Alba de Tormes

Well as it turns out my trip to Toledo was cancelled. It was snowing all Saturday and Sunday. It was the second time since being here that Salamanca has gotten more than its yearly dose of snow. I'm afraid that I brought it with me. Here are the Cathedrals in the snow. The picture doesn't do it justice. The city is absolutely gorgeous in the snow.
It's also gorgeous at night. I need to find a stand so I can take better pictures. I manage to blur them all with the longer exposure times.
Here you see the northern lights of Spain...or I was breathing and taking pictures at the same time...oops. Below is the Calle Compañia.
Anyway, I should get to go to Toledo next Sunday. Tomorrow I'm traveling with a friend (Alexia from Greece) to visit Segovia. Yay Roman Aqueduct!

Today I visited Alba de Tormes with a few friends. It's a small town not far from Salamanca (20 km). It was the final resting place of Santa Teresa de Jesus. The priest there told us a lot about the history, and they have a small museum. This museum includes on display Santa Teresa's left arm and heart (yes really) on display in some very ornate glass and gold cases. Kinda scary. The rest of her is in an ornate sepulcre. He said that the last nun to inspect her body and place it in it's current spot wrote in the documentation of how the body was entirely intact and preserved. Here's the view from the city. It's situated on a hill. The countryside is pretty.

Spanish Cuisine

Well yesterday I got 3 pieces of mail. This was insane as I've not received mail up to this point. It was very happy. Thanks all!

So yesterday I had dinner with my Adsis people. Had some type of meat that was very rich. It was good. As I was half way through I asked what it was, and it turns out I was eating tongue. It's probably a good thing I didn't know that first. Also tried the Calimocho. It's the most popular drink here (not Sangria). It's just a cheap red wine mixed with Coke. Doesn't sound good. It's not terrible, but I still wouldn't suggest it.

Tomorrow I travel to Toledo with a student group of extranjeros from the University. I'm excited. Will put up pictures when I get back.

Peanut Butter

So I finally found Peanut Butter. I had to take a bus outside of Salamanca and walk 20 minutes to this L. Eclerc. It's the Walmart of Spain apparently and big even by American standards.
Even so they have available only one little jar of peanut butter. Not even a full size jar, and absolutely no selection (Captain Mani imported from the US), although it has many different brands of chocolate spread. (Ingredients you ask? sugar...and then pig fat...mmmm...good)

Also, convinced my Erasmus friends to go Bowling. I found an alley here, and was surprised. It has 6 lanes, and the balls, silly screen animations, and everything is definitely imported from the US. It was a good time. Jochen had bowled a little before, but the other two hadn't. It was hilarious. Trying to explain to them that the balls are marked based on pounds which are roughly half a kilogram was nearly impossible....silly history students. :)

Bah!

Well, as I'd learned a few weeks ago, many of the college workers on a form of a strike. This usually means that I can't use the computer labs or library 2 days a week. This week it's 3 days. I also learned that the professors without tenure are also on strike, so no class for me today or thursday. So in summation, no internet, no library, no teachers, no class. That's all.

On the up side, found a new intenet cafe that's much much closer, a little cheaper, let's me use my laptop, and doesn't have smoking. Except that I'm still paying, it's almost a Godsend.

So that this is not an entirely wasted post, I will leave you with this slightly amusing tidbit. I happened to be bored a few days ago. After looking at my reflection in our sugar bowl, I wondered if I could distort a picture similarly in photoshop. Well, not exactly....

Here's me:and here's Tal...I mean me...distorted...

Santa Marta

Friday was amazing. Absolutely fantastic. I have been truly blessed. Friday throughout all of Salamanca is a huge fundraiser for Manos Unidas (Hands United). Ingredients and labor are donated to make thousands and thousands of bocadillos (sandwiches) which are then sold. The money goes to provide potable water to people in Burundi. A friend from Adsis invited me to come join them for bocadillos in the afternoon. This is in Santa Marta, a small town (pueblicito) just outside of Salamanca. It was good to be in the community and actually talking to people. Just seeing children at play was very rejuvenating. I got a picture of them playing with a paracaídas (literally stop-falls or in English, a parachute). Later in the afternoon, we took the leftover sandwiches to some nearby gitanos (gypsies). They live in shanties built of seemingly whatever they could find to use, plywood, aluminum, cardboard, you name it. The ones I met were very friendly. They invited us in and asked us to have coffee or to eat with them, even when we were coming to bring them sandwiches. They pleaded also with the priest to bring them clothes and some blankets for the cold. We talked with one about finding a job also. Of course it was poverty on a level more rarely seen in the US, but what struck me most about the people were their eyes. They have the most amazing, variegated eyes. Once we left there, we found our way back to the Adsis house where 10 people, including 2 priests, live in community. Most of them I’d met earlier at the Centro Serranos where I’ve started volunteering. Still, I was touched by their way of welcoming me. Talking to them really has helped my Spanish, and I’m understanding conversation much better. I probably spoke more Spanish that day than in the past 3 weeks combined.

