Lisboa!!

This past weekend I was lucky enough to take a short, weekend trip to Portugal.  Salamanca is in the west of Spain, so pretty close to the border of Portugal.  Our journey started out at 3:30 am on Friday morning with a nice long walk to the train station where we waited for our train to arrive.  We boarded our train, I fell asleep and seven hours later I woke up in Lisbon, Portugal.  We arrived with no real plans, just a piece of paper that had the names and addresses of a few hostels and tourist attractions.  This was the weirdest feeling of all, when we got off of the train we had no real place to stay, no way of knowing which way to go and none of us knew Portuguese.  We started asking anyone we walked by where certain places were and how to get there.  I feel like that’s one big difference about going abroad, I always ask for directions  and ask questions, much more than I did at home.  We eventually headed for the metro thanks to a nice stranger who also gave us a hand drawn map of where we needed to go.  When we got off the metro we started searching for our hostel which apparently was at the to of this huge hill, so steep that they provide a cable car to bring you to the top of it.  Unfortunately the cable car costs three euro so we found ourselves trecking all the way to the top of the hill and then halfway down again to find our hostel.  The hostel we stayed in was pretty big and so nice! We met such interesting people, a doctor from Holland ( she could speak about five languages) a music teacher from Australia and a girl from New Zealand who was traveling by herself for nine months because he had just graduated from college.  I decided that the people you meet in hostels might be the most interesting people you will ever meet, they have such cool stories and have usually been so many places and can give you recommendations of where else to travel.  One morning we even ended up meeting a husband and wife from New York!

The man working at the desk told us about a beach that was nearby that was beautiful, so we set out on a couple train rides and a bus and eventually ended up at the beach.  ( I realized two things at the beach, I didn’t bring a bathing suit abroad, an I didn’t go to the beach once this past summer!)  The beach was so nice and we all slept to recover from the overnight train ride we had taken earlier that day.

The next day we woke up early and crammed all of our sightseeing in one day.  I really think we did a weeks worth of touring in just seven hours.  We bought a Lisboa pass for only 14 euro which gave us free public transportation and got us into almost al of the famous monuments and museams for free.  We saw it all: from castles, to monasteries, to cathedrals to the most famous pastry shop in all of Portugal! We might have spent more time on public transportation ( or chasing forms of public transportation) than we did sightseeing but it was a great day and I have so many good pictures from it!  We went to the Discoverers Monument and took a fun picture which I attached below and went up in an elevator where you could see the entire city of Portugal.

Sunday was the real adventure of the day though: attempt at beach trip number two.  We only had a half day on Sunday so decided (since we still had free public transportation access) to go to a beach in Portugal that is apparently very well known and has been featured as one of the worlds most beautiful beaches.  It was about an hour away but we left at nine am to give ourselves a good amount of time at the beach.  By the time we got to the beach it was probably around ten am and from the bus the beach was looking absolutely gorgeous.  The bus stopped and all of us excitedly jumped off the bus only to be blown back by the strongest winds I have ever felt in my life.  I don’t even know how to put into words how windy it was there.  The bus drove away and we were left standing on the side of the road screaming becasue the wind was blowing all the little rocks and sand at us so hard they were pelting our legs.  We could barely walk in a straight line but we went inside a restaraunt to take shelter.  The people there looked at us like we were crazy and told us that it wasn’t safe to go to the beach and we should probably just get back on the bus.  The next bus didn’t come for another hour so we spent a pretty long time taking pictures and trying to capture exactly how crazy the wind was there.  After an hour of this we got back on the bus and started our journey back to Lisbon and back to the train station.  Moral of the story: always look at the weather before you go to the beach or you will end up spending your entire day on public transportation.  Even though we never made it to the beach, that was one of the funniest times I have had thus far abroad.  We got back to Salamanca at one am on Monday morning and it was pretty cold considering on Friday when we left we were all wearing shorts and t-shirts.  I think it’s finally fall in Salamanca, we were so lucky to have such warm weather but it might be time to finally put the shorts away.  

Traveling to Portugal made me excited to keep traveling more while I’m here.  Earlier today I was looking up flights all around Spain and even to Italy and other countries and trying to pick which weekends I wanted to go where and I realized how few weekends I have here.  That was strange to see and I realized I have to start palnning the rest of these trips asap if I want to make it everywhere I want to go.  Obrigada for reading! (Portuguese for than you).

Salamanca: week 2!

Hello family and friends!

