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Published: April 2nd 2006
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Train Station
Emily, me, Rachel, and Ryann waiting for the train to Salamanca! Hey guys! This weekend was an amazing weekend! The weather was perfect...about 60-65 degrees and sunny! It was a great weekend to be outside and travel which is what I did. Saturday we went to Salamanca which is about an hour train ride northwest of Avila. It was a really cool city/town. It's my favorite place so far since I've been here (out of Avila and Madrid). The University of Salamanca is the oldest university in Spain. It was founded in the 12th century. So there were a ton of people from all over there. I heard a lot of English (I never hear it on the streets in Avila). There were also a lot more people my age. In Avila, the majority of the people are older, younger kids, and middle age adults. The people my age tend to go off to college, most in Salamanca. I loved the busyness of the city and how much there was to do there. Great shopping!
Speaking of shopping, I did shop some while I was there. I had my first bad incident since I've been here. I was trying on a shirt that had beads on the strap and as I
The Cathedral
Picture of the beautiful cathedral on a beautiful day was lifting it over my head to put it on, the strap broke and all the beads fell off. I wasn't trying to squeeze into a size that was too small for me, I know what does and does not fit, so I have no idea what happened! But the beads all fell onto the floor and made all this noise. And all I could do was start thinking in Spanish about how I was going to explain this. I was kind of flustered too because I didn't know all of the words for what I wanted to say. Obviously, the two girls that were working the dressing room knew what had happened. So when I was dressed and opened the curtain, one was giving me a stare of death and one was just standing there. I started to explain what had happened, and the nice one said "Tranquila. Esta bien. No hay un problema" (Take it easy, its ok, there isn't a problem). The other one continued to stare me down. So then I decided to try on this skirt, and as luck would have it, part of the zipper was broken (not my fault this time)! So when
The Cathedral
inside of the cathedral I started to go downstairs to get another skirt in the same size, death stare girl stopped me and said I couldn't go downstairs (why not? I don't know...) and blah blah blah. We had this conversation and I told her that I wanted a new size, but she wouldn't let me go down. So I just told her nevermind and walked away. I was so frustrated, and it made me even more frustrated that I couldn't explain what I wanted to. I wasn't about to try explaining to her in Spanish that I wanted another skirt because the zipper was a little broken, since she already hated me for breaking the shirt, so I just let it go. The other girl was EXTREMELY nice to me, so it balanced things out. I am SO thankful for how nice she was, she could probably tell I was a little upset.
Anyways, when we got to Salamanca we walked around and went into the huge cathedral that is there. It's absolutely beautiful, like all the churches in Spain that I have been to. They had some organ music playing, even though it wasn't coming from the real organ, just the
speakers they had installed. I'd love to sit in a church like this at some point and hear the organ full blast. I'm sure its beautiful. We also walked down to an old Roman bridge that had been built during Roman rule over the Tormes River. This river didn't ring a bell to me, however, Ryann, the Spanish teacher told us about the river and that it is in some famous Spanish literature story. I don't really remember now though...haha. That was pretty cool and it gave us an amazing view of the city. Unfortunately, my camera batteries died, so I wasn't able to take any pictures of this. I'm going to get some from Ryann and Rachel though and then post them on my webshots! So keep an eye out for those because its a beautiful view of Salamanca.
My favorite part of the day was the Plaza Mayor. It was such a beautiful plaza and there were hundreds of people hanging out. There were families all over hanging out with family friends while the kids played together. There were musicians, one guy was playing the saxaphone, there were groups of guys playing hackey sack, and one weird
Plaza Mayor in Salamanca
lying out in the Plaza Mayor-yes, it looks like we are the only ones lying down, but we weren't! guy running around in Richard Simmons gear (this is how you know its a college town) and the whole entire plaza was clapping for him as he ran and leapt around. A little weird, but hilarious. I also saw some girl in a full out neon hippie costume and a guy dressed up in a big yellow chicken suit with orange tights. I also saw several mullets....anything goes in Spain! Ryann, Rachel, Emily and I plopped down in our own little section of the plaza and relaxed and took in the sun. I loved the feeling of sitting in a plaza in Spain on a perfect weather day (about 65 and sunny) while there were tons of other Spaniards and people from other countries walking around. It was great people watching and so relaxing! I got a little sun too! 😊
We also walked around and saw some buildings of the university. It is crazy how big these buildings are! The library is an old palace. I might actually have enjoyed studying in college if I could say "Hey, I'm gonna go study in the palace." Instead of, "Hey, I'm gonna go study in the library that looks like
Wall
Can you find the frog? a triscuit or the lovely Ed school or the Kappa Delta library." Also, there is an old wall on one of the school buildings that has all of this elaborate design on it. There is one frog somewhere on the wall and if you find it without any help, then you will supposedly have good luck and maybe even get married within a year. Well, I won't be getting married within a year because the one time that I didn't want to understand Spanish, I did. I kept on hearing all these words like "above, below, along this column, up, over, etc). There were about 100 people standing there staring at this wall with their heads leaning back. If you didn't know about the frog, you'd probably be wondering what the heck was going on.
I'll try to update again soon, but things are about to get pretty crazy with traveling over the next 2 weeks! I leave for Prague and Switzerland on Friday with Emily! I'm so excited! I'd love to hear how yall are doing though! I really miss you guys and its nice to just have some "hellos" from home! Hope you're having a great weekend!
Salamanca
View from the Puente Romano
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