As I found out, there’s more to Salamanca’s tradition of selling sandwiches for Burundi. For the adolescents it’s tradition to buy the sandwiches, along with a liter (of beer, wine or whatever) and go to park. The park is huge, and they go in mass. The age here for buying alcohol is 16, and it makes for a scene very different from that found in the US. A few of us went just to see the scene. We did a decent amount of walking, and unfortunately it happened to be the windiest day yet.

After this we went to another house, this one actually in Salamanca. It’s the same community of people, just one more house. Here I met also a student from Italy who is finishing up his semester here. He, like I, came here to study and just ended up becoming part of the group. I really enjoyed talking with him, and he lives not far away. We were invited, or rather, forced into having dinner with all of them. Listening and talking with them over dinner, was definitely the most enjoyable time I’ve spent thus far in Spain. It was also good to be with ‘real’ people. At school there are students, and at church there are elderly people. Here there was a spectrum and children. Sometimes I miss seeing children. They also asked me a lot of questions about my home and the US. It felt good to talk about my home, and sharing it with someone made me not miss it so much. I’ll have to try to catch up on some reading tomorrow, but it was undeniably a day well spent.

Cemetery

Things here in Salamanca continue to go. Wow so many words to learn. It’s crazy…getting better, but still crazy. It’s been about 3 weeks. I should have it down by now right? Ah well. I visited the cemetery which is crazy huge. (Today’s blog brought to you by the word ‘crazy’) The only other time I’ve seen so many graves was at Arlington National, but this was impressive in a different way, as they are all above the ground. There’s a wall around the cemetery, and even the walls serve as graves. Strangely, all of the tombstones are relatively recent. The oldest ones I could find are from the 1940’s. My Trinitarian friend, Yamir, suggested that the city isn’t actually that old. Yes, downtown and the cathedral and such have been there forever. However, my side of town and the giant cemetery; not so much. He said that their home/complex was built 30 years ago, and at that time they had no neighbors whatsoever. Now it’s apartment buildings as far as the eye can see.

Anyway, here's the entrance to the cemetary.
Well I’ve started volunteering. Thus far I don’t do a whole lot, but once a week I’m helping a Moroccan girl with her English. She came here a few years ago not knowing Spanish, and hence, couldn’t take part in the Spanish education system. Now she’s working on completing equivalency tests, so she can continue to study if not at a university, then at least at a trade school or the like. Needless to say, this helps me equally much with my Spanish, so it hardly counts as volunteering.

Mostly I’ve just been going to class, and exploring the city. My house is a 15 minute walk from the school, and I make that trip 2-3 times a day. I probably average 7-8 miles a day. Some are less when I need to take care of classes and work, and some are much, much more. I think my body is getting used to it. My calves are in a constant state of rock hardness, and the skin on my feet is thick like none other. Lovely, I know. Guess that’s all for now. Hopefully my life will be filled with exciting things to write about in the near future.

I miss...

I miss peanut butter. Breakfast, suitees, English, free internet, and Manfred.

Wild Goose Chase

Ahhhhhhhhh!...*grumble*

So the libraries. I´m looking for one book, Nacimiento del Cristianismo (birth of christianity). First, I need a student card. The day after I arrive, I go to my office and ask for a card. It´ll take 3 business days and won´t be ready till next Tuesday. So that was last week, I get my card. Yay! Find out the next day, that I still can´t check out books, now I need a bar code on my card. It´s too late to go to the library services office now, so I go the next day, last Thursday. I trek across town, and they tell me it´ll take another 3 business days; come back Tuesday. Today, I go back this morning. They haven´t done anything with my card, but they tell me to wait and it takes 3 minutes to get me a bar code. 3 minutes! I waited 5 days for that. Okay good, so they told me my book was in the Filosophía library, and I go there. Turns out it´s in the Filología library. Filolo...whatever. What is Filología anyway? No one seems to know. And of course, this building is on the other side of town...20 minutes later I arrive at the Facultad de Filología. I find out there are actually 2 buildings for this discipline, and of course, I´m at the wrong one...10 minutes later. This time I´m at the right building, but the library is actually just down the street...3 minutes later. Librarian checks, and the book is not checked out and shows me on a map of the library where to find it. Huzzah...I go there...I look...it´s not there. Why would it be there? What was I thinking? Of course it´s not there. 2 copies of the book, missing. So I now have a useable library card, I know where the correct library is, and this information is utterly useless to me.
*Angry*

