Cádiz for Carnaval!!!

So I really need to start to write these things right after I do things as I've already begun to forget things. I will once again preface this by saying most of these pictures I have once again stolen from friends in the program as I don't bring my camera most places to avoid it being stolen. Nothing much new happened the week after my trip to Bilbao, and Thursday night we took the 11:55 bus out of Salamanca for another weekend trip, this time to a small city on the southern shore of Spain called Cádiz. It was supposedly the best city in Spain to go to for Carnaval so we figured we'd give it a shot.

After an almost 8 hour bus ride with very little sleep, we arrived in Cádiz as the sun was rising. We started wondering over to the train station as our hotels were in Jerez de la Frontera, a city about 45 mins outside of Cádiz. On our walk over, we found a random statue and took pictures of it. I'm pretty sure we never figured out what it was, but the picture is below.

We eventually got over to Jerez and discovered that every single street in the city is lined with orange trees which gives it a much different feeling than Salamanca to say the least. The weather was so nice, at least 10 degrees warmer than Salamanca is not more.

We wondered around Jerez for a while as we had to wait until noon to check in to our hotels. We ended up sitting in park, picture below, outside of my hotel for most of it which was beautiful. There were palm trees! And sun!

I think it would be fair to say that by the time we actually got into our rooms, we were all incredibly exhausted. We ate a quick, typical travel lunch, 50 cent Carrefour bread with 1 euro Carrefour chorizo. Nice and cheap. That nap that ensued lasted until about 5. We originally planned on leaving for Cádiz about 6:30 to get there early enough to avoid tons of people. However, the girls had to get ready, and as Lindsey cleverly titled the night "Pre-game = game = game over". By the time we got to Cádiz, a couple people had to be brought back to the hotel which cut our numbers by about half. We met up with one of Tyler's high school friends who was studying in Cádiz for the whole year. She was nice enough to show us around the city for the night which was decorated with tons of lights like the ones below on every street. We went to a few bars and did a lot of wondering around the city and ended up sitting on the beach for a while which was really nice. At this point we were under the impression that Carnaval was not as crazy as we were led on to believe.

We got back to our hotel about 8 that morning due to inconvinient train schedules and slept most of the day. We made it back out to Cadiz around 5 pm with the plan of hanging out for a few hours then heading back to Jerez as more than one 8 am night gets very difficult to do. When we got there, we unfortunately realized that was the night to go out. The city was packed, completely. This picture was taken in the main plaza, before most people even got there.

We walked over to the shore behind the cathedral and sat there for a while and watched the sun set while debating what to do with our night. In the end we stuck to out plan of going home, mostly because we were severly lacking in energy compared to the rest of the crowd, which supposedly was more than twice the population of the actual city due to all the people who go just for Carnaval.


We made it back to the main plaza as it really started to fill up, mostly lacking in costume unfortunately. It was still really fun and we some some crazy costumes. It was also interesting to see how the lack of a concept of political correctness shows through in costumes.

The picture below I included because we were standing next to this guy for most the night who was trying to sell us a kazoo-thing that you keep inside of your mouth all night. Very strange man, he was there the next morning too...

We had a early night that night, but made it back into Cádiz by noon the next day to enjoy the more family-friendly activities that carnaval has to offer. The main attraction at Cádiz's carnaval is groups of singers, mostly men, who ride around the streets on tractors and sing funny songs about events of the past year.

One of the guys who went on the trip found some Spaniards that invited him to their beach house a half hour outside of the city. He accepted, but neglected to tell us, and as we checked out of our hotels the next morning, we just packed his stuff up too and hoped that we'd find him somewhere wondering the streets of Cádiz or passed out on a doorstep. Luckily he called about an hour before the bus left to let us know he was on his way back.

The following two pictures are pretty good examples of the state of the city on Sunday afternoon, with a week of carnaval to go... I'd like to emphasize that these were taken at 2 PM, the men in the first picture are about 50 years old, and the guy in the last picture is not dead, though we thought it was a distinct possibility until we saw he breathe.

