Corrida de Toros

Mkay team, here's how bullfights in Salamanca go, as told by a few of the 100+ photos I took. And a video. I may have overdone it slightly. Be warned, I am talking about them actually killing a bull, so if that's not your thing, maybe don't read this.

 So first, we walked up to the Plaza de Toros, which apparently is kinda like cathedrals in that every major city tends to have one. It's basically an old-style stadium. 

Ta da! Apparently this is also the kind of thing that people tend to dress up for. That goes on the list of memos Corinne didn't get. Oops. At least I'm not generally a sloppy dresser? At least not while I've been living here.

Slightly Absent...

Hey team, sorry I've been slightly MIA, my week just hasn't had too many exciting bits for you, so I'm combining them into one entry today! Woo! So, here's the hilights from the last few days!

• Went to an intercambio where there are students like myself who are learning Spanish, and locals who are learning English, and we all get together and attempt to speak real good together. Actually, this one was pretty good because we're all so advanced and awesome like that. And we got free tapas & soda, always a win. It was slightly awkward, but overall pretty fun.
• I ate more ice cream. Please see the photo below to understand why it's so difficult to walk by all the ice cream counters here and not have some! Plus, it's sooo warm walking around town all day. It's quite the dilemma. 

Today I got dulce de leche but my other favorites include lime & mint.
I want to try apple and orange though!

• I had to take a test for class. Boooo. I did alright on it though, just no one loves tests.
• I registered for my "real" classes! These are the ones at the actual university, not with International Courses, which my last two weeks of class have been. Those are kind of a joke (they're two weeks long and we spent half of that watching YouTube videos in my culture class...) but the ones I just registered are the real deal. So I ended up with three culture classes: Hispano-Hebrew Culture, Music in Spain, and Music of the 18th Century. Something like that. Not sure why I have two music classes, it just kinda worked out that way. Heh. And I'm taking intro to French, so I can start on my totally random 3rd language. But it seems like a fun schedule. The nice thing about being here is that I can pretty much take whatever classes I want, and try new things like a new language or a random music class, because I came in with enough AP credit that there aren't specific college credits I have to fulfill.
• I went to Karaoke Night at this bar near my classrooms. And, while we were looking through the book (for things other people were going to sing) I jokingly pointed out the Celine Dion song from Titanic, "My Heart Will Go On". Obviously, that led to me being onstage singing that song.  Awkward. Fun. But awkward.

Yeah we're on their Facebook page, we didn't take this

• That's most of what I have for this week! I also went to a bullfight today, but unfortunately I don't think I'm going to have the time to write everything I want to about that tonight. Stay tuned for photos of that tomorrow!!

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!