The Beginning & Salamanca Saturday

I cannot even begin to put into words how absolutely incredible everything is in Spain. Right now, I am staying with a family in Valladolid, which is close to Madrid. Our mom’s name is Mar, and she has seven kids. So far, Kelly and I have met five of them: Fernando, José, Juan Pedro, Pilar and Carlos. Two of the sons are studying abroad in Canada and Texas, so we are using their bedroom and bathroom. They live in an apartment above a Chocolatería, which for some reason, we still haven’t gone to.

We arrived on Thursday and were completely exhausted. Our flight hit pretty bad turbulence at one point, so much so the pilot said he wanted all of his flight attendants to sit down immediately. We swore we were flying through a tornado. When we got to the airport, we met up with the other kids and our teacher, and we drove two hours in a bus to Valladolid. There’s a lot of farmland in between Madrid and Valladolid, which was something I didn’t really think would exist. Our mom gave us a mini house tour; we ate some food and napped. Around 9:00 P.M., we had sobremesa, which is dinner and spending time together. We watched a show with Mar and two of her kids, which was interesting. They don’t have commercials here, only 15 minutes of information before, and two 30 second breaks. The shows are also waaay longer than those in the U.S.

Friday, we had our first day of school. Our mom drove us there, which resulted in us having no idea how to walk to or from school, thank God for GoogleMaps (it was raining though, so the thought was very sweet). Classes are pretty different here; they are so much more relaxed. I am taking a literature and culture class with Austin. Austin and I are both Spanish majors. Each class is about two hours long with a five minute break in the middle, and a 30 minute break around lunch. Basically all of our class is kids who are studying abroad, specifically from Iowa, California and Pennsylvania. I am really excited to learn more about the literature and culture, especially since everything here is so incredibly beautiful and artistic.

Friday night, we went out with our friends for drinks. My go-to is always pink wine or mojitos, and let me tell you, the drinks here cannot even compare to anything at home, especially price wise! I probably shouldn’t have had wine, chips and ice cream for dinner, but hey, it was okay for a night. I already know I am going to miss the ice cream here. I swear, it is made out of something magical! The cones are also 100x better here, I am very much considering hiding some in my luggage to bring home.

Saturday, we went to Salamanca on an excursion with la Universidad de Valladolid. We met at La Plaza de Santa Cruz with our group and were on a bus for about an hour and a half before we got to Salamanca. Once we got there, we were on a guided tour with a professor from UVa, Agustín. We started off at a monastery, which was absolutely incredible. The details in all of the architecture are amazing – each building tells so much history. After, we went to La Plaza Mayor. La Plaza Mayor is basically in every city here; it is a central location with a bunch of shops and restaurants and it tells a lot of history. In Salamanca, La Plaza Mayor has faces of kings and rulers in the columns around it. I absolutely loved the upside-down elephant statue. We had some free time after, so a group of the girls went for drinks and tapas. Our waitress said we spoke Spanish well and she could understand almost all of what we said, which was a huge accomplishment. I ordered wine (per usual) and a tapa with avocado, octopus and salmon. It was absolutely delicious. After, we went to a couple of stores and obviously got ice cream as well! We finished up the tour inside of the cathedrals which was absolutely incredible. I cannot put into words how beautiful these cathedrals are. There is so much history being told in every stone and curve and crack. Some parts even survived an earthquake all the way from Portugal. One of the facts I found very intriguing is that the people that worked on the cathedrals were regular people. It wasn’t their job: they were all volunteers. It was something they wanted to be a part of, and it was something passed on through generations.

We all passed out on the bus ride back to Valladolid, so when we came home, we were ready to go explore in the streets. We met up with our friends at a bar, but unfortunately had a weird curfew from our host mom. She has seven kids, and we found out later on that one really messed something up, so we think she was nervous to have us out late. We still had a great time, and everyone from our group besides two people were bar-hopping. I tried a mojito and it was absolutely amazing.

Sunday, we went to mass with our family in this beautiful church a block away from our house. It was somewhat hard to follow, but it was very similar to a Catholic mass here. The main difference that I noticed was that not everyone goes up for communion; you only go up if you want to. Our family did not go up to receive communion, so we did not either. After, two of our host brothers took us to a cute little café for drinks and tapas. They speak English pretty well, so we spoke with them in a mix of the two. It is really cool to be able to talk with kids our age here, and both sides are learning from each other. When we got back home, we ate lunch with our mom and four of the kids. She made tuna with potatoes, tomato and mozzarella, snails and flan. I cannot believe I ate snails today, but they weren’t awful. They had the texture of mushrooms and tasted like salt and vinegar. I definitely won’t do it again, but it was an experience.

After, our host mom invited us to her son’s soccer game in Tordesillas. It was such a quant and antique town with a lot of history. She gave us a mini tour and took us for batidos after, which is really similar to a milkshake, but it has cinnamon on top. After returning to Valladolid, we met up with Isaac and Matt from our group for dinner and drinks. We walked around the city for a while and ended up on the beach by the river. We got semi-stuck in a thunderstorm, but it was worth it.

I am in love with Spain. Our first full week of classes started today and I am so excited to learn even more about this country.