Basque Country: Part II, San Sebastian

So, on day two we headed over to San Sebastian which is another city on the coast near France, also in Basque country. It was about an hour and 15 minute bus ride from Bilbao, round trip 19 euros which I didn't think to be too bad. A lot of the city is pretty stereotypically Spanish looking, but its the coast that makes it especially nice. Here's a picture of the obligatory cathedral in town.
This is a picture of part of the beach here. At low tide its enormous, but high tide covers up almost the entire thing. There were a bunch of kids playing in a beach soccer tournament when we first got there.
The project of the day was climbing a very large hill to get to the castle on top. The castle wasn't much, but the view from there was incredible. The picture below shows the castle on the right which has the enormous statue on top of it and the one below that is the view. Clicking on any of the pictures in the blog makes them bigger and therefore cooler.

After the hike, we decided to go and get la comida at an actual restaurant. It was the first time that I'd gone to a restaurant since I got here outside of tapas. It was a long wait and the food was okay, and it was a bit pricey, but it worked.

The last picture here is from a plaza kind of place at the end of the beach where an art exhibit had been permanently installed. We read about it in the museum of fine arts that we went to in Bilbao, so we figured we should actually go and see it while we were in San Sebastian and had nothing to do. They're called wind combs. That's all I got.
Last night, we tried to go out as the Basques do as all we had to do today was get back to Salamanca. We started by drinkig some calimocho (a mix of red wine and cola, not as repulsive as one would originally believe) out of coke bottles in a plaza. Then we figured out that Basques are infinitely sketchier than Salamantinos. About 10 minutes after getting to the plaza, this guy who was speaking a combination of Spanish, English, and Basque tried to sell Tyler coke, as in cocaine and kept making him listen to his Ipod. We then escaped that guy and followed where most people were headed only to find the sketchiest road I have ever been on. 10 times over. Everyone was either 16 or 25 and were dressed up in clothing that was something between goth-holloween-random, there was almost no street light and it reeked of urine from all the guys just peeing on the street. I guess this is fairly common as water trucks have to drive through the city every morning and wash away whatever was left the night before. Well, the girls from IES that also happened to be in Bilbao that weekend went home after we finished the calimocho and the rest of us just wandered around to a couple different places on a much less sketchy street. But then we ran into this guy named Abdul from Ghana we followed us around for a bit. The night finished off as any night out should, at a Doner Kebab place. So good.

This is about to be a paragraph of random things that I forgot to mention earlier in these posts. Let's see, well, our hostel was alright, but smelled heavily of old people and was very, very dull. It worked though. Jen, Sarah, and Martha happened to plan a trip to Bilbao for the same weekend so we met them for pintxos one night and then for a bit on Saturday night. I've decided that Basque may actually just be made up as I didn't hear anyone having an actual conversation in it, only Spanish, but all of the signs were in Basque before anything else. Also, they want their independence. A lot. They have some elections coming up in a couple weeks, and on huge bilboards all over Bilbao there were signs that said "Independientes para vivir mejor" and cars that drove around that blasted music to support one candidate. The say we went to San Sebastion, there was a huge protest in Bilbao and a bunch of people were arrested and there was somethinga about a bus being attacked. I dunno. Speaking of buses, there bus system is called Bilbobus which I found amusing. Also, Bibao is a city of 350,000 and they have a freaking metro system. I can see why they want their independence considering that their infinitely more wealthy than most of Spain and have to help the rest of the Spaniards pay for stuff at a greater share. Oh well.

Took the 6 hour bus ride back to Salamanca today and got in about 5 pm. Overall, the trip went very smoothly, and it was a lot of fun. Definitely glad I got to see it, it's a very interesting place to go and visit. Next weekend, Carnaval in Cádiz! Leave Thursday night, should be a good time!

