Blogs from Castile & León, Spain, Europe - page 85

so yesterday was our little excursion to salamanca, about two and a half hours west of madrid... our language institute place provided a bus for us, but that meant if you weren't going to return at 4:30 that afternoon, you'd have to pay your own way back the next day. our plan was to stay the night, so that was kind of a bummer, but some of us did eventually decide to stay. the city itself was quite nice, and the university of salamanca is the oldest in all of europe. its a student city, like boston, so the night life and such during the school year is really fun and reasonably cheap. we spent the day getting a tour of the city, almost all of which is built in this orangey sandstone-type material. apparently every ... read more

Avila's another city with massive Roman walls - these ones even higher than the ones in Lugo, although here they charge you to go up on the walls, and only allow a section of the walls to be climbed. It circles the old city, and in here is also the Convento de Santa Teresa - and in the Sala de Reliquia is an exhibit of St. Teresa's relics include a finger from her right hand!!! We stopped at Avila again at night on the way back from Salamanca to look at the walls from the Mirador. It was here that Laura and I walked up to the wrong car (we rented one for the trip), until David stopped us right before we opened the car doors, because he noticed the driver looking absolutely aghast that these ... read more

Trust the Romans to make things big. In Segovia you'd have to be blind to miss the amazing aqueduct over 700 metres long! As usual, everywhere I go I seem to get caught in the rain, was drenched from head to foot here too. Not only was it hard to take pictures, it was terribly hard to walk in soaked jeans! Tried the famous suckling pig (cochinillo) - very yummy. And a host of other dishes whose names I have now forgotten! Only spent half a day here, would have loved to spend more time exploring the city.... read more

Segovia! I can´t believe I only have 1 week left! Segovia is wonderful and I´m having a wonderful time hanging out. Here are some pics of me and my friends and adventures. love you all.... read more

Hola! The internet has been hard to get a hold of...but my guapo hermano is letting me use his... I´ve already done so much in one week! I went to Salamanca and Avila on Wednesday- they were amazing... salamance may be my favorite city now! But looking at the 3rd oldest univeristy in the world was incredible... it looked like Hogwartz from Harry Potter. I´m seeing so many cool things here!!!!! I dont´know if I can put more pics up here or not, but I´ll try! I´m learning and talking and just experiencing... it´s awesome.. Its really powerful realizing that I can get around just fine in a city that has a totally different language, food, and culture. its pretty amazing. im having such a priceless learning experience. I´m doing fine, im loving taking siestas! Ive ... read more