Snoozing in Salamanca

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Apparently Spain doesn’t seem to believe in school. This Tuesday and Thursday are holidays, so the students decided to vote to have a “puente” or “bridge,” as in a 10-day weekend! A couple friends and I had planned on renting a car and road-tripping around Spain, but by Sunday morning we still hadn’t convinced a homeless man to let us use him (yeah…you have to be 21…and I thought I was a grown-up here…), so we hopped on a train to Salamanca, home of the oldest university town in Spain.

9:30pm-4:30am: Horribly uncomfortable and cramped bus ride.
4:30am: Here we are Salamanca! Where are you? Of course we had no plans and not even the bus station was open to provide us with shelter.
4:35am: Our first roof! Okay, it might have been inside of one of those ATM room things ("cajera"), but it was warmer than outside!
4:40am: A cab driver points us towards the center of town, “Oh, about 2, 5, 8km…?” Thanks…
4:45am: Our first encounter with the friendly Salamancan cops who tell us we’re really only about 4 minutes from the central plaza and are nice enough to redirect us.
4:49am: We’re here! Now what?
5:00am: We get rejected from our first disco. Apparently hiking backpacks aren’t appropriate apparel...
5:05am: Cops again! Direct us towards the one bar that may allow us in.
5:10am: Leonardo’s café!
5:11am: Leonardo’s café closes and tell us to try Risko.
5:15am: Risko! The floors are so dirty that I won’t even put my backpack down. But we get some food, attempt to make conversation with zombie waiters/chefs and the homeless man in the blue sweat suite, our soon-to-be companion. People watch. Leonardo’s staff comes in, we chat, etc. until Risko closes too.
5:50am: Back on the street, cold and getting a bit tired we head back home: cajero #2.
6:03am: Two friendly young gentlemen knock on our door (apparently it´s not everyday they seem three girls with packs sleeping in a cajero) and offer to escort us around town ringing hostel doorbells, asking for shelter. To no avail. Now the cops are starting to look at us funny. Not even the nun that we run into has any suggestions. Storeowners begin cleaning up, but have no intention of opening up for hours. We think the balding elderly gentleman who stops us for about 7 minutes is propositioning us, but he’s really just thanking us for being American, the same country that Bob Dylan, or some such, is from. He doesn’t seem to remember us the next day when we wave to him. We run into Blue Sweat Suite Man about every other street.
6:37am: We’re pawned off onto three more young gentleman, as the first two are getting tired. They were nice enough to feed us sunflower seeds and entertain us for a good while. When they realize that we actually aren’t interested in going home with them and that they’re better off going to bed, we’re on our own again.
7:15am: Hi cajero (again). And cops (again). And Blue Sweat Suite Man (again). The next half-hour or so is spent making sure we really have a firm grasp on EVERY SINGLE street in Salamanca. Don’t worry, we do.
7:51am: The first café opens! Coffee! I try playing the slots, but really, I don’t think they’re much fun. I just lose. We read the whole Salamanca section of the guidebook aloud, eat way too much churros y chocolate, and at that point I was so tired I really don’t even remember the rest.
9:30am: A hostel finally opens it’s doors to us! And, more importantly, its bed. We snuggle into one small bed trying to stay warm (apparently they don’t even believe in heating up North).
11:00am (mmm…maaaybe more like 11:17): Up and at ‘em! We’ve got sites to see! Cathedral (did you know that there’s an astronaut and a dragon eating an ice cream cone hidden on the wall), University (yep, we found the frog sitting on the skull’s head), some art museums, pastries from the convent, Chinese food, shopping! And probably a bunch of other things I’ve already forgotten, but that were well worth it.
8:38pm: Shower and naptime.
10:53pm: Out on the town. Truly a University town, we tried to make the most of it. The famous (I still haven’t quite figured out why) shots bar, about half of the clubs (yeah, we had left our backpacks behind this time) and bars in town, dancing in the streets, more rendezvous with Blue Sweat Suite Man, new friends, and fun!
8:27am: Sleeeeeep
11:13am: Pack up and head out! Okay, more sightseeing and shopping. We were planning on going to Lisbon, Portugal, but of course hadn’t looked up the schedule and had already missed the only bus and train for the day.
6:05pm: Bus!
2:03am: Bus station, sweet bus station.
2:28am: Home, sweet home!

Today we tried going to Gibraltar, got on the bus and everything in the hopes of eating fish and chips and driving on the wrong side of the road. Luckily my friend had little enough faith in me to make sure I had my passport on me. I didn’t. We got off the bus, got lucky and managed to get a refund.
Missing you all!

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