Basque Country: Part I, Bilbao

I finally left Salamanca this weekend! Reid, a guy Tyler from Occidental on our trip, and I went to Basque Country for the weekend. We left Salamanca right after we got out of our Grammar class on Thurday at 2:45 and got into Bilbao at 8:45, which is the capital of the Basque Country, one of the 19 autonomous communities in Spain. The bus ride and three nights in a hostel cost 100 euros each which seems like a pretty good deal. The first night we went to get pinchos, or pintxos as you spell it in Basque, and then walked around Bilbao for like almost three hours, which was nice, but exhausting. Everything is definitely more expensive there though, not like poor old Salamanca.

Friday we spent the day at museums in Bilbao, mostly in the Guggenheim. The actual Guggenheim museum itself is an incredible building. Out in front there is an unnervingly large sculpture of a West Highland White Terrier that blooms with flowers during most of the year. Our guidebook said that it was supposed to be a welcoming and friendly entrance peice, but I just found it kind of terrifying. I have a feeling it has to do with a certain highly overprotective Westie that I am quite familiar with.


We were in the museum for about 3 hours or so, the first exhibits, like this LED panel by Jenny Holzer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrNVgRu5UWk, were definitely the best in my opinion. I tried for a while to find the words that were being shown on the screens but it seems like that's a lost cause. The whole second floor was work done by this one artist Cy Twombly whose work was interesting to say the least. A lot of crayons and random numbers on canvas, such as this, but more crayon and less order http://www.artchive.com/artchive/t/twombly/twombly_wheeler_dtl.jpg. I liked a couple of his works, but not the blocks of wood painted white and then called a boat sculpture.We bought Subway for lunch, which tasted exactly like the ones in America, just $13 for a meal instead of the 6 or 7 it is normally. We then played on this aweome playground. It was awesome. It would never exist in the U.S. as you are more likely than not to be seriously injured while playing on it which is why it was so awesome. That was definitely a theme in Basque Country, as in a general lack of railings and protective construction.
One last comment on the 30 foot spider in this picture. It was terrifying. But then we listened to an audio commentary on it and apparently the sculptuist was inspired by her mother who she loved very much. Odd stuff.
Once again, beautiful building.

First weeks of class

Sorry for the highly delayed posting, the last few weeks have been crazy busy, but not really. It's more like I just keep forgetting to update.

I've now officially been registered for my classes which are: Advanced Grammar and Syntax II, The Franco Regime, Literature and Politics in Spain in the 19th and 20th century, Economy of Modern Spain, and Surrealism in Spain. While I was hoping to take at least one class at the actual University of Salamanca with Spanish students, that just didn't work out. I tried out 4 different university classes and either didn't like the subject matter or the professor. In the end, it should work out fine though.

I added in a few pictures here that I took on my way home from class one night.


So far, the workload has been very light which is really nice. I have Fridays off for the first, last, and only time in my life! Woo! Each one of my classes has one essay due on April second, so I should prob start on those as I have midterms before them. But once again, a midterm, a final, and one paper; not all that difficult. We'll see though, you never know how things end up working out.

In other news, I've been spending a whole lot of money. Mostly on food as I'm trying to enjoy eating at least a little bit. Whenever I make a bigger meal, its usually with Reid and they've come out pretty well so far. I've also decided that if I don't come back ten pounds heavier after this semester considering the amount of chocolate, churros, and doner kebabs I've been eating, I have a tapeworm.

Molly and Jessica from Amherst came to Salamanca last weekend for a trip from Madrid where they're studying. I showed them around a little bit and ended up seeing them out on Saturday night. It was sooo cold that weekend though which was really unfortunate.

Life in Salamanca has been otherwise pretty stable, nothing all that exciting going on. I got my hair cut the other day which I thought could turn out disasterous considering the number of mullets I see on the streets, but it came out more or less fine. The people in the residencia had dinner together last week which was a really nice change of pace. The weather has vastly improved as well going from rainy every day to sunny every day and in the mid 50s. I'll try and update a little more often from now on as I feel I'm forgetting things that I've done.

A Look Back at Orientation

Today was the last day of orientation, and I surprisingly enjoyed 95% of it. I say that because orientation activities normally make me want to tear my hair out. Most of the people on the trip are easy to get along with which makes things easier. I'm going to try my best to not repeat things from previous posts in my general summary of the last week or so. Also, I can once again take no credit for any pictures in this post, this time because I don't bring my camera when we go out.