I feel like I have so much to talk about since the last time I wrote but I’ll try and fit everything in.  This past week has flown by, which is scary considering that it’s still just the beginning.  The weather here is still gorgeous!  It’s hot enough to wear shorts everyday and it hasn’t been cloudy or rained here yet.  The fiestes here are still happening (yes they are celebrating for two weeks for one holiday) so there have still been outdoor concerts in the Plaza every night.  Also, for these two weeks all of the bars and local restaurants move outdoors into “casetas” and they sell their tapas, which are little individual portions of food that don’t cost a lot, until 1 am.   Each caseta has a different specialty and last night our API program directors bought us tapas at about four different casetas and we went and hung out as a group.

Classes so far have been fantastic, even though I’m still in the early start program I can tell that I’m going to like this semester.  At first I was a little concerned about the structure, I have class for four hours a day, every day, which is a lot different than what I was used to for typical college classes.  But I really do enjoy going to my classes and I think having this much Spanish everyday should really improve my Spanish skills.  Our API director assured us that the professors are very understanding of us missing classes ( within the 7 that we are allowed to miss) on Fridays if we are planning on traveling.  Our classes aren’t lecture, or note taking format, they are more of really small classroom discussions and everyone gets so involved in them the classes fly by.  In my conversation class lately we have been talking about Spanish and American superstitions and where they come from.  We learned that when you pass the salt at dinner, to never pass it directly to the next person, put it down first and let them pick it up.  We also learned that the Spanish tradition of eating 12 grapes at midnight on New Year’s Eve most likely came from store owners and vendors long ago that weren’t selling enough grapes in the winter so they made up this tradition so that everyone would start buying grapes! ( Fun fact: When Popeye originally came out Spinach companies were not too successful so they paid the makers of Popeye to feature spinach and this brought them success.)  Our professor told us that Salamanca has an interesting tradition relating to 12 grapes on New Years Eve custom.  Since this is such a big college city, most of the students don’t get to experience New Years here so on December 14th or 15th they have a fake New Year’s Eve and all the college students go to the Plaza Mayor and eat their 12 grapes then, before going home for Christmas break.  Anyways, these are the not the only things we talk about in class, we have a whole class on Spanish culture in addition to a two hour grammar class each day.

In the afternoons after class ends we have typically been walking around the city and exploring still.  Salamanca is small enough to walk around but big enough that I still have places I haven’t been yet.  Today we went on a tour of the University that was given in Spanish ( it happened to be going on and it was free, so why not?) and we were able to find out a lot of the history behind the school.  After all it is the oldest University in Spain and the third oldest in the world.  The thing that I found most fascinating (warning: this may be false information, keep in mind the whole thing was in Spanish) is that in the center courtyard of the University is an extremely tall Sequoia tree.  What’s so weird about this?  Sequoia tree’s are American trees.  Christopher Columbus brought over that exact tree when he came back to Spain from America and now it is HUGE.  Why he planted it in the middle of the University of Salamanca, I have no idea.  Again, I have misunderstood that, but I’m almost positive that’s what the tour guide said.  

Other random things I have been doing include:

1. Going to various supermarkets to but apples to eat during the huge gaps between meals

2. I went to a league soccer game that a friend of ours was playing in

3. Still attempting to plan all of our trips for the semester, we finally chose weekends, now we still have to get there....

4. Which bring me to the last and most exciting: I’m going to Portugal this weekend!  We leave for Lisbon Friday and come back late Sunday night and I’m very excited!

Well those are all my updates for now!  I’ll post again after Portugal :)

Hasta Luego!

First Week in Salamanca

Hello again!

It’s been a while since I last updated the blog and a lot has happened since then. First of all, on Saturday we arrived in Salamanca and moved into the residencia. Seeing all of us carry all of our huge suitcases up four flights of stairs must have been pretty amusing. The woman who runs the residencia is named Pilar and she is very nice and so funny. Pilar doesn’t speak any English so whenever we are around her and at the kitchen table we have to speak in Spanish the whole time. It’s been less then a week and I can already understand her better than I could on the first day. We all can speak Spanish better than I expected and usually it carries over after dinner and Pilar laughs at us from the next room over at some of the “Spanish” phrases we use.

After doing a lot of touristy things and taking tours this weekend we had our placement exam on Monday morning and then started classes on Tuesday. I placed into Advanced Spanish grammar and in addition to that I have a class on culture and a class on conversation. Combined this makes four straight hours of class each day, five days a week. I think that’s more time than I spend in class per week at Stonehill. This is because this is part of the semester early start program, the academic year for Spanish college students doesn’t start until the beginning of October, and my schedule will change then. But for now it’s four hours of Spanish, everyday. On our first day of classes we left twenty minutes early and got to class ten minutes late. It turns out that our classes are actually much closer than we originally thought and we walked in a huge loop to try and get there. Our teacher didn't mind and now we have no problem finding our building. I really enjoy my classes though I think they are very interesting and I find it easier to pay attention when you constantly have to be listening to understand a different language. All of the professors are very energetic people and have fun teaching the classes.


