Tenerife

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Well, I am terribly sorry about how long it's taken me to update. It's just difficult because it takes so long to upload pictures, and without pictures, there's no reason to update.

I finally started travelling for real! Last weekend, I went to Puerto de la Cruz, in Tenerife (one of the Canary Islands) all by myself. I decided to go because I heard about how beautiful it was, how it has an active volcano and black-sand beaches, and how it was nice and warm, whereas here, it's really cold. The Canary Islands are part of Spain, but they are a big tourist (and second-home) attraction for middle-aged Germans. I think I heard more German there than Spanish. Not exaggerating. I got there on a Saturday afternoon and left on Monday afternoon. So I wasn't there for very long. But I made the most of my time.
Sunday, I took the bus (they have a really good bus system...the US needs to take notes on it) to the Teide, the active volcano on the island. It's also the highest point in Spain. The landscape there was incredible. Volcanic rocks and strange plants mostly. And we were so high (3,718 m above sea level), that the sky was super clear, we were above almost all the clouds, and we could see some of the other islands in the archipelago.
Monday, I went to the beach, Playa Jardín. I didn't sunbathe or anything because I had to check out of my hotel and so wouldn't have had time to go back and change. But it was still beautiful. Black sand, blue ocean, sunny, and warm. If not hot. I was not looking forward to going back to Salamanca to the cold.

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Photos

View of the Teide
From my hotel

Some castle
Well, it looks like a castle to me. I actually have no idea what it is

The cable car
It was quite a bit smaller than I had imagined. But the trip was only 8 minutes to go 2,500 meters (but only 1,200 m higher in altitude)