Spanish adventures with the boyfriend! #segovia @rostan21

via Instagram http://instagr.am/p/Th7fvaoVVK/

This city. #salamanca #lastnight #christmaslights

via Instagram http://instagr.am/p/TehgKuoVa9/

I mean, travel and strep throat will wear a guy out @rostan21 #naptime

via Instagram http://instagr.am/p/TeLVWfoVUn/

12.12.12

• I developed what I'm now calling the Salamancan plague, since being sick with the plague sounds far more legit than being sick with a cold. It's much, much better than the Moroccan plague, on the bright side. Just a cough and a runny nose, but it made me feel very sorry for my poor classmates who had to sit next to me when I started coughing up half a lung in the middle of the front row. Nothing like being the sick kid. Especially when you're already the foreign kid…
• I got better! Moving on.
• My classmate decided we were going to speak English more often–which led to me teaching her curse words. In my defense, she said them first when we were talking about our presentation. But the really fun part about this was that I have a much better personality in English than I do in Spanish–mainly because I actually have a personality when I speak in English, and my Spanish personality is a very simplified version.
• We had a magical palindrome day! Which meant that my American brain could relax and not worry about messing up the date when I wrote it on my Spanish notes. It's the little things. Happy 12/12, everyone.
• I started writing an essay about cancioneros del renacimiento–which basically translates to "song books of the Renaissance." That basically translates to me metaphorically banging my head against the internet for a million years (I exaggerate during finals week, get used to it) and hoping something that sounded vaguely like an intelligent Spanish thesis. Minimal success, owing largely to the help of a few classmates. Note to future study abroad students–if you decide to take the hard classes, MAKE FRIENDS. They will keep you sane and afloat come finals time.
• I also drank a lot of coffee–Mandala, Pancake, university café… This also means I consumed a lot of sugar, since I put so much in my coffee.
• Fake New Years! Basically, since Salamanca is chock-full of international students who go home for the holidays, the Salamantinos decided to start doing their own New Year's celebration in December, before everyone left. This way, the international students get to see how the Spanish ring in the new year (it involves grapes), plus they never turn down a chance to celebrate.
  
  In all reality, it involves packing 30,000 people into the Plaza Mayor, aaaaand it's incredibly crowded. The countdown was a lot of fun, and then we all dispersed and every girl in the world had to use the bathroom–meaning every bathroom in town had a super long line. It was sheer nonsense, and meant we went home pretty soon afterwards. The plaza part of it all was fun because they gave out grapes to eat during the countdown, which is supposed to be good luck! They had a giant stage set up and everyone counted down together to midnight, when our "new year" started!

• I packed up my suitcase a little bit and grabbed my backpack to go meet Jake at the airport in Madrid! And I ate my last dinner with Megan at our little kitchen in María's apartment–spinach tortilla. Yumm!

"Productive time" before class–mostly I just wanted Pancake coffee
#abroadlove #finalscram #dontmakemeleave

via Instagram http://instagr.am/p/TIoyNToVY2/

Salamanca Sunset

This photo does not actually capture how pretty it was the other night. And the christmas lights are up all over town, it's beautiful!

A Roma, Con Amor

Things that happen when I travel:

• My inability to sleep in a moving vehicle makes me really tired
• Being really tired makes me get lost much easier
• It rains

So after basically pulling an all-nighter in the chilly Madrid airport, then getting on my flight, then getting on a bus to the city center, I arrived in Rome. I eventually managed to find the meeting point my cousin Maggie had told me about, Castel Santangelo.

At this point, the weather was switching between pouring rain, and raining sideways. Thank you Rome. So Maggie called and gave me the combo to her school, so I could at least sit inside. At this point I happened to meet Spencer, Maggie's friend who was going to meet both Maggie and I (after Maggie had found me, theoretically) for pizza. But for some reason, Maggie had managed to get lost in Rome, so I just went to get pizza with Spencer, and Maggie met us there!

Also, this pizza was about the greatest thing I'd ever eaten. Partially because the Spanish do pizza wrong–it's like a loaf of bread with some sauce and some cheese and it just tastes strange. The Italians do pizza right. And I was starving. And it had spicy sausage, and good cheese aaaaand it was just the best.

Anyway, Maggie had class, so I went to find the hostel–and got lost in the pouring rain again. Oops. But I got some decent photos of the "wedding cake" as it's called–the giant monstrosity of the Piazza Venezia which is apparently not built on solid ground and has structural problems all the time. Apparently all the Italians hate it.

After a lot of series of unfortunate events, I finally found the hostel, and took a nap until Maggie was done with class. And then we went sightseeing! Unfortunately, it gets dark super early in Rome–something to do with which edge of the time zone they're on–so all my photos are nighttime ones. They're still pretty though!

So we made it to the Coliseum, walked past the Wedding Cake again, and ended up by Maggie's favorite church.

In Spain, churches are pretty, but they have nothing on Italian churches. There is so much color in there. Spanish churches, from what I've seen, have mostly sculpture, and it's usually in either gold or whatever stone the church is made of. This church was just covered with giant paintings, made by a much more skilled artist than I've ever seen in Salamanca, that's for sure.

We also decided to get gelato–which was absolutely delicious, especially when covered with a shell of chocolate. Can't go wrong there!