Anyway, Monday and Tuesday we had dancing lessons. I think I learned basic steps for 5 different kind of dances, and have no clue which belong to which. I unfortunately missed the inauguration broadcast because of the lessons, but I got to see it online later. They ended up being pretty fun even though I wouldn't think that I'd like it. On Monday we went to a bar called the Irish Rover with all the students and faculty of IES for a pizza party and a Spanish band called a "Tuna" came to play. They're basically a student group that plays random string instruments and most closely resemble a mariachi band probably. Here's a picture from inside the bar, I'm the one furthest back in the picture.


Here's a picture of the band. They were absurd looking, but put on a good show.


Wednesday I officially signed up for my classes and got everything that I was hoping to get. We did karaoke as a group on Thursday afternoon. That was probably the dull point of orientation, but still alright. I actually did it! With a group, but still, a big step for me... Then on Friday we went to a mall on the other side of the river. Actually, that was probably the dull point. If I had a ton of money to just throw around, I would have enjoyed it more as I like the clothing here a little too much, but it ended up being a lot of walking around. I saw Seven Pounds at the movie theater there which was really sad, but good. It was really confusing at the beginning though which was either the nature of the movie or because I had difficulty understanding the dubbed over version of Will Smith. Saturday we went to Zamora and Toro as I have already written about. Oh, and today we went to Valor and got chocolate con churros. It's things like that that I already know I'm going to miss when I go back home. What it is is basically melted, delicous chocolate in a cup served with sticks of fried dough to dip in it. Soooo amazing. It's more of an old lady thing to eat, but I really don't care, they taste way too good.

Outside of orientation acitivites, things are going pretty well as well. Monday night, a bunch of us stayed after the pizza party to hang out at the Irish Rover. It is the most American place ever. Only American Top 40 music and pictures of American icons all over the walls. It has a nice atmosphere, but not a place to go if you want to be Spanish. This is a picture of the two student orientation staff people who both are in the Facultad de Transducción. Saida is on the left and Mari is on the right.
I'm starting to get a hang of Spanish life a little bit more. A couple night ago we did tapa bar hopping for dinner. A group of 6 of us went and bought big plates of various tapas, including amazing chorizo, calamari, asparagus, and potato things. Overall it cost everyone like 15 euros which was a pretty good deal considering how much food and drink we got overall.

Last night, we went out again. Left the residencias at about 12:30 and got back at about 5. So late, but getting used to it. Its still unsettling to hear the birds singing on your way home. Here are some random pictures from people at different bars/discotecas. Anyone thats up close in the pictures is from my program. I admitedly look unnecessarily sketchy in the last one, but I thought I'd include it because its one of the few pictures with me in it.

So yes. Very good two weeks so far. Classes start tomorrow! Ahhh! I have both of my classes that I will be taking at the actual university tomorrow and I dont get home til 9 PM, but dont start til 1, so I'm okay with that. Wish me luck! I'll update soon about how my classes are going.

Day Trip to Toro and Zamora

I'm going to preface this post by saying that I did not take a single one of these pictures as I forgot my camera. So thank you to those people I stole these pictures from.

So. On Saturday, we took our second and last day trip of orientation. We went north this time to the town of Toro and then to Zamora. Toro is famous for its wine apparently, so we went to a winery! Being January and all, it wasn't a very active place, but we still had a tour of the "bodega" and a mini-wine tasting at the end which was more of a way to get 40 people to buy a bottle of wine from then than anything else. I may or may not have fallen for their tricks.

This is a picture of some of the vines next to the winery if that wasn't obvious.


Inside of one of the buildings where we did the "wine tasting" at 10:30 am. What an interesting breakfast.


Some of the barrels of wine in a basement. I may be missing some key vineyard vocab as I was taught it all in Spanish.


Different wines that they offered.


The next stop on our trip was to Zamora, the hometown of one of the IES staff members, David. It wasn't a very exciting city, but it had its cool parts nevertheless.

