Yesterday (Saturday 1/23) was the group's first mandatory excursion to the Spanish cities of Segovia and Avila. Our bus left from the Plaza Fonseca at 9 and, as promised, Micah would not wait for anyone. Zach had to flag down the bus and he was less than 5 minutes late.
Segovia is a beautiful, small town about 2 hours east of Salamanca. It's famous for its completely intact Roman aqueduct which soars some 30 meters above the town's main plaza. Hopefully, we'll be putting some pictures up soon from Amanda's camera so you can marvel, like we did, at the enormity and architectural mastery of such an ancient structure.
We then headed the town's Alcazar (an arabic word meaning "palace." Many cities in Spain have an alcazar so the medieval royal families could stay somewhere as they traveled throughout the country.) It was certainly impressive, an old castle perched on top of a cliff with beautiful views in every direction, but I couldn't get interested the history as we moved painfully slowly from room to room as Micah (our group leader) explained the function and history behind every single bed, tapestry, and stained glass window.
(ASIDE): This is not to say I don't enjoy or appreciate the history of this country, in fact, I love Spanish history but EVERY SINGLE tour involves looking at some church, the story behind some patron saint, and the town's alcazar. All I'm saying is that our tour, was a little winded for a town with relatively little historical significance.
The tour was followed by a group lunch at the Hidalgo Restaurant where we were treated to the town's signature dish: "Cuchinillo." ( You cannot imagine how many times we had to ask throughout the day "What are we eating?" To learn that word.) Cuchinillo is a baby suckling pig that they brought out on a large trey to the delight of some and the horror of others. All it was missing was an apple in its mouth. The cuchinillo is cooked until the meat inside is soft (imagine duck) and the skin outside is hard (like lobster.) To break apart the cuchinillo, the camarero (waiter) takes the edge of a plate and bashes the joints of the pig until it separates. Afterwards, as per Spanish tradition, the waiter takes the plate and smashes it on the floor. Needless to say, it was one of those cultural experiences that would be hard to replicate elsewhere. As for the taste, well, it was ok, a little hard to get to the meat and a little fatty, but I would have been upset with myself if I hadn't tried it.
After lunch we headed for Avila, which I can safely say, was a thorough disappointment. Avila is about an hour back towards Salamanca and is famous for its completely intact defensive wall ("muralla") that surrounds the entire old city. The group had been looking forward to walking along the ramparts and taking some scenic pictures, but instead we had to go to a mysticism museum.
Mysticism was a spanish literary movement that blah, blah blah.... I could explain it, but honestly, its not worth either of our time. It was the stupidest museum I have ever been to in my life for more than one reason. Even Carlos, Micah's second in command, couldn't feign enthusiasm for it as we joked about the exhibits inside in Spanish. These were my reasons for disliking it:
A) They don't open the museum's bathroom on weekends which turned into a big problem for us after the bus ride to Avila. I questioned the lady working there about the bizarre policy prompting this response, "I don't know why the bathroom isn't open but we're not even allowed the bring the key. It's a problem because when I have to go the bathroom, I have to go all the way home." She was met with some incredulous stares.
B) The exhibits had little, if any, explanation and little, if any connection to mysticism. From the light jazz playing through the speakers to the bell rope connected to the ceiling, the displayed items looked as random as a wall at a typical Fridays restaurant. If you've been to Friday's you know what I'm talking about.
C) The exhibit that threw us all over the edge was a glass of water atop a stone pedestal. No placard, no explanation, nothing. Just a glass of water. We got one of those explanations, "It means whatever you want it to mean," and I wasn't having it. That kind of set the tone for what little time we had left in Avila.
After the museum we walked around the town, got a little history, saw the cathedral, found bathrooms finally, bought 5 euro bottles of wine and left. It's hard to say a lot about the town, we didn't even get to climb to the top of the wall.
We got back to Salamanca around 8 to prepare for what we knew would be a big night as the group was ready to blow off some steam after a day of sightseeing. The night began with a little pre-drink (as the canadiens call it) at Christine's apartment right across the river, next to the cathedral in town. By the time we all left her apartment to hit the bars, there were 21 of us heading, en masse, to the plaza mayor. After seeing a lot of the bar scene in our first two weeks, we decided to go to a (club/discotheque) for some dancing.
ASIDE: I haven't quite figured out if a discotheque is the European word for a club or if they are two separate things with minor differences.
A man handing out free drink tickets in the plaza convinced us to go the the one club I have heard of called Cubic. I was pretty excited since I had heard good things from Mika, the japanese girl living in my house. She's been here since October and loves to go out so I trusted her opinion on the matter.
The club was on the pricey side (thats a relative term here since drinking is usually cheap) but we had an amazing time, dancing and drinking to typical club music you would hear at any bar in the U.S. (Black eyed peas, Kesha etc...)
After the bar, people got split up but 6 of us (Me, Zach, Pierce, Laura, Jackie and Jillian) ended up at a salsa club where we continued dancing until around 5:15 am.
ASIDE: Never in a million years did I imagine I would be interested/have fun salsa dancing but it was actually amazing. Dancing is way more enjoyable when you're not making a complete fool of yourself. Jillian and Jackie combined forces and within 10 minutes I could dance a basic salsa. I highly recommend it.
As we left we could see a huge line to get into the club, Spaniards love going out late and 5:15 is on the early side for them. Sunday was spent doing homework at cafes, writing this post, and finalizing travel plans for 3 separate trips. I would love to watch some american football (It's funny to have to differentiate "american football") but the game won't start until 12:30 am and I need some recovery time.
As promised there will be more post coming regarding my house, classes, trips and the like. Hasta luego.
Word of the day: Bostezar- To yawn (because thats all I could do en el museo de misticismo)
Bonus word of the day: Diablillo- Gremlin (because we realized Enrique is in fact, not good looking, but looks more like a gremlin.)
~Corey
P.S. I decided today that my last blog post of the semester will be entirely in Spanish. Sorry if you can't read it, but this blog is as much for me as it is for you dear readers.
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