Right by Maggie's favorite gelato place is the Piazza Navona, which has a fountain from one of my favorite books, Angels & Demons. It was designed by Bernini, as is every landmark in the book, and is called Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (Fountain of the Four Rivers). Basically, it's the fountain where the main character is almost drowned at the end of the book.

Next, we made it to the Pantheon–the architectural wonder which they apparently couldn't reproduce for hundreds of years because the art of making a dome with a perfectly circular opening was lost for a while. Those genius Romans…

And obviously, we had to make it to the Trevi Fountain–I threw in a penny for me, a euro María had given me, and a nickel María had found for Megan. I feel like that's asking a lot from the fountain though–we'll see how it works out!

We went to dinner that night at a little hole in the wall restaurant with a student menu. We got bruschetta, and then pasta with red sauce–so good! And strudel for dessert. I think it's a good thing I didn't end up going to Italy for study abroad–I would just eat all day long if I was around this all the time!

The next day, we started by exploring and ran across St. John's Cathedral.

Marked with an obelisk (apparently they had a bunch of these just laying around) so you can find the church easier!

We ate some pizza for a very early lunch (it was about 11 AM but we hadn't eaten breakfast, so why not eat pizza?), then set off for the other side of town–which included the Coliseum by day, a very pretty park, and then running into the shopping district. And a Mercedes christmas tree.

At this point, we went on what I am now going to call the Great Belt Hunt of Rome, because it took us roughly a thousand years to find me a replacement belt (I'd left my usual one in Spain, and my pants wouldn't stay up) at a decent price! Luckily, we had success, and could finally go get some dinner. Spencer & Maggie took me to anaperativo, the Italian version of tapas. This one was buffet-style, so they just keep bringing out new plates when one of them is empty, and you can just keep going back for more, even when you only buy one drink. They served a lot of pasta (shocker), except it was cold, which was kind of strange. But it all made for a pretty decent meal!

Saturday was our Vatican day. It began with more rain. And it was not raining when we left the hotel, so I didn't bring my umbrella. Poor life choice.

In any case, we finally made it to the Vatican, soaking wet, but at least there wasn't a line!

We looked at a lot of art (Maggie and I told a lot of jokes about how our parents aren't huge fans of art museums…), but it was really really good art. We saw a sculpture made by the same guy who did the Chicago bean–obviously a photo-worthy occasion.

Rafael's last work

My favorite part was the rooms Rafael painted, because there's a lot of stories behind all the paintings. And luckily, I had free tour guides who knew all these stories! Unfortunately, the photo I took of my favorite painting, School of Athens, turned out like this:

Which is pretty unfortunate. But at least it'll remind me that it was my favorite? 

Also, I broke the Sistine Chapel photo rule… But how could you not when it looks like this?

Sadly, St. Peter's was closed for the night, so we weren't able to tour all of the Vatican. Instead, we went to the grocery store for ingredients, and made spaghetti carbonara for dinner! Which I have no photos of. But it was delicious, I promise! I tried to be helpful, but I pretty much was just in charge of cracking eggs. In any case, we had a really great dinner for about 10 euro all together. Win.

Saturday night was also a night when the museums around Rome were open for free, and included free concerts. Maggie's program was taking them around to the museums, so I tagged along and got to meet all the other cool IES kids. Who were so impressed that Maggie showed me around Rome without getting lost, I'm thinking the fact that Maggie was lost when I showed up in Rome really wasn't that odd of an event. (She was still an awesome free tour guide though!!)

I got yelled at for leaning against an ancient monument while listening to the first concert… in my defense it was made of stone! We also went into Castel Santangelo and got to see the view of Rome from above, and I miraculously got a pretty great photo of St. Peter's from the top. Even in the rain!

Sunday, Maggie and I finally made it to St. Peter's. It is a very large place. It's hard to tell, because the scale is justso massive, but walking from the front door to the altar takes a lot longer than your average cathedral. Like, twice as long in some cases.

And the altar is six stories tall. SIX.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get very close to the actual Bernini altar at the front of the church, because they had it roped off for mass, but it looked super amazing.

We also managed to hit all vertical levels of the church, after accidentally stumbling across the crypt (there was an open door, of course we went to see what was in there!), and then deciding to climb the 551 stairs to the top of the cupola.

So after St. Peter's taught me how out of shape I am, we went back to Maggie's home stay to pick up my stuff, and went to look at even more churches. Mostly, we wanted to go see another Bernini sculpture from Angels & Demons, The Ecstasy of St. Teresa in Santa Maria Vittoria.

After we found the church and ooh'd and ahh'd, I finally headed back to the bus station. Minor loss of the day: standing in that bus line for an epic amount of time because they only had one person working the desk. Minor win: finding stick deodorant in the supermarket when I went to get a sandwich after buying my ticket. I still haven't stick deodorant in Spain, so I'm a little overexcited about this. I still maintain the stuff they sell in Spain doesn't work.

Anyway, one flight, a few new friends, a hotel in the middle of nowhere, a train, two metro rides, and a bus ride later, I am finally back in Salamanca, where it isfreezing but at least it's not raining!

So happy I made it to Roma though, it's totally worth being able to see a Shelton and catch up about our crazy family!! (We love you all!) Plus, the food was just beyond fantastic...