Volunteering

Well, I’ve started some textbook, and at first it was taking my 30 minutes a page. Excellent…I know I just need practice at reading just like listening and speaking, but I find it harder to make myself sit down and read.

Yesterday I went to a meeting of people working with and volunteering for the Adsis Foundation. It’s a group I found here in Salamanca. The organization itself is much larger (www.fundacionadsis.org sorry, it’s in Spanish). It’s basically a NGO that work on various social justice problems. The group in Salamanca has 4 programs. They work with disadvantaged youth by providing afterschool programs and tutoring. They also work with children with learning disabilities and finally with older youth who for whatever reason didn’t complete the required schooling. They have tutoring and classes to help them take and pass the equivalent of our GED. They also have a group of volunteers that run some programs in the prisons, taking time mostly just to visit and talk to the inmates. I forget the 3^rd, but the 4^th is Comercio Justo. This is program where they get products produced in the third world under humane conditions and for better pay, and they sell them here at prices that are higher, but better reflect the real cost of things when people aren’t exploited. The people I met were very friendly, and Miguel reminded me so much of John Lehnerz (whom only my family will know. Suffice to say, good man.)

After Mass today I went to talk to one of the Trinitarians about the mass schedule. We ended up talking about much more. He’s from Columbia and has been studying here at the Universidad Pontificia for two years. He showed me the house for the 14 Trinitarians here in Salamanca. I don’t know what you’d call it. I think he said Monestary, but they’re not cloistered. Meh… He also let me borrow a Bible in Castellano. As I’ve been informed by multiple people here, they do not speak Spanish here. They speak Castellano, or Castillian in English. The Castillian region is where the pure Spanish language comes from, and Salamanca is the center of it. There are 3-4 different dialects here in Spain, all of them Spanish, but none of them referred to as such. That’s all for now. I hope to understand more as I start the 2^nd week of classes. Hopefully I haven’t missed any assignments yet. Vamos a ver. (We’ll see.)

Crazy Stairs

So I know I'm a dork, but I'd never seen anything like this before. Coolest thing ever.
Stairs when viewed from the bottom.
A ramp when viewed from the top.

It's a ramp and a staircase in one! So awesome. No really, this made my day. You have no idea. :)

Pictures

Just looking down a city street on my way to school. Thought it was pretty.
This is in the courtyard of the historic entrance to my school, and if I were to turn around, I would see said entrance...


This is the public library. There's something about the conch shells covering it, but I can't think of it now and will have to find out later.

Erasmus

Today I went to my remaining two classes. If it’s possible, these two professors spoke even faster than the first two. I can tell that I am already understanding more. It comes and goes. By the end of the day I was understanding more words, but sentences and the meaning of the sentences still confuse me. One student told me that it was difficult to follow the professor’s train of thought anyway, so I didn’t feel so bad. I just need to figure out what I need to do for my classes. It is clear to me what is expected in only 1 of my 4. Argh…

Today I met many Erasmus students. They were speaking English since none of them are great at Spanish and they don’t speak each other’s languages. To me this is strange. I think it’s amazing that they can all speak 4-5 languages moderately well and 2 or 3 fluently. Ann Marie is the only American I know that studies languages so extensively. I think if I get through Spanish, I’ll be happy with myself. I don’t know if it’s just because our pronunciation is closer the Spanish or what, but I don’t have nearly the accent or problems that the German and French students have. Many of the Germans are speaking Spanish words, but to me it sounds like German. One French student has been here a semester and I wouldn’t have guessed he was un extranjero (foreigner) and another French student I couldn’t understand at all. As far as I can tell, foreign students make up maybe 1/3 of the student population. I have no idea really, but it’s crazy. It seems the majority of Spanish students look on us with disdain, or it could just be that it’s annoying not to understand all the people walking around speaking English. I need to try to find a native Spanish speaker to befriend. I also need a break from concentrating on every word. Hopefully it will come. Poco a poco, no?