First, you need a backpack..

Then you need half a brain to remember to update your blog more than once every 5 months. My apologies for not having written sooner, but I will be posting soon about my travels through the North of Spain and posting pictures - of course! - as well...

Just a matter of typing it all up. Keep checking back, all will be posted soon!

Salamanca - La ciudad dorada

December 5 - 7, 2010-

 1)      Get up at 7AM to catch the bus at 8:30 – CHECK

 2)      Umbrella packed - CHECK

 3)      Walk to the bus station without forgetting the tickets – CHECK

 4)      Settle in for a 4 hour bus ride to Madrid, then another 2 hours to Salamanca – CHECK



Plaza Mayor, Salamanca

 As my trip to Salamanca was decided only a day before I left, it was kind of a last minute decision but one well worth it! So my morning was busy the day of my trip to Salamanca, but I didn’t mind seeing as I had packed the night before and just needed to prep some food and get myself rain-proofed… the rain nor the lengthy trip would keep me down! I arrived in Salamanca around 4:00PM and had remembered to write down the directions of how to get to the hostel there, so I had found the Revolutum Hostel around 4:30PM, which was located about 40 metres away from the famous Plaza Mayor and right in the midst of the tourist area. I was booked into a shared-room with 4 other girls, none of which were in the room when I arrived, but I was so impressed by the cleanliness of the room, and the fact that we had our own bathroom with a shower AND bathtub, bathmat included!
And the hostel has only one designated smoking area, down in the café, truly revolutionary compared to some of the hostel horror stories I’ve heard with regards to smells... After dropping off my bag in the room, I walked around the historic part of Salamanca until nightfall, taking pictures and just getting a feel for where I was and how to make my way back to the hostel – turns out I have a good sense of direction, but it also helped that the gothic cathedral can be seen from almost any point of the city so it was easy to find my way back.

Gothic spires of the Catedral

The following morning, Monday, I woke up early to go downstairs and have breakfast with two girls in my room – one from London and another from Cyprus who are both teaching English in Madrid – and then I started my true sight-seeing tour. Rain was predicted, but I was happy to see that it wasn’t raining but we had blue skies all day, though with some pretty strong winds messing up my hair- ugh! First stop was the Plaza Mayor in the morning, with the light reflecting off the characterstic ‘golden’ stones used in the construction of many buildings in Salamanca, hence why it’s known as the “Ciudad Dorada” (Golden City). I was soon bombarded by a tour guide who convinced me to join a tour starting at 11AM around the main attractions, such as the Old and New Cathedral, La Casa de las Conchas, La Universidad Salamanca, Pontifica etc.. all for 9 euros! After paying I waited in the plaza and soon our elaborately dressed and outspoken tour guide, dressed in a Russian fur hat and cape (don’t ask) began with an introduction to the plaza and toured us around the old quarter of Salamanca.

Casa del las Conchas (House of the Shells)

Admiring the view down a sidestreet

The Cathedral lit up at night, truly overwhelming!



Looking up in the Cathedral Nuevo



The altar in the Catedral Viejo

Today, one can hardly notice that there are in fact two cathedrals which share one wall. It’s a mixture of gothic, roman, and rococo styles all due to the time it took to build the Cathedral. The Catedral Vieja (old cathedral) was seen as too small to be a cathedral, and was added onto by Napoleon which is the main structure which is seen today. Framing the door the Catedral Nueva, there are a number of elaborate carvings, including one of a lynx and an astronaut, carved more recently which were seen as symbols of the support of new sciences and studies in Salamanca. Inside the Cathedral is one of the oldest organs in Europe, built in the XV Century.

Universidad de Salamanca-

The university was founded in the XV Century, where studies were originally conducted only be those in the holy order, who studied in the cathedral, sat on the cold stone floors, and without desks or chairs, would write on parchment on the backs of their fellow students. The actual free-standing university wasn’t constructed until the XVI Century where different rooms were dedicated to different studies such as law, medicine, linguistics and politics. A quote inscribed on an inner wall has stuck with me since and seems to encapsulate the spirit of university studies: “Edificar la razon, el historico y la tolerancia como instrumentos”, or in English: Use reason, history, and tolerance as tools. Something to live by, no?

