Cantabria and Salamanca!

Last weekend we took our second paid group trip, to Cantabria in northern Spain. Magda told us at the beginning that it was going to be a different trip…we weren’t really sure what that meant or what to expect. We got on our bus and drove for a couple of hours, then stopped in Burgos to see the cathedral. It was cool, I think I liked the vaulted ceilings the best there. It is one of the stops of the Camino de Santiago, on the way to Santiago Compostela, and El Cid, from the novel. It was pretty cold outside, so after we ate our bocadillas, we decided to go into a café and get some hot chocolate instead of walking around and stuff during our free time. We got back on the bus and drove the rest of the way to Santillana del Mar, where our hotel was. Our hotel was amazing, and Monica and I’s room was basically like a suite. It was really nice. When we got to our hotel, it was already getting dark and it was raining, but Monica, Lance, Stephen, and I went to the Torture museum that was close by. There were a lot of gross instruments in there and I don’t know how people come up with some of that stuff! We walked around for a few minutes after we went to the museum, but came back because it was pretty gross outside. Lance and Stephen have made a song about Spain that they played for us. Stephen plays the guitar and Lance sings, the song is good, but it’s pretty funny. Then we all ate dinner together in the hotel restaurant. It was good, and there was a ton of food. After that, we all hung out and chatted and stuff, and then went to bed. On Saturday, we started out by visiting the Cuevas de Altamira. There are prehistoric caves with a bunch of ceiling paintings and stuff. I think they are like 8000 and 14000 years old. This one is actually a reproduction because you can’t go in the real one anyone. But it was cool to see and learn about them, they were able to do some extraordinary things back in that era! After the caves, we headed to Santander. It was a really nice day, so we took a little boat ride over to the beach. The beach was a lot of fun. The water was freezing, but it was still fun to walk on the beach a little bit and stuff. The waves were gigantic. It was really pretty too. We took the boat back to the other side, then drove over to a different side of the town. We had a couple hours of free time to eat and explore, so Monica, Dane, Juanito and I went to eat at a Mexican restaurant. It was really good food, and it was nice to just relax. Then we went outside and took a bunch of pictures since it was so pretty, even though it was windy. We also went to the top of a hill and it was cool to look down. We were really lucky that it was mostly sunny, because they had predicted rain for the whole weekend. The whole group reunited once again, and we walked over to this park which was like a zoo where there were penguins and seals and stuff. We kept walking up to the top of the hill, and there was a palace (I think) at the top, but we didn’t go down. We came back down and then finally got back on the bus and went back to Santillana del Mar. I really enjoyed Santander though, and am so glad that it was nice and sunny. We got back to the hotel and rested a little bit before we had dinner again in the hotel. We ate and hung out a little bit after dinner, then Monica, Lance, Stephen and I played hearts until almost 4:30 in the morning. We were all really tired by that point, but it was fun. On Sunday, the weather was gross again and it was extremely windy again and rainy. Luckily, we didn’t do much, we mainly just sat on the bus coming back home to Alcalá. Before we left Santillana del Mar, we went to the Claustro Romano and a museum about dinosaurs, which was semi-interesting. We were all just anxious to get on the bus and out of the nasty weather. We slept, played some more cards on the bus, and they put on a movie, but I didn’t watch it. The ride back to Alcalá was a lot shorter than we expected, but it was a fun trip and I really enjoyed it. It was nice because we got to see a lot of the Spanish landscape and it wasn’t heavy in art and monuments and stuff like that.
On Monday, I went to our café to study and do homework since we had a test on Thursday in our civilization class. It was nice to get out of the house so that I could clear my head a little bit, and I was able to get a lot done. Then on Tuesday, Monica, Dane, and I went and studied and talked some more at the café. After that, Nicole and I took mamá out to eat for her birthday, which was over the weekend while we were gone. We went to Indalo, which is a little bar near the Plaza. It was really nice, and I had a lot of fun. I’m really glad that we were able to go out with her. On Wednesday after school, I went with mamá to pick up a package that Mom sent me. It had the DVD’s from the Olympics and a bunch of M&M’s and Reese’s cups, which was exciting. Then we had our dance class, which was fun as usual. We learned the rest of the first Sevillana, which was mainly how to do the arms along with feet. It’s a lot harder than it looks, especially when she puts the music on, and it starts going really fast. It’s a lot of fun though. Thursday we had an exam in our civ class which was kinda hard. After school, I went back to the post office. I talked to Mom, and she asked me if I had gotten two packages. I had forgotten that on the slip it said there were two, so I had to go back to get the other one. Mamá went with me, like the day before. I got all the way thinking that it was from Mom, until I looked at the address and saw that it was from the Cybs, which made it even more exciting! The lock on the door to our house somehow, so every time sometime came home or left, you had to unlock it on the one side, then relock it from the outside. Kind of annoying, but oh well. Monica, Dane, and I decided to go into Madrid to do a couple of things. We went to buy our bus tickets for Salamanca for the next day, and we also checked out train info for going to France. After we finally got all that done, we called Laura, who is Araceli, our intercambio’s sister, and we met up with her for coffee at a Starbucks (yes, there are Starbucks here). We talked to her for awhile, which was fun. We didn’t get home until about 12:15 though. I showered so that I wouldn’t have to in the morning, quickly ate dinner, and went to bed.