Today (Thursday) is a holiday in Salamanca because it is the day of the patron Saint of the city. There are fiestas going on everywhere, there were fireworks and a concert last night and there is something happening almost every night this week. We are also in the process of figuring out where and when we want to travel to! We realized we only have about fourteen weekends here in Europe and when we looked up airline tickets they were very cheap! If any others who have already studied abroad and have suggestions about where to go please let me know!


Today we went and saw a local soccer game during the day. At halftime we started walking home as we saw a huge group of people sprinting up the street. Naturally there were people with huge paper mache heads chasing after them. Apparently this is some sort of tradition and they parade trough the city as kids join on their parade as they pass by. We are thinking that tomorrow we should follow them all throughout the city. Tonight after dinner we went to the Plaza MAyor for the huge concert that took place. We looked a little out of place when everyone in the audience was singing along with the songs and we had never heard them before but it was still really fun. Attached are a few of the many pictures I have taken so far. Enjoy!

The courtyard of the University of Salamanca

 The Plaza Mayor in Salamanca

 The University

 Our room!

Madrid & Toledo

I think I've finally recovered from jet lag which is the weirdest feeling I have ever experienced.  Every time I walked I felt like I was on a boat and I never wanted to eat at normal meal times.  The list of random places I've fallen asleep includes: the airport floor, three different bus rides, two meetings and standing up on a tour of a museum.  But now I'm finally on the same time schedule as the rest of the country and having so much fun!  We have spent these last days in Madrid and today we went on a day trip to Toledo.  Our days have been filled with things to do and places to go and visit.  If I were to describe everything that we have done so far most of you (with the exception of my parents and Laura) would probably stop reading here so I'll list it out and make it easy for you. 

1. Went to the Plaza Mayor in Madrid and had tapas for lunch right after we arrived, (I was a zombie from being awake for twenty four hours) and ate paella for the first time which was very good.  We also had an interesting encounter with a man dressed as spiderman (the world's fattest spiderman).

2. Our first meal as a group was at an Italian restaurant?

3.  Took a tour of the Puerta del Sol and the Plaza Mayor.  After that, we wandered around the streets of Madrid for a while, I surprisingly am finding out how to get places pretty easily and haven’t been lost yet.

4. Took a tour of the Museo Nacional del Prado and then the Royal Palace in Spain.  So many places in Madrid remain in the same state they were originally built in, making the city very beautiful.

5. Made some Spanish friends who told us that our Spanish was very good!

6. Visited Toledo for the day and had lunch there.

7. Rode the escalators in the department store up and down all seven floors looking for hair straightners which eventually ended with success.

8. Ate churros, and drank all of the chocolate after.

Random fun things I have learned so far:

1. You don't have to tip in Spain, our first few waiters must have really liked us.

2. Street vendors love to harass people and will come up to your tables while you eat outside and try and sell you everything and anything.

3. The royal family doesn't actually live in the palace because it's too big for them.....

4. Pinky promises are international.

5. High-fiving in every day conversations is semi-international, sometimes you get high-fived back, sometimes you get weird stares.

6.  Attempting to shake someone’s hand upon meeting will get you laughed at.

7. An hour and fifteen minutes before you have to get on a bus is not enough time to get lunch.  Meals are a very slow and long process, and you can't take food to go.

8. “Vale” is apparently a question and an answer. And is the go to phrase whenever there is confusion.

9. All of the music I have heard so far is the same music that is popular at home.  We asked some of our Spanish friends about this and they told us that they like listening to it but they don’t really know what the songs mean.

10. You actually have to pay attention to the "walk" and "don’t walk" signs at cross walks.  Cars don’t slow down for pedestrians, especially the taxis.

11. The art of mastering awkward solo shots.  Pictures of just me in front of important/ interesting things coming soon! 

Tomorrow, we go to Salamanca where I’ll be living for the rest of the semester and move into our residencia.  I’m excited to not be living out of a suitcase anymore and to actually know my way around the city of Salamanca!

Hasta Luego

Hola!

Hello from Spain!

I decided that starting a blog would be the best way to keep everyone in my life updated on my life and my adventures in Spain.   First of all I should probably explain the title.   My friends at Stonehill like to joke that whenever anything good happens I usually respond with a very dramatic, "This is the best day ever!"  They tell me that I use the expression too frequently for it to actually hold any meeting, but some of them have even caught on and started saying it themselves.  More than one of them suggested I use it for my blog title, which resulted in a shorter and Spanish version of it. So here it is, a collection of stories about what I do here and what I learn along the way. Enjoy!

p.s. shout out to kyle for the web address. thanks.