After about 4.5 hours of the tour, we ended up back in the Plaza Mayor where I decided to take a break and while walking back to the hostel, bumped into my two hostel roommates and so after chatting until they had to leave to catch their bus, I returned back to Revolutum where I met Bernie. From Kilkenny, Ireland, with an incredible accent and an even more incredible capability to drink beer as if it were water.

 She and I spent our last evening tapa-hopping around Salamanca, having a drink at each place before finally giving in to splurging on sushi – neither of us have had sushi since being in Spain, and the 6 pieces of sushi were well worth the 14 euros! (YIKES). The next morning, Bernie and I said goodbye with a promise to meet again in Northern Spain and while she headed off to catch her bus, I meandered slowly to the bus station a few hours early, but took a detour and found the current Salamanca University – a HUGE campus with over 40,000 students attending! Of course, I had to take a peek inside the Social Sciences building… maybe I’ll be back one day, but maybe as a student?

Adio Salamanca!

Standing in the courtyard of Universidad de Salamanca - where the int'l students study.. hmmm

Salamanca University library - founded in the 1600's.

View of the old quarter from the Roman bridge in Salamanca

Catedral Santa Maria

Kodak moment in the Plaza Mayor

An American Thanksgiving... in Spain?

Novermber 26th, 2010 -

So in order to keep up tradition while away, the other American Language Assistants decided to host a Thanksgiving Dinner at the end of November on a Friday evening when we would all be available. We all did our portion of cooking to contribute to the feast… Luckily my roommates and I are not half-bad cooks and brought along a sweet potato casserole, some roasted potatoes with garlic and rosemary, and of course some carrots with basil (it’s a Texan thing, apparently). Thanks to Jessica’s friend Christopher – a guy who works at the local Mercado de absastos (indoor market where they sell fresh meat, veggies etc) – we didn’t have to ride the bus with our pots and winebottles in tow and made it directly to our destination in Don Benito… for FREE. Life is good, ain’t it?
Our hosts were Erica and Victoria who kindly allowed all 13 of us to use their kitchen as a prepping station at 5:00pm to reheat the food and open up a few bottles of wine, and Spanish beer of course. Considering none of us are “cooks” and we didn’t have access to some ingredients here in Spain, or even fresh/unprocessed turkey, we all somehow managed to not burn our pisos down and cook a meal consisting of: 2 green salads, 2 meatloafs, stuffing with apples and raisings (as cranberries are a thing of fairytales here), 2 roasted chickens, garlic/rosemary potatoes, sweet potato casserole, basil carrots, pumpkin pie (made from a real pumpkin), apple pie (made from scratch too), and roasted vegetables. How we managed to eat all that then still want to go out bowling afterwards is still astounding to me… We walked only 20 minutes to the area in Don Benito known as “Las Cumbres” which is a big “centro de ocio”/leisure-mall.. so basically it is filled with movie theatres, bars, kids playplaces, a small shopping area and a “bolera”/bowling alley consisting of – drum roll please – 6 lanes!

No, it wasn’t busy when we went on Friday night for a few reasons.

1)      We were there too early, 9:30pm is time for dinner and not for bowling.

2)      Bowling just isn’t popular here, unless there is drinking involved.

With regards to the second reason, there is a full bar and live-music stage in the “bowling alley” and they don’t rent shoes, so I and the other girls were stuck trying to bowl in high-heels. Go ahead and laugh, it was pretty funny to watch.

The day after, one of Jessica’s sponsor teachers invited us to his house for a small gathering on Saturday afternoon. Thinking it was nothing formal, I brought along some chocolates as a hosting gift and Jessica brought a bottle of wine – turns out this was a party celebrating his baby’s Baptism.. so we arrived a little unprepared with strange gifts that only a foreigner would bring to a baptism, but we had fun anyway. We spent the hours chatting in Spanish with his family and friends and tasted a jaw-dropping paella which was so large that it had to be carried in by 3 people!! A local man prepares these huge paellas for special events I’m told… so I’ll have to track him down and maybe teach me how to make one, as it was truly the best Spanish food I’ve had so far! That and jamon iberico and serrano. They invited us to stay longer than the 4 hours we were there, telling us that these types of parties usually continue for about 12 hours (from about 2pm until around 3am or so) once the “grandparents” get tired and go home, all the “young” ones continue drinking, eating, and head to bars. Wow, I think Spain can out-party the latinos anytime… guess it’s all in the genes!

Our lovely hosts Victoria (from England) and Erika (US)

The auxiliares familia! Happy Thanksgiving!