On Friday, I got up at 6am because we had decided to get an early bus to Salamanca. Our bus left from Madrid at 8am, so we had to leave Alcalá at 7 to have enough time to get into Madrid to the station. We got there about 8, and then the bus ride was about 3 hours. The bus was really nice though, the seats were pretty comfortable and there was even a tv and they put on a movie. Once we got into Salamanca, we got out the map that Magda had given us, and decided to follow the route that it showed us. Well, the map wasn’t very good, it had all the major monuments and stuff on it, but it didn’t really show very well how to get there. We roamed around for awhile, it was freezing. We came to these cave things that turned out to not be caves, but some random things. Still not sure about that. We stopped for lunch and ate our bocadillas, then looked around somemore. We finally found the University, after much searching, and the façade, which is supposed to be important. The University is supposedly important too. There is a frog on the façade, and they say that if you find it, for student’s you’ll have good luck on your next exam. There was a couple that was looking for it using a book, so they found it and then showed us. It didn’t really look all that much like a frog, but whatever. We went into a café and got some hot chocolate to warm up, shopped around a little bit, and walked around a little more. Then we finally decided to stop at a cafeteria type place for dinner, and we just took a long time to eat since it was cold outside and we had a few hours before we had to be back at the bus station. We got back on the bus at 10, and we slept the whole way back to Madrid. We got in about 12 30, then took the metro to Avenida de Américas so that we could get on the Buo bus home. This time we figured out where to get the buo, unlike coming back from Italy. By the time we got home, it was about 2:30am. It was fun, but really exhausting since we got home so late.
On Saturday, I got to sleep in, which was amazing. Araceli, our intercambio, called us so that we could meet up and get costumes for the fiesta later. Monica and I met at her house, then Javier took us to Carrefour to try to find something. Believe it or not, it was the first time I had been in a car since I left the US, except for the taxi on the way home from the airport (and besides buses and whatnot). We got to Carrefour and there wasn’t much left, so Monica ended up getting a clown outfit and I got a Marilyn Monroe dress-wow. From that point, we knew it was going to be interesting. Araceli was going to be a pirate and Laura’s outfit was a vampire or something. We came home for lunch, rested a little, and then Javier picked us up again and we went to his niece’s house, where the party was going to be. It was a surprise birthday party for Marta and also a little party for Carnaval. We all had to get into our costumes, and it was just hilarious because we all looked ridiculous. One of the grandmas told me I needed a hat, so she gave me a blue one with curly blue hair. We talked to some of grandmas and grandpas and aunts for awhile while we waited. Then it got close to 7, and we turned the lights off. There were a couple of false alarms, but then Marta finally got there and I think she was pretty surprised. Araceli did like a tarot card reading as a joke, and we ate so much food. Then they had blown up probably two or three hundred balloons and put them in her room, and basically told the kids to go in there and roll around and pop the balloons. It was crazy. It was fun though because we got to talk to Marta, her friend Iris, and her sister, Tamara, who are all about our age, so now we have more Spanish friends, yay! Everyone was trying to get them to practice their English on us, but they didn’t really want to. When everyone would start talking, it would get crazy and so loud and half the time Monica and I were so confused. It was a lot of fun though and I’m really glad that Araceli invited us! After we came home, I talked to mamá for a little bit and then crashed.
On Sunday, we went to Araceli’s house again. This time it was Javier, the baby’s birthday, he turned 2. We got to her house and hung out for a little bit, then after Javier and Laura got up, we went to the bar and met the rest of the family. We got to talk to Marta and Tamara again too, and they were practicing some English again. The waiters kept bringing food, and every time we thought they were done, they brought out more! There was all kinds of stuff, 2 kinds of ham, cheese, calamari rings (yuck), patatas bravas, etc. The tarta was really good too. After everything was over, we went back to Araceli’s house for a little bit before coming home. It was a good weekend, very cultural, very fun though.
Yesterday, Monday, mamá woke us up before she went to work and told us that the buses were on strike so we’d have to walk to school. Then as Nicole was taking a shower, there was no cold water, only hot. We were under the impression from the flyer that there would be no buses, but then once we started walking, we saw a couple, but there were only a few running. We got to school, and then we had an exam in our grammar class. We also found out that our grammar teacher is leaving, and Pilar, the other teacher, is going to teach our class from now on, which is sad because we all really liked María Jesús, and she was all of our favorite teacher. When I got home from school, the guy was here to fix the door, since it had been broken for a couple days. Then Lance called me, and I went back to school and we worked on our paper for our literature class, but gave up after awhile. Monica and I walked home, and that was about it.
Today, our lit class at 8:30 was cancelled, which was amazing. We had to walk to school again since the buses were still on strike. We got our exams back in civ, and a bunch of people were really upset about it. It’s not the end of the world though.
This weekend, Monica, Lance, Stephen and I are going to England. We’re all really excited and it should be a lot of fun. We’re leaving on Thursday night, spending a couple of nights in London, then going to Keele, where Monica’s boyfriend Todd is studying abroad, and going to Liverpool. Also, Lent starts tomorrow, and we are going to try not to speak in English, except of course with people who don’t know Spanish. I can’t believe tomorrow is already March 1! This semester has been going by so fast. Anyways, that’s pretty much it from here!