Yesterday

I'm going to say yesterday was an awesome day. In the morning, I went to the train station and got my train tickets for my upcoming weekend jaunt to Córdoba, and for 30€ less than it would be if I bought online. Get ready for all kinds of photos of old buildings next Monday!

My musicology class is getting much easier, and the professor even asked me a question I might've been able to answer... If I'd only seen the movie Psycho. We were using movie plots to describe song "plots."At least I said a full sentence in the class for once. 

At lunch, Megan, David and I had a conversation about horror movies, stemming from my earlier predicament concerning Psycho. We all hate horror movies, is really the moral of that story. And David was surprised by how few movies we'd seen... I don't think he realized we were in middle school when half the movies we were talking about were released. 

I was supposed to have my culture class at 6, but it was cancelled for some reason. For this, Camila, Samantha and I went to Mandala for coffee and snacks. I had a café bonbón (coffee and condensed milk), and a tostada with tomato sauce and olive oil. Absolutely delicious. 

After sitting in the cafe for two hours and talking about everything from travel visas to haircuts, I went to French class. And, like most of my classes this week, understood a pretty good portion of it. The Spanish thing finally seems to be clicking a little bit. I also went to a tea shop today where I had a whole conversation with the shopkeeper an we understood each other almost perfectly. Best. Feeling. Ever. 

School Week Roundup

• On Tuesday, one of my professors had lost his voice. Nothing like a professor, who you don't completely understand to start with, not being able to talk. He ended class early though, so there wasn't too much material to struggle through.
• David and I had a conversation about names on Tuesday night, because he thought my name was spelled all kinds of weird (Cornine... what is this nonsense). So then I told him that my brother's name was Cordis, and had a really tough time trying to explain where the name came from and still make it sound cool in Spanish (minimal success). And then he asked what's up with our names and if our parents don't love us or something. Because, while I love my name a lot, Cordis and I really do have horrible Spanish names. Like, if we grew up in Spain, we'd be those awkward kids teachers felt sorry for because of their unfortunate names. Sorry Mom and Dad...
• One of the girls in my Music in Spain class offered to loan me her notes at some point since our professor goes so fast that even the Spanish kids get lost sometimes. Given that I usually look at this girl's notes to try to catch up and figure out what's happening when I get lost anyway, I was pretty happy with this offer.
• Thursday afternoon, ISA offered a tour of the original university building, the one that was built after the city started growing and the Old Cathedral couldn't contain the size of the university anymore.

This is the famous façade the University is known for. Unfortunately, this is a terrible photo because they currently have equipment set up so you could go see the facade up close and personal, and while that's fun and all, it makes my photos turn out really badly. I'll take another photo when they finally take this down. In any case, it's super intricate and one of the things that tourists always want to see at USal.

So here's a super old classroom...

And one of the many really awesome ceilings in the building

This is the diploma of the very first female student in the world, who attended the University of Salamanca. Also, the first female professor in the world was at USal. And it was one of the first universities to be technically separate from the Catholic Church.

Theology classroom

University Chapel

Multiple fun facts about this chapel. First, only students are allowed to get married here. There's a 3 year waiting list, but you could do it if you wanted to. And because I'm at USal, even for just a few months, I could technically get on that list. Also, I mentioned before that Franco had his headquarters here in Salamanca back in the day. His house is just outside the back wall of this church. And because Franco wasn't exactly the most popular kid on the block, he had places set up all over the city in case he had to go into hiding for political reasons. One of those places is behind the painting in the very middle of the altar. Apparently, the painting is actually just a screen that you could roll up, and there's a whole room back there–sneaky.

Pigs & Aqueducts (AKA Segovia)

So our adventure to Segovia began at the lovely hour of 8 AM, a time when the streets of Salamanca are basically completely empty.

Luckily, it was at least light outside when we got to the bus pickup point. The bus ride to Segovia was two hours long, just enough to get a little nap in before our long, long day of walking started. The first thing we did when we got there was go to a potter's studio, because this is apparently a pretty big thing in Segovia. 

So he showed us how he does pottery on the wheel, and made a piggy bank as an example. Pigs in Segovia are kind of like frogs in Salamanca–they're in every single tourist shop, in a thousand different forms. In Segovia, they're known for cochinillo, roast pig. Unfortunately, due to being cheap and having a free sammich from María, I didn't get a chance to try it on this trip. Anyway, after a few of us in our tour group attempted to make some pots with limited success (except for that one kid who was in AP art in high school and already knew what he was doing…) we left the studio for the Alcázar, a palace on the end of town.

Large, made of stone, lots of towers… you get the gist. It's a pretty place, but it's one of the less important palaces in the big scheme of Spain, as far as I can tell. However, it is where Queen Isabella was staying when she got the news that her brother had died, and was then crowned the queen of Spain at a church across town, at the age of 23.

Here's a blurry photo of the mural in the Alcázar of Isabella (in the white) being crowned. It's a creepy mural though, because, for reasons I do not understand well enough to explain (the phrase "Blind Man's Day" was used), no one in the photo has eyes. If anyone's ever watched the show Supernatural, the people in the mural all look like the demons from that show. It's freaky.

No eyes, super creepy. Especially on kids.

