Aprovecha El Día (Otra Vez): Una Despedida y Un Saludo

I was going to say I'm embarrassed that I've been in Salamanca for a few weeks now and I am just now getting to blogging about it, but I'm not. I have been busy enjoying the city, and I wouldn't change it for anything. Salamanca is beautiful and so much fun - it's so different from Valencia, it's basically impossible for me to compare the two. Who knew it was possible to love equally two cities that are such polar opposites from each other? Valencia, of course, will always hold the number one place in my heart because it was my home for four wonderful months, and I learned so much and made so many good friends there. I miss so many things about my time in Valencia- here's a short list. Some of them probably sound a little strange, but they're things that will always remind me of my favorite city.

watching soccer games in the park outside my bedroom window
the río, especially sitting in front of the fountains of the Palau de Música
the Café Valiente I always sat in to use the wifi
my host dad singing Frank Sinatra around the house
Catalán pride, watching the news in Catalán
watching Pasapalabra with my roommate and host parents
authentic horchata
the sound of a Valenbici bell
the Mercadona song
the "próxima parada" voice in the Metro
the wifi in my homestay...OH WAIT
walking home late at night when the streets of my neighborhood were sleeping and silent
the rainbow of flowers on the Puente de Flores
passing the elementary school kids in their little uniforms coming from gym class in the río on my way to school
the Doner Kebab across from Portland and the guy who worked there with the smiley eyes
looking for the CAC in the distance when I didn't know where I was
the green water fountains
the weird exercise park in the río where people always look ridiculous
the sparkly tiles and shimmering aqua water of the CAC
the little beeping song the projectors at UV make when you turn them on
the sound of someone riding a bici over loose red bricks on the bike paths
mornings alone in the house drinking Cola Cao with the sun warming my back through the window
the red 19 on our front door
exchanging daily 'hola buenas'es with other people in the building
REAL agua de valencia with orange juice, not fanta
my cinema teacher's crazy hair
my Don Quijote teacher's comments about European cities punctuated by sips from the same type of water bottle every day
my Spanish culture teacher's tangents
the same ringtone everyone has
the creepily-silent guys who sell sparkly hats, roses and sunglasses everywhere
the daily bueno bar from the candy store near ISA
the 3 plazas- del Ayuntamiento, de la Reina, de la Virgen
wandering through the city and remembering what fallas and what parties were where
eating our bocadillos in ISA during the meetings when there are signs everywhere that say 'do not eat in the office'
the colorful desks in UV that were always arranged in the most nonsensical, disorganized way possible

Valencia, es la tierra de las flores, de la luz y del amor.
Valencia, tus mujeres todas tienen de las rosas el color.
Valencia, al sentir como perfuma de tus huertas el azahar,
quisiera, en la tierra valenciana, mis amores encontrar.

Okay, so that wasn't a short list. I got a little overly-nostalgic. BUT, it's okay because I know I will be back, and also because now I have the chance to get to know an entirely new city - Salamanca.

Like I said, Salamanca is totally different from Valencia. For one thing, it's much smaller. In Valencia, my walk to school every day was 40 minutes, each way, which was pretty rough. But in Salamanca, I can make it in about 7 minutes which is amazing. Salamanca's also very easy to navigate because there's a huge central plaza, La Plaza Mayor. There's a big clock there under which everyone always meets, and there are always lots of people hanging out there. If you can find the plaza (which is very easy to do), you can get pretty much wherever you need to go. So that alone gives Salamanca a smaller-town, closer-knit kind of vibe which is a world apart from Valencia. Also, Salamanca is a university town. The University of Salamanca is really big, and there are something like 30,000 students, both Spanish and international. So naturally there's marcha every single night of the week, and everything is really cheap because all the students have, well, a student's budget. So a drink in Valencia might cost 7 or 8 euro, a drink in Salamanca is 3 or 4. The ambiance of the city is just really light and fun all of the time - there's never nothing to do in Salamanca.

Although I was so bummed to leave the friends I had made in Valencia, I have already made some really great friends in Salamanca, both American and Spanish. I think it's easier to make Spanish friends here because it seems like everyone is around the same age and everyone is always in fiesta mode, eager to meet new people and have a good time. I also got a really awesome roommate through ISA, and we always have fun when we go out. Though most people in our program are in homestays, my roommate and I live in a small residencia with mostly Spanish students. Somehow we got one of the biggest rooms with the strongest wifi signal (JUSTICE!!), so we can't complain. Plus it's about 7 minutes from the building where I have classes, and about 10 or so from the Plaza. The food is not great, but it makes me feel right at home because I was used to sub-par food at my homestay in Valencia....it's all part of the experience, I don't mind.

One view of our room. It's HUGE, we call that empty, open side 'the dance studio' because it's
gigantic, and it's an excellent place to practice pirouettes when I feel nostalgic. On the other side
we each have a huge armoire and a sink to share. Livin' large.

Classes are good, but super long. I have class every day, Monday through Friday, from 9am to 2:15pm. It's rough because number one, after high school, people lose the ability to sit through class from the ungodly hour of 9 until 2. After even a single semester in college when you get to sleep in and have huge breaks and get done early, reverting back to this schedule is torture. Not a single day goes by when I'm not tired. Number two, it's a university town so people go out every night. Besides that, we're still in Spain here, so we go out around 1 or 2 and don't get back until...well, we've had some late nights. So the schedule is kind of tricky, but the classes themselves aren't bad. I'm taking a grammar class, 2 conversation-type classes and a Spanish for business class. It's cool because they're all international courses, so I only see 2 other ISA people throughout the day. The rest are from different parts of the world, including Brazil, England, Belgium, the Netherlands, Korea, and different parts of the US. Meeting these people from all over and being able to communicate only through Spanish is a super cool experience for me. Also, USAL is such an old university that is so used to dealing with international students that they have everything down to an art - we got student IDs the first day (which we were promised in Valencia but they never came...), USAL notebooks, grammar books written by USAL professors, and options for organized excursions around Spain and Portugal. Everything is super well-run, which is nice to see.

What else? So far the weather has been beautiful pretty much every day. I've worn shorts or a dress to school every day since I've been here, which is nice because in Valencia you get looked at like you have three eyes if you wear shorts without tights- or at least that was always my experience. And...that's pretty much the skinny on Salamanca. I really love it here, and I have this new thing where I pretend I don't have to leave this wonderful place and go back to regular old life in America at the end of the month.....yeah. That's a distant nightmare for now. Here's a few pictures of the city, I'll post more when I take more. Also, the next post is going to be about how I went to Santander and completed one of my life dreams last weekend, so keep an eye out for that.

The famous Casa de Las Conchas (House of Shells). Salamantino buildings are famous for
being made of this Villamayor sandstone.

La Fachada de La Universidad de Salamanca. This is the famous wall that has the tiny little frog everyone searches for for luck. You won't be able to see it in this picture but you can google it if you're a cheater, or you can stand in front of it with a guide who uses a pocket mirror to reflect the sun to point to it's exact location. We know aaallll about the giant groups of toruists who come with a guide to find the frog because the fachada is RIGHT outside the windows of the rooms I have classes in. At first it's cute but after a few days it's like IT'S RIGHT THERE PEOPLE ARE YOU BLIND IT'S JUST A TINY FROG YOU DON'T NEED TO BE THAT LUCKY!! You know.