
• Took my first siesta. It's the beeest.
• Had a meeting about registering for classes with ISA. Seems pretty straightforward, they'll pretty much hold my hand through the whole thing.
• Found out there's an OLYMPIC SIZE POOL a few blocks from my house! Going to explore the possibility tomorrow, didn't have time today.
• Had a very very long conversation with María about basically her entire life. She loves talking to us, probably because we only catch 75% when she gets on a roll and talks super fast, so we just smile and nod!
• Wrote a blog post in 5 minutes. G'night de España! Buenos Noches!