Carne, Carne, y Más Carne!

First off, do not get used to me posting something this frequently. I’m sure once classes start up I’ll have both less things to write about and will write less frequently. But who knows, that’s what I would assume using my knowledge of what a semester is usually like for me based off of a ridiculously overcrowded plate back home. But seeing how I am both not home (and even on the same continent) and am neither taking any science classes, and therefore have no labs, nor do I have any organized sport commitments… wait, why did I bother buying a flight ticket home again?

Speaking of less academic commitments, on Friday we had yet another charla (talk). This time it was about “Student Life in España.” Probably the biggest change for me here would be the fact that all of the like 7 libraries in this city close around 9. For anyone that knows my habits back home, if I ever left the library at 9 it was either because I was a) going to another building to do work for a change of scenery or b) going to a meeting. Does this bother me? Hell no. It means now I have something forcing me to spend more time enjoying myself here, as I inevitably put too much work into something that really doesn’t require that much effort. Also, a lot of people tend to do work in the surrounding cafes as well, which is pretty cool, especially since I have a mild addiction to coffee. A lot of my classes also start a lot later which is a bit different for me since mine always tend to start at 8 or 9 in the morning, so this is yet another win.

Friday we had a fútbol game, which was a lot of fun. Some friends of Manuel, one of our student orientation leaders, had come to join in as well. Although, seeing how I have not run for two weeks (leave me alone, we’ve had a lot going on and we do a lot of walking and hiking so it’s not like I’ve just been sitting around) I was really feeling it later that night and the next day. Still feeling it now a bit actually. But anyway, I found out where the track is in the city too, which is great. Makes me feel a bit more at home and settled. We all went out for a little bit later on Friday night. From this, let me throw you a few words of advice: do not casually drink an entire bottle of Lambrusca (it’s like a sparkling wine/champagne type thing, and before you go, OMG you drank a whole bottle, it’s got about as much alcohol as beer and ends up being cheaper than buying the equivalent couple beers that its worth). While it is only 4 euro and seems worth it, it did not sit well in my stomach. Although maybe it was just bad mixing with the ice cream I ate not too long beforehand. But anyway, it wasn’t the sick kind of feeling, it was the, I can’t stop burping type of feeling. Whatever the hell was going on in my stomach was creating a never-ending source of CO₂, making it almost impossible to fall asleep because I could only lie on my back. At first I didn’t know why I was feeling weird until I sat up straight and burped pretty loudly. Unfortunately I had to do this a couple more times because I guess it all built up as I was lying down, and I was finally able to fall asleep by like 4-430, only to have to wake up at 8. So much for coming home early to get to bed early and get a good night’s sleep.  Lesson learned.

Yesterday we went to Toro and Zamora. Toro is a small little town famous for its wine, and so we had obviously gone for a tour of its winery, which ended in a brief wine tasting. I found this interesting seeing how it was about 11 am and up to that point I had only had coffee and a muffin for breakfast. But anyway, after Toro we went to the nearby city of Zamora, which is also rooted in a lot of history. Apparently it’s also the first city to have used wifi. Haven’t checked the source on that yet though so if anyone’s bored, look that up and get back to me with the result. As usual, you can see a bunch of pictures of the city on Facebook, and so I’ll leave all the explanations of what it looked like to the photos. However, my small attention span strikes again, and so some things I can’t really explain to you seeing how I really wasn’t paying too much attention to the guided tour. Whoops.
After Zamora we went to this really small nearby town for a traditional meal of a crapload of grilled and bbq meat. I think there was salad somewhere in there, but seriously, MEAT! So much meat. And it was delicious, so delicious. Accompanied by wine and bread, of course. It wouldn’t be a traditional huge lunch without them. We were in this little underground restaurant, it was pretty cool. For dessert, we had those Magnum ice cream bars, which we all thought was kind of funny and random, but they’re really good so hey no complaints. And then following those, the waiter brought out these three bottles of unmarked liquid, and several shot glasses. Two of them had alcohol in them and one of them did not, but we really could only tell that one of them definitely did, which was the yellow one. There was a really bright green one, which tasted like liquid jolly ranchers, and a bright red one, which also tasted really good. Of course, as Fran has pointed out though, it could have very well been anti-freeze and we would’ve had absolutely no idea. Luckily though, if it was, I happen to know that a way to save yourself from anti-freeze poisoning is to drink a lot of alcohol, and we had plenty of wine. So, crisis averted. ;)

When returned pretty early, around 5-530. Obviously the first thing I did when I got home was take a nap, seeing how I had finally stopped burping every ten minutes around 12 earlier that day. And then we went out for a little bit to enjoy some more of the casetas and general fiesta that is still going on in the city.

Here’s a video of one of the concerts going on in the Plaza Mayor. There’s a 360 view of the Plaza in there so you can get an idea of what the place fully looks like. Enjoy.

Seeing how today is the 10^th anniversary of September 11^th, I’m going to end with a simple quote that I think has a lot of meaning when you think about it:
“When it rains, most birds head for shelter; the Eagle is the only bird that, in order to avoid the rain, starts flying above the cloud.”God Bless America.