Roommates of Calle Donana 9 4D - myself, Jessica and Veronica

Disaster strikes when a chair is broken! But all is well as Tom comes to the rescue...

Then on Sunday – just two days after digesting Thanksgiving – I took a much-needed walk out past Villanueva on a “nature trail” that basically is a dirt road past the garbage/scrap-metal dump first, then onto the countryside between the “quintas”/countryhouses and olive groves, I returned after only 10km, though this route apparently goes for 50km connecting with another small town. Next time I’m renting a mule.

Buitres y El Salto del Gitano

Cork tree

As much as I miss my little blue hatchback Mazda, which is biding it’s time in Canada in the driveway, I didn’t think I would be able to get around as much as I have without a car here.   Luckily for me, travelling in Extremadura has not been at all what I expected it to be. I read before coming here that it would be difficult to get around, as the railway systems are not that extensive and the buses are limited, not to mention the number of main highways are also limited. Not to mention that Spanish drivers are like offensive hockey players – a little intimidating …

Sarah y Miguel infront of a well







 But considering that I have only been here almost 2 months now, I have seen a whole lot more than I thought I would, it just comes down to taking opportunities and getting up a little earlier on a day off to go somewhere new, somewhere not easy to get to by bus or train.  Sure, I would have loved to have stayed bundled up in my “nordico” (duvet) and not get up at 7:30AM on my day off, but then I would likely have not been able to get to Monfrague until spring next year.

 

IES San Jose has been buzzing this week.  This whole week 18 German students, and 2 accompanying teachers, have been hosted by students and their families at the highschool, and are working on a trilingual project together for the European Union, on the topic of the transition from school to the working world. My only day available to help was on Friday when I helped correct their compositions and even helped make audioclips to put on the website when it’s finished (My voice will be famous, haha). It was a very interesting atmosphere in the classroom that day because the common language between the German students and Spanish students was English, a foreign language for both groups! The two Spanish and English teachers from Germany were Ana and Patrick – both married to Spanish-speakers (a Colombian and a Galician) and feel more comfortable speaking Spanish than English. On Friday Ana, Patrick and I were invited to dinner at Inma’s house (an English professor at IES San Jose). Maria-Jose (another English teacher) and her boyfriend drove the three of us and we enjoyed a meal completely prepared by Inma’s marido Manuel… and often visited by their cat, the Queen of the House herself Luna. It was such a fun night, I really hope to go for dinner with Maria Jose and Inma again sometime soon! 

Acorns - A national symbol

Saturday morning I got up early, again, to be picked up by Miguel and drive with Ana, Patrick and Sarah (another language assistant) to Monfrague National Park. We spent almost 6 hours in the park, hiking the 16km route from the pueblo to the “ruinas del Castillo arabe” on the mountaintop!  Once at the top, we saw at least 20 vultures (who are a protected species in the park) circling around, watching something in the underbrush.. but what a sight to see, they are HUGE birds and actually quite majestic the way they fly! After we had our fill of vultures and the views, we descended back down the mountain and took a different route back along the lake to the pueblo. The landscape is very different from BC  but just beautiful and apparently the vegetation in that park of Caceres Province is more similar to that of the Mediterranean regions than those along the Atlantic – who knew?   Unfortunately during our hike we didn’t see the lynx (another protected species here) but we took some incredible photos.  

PS – Acorns do not actually taste that great. And those red, spikey berries are edible!  Mm.. 

The legend of the "Salto del Gitano". 

A long time ago, a gypsy (gitano) well-known for pulling off robberies and never getting caught, was being pursued by the Guardia Civil. The chase ended up in Monfrague where apparently he was close to the edge of the cliff when he jumped from one mountain to the next and escaped capture. From that point on, these mountains have become famous for their looks but the legend behind them as well... maybe the gitano was secretly trained as a long-jumper?

The 'happy hikers' (Myself, Ana, Patrick, Miguel, Sarah)

Happy to be among the trees again

El Salto del Gitano (The Jump of the Gypsy)

Abuelos en Espana

How can you even start to describe a love that started less than a week ago and left such an impression on me?

 

How can I explain what it was like to have my grandparents travelling a foreign country with me "on a whim" without making any hotel reservations etc?

 

In a few words, absolutely wonderful.

