Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Salamanca dos

(Follow up to my first Salamanca entry)

Walking through Salamanca

After we went to the university, we headed through the city to the Convento de San Estaban, built in 1525.

Courtyard of the Convento

The well in the middle of the courtyard reminded me of the Old Well at UNC

Mirrors used to view the details on the ceiling of the convent. Or, for taking pictures.

The church part of the convento was the first church I've seen that actually looked like a church. Instead of being divided into chapels, the sanctuary is in the form of a Latin cross, with a single Gothic-style nave.


After we finished our little self-guided tour, we decided it was lunch time. We left the historic, touristy part of the city and walked through the more urban and commercial part of town to a tapas bar recommended by Rick Steves, where I had the most incredible tapas I've had since I've been in Spain! So delicious, we couldn't stop talking about it the rest of the day. And the best part was that I got two tapas, bread and a cerveza for only 2 euros!


"How much did you guys like the tapas?"

After lunch, we walked back through town and met up with Alice at the Plaza Mayor. The Plaza Mayor is the most important spot in the city, and it's where everyone gathers and meets up.


Then Cherise, Audra and I headed to the Puente Romano (Roman Bridge), which is the entrance to the city. It was part of the Silver route, the Roman road which linked Mérida with Astorga. It was built by the Romans to both cross the Tormes river and access the city of Salamanca in the first century. We spent some time sitting on a bench beside the river in the park.


Next, we went to the Convento de las Dueñas. It was a simple little convent consisting of a courtyard and a small museum, but it was cute. It was founded in 1619 and donated to be used for the nuns of the Order of Santo Domingo. Since its foundation, the nuns of this monastery of Saint Mary of the Dueñas or of the Consolación devoted their life to prayer, study and work. We bought some dulces from a nun.

Dulces! The ones we bought were the specialty of the house-- amarguillos. They were a little bit like shortcake, but with a fruity aftertaste. The nuns sell them to raise money for charity.
The columns were held up by strange little contorted figures. Each column was different-- contorted babies, mermaids, horses, etc. They looked like they were in pain.


We went back to the hostel to drop some things off and met a girl from Holland, who was staying on the bunk below me. She spent the last six weeks traveling around Spain, staying in each city for one or two weeks at a time and studying Spanish. This was her last night in Salamanca, but her housing situation had ended the day before so she was just staying in Salamanca for the night before going back to Holland. We talked to her for awhile about traveling Holland, the United States, Spain, etc., and she gave us some pointers on the city and going out. She said people will walk up to you in Plaza Mayor and give you tickets for free drinks in nearby bars, so you could just barhop all night and never pay for a drink.

Then we met up with the other girls and went back to the same tapas place for dinner. It was just as good the second time around-- although much more crowded.

Outside the tapas bar

Love this place!

The SAS girls

After dinner Audra, Cherise and I went to a little cafe-bar and had cake (chocolate, of course.)


We started heading back to Plaza Mayor. All of us were so tired from not sleeping all night, but at the same time we wanted to go out and do something because Salamanca, being a college town, is know for its bars and nightlife. We came to a consensus and took advice from our new friend from Holland. We decided that if someone gave us a free drink ticket, we would go and get something, but if not we'd just go back and sleep.

We sat in the Plaza Mayor for a few minutes watching the people pass by. There were even more people at night, and the plaza was so pretty!


We weren't sitting there long when two girls came up to us and handed us a coupon for a second drink free at a nearby bar. We could tell from their accents, and the fact that we could actually understand them, that they weren't Spanish. We got to talking, and found out that they were Irish and they were studying abroad in Salamanca for the semester. They said they just went to the bar and asked if they could get a job, and they weren't really sure what they were doing. Then they asked if we wanted to come hang out with a bunch of their Irish friends. We ended up having the most amazing time! It was so class (Irish word for cool.) Who knew that the Irish were so friendly and awesome? We drank some sangria in a little plaza behind a building with about 40 Irish people (about 35 of whom were girls). It was like something out of a movie. They would even get up and randomly start Irish stepdancing!

We learned a lot about Irish culture. Most of them were studying at the University of Dublin, but they were from all over the country. They talked about how different their accents were, and how they wished that they had American accents. They told us about how everyone speaks English in Ireland, and even though they are required to learn Irish in elementary school, no one actually speaks it except in very rural parts of the country. They also told us about how awful Irish television is, and about all of the American television that they watch. They asked us if Jersey Shore and high schools on TV were really accurate.

The craziest part was that a few of them are spending their summer in Myrtle Beach. Yes, out of all the places in the United States to travel, they are going to Myrtle Beach. How funny is that?

With Lisa, our new Irish friend and one of the girls who is spending the summer in Myrtle Beach

As we were leaving, we met a guy from Canada. As soon as he found out we were Americans, he said "We're neighbors!" It's incredible how being abroad gives you crazy connections with people you otherwise never would have talked to, just because you speak the same language!


The next morning we woke up early again (8:30) and went to the same little breakfast place. Then we went to an awesome art museum, called the Arte Nouveau Museum. It was all contemporary art in a beautiful building with huge stain glass windows. My favorite part was the huge collection of toy dolls. It took us about two hours just to get through the museum!

We ate at another tapas place, and then it started raining so we ended up passing the afternoon in a coffee shop. Our bus left around 5:30, so we got back around 12:30.

And that's it for my Salamanca trip! This weekend I am going with my program to Granada, so look for more posts to