Another Two Weeks Already?

¡Hola por otra vez! For those of you (unlike Jean) who haven’t been checking my facebook page three times daily over the last two weeks, here is a long-awaited update. I’m pretty sure I’ve said this before, but even though I feel completely accustomed to Salamanca, not a day goes by when I’m not surprised by something new. Like the reactions of everyone in the city the one day we got a little bit of snow. One thing you should know is that Salamanca is a university city, and a place where many students flock from across Spain and across the world. Therefore, at this time of year, you will find many Spaniards, but also a good number of Brazilians, Chinese, British, Americans, Dutch, Germans…and the list never stops. (Although my father would be happy to know that of these students, only 35% are male, and 65% are female.) For those students who have never seen snow in their lives (hard for us to imagine, I know), looking outside at 3:00am on a Friday morning and seeing a snowfall was cause for celebration. At the time, I was in a discoteca with some friends and, along with everyone else, we grabbed our coats and rushed into the street so that everyone could take at least 57 pictures of this “once in a lifetime event.” How peculiar.

These last two weeks I have spent a lot more time with people from school, um, out and about the city (at all hours of the day…and night), and because of this have been spending less time just wandering around. However, I did get a chance to take some post-dusk pictures at the southern limits of the city. Want to know how beautiful they are?

Although many people are pretty focused on how unbearably cold it is during January and February, I would describe this 20 minute walk refreshing – any Ohioan can handle this without a problem. I also skipped one of my afternoon naps (which, believe me, was a really big deal) in order to get a few pictures closer to the end of last week of the city in the sunshine – because of the type of rock that most of the buildings are constructed of, Salamanca basically glows in the sunlight. I hope you appreciate this contrast on the side of the main University building - it is absolutely stunning to witness.

Food: I love it. Okay, so I loved it even before I came to this country, but it is so much fun to just order something on a menu and see what you get (good thing I’m not as picky as I was when I was younger). Not only have I eaten an array of paellas, but I’ve also had my first Turkish food (introduced by a few friendly Turks), churros and tapas, but also an interesting concoction called “arroz alla cubana,” or Cuban style rice. A fairly simple dish to prepare, arroz alla cubana is a basic staple in many of the restaurants here – start with a small mound of rice, place a fried egg (sunny-side up) on top of the pile, and season with tomato sauce. Yes, that’s it. It’s not my favorite, but I’m getting a little used to the eccentricity (or rather, lack of) of this meal.
As I’ve mentioned before, don Quijote (my school) gets new students every week, but this also means that we have friends who leave every week as well. While this gives us a good excuse to celebrate Salamanca every weekend, it’s also a little like constantly living in transition. I have made quite a few friends, but have also seen a few leave. However, it is very common for a group of us to go out for tapas (similar to hors d’oeurves) after our evening class – especially when we go to a place where the tapas are free with the purchase of a drink. One of these evenings, I was at a bar called Murphy’s with the Turks and a girl from England when one of the Turks turned to the couple next to us and started a conversation. Within minutes, we were talking with Carlos and Julia as if we had been speaking Spanish our entire lives…and it’s moments like that where I can really see how I’ve improved in only three short weeks. After the next half hour or so had passed, we all exchanged emails so that we could meet for dinner someday – if we get it to work, I’ll let you know how it goes!

The amount of “Americanisms” that I see everywhere is also pretty incredible – from the songs on the radio (including “Born in the USA.” Think about that for a second) to the presence of Burger King (where sundaes are called “Sandys”) to the movies on television and in theatres and, most importantly, the Super Bowl. To celebrate this great American event, I joined forces with one of the few other Americans that I know here to introduce a group of Latinos and Europeans to the wonderful world of [American] football. A bar that is extremely popular with the international students was playing the game on a projection screen, so we took our crew of about 10 to the Irish Rover. Apart from explaining the sport in three different languages, not getting to see any of the commercials, and trying to decipher what the Spanish commentators were saying about the game, we really enjoyed ourselves. Oh, and we didn’t actually watch the whole game, because in Spain it didn’t start until midnight, and we decided that two hours was long enough. However, we did get most of the rest of our group to stay for a half hour, which Ian and I decided was a pretty great accomplishment.

That’s pretty much the news from across the Atlantic. It has been warming up during the day recently, even reaching temperatures around 70F (during which, of course, fur coats are still commonly seen in the streets) so people have really been enjoying the sunshine and the (somewhat distant) promise of spring. Don’t worry, I’m sure that it will come your way sometime soon – after all, Phil didn’t see his shadow! (And yes, I had to research Groundhog Day to explain this great American holiday to my class. Imagine that one for a good laugh.)