Who doesn´t love a paid excursion with his study abroad program? A crazy person. We got to stay in a 4* hotel with free breakfast. Woot! I love eating as much as I want for free! And of course saving a lil for later too. Anyways, we arrived on Friday at like 830. We waited a bit in the hotel before Gloria gave us a mini tour for the best places to eat. Ended up at a restaurante chino for dinner. Yum! Cheap and soooo tasty; I had a nido which consists of a bowl made of French fries and filled with meat and veggies a Chinese style. I thought that I might go out more but ended up just staying in. That Chinese really put us in a comatose state.
Obviously, Saturday was tour day. We got up, had breakfast!, and started off on our grand adventure of Salamanca. We saw the convent where the cloistered nuns are and the night club that some how got part of it. And then we saw the big ole church that you can´t see the towers unless you are in the library across the street (or far away). The library actually is the casa de conchas which was some kind of token of love or something back in the day. After these we headed off to the cathedrals, yep they have 2. The nueva (14th century) and vieja (12th century) (technically it´s all one building) but ya they decided to make the new one to stay up with the times but couldn´t bring themselves to destroy the old one. It was really cool, we did a tour on top of the cathedral. There are sneaky balconies up high that people can walk on. It was also a great view of the city. On the facade, when they did renovations in the 20th century, they added a few engravings not to be missed (astronaut and ice cream cone!) We headed to the university where it was every man for himself to find the lucky frog. Ya, I needed some help, it´s really small and it would have taken a long time without a hint. (Hopefully the luck still applies.) Saw a real life classroom from the 13th century and the library from the same time period. Sweet! And got to see the journey to wisdom (which turns out to be a woman). After all this touring, it was time for a tasty little plato combinado which was a bistec, huevo frito, patatas fritas, y ensalada. Yum! After that saw a weird museum that was in a lovely house, Casa Lis. Chilled at the hotel before getting the best tapas ever (well so far). Did I mention these tapas came free with my drink? Not so common in the north, so missing out up here. Chorizo y una costilla! Con una nueva bebida tinto de verano. So ya, ended up go to bed relatively early for the biggest night of Carnaval since they don´t really do the whole crazy street parties there, or most northern locales.
Sunday! Went to Mass at the Catedral Nueva, which I ended up saying liturgy of the hours in Latin as well. So cool! And then we wandered around a bit before hopping on the bus back home. Santander Real Racing played Real Madrid, got to watch a bit of the game. . . we ended up losing 1-3 but at least we scored one!
Anyways, this seems like a particularly long post, so I´ll just stop rambling and let you wait til next week. . . get to go on a real adventure! Picos de Europa
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