This is one of the plazas in Zamora that was filled with these trees that had been lead to grow together over many years so that it was one solid canopy on the top. It looked more like a sculpture in the winter than actual trees but it must look amazing in the summer when there are leaves on the trees.


I included this picture because it exemplified the town. In other words, it had a lot of old people and not much else. I also like the picture, but forget who I stole it from already.


This is part of a cathedral in Zamora. Not as cool as ours.


Another view of the cathedral. Its like a really really small version of Salamancas, or so we were told.


Zamora is known as the city of storks because, well, there are a lot of storks. The top of nearly every church in the city has a giant stork nest on it. Its pretty cool because they're just so freakin huge.


After we left Zamora, we stopped at an old wine cellar that has now been converted into a restaurant for la comida. The food was once again very good, but the restaurant was a bit too creepy for my taste. We had three courses of meat, ham to be precise. We started with a chorizo, then we had super thick bacon, then the main course was ribs. While they weren't the best I'd ever had, they were different than any other that I'd had before. After the meal, we had a delicious custardy desert that I already forget the name of followed by coffee and these "shots" that they gave everyone. I'm convinced that they were 99% sugar, but the combination of those and the wine they served with dinner got some of the girls pretty tipsy. The combination of drunks girls and the really creepy restaurant owner made for an interesting meal that involved said creepy man drawing obsene pictures on the table clothes and showing the group his collection of dirty diagrams and genital-shaped pottery. It was definitely an interesting experience and kind of surreal overall considering we were probably 30 feet or so underground, but it was still a lot of fun and filling overall.
This is the view outside of the restaurant. A series of private wine cellars.


The enterance to the restaurant. We should have known.


The ribs that they served us. Quite delicious.


Inside the restuarant/wine cellar. The best word to describe it would probably be "rustic".


Look! A picture with me in it! For some reason all the guys sat together so food was consumed much more quickly, but they just kept bringing us more, or we would steal some from one of the girls tables. So much food. Overall, a very nice day trip.

Segovia Day Trip

Yesterday we took a trip to the town of Segovia. It was about 2 hours north-east of Salamanca. We had to catch the bus at 8 in the morning. When we got there, we took a tour with a woman who was speaking very slowly in Spanish and using very simple words. It was a bit odd. Anyway, a lot of it was pretty interesting, there was a beautiful cathedral and we went into the castle used by the kings and queens of Castilla for hundreds of years. We were able to walk to the top of the tower and had some amazing views of the city.


This is a picture of some mountains outside of the city. As usual, much more impressive in real life.


This is Alcazar, the castle used by the kings and queens of Catilla for hundreds of years. The town-folk say that Walt Disney visited it once and it inspired the castles of his movies. Then other people said that was a complete lie. So. I guess make your own opinion.


More castle.


Highest part of the castle that we were able to climb up to.


View from the top of the tower looking down over part of the castle and the farmland around it.


Closer image of the same thing.


A very old church as seen from inside the castle.


View from the other side of the tower. This is the cathedral in town.


Back in town now, this is the front of the cathedral.


More cathedral.


And again, a full view of the cathdral as seen from the Plaza Mayor of Segovia.


A church in town.


The large arches to the left are Roman aqueducts. They have been touched in any way for 2000 years and are largely intact. There's nothing holding the stones together at all, they're just perfectly cut and placed. 100 feet tall, crazy stuff.

After hanging out in town for a while, we went to go eat lunch at about 2 or so in a very nice place a few miles outside of the city. IES payed for the meal and the food was amazing. They came out with plate after plate of appetizers and we had this delicious chicken dish for the main course.

We did end up going out last night and got to the fisrt place probably about 1. It's really weird being in any building and having people smoking around you. And the Spanish like to smoke a lot. My eyes were burning by the end of the night, but I guess I just gotta get used to that. Everything I was wearing smells so strongly of cigarettes. I got back to my room about 4 and we left the discoteca when it was at its busiest. I finally got over my jet lag, now I have to start going back to the sleep cycle I was on at home in order to keep up with the Spanish social scene. That's all for now!