Oma and Opa arrived on Thursday afternoon after having driven across the border from Lisboa, Portugal and spent the afternoon in Villanueva exploring.. and then asking for a city map from a cleaning lady since the tourist office was closed during their walkaround (The Spanish are very serious about their siestas, nothing is open between 2 - 5PM). They found my apartment okay and met my roommates Jessica and Veronica, who entertained them while I finished work in Don Benito and made my way back by bus at 9PM. I checked them into the same Hotel I stayed at during my first night here for 2 nights and we all slept well.

Friday morning we decided to go to Las Cruces, wander around Don Benito for lunch/tapas and then visit Medellin - a medieval town 6km away from Don Benito, where the conquereor himself Hernan Cortez was born. It was a windy day, but we thought nothing of it... until we started climbing the mountain up to the castle. We made it to the castle, only to find out that we were a half-hour away from it being open so we walked around the castle walls and tried to take pictures in the wind and of the amazing views from there. As soon as we had paid our entrance fees, the rain really started to come down and we were forced to stand in archways, tour the towers and underground chambers before finally deciding to hurry back down the hill to the car. Well, we didn't come prepared with rainjackets since the weather was clear in the morning, and so we were walking fast on cobblestones (yikes) and Opa jimmied a raincoat out of a garbage bag... thank goodness there was no garbage in it at the time. Once in the car, we decided to head back into Villanueva to have a relaxed tapas dinner and head out early for Cordoba the next morning.

Saturday came along and we had our umbrellas and rainjackets at hand, no more weather surprises for us. The drive into Cordoba, since we didn't take a main autovia, was beautiful even with the rain! We drove through the flats of Extremadura and made it into the mountains of Andalucia, driving through small towns of whitewashed buildings clinging to mountainsides.. must be incredible to see when the sun's out too! Oma and I were enjoying the views while Opa drove, including when we got to Cordoba. Unfortunately, the weekend we chose to travel on is a long weekend here in Spain (Dia de los Santos) so all the hotels we could find were booked, the traffic was awful, and we were all anxious from having been in the car for 5 hours.. In the end we decided to skip Cordoba, spend the night in a locality close by then head on to Sevilla which was only another hour away. We drove along the highway and found Ecija, a town of about 40,000 people, but since we were there around siesta time, all was quiet. The hotels downtown were booked so we ended up staying in a hotel right near a gas station but with small, clean rooms. We got two rooms, one for them and one for me since the rooms only had 2 single beds, and enjoyed an amazing Andalucian dinner - lots of pork again, roasted vegetables, beer and cold red wine - played some competitive games of rummy in the room then slept.

Sunday morning we made it to Sevilla. I am in love with Sevilla, and just got the strangest feeling even when we were just driving around, a feeling that I could very well see myself living here for a time. We bought my train ticket first, then found a hotel and booked a room, then we had the rest of the day to sightsee in Sevilla in the Santa Cruz district where La Giralda, Real Alcazar, Cathedral and Jewish Quarter are. If you ever look at a map of Sevilla, we spent 6 hours in only one small square... I can't imagine how long it would take to truly 'see' all of Sevilla! Monday morning we woke up early again to have breakfast and then go back to Santa Cruz, tour the bullring, poke our heads into a few more churches, and enjoy a lunch in a square where an old man came to busk by singing and play flamenco on his guitar, while we ate tapas... I really felt like I was in Andalucia at that point.

Having Oma and Opa in Spain felt so natural, even though I had to 'navigate' on the trip and wince at the near-run-ins with cars in Cordoba's crowded streets, I loved having them here and have realized how lucky I am to have a pair of such adventurous grandparents! Everyone here was so surprised that they would venture this far, let alone want to go on a roadtrip in a foreign country... my roommates have settled on having them as their 'adopted grandparents'. Not only that, but their few Spanish words that they spoke seemed to make them friends with the front desk agents at the hotels and with people who didn't speak a word of English... I have so many pictures from this trip it'll take an eternity to put them up but I will put them up soon.

As part of the bilingual program at IES San Jose, the students in 1o and 2o ESO learn about "English" traditions such as Halloween, Thanksgiving, Guy Fawkes Day, etc. and part of their classes included a pumpkin-carving contest, and decorating the front hall of the school with big hallowe'en posters of bats, haunted houses, and ghosts! These students are in the 1oESO Bilingue and are so eager to speak English...and pose for photos! :)