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!