A Little R&R Never Hurt Anybody

So now that it’s been around two weeks since I last chronicled my journeys through this foreign land, let me update you on all the crazy, wild, death-defying adventures that I’ve been on. Just kidding, it’s been a pretty chill couple of weeks, and with the exception of a day trip yesterday it’s been spent in Salamanca. There will probably be no actual chronological order to this so yeah it’ll probably be more of just a list of random thoughts that pass through my head.

We’ll start with the most recent. Yesterday a couple of us headed to this nearby town of ávila. Very pretty town, and not that big so it was a good day trip. It also just so happened that we ended up there on the same day as their big festival for Saint Teresa, so there was a bit of an awkward schedule for when things were open/closed, but we were able to hit up some of the “must sees” of the city, like the giant medieval wall that surrounded the city and a couple of the cathedrals. Pictures can be found on Facebook per usual.

Last week was a complete joke. We had off on Wednesday. So basically, I had my four classes on Monday. Tuesday, I had my one class, from 1-2pm. Then, no class on Wednesday, and my three classes on Thursday, one of them being my drawing class from 4-8, which, obviously, we drew in basically the entire time. And then, bam, it was the weekend again. My plans to go out Tuesday night failed miserably however when I accidently passed out after dinner around 1030-11 and woke up at 12am, and decided that I really didn’t feel like moving, so I went back to bed around 1. Probably was a good idea in hindsight since when I went out Thursday night for a little I woke up feeling like death on Friday. Apparently I still wasn’t completely over whatever cold I had had and going out Thursday night kind of kicked my ass even though I really didn’t do much, I just needed to get out of the house. I say “needed to get out of the house” like I was actually extremely overwhelmed with work during the week, but in all reality it was because I had done nothing but sit around and do… nothing… I mean I did do stuff, just nothing that productive. Whoops. This country has an uncanny ability to take any attempt at productivity, crush it, and turn it into free time to chill. But at the same time, I’m completely on top of all my work. So maybe sitting at a café or bar doing homework with friends doesn’t really seem like you’re doing anything when you’re so used to being in the library basement for days on end. I feel like I probably won’t get past this feeling for a bit. Although, I can say that I was very productive this weekend, and got a couple papers done for my one class.

The other day we also got a reading assignment for my lit and cine class. It was about 90 pages long. Seeing how this was huge compared to all the other work I’ve been getting, we were all sort of like, really, we have to do ALL OF THIS READING. 90 PAGES OF A SPANISH PLAY?? OH MY GOD!?
And then, it kind of smacked me in the face. This is a literature class. What the hell was I expecting, I knew exactly that we were going to have to, I don’t know, READ things. And then seeing how at least 1.5 hours of my 2 hour class every Monday morning at 1040 is watching a movie, and that 90 pages of reading really isn’t that much, my attitude changed in about 2 seconds and all I could do was laugh at the sad excuse for the amount of work I’ve had thus far. Side note: probably going to bite myself in the ass for tempting fate with all of this “I have no work here” talk, as I actually have several longer papers due in the middle of November that I should probably start looking into. But for now, I’m enjoying (attempting to, sometimes I’m ready to bounce of the walls) the nothingness.

Not this past week, but the weekend before that, I had gone out Thursday and Friday night. You’d think this was enough, as I was completely OK with staying home and chilling in Saturday night. But no, my 67 year old host mom basically told me to screw work, I’m in Spain, go out and do work the next day. Needless to say I felt like a complete failure when I sat in that night because I was a little sick, and a little tired. But hey, I wasn’t the only one. Also, this past Saturday night I spent in a bar with a friend doing some homework, which I was ok with. I woke up today and didn’t have to be like, OMFG I HAVE TWO PAPERS AND AN ENTIRE PLAY TO READ BY TOMORROW. However, when my host mom asked me if I had gone out last night, I said yes, because, well, I did go out. May have left out the part about the homework though… whoops. It was probably the most productive four hours I’ve had since I’ve been in this country though, so, yeah.

I’ve met up with this one friend I made through the intercambio thing they have here a few times. She’s cool, although the last time we met up it was Sunday morning (last Sunday) and I was so out of it that I could hardly comprehend or talk back to her in Spanish until about 45 minutes after we met up, but I didn’t feel as bad when we spoke in English briefly and she was having about as much trouble as I was. But the intercambio thing is a decent way of meeting actual Spanish people and getting a way to practice speaking so it’s pretty cool. There was also this intercambio night the other day at this one bar so we made a few Spanish friends through that as well.

It’s been unusually hot here for this time of year, and it actually hasn’t rained, or even had a single cloud in the sky, since the very first day that we got here. That’s a month and a half of straight sunshine. I feel like there’s laws against this sort of stuff but at least I know why water is so expensive here now. I am dying for some fall weather though seeing how it’s probably my most favorite time of the year, and well, I’m sick of the heat on top of it. I think it’s finally cooling down a little bit this week, so tomorrow should be only in the high 70s and then high 60s by Wednesday, which I am looking forward to. The weather here is extremely awkward because it’s really cold in the morning and then hot my mid afternoon. Also, the sun is really strong for some reason, so there’s like a 10 degree difference in temperature between the walking in the shade and walking in the sun. Basically this means you leave for the class in the morning in pants and a jacket, and by the time you walk back home for lunch that afternoon you’re sweating profusely and need to completely change. So yeah, excited for the weather to be leveling out.