We got to climb the towers of the castle as well, which was 152 tall steps, which actually made me slightly sore today. 

But the views from the top were fantastic.

That's basically the entire city of Segovia, and the mountains beyond it. Ta-da! Worth the climb.

Britt, myself, and Camila at the top of the towers, with the city's main cathedral in the background.

The other main attraction in Segovia is the Roman aqueduct that's been standing in the city for over 2000 years. And it's literally just made of rocks. There's no cement or anything else in between, and the whole thing is at a perfect decline of 1% or something like that. Basically, the Romans knew their physics.

A few more highlights of the city were the Casa de los Picos, which is now an art school, and the city is well known for…

…the epic amounts of piggy banks in the stores, which I really wanted to buy, but unfortunately my suitcase is going to be stuffed enough as is…

…and ponche segoviano, the city's other famous food product. I'm not completely sure what was in this, but I'd guess there's about a pound and a half of sugar in it, it was very sweet. We shared this little square between three girls and didn't feel like we missed out on anything at all.

And that, my friends, was my day in Segovia! I'm enjoying a very lazy Sunday today, so I will probably not have more fun content until later this week.

Segovia Sneak Peak

No time to write a blog, watch for today's adventures tomorrow!

TGIF

So today's post photo is brought to you by the Crayon Guy, who literally just hangs out around town with a box of Crayolas and draws these murals:

All crayon. And they're everywhere in the pedestrian part of town.

Also, we had a meeting about my upcoming excursion to Morocco with ISA, where I learned that if someone asks you if you want chocolate in Morocco, you say no. Because that means drugs. Just say no to chocolate (but only in Morocco!!).

After the meeting, I went to this coffeeshop/café we've discovered and really like with Sam & Britt, two girls from ISA. They have really good smoothies and milkshakes, but today I ordered café mandala which was condensed milk, coffee, and whipped cream. With chocolate sprinkles. Probably the sugariest coffee drink I will ever drink ever, but it was pretty delicious. Also, here's an artsy photo I stole from my friend Hannah's Facebook page, of some of the decor in Mandala.

Thank you to Hanna Mae for being artsy

After I got home from coffee, I ended up practicing English & Spanish with David for about an hour. Spent half an hour talking about motorcycles in English, and then another half hour in Spanish talking about guns (he works with the police) and the Spanish education system. Good times.

María made us tortilla española for dinner, om nom nom. That's the sound of my stomach being a very happy camper. Tomorrow we have to get up super early to get on a bus and visit Segovia, which, according to María, is really only good for the Roman aqueduct there, but apparently ISA knows of something that'll take up 10 hours, so hopefully I'll have some good photos to share tomorrow!

Bleh Class Bleh

Good news: One of my professors likes giving readings in English. Win! Except I don't know why he would give readings this difficult to students who don't speak fluently. Even I am having trouble getting through it… I mean, here's a quote from the article I'm reading right now: "it tends to preserve Zeitgeist thinking after all, because it privileges the notion of an ‘essential’ relatedness across diverse domains and decades." Now, does anyone know what class I'm reading this for? No, you don't. Music in the 18th Century, for the record. But seriously, it's crazy. If a professor at home gave readings in another language (for a non-language class, obviously), the students would probably riot.

Other good news: My other musicology professor told me I speak Spanish well. Which makes me very happy because I feel like every time I open my mouth in her class, I sound dumber and dumber. She's also far less terrifying face-to-face than when she's doing lecture during class. 

Bad news: having a cold here sucks. For starters, the kleenex I have are in those little travel packs (10 packs of 10 for 0,73 euros!) so I can basically count how many tissues I've gone through in the last 24 hours. (It's roughly 30, in case you wanted to know that.) But at least I have a day off class, and María is making sure I drink lots and lots of water.

Random discovery: These chips, which are (don't be surprised) ham and cheese flavored. Of course. Also, someone should look at a pack of potato chips and tell me how many ingredients there are, because the unflavored ones here have literally three: Potatoes, vegetable oil, and salt. I feel like there's no way a manufacturer just left it at that in the USA.

Chinese Food & English Practice

Last night, we decided to go out for Chinese food. So this is what it looks like when six American girls order Chinese food in Spain

They also set Orange Duck on fire when you order it... my friend's face looked like a little kid on Christmas, it was priceless

And we cleaned up pretty decently. Very good food, and the best part was it comes in slightly smaller portions. We all ordered two plates and just shared among the table. Deliciousness abound. A very good find, especially since if we just want to do one plate each, it's just 3-4 euros per plate. Last night we were all kinda starving for some reason...

Today was back to the grind of school. Bright side: Even though I have to do a partners project, I did not get stuck with some super awkward quiet kid, my partner seems really nice. And like she has a cold, but that's kinda irrelevant for now.

Also, when I got home, I ended up helping David practice his English for a little while. We talked about jobs, and I found out that his first job was a pizza deliveryman. However, if you put in just the word for "deliveryman" on Google translate (without adding the "pizza" beforehand) it spits out "dealer." So I then explained to David that he was definitely a deliveryman because if he told people he was a dealer and left off the pizza part, people might assume some not so good things. Definitely one of the better conversations we've had, just saying.