Week Two In Salamanca

Me, Mary, and Elena enjoying our 2nd out of 3 tapas bars on Calle Van Dyck, a street full of bars & restaurants

A new week meant a new student and a new roommate!  First was Elena, knocking on my bedroom door last Sunday night at 11:30pm asking what time was I going to use the shower in the morning...= my new housemate.  She had just arrived from Germany and was here for a week to do her practical for becoming a Spanish language teacher.  Born in Argentina she's obviously fluent in Spanish and has been taking private students at home in Germany but she'd like to get into her state's education system as a part-time instructor, ergo her visit to my school in Salamanca.  You'd think I'd have taken advantage of living with a Spanish instructor to do a little extracurricular practice but we clicked so well we spent every lunch and dinner together chatting away about everything and anything in English!

And Mary joined my school class last Monday- she's from North Carolina, an International Relations student who needs a foreign language for her upcoming degree. She'll be here for a total of ten weeks.  She has far more background in Spanish studies than I but in our own way we each have problems getting our mouths to spit out what we think want to say so we've signed up for some additional conversation classes with our morning professor, Pablo.  He's very gentle with us, and obviously knows what we've been trying to learn, so we hope he can coax us to make some coherent sentences, if not phrases, during our sessions.

This makes a good segue! I decided to stay two more weeks here in Salamanca.  There was a special at the school, pay for 3 weeks of study and get a 4th week free.  I wasn't really feeling that I'd learned a huge amount already, enough that I'd actually remember some of it, and I was so close to learning the Past Tense (it's very frustrating to try to only talk in the Present!) that I delayed my plans to visit the Canary Islands to stay here longer.  I'll have to move apartments next weekend as 15 members of the bride/my flatmate's family are coming to stay, but that's no big deal. Perhaps the next apartment will be quieter and cleaner! :-)

I was going to publish some pics of Salamanca but instead here are some photos of last Saturday's day trip to Avila, a small city famous for its town walls, the most complete in Europe I believe and 2.5 kms in circumference. One could walk exactly half way around, which I did, but as you can see from the photos, the weather was iffy and it was cold! I shivered most of the day.

A poor photo as it was taken through the train window as we were slowing down from 152kms/hour! But it's a good indication of the town walls..

Every city has its cathedral. This one was built with its back end right into the town walls, for protection most likely, but without a large square in front so it was hard to get an image of its scale...

As well, every Spanish city has its Plaza Mayor, Avila's little one was nice, but less impressive than the larger cities

A little noontime refreshment - a little 'bite' to accompany the beer, 2€ in total

With lots of churches to look at I'm glad I chose this one. Not always impressed to pay an entrance fee to see a church but 3€ included the audioguide and the $ goes to preservation

For example, this shows the martyrdom, then the accuser repenting after the trio die and go to heaven. Hard to miss that message that you might get it wrong sometimes....

Everyone's seen the inside of a church before so I'll highlight this Sepulchre which I thought was pretty unique. Built in renaissance times its frieze panels tell the story of the brother & his 2 sisters who were martyred here in quite graphic detail, but it's the literalness and intense coloring of the figures that got me. And carved what, 600 years ago?!

Wonder what the bored 3rd Wise Man on the right was thinking....!

 There's lots to see and do in Salamanca and many scenic towns a short bus ride away so I won't be bored while studying here!