Just as a follow up, the food is still awesome. My host mom can cook, oh can she cook. Also, I find that my level of self-control on what I eat has completely dropped. Normally I’m not too big on eating chocolate and other sweets that often, however everything is just so readily available here. Like ice-cream. There are so many ice cream places, and it is SO good. How can you say no? I also have pretty much adapted to the Spanish time on eating. I’m actually able to last on a cup of coffee and some toast in the morning until we eat our huge lunch at 230, which is no longer a challenge to eat all of hahah. In fact, the other day when she asked if I wanted more, I said yes. This was followed by a sudden, “Did I really just ask for MORE food? Oh God what’s happened to me.”  

Insert Seemingly Interesting Title Here

This past Saturday marked the one month point since we all arrived here. Crazy. I'm not sure if it feels like we've been here longer than that or if time has flown by. I think it's a bit of both.

Either my allergies are really acting up or I have a bit of a cold – regardless, I’ve been really congested and have a cough brought on by a never-ending trickle down the back of my throat. I should probably make it over to the pharmacy to get something for it but that would require spending money and I’m not sure if it would even do anything anyway. Also, major thanks to my allergy medicine for majorly failing.  

My Tuesday night class got switched to Thursday, to a time where I cannot take it. When did we find out about that? As we were sitting in class waiting for almost 30 min for the professor to walk in, and when he didn’t, decided that even 30 minutes is late for a Spanish professor and we should figure out what the hell was going on. And what did that mean? It meant that I was screwed, because it took me an entire day to figure out a schedule that worked. I was tempted to take an intro Italian class since I already know a little bit and it was going to be almost the only thing that would fit into my schedule. Luckily, and by chance, I ran into my friend Matt as I was walking back from what should have been my class Tuesday, who’s taking some basic drawing class at the university. This drawing class happens to be the only thing to fit into my schedule, and well I used to draw a decent bit, so hey why not. So there, problem solved. Of course, the facultad de Bellas Artes is on the edge of town in the completely opposite direction from the rest of campus. This is actually only a 20 min walk from my actual home, but we went to something during lunch that Thursday and so we actually had a nice 40 min walk to the building. And this is why I don’t feel bad about eating so much here. The professor for the class talks really fast but it’s a good thing that over half of the class is drawing. Of course, seeing how the title of this class is Dibujo 1 (Drawing 1), I assumed we would be starting out small and working our way up to things. Nope. First day, first class, right after the introduction we moved into another room and started drawing the naked model. I haven’t drawn anything in months, and this is the first thing we’re doing. Needless to say, I also had no idea that we we’re supposed to use the entire sheet of paper we had, and so my drawing was a bit small to scale. Well as it turns out, my friend Matt’s turned out to be a bit larger than it should have. So what happened when the professor was talking to us after we were finished drawing? Both Matt and myself were pointed out and used as examples, at which point the other 18 Spanish students turned around to check us out… “Hi, we’re the apparently retarded foreigners. Nice to meet you.”

I really can’t remember anything specific I did during the week last week. Classes are going well, minus the fact that I’m still teetering on vacation mode and school mode which has been resulting in extreme procrastination of schoolwork. Although, the most work I had was last Wednesday night and I finished everything in like 2-3 hours when I had started around 10 at night and didn’t have to be up until like 9 the next morning anyway, so it’s not like I feel inclined to hop on everything the second it comes up like I usually have to back home.

This past weekend we went to Seville and Granada. The timing was perfect seeing how it was Shank’s 21^st birthday Friday night into Saturday and that was the night we were in Seville, so major win there. We left early Friday morning, around 730, which was unfortunate for my housemate when I was waking him up that morning because at 715 I realized he still hadn’t gotten up. It was a nice little 6 hour ride down to Seville, and after checking out the cathedral down there we were done by 5 and had the rest of the day to ourselves, at which point I met up with Shank. We had walked around a bit and grabbed some food with a couple friends of mine at a bar and chilled. Seville is a bit hotter than Salamanca which was kind of unpleasant; I’m dying for the fall weather to kick in. Anyway afterwards we checked out more of the city, pictures of which you can see on FB. They had this fair type thing going on in the one park, with like areas with tents for food/beer from a bunch of different countries, which was pretty sweet. There was an Argentina tent which I got extremely excited about and naturally had to grab a beer from there for nostalgia’s sake. A little bit later we met up with my friend Sean, also from home, and grabbed dinner at the fair thing. Then we walked the 15-20 min back to my hotel so I could shower and change, then 30 min to their house, and then after hanging out for a little bit, another 15-20 min to the club that we were heading to because it was free to get into before 1, and everyone loves when you don’t have to pay for things. But yeah, it was a good night, minus the like 40 min walk home, but that didn’t really seem too bad especially after stopping for food.

We headed to Granada the next day, about a 3 hour ride, which I naturally passed out on from lack of sleep the night before. We went to this giant palace called La Alhambra, which, again, you can see pictures of on FB. We grabbed lunch at a buffet at a hotel/restaurant nearby and then went to our hotel. Took a siesta at the hotel, grabbed dinner with some friends afterwards, and then that night we went to a Flamenco show, which I’ll post a video or two of below for you guys to check out.

The next day we visited the “molinos de viento” (windmills) in Castilla La Mancha, and had a like 6 course lunch of food typical to that area at a place not too far from there. The ride back was around 8 or so hours in total not counting the stops we made, but I slept for about half of it or so.

I feel like I’m forgetting something, but oh well if I remember it I’ll randomly throw it in later.

Here’s a clip of one of the flamenco dancers. Also, I have no idea how to rotate it back to the upright, so I suggest either a- turning your head or b-watching it on a laptop and just turning the computer.

Here’s another clip of the like the woman who was in charge. She was by far the best out of all of them but every time I stopped recording she did something really cool so unfortunately I can’t share the best of the show. Guess if you’re that curious you’ll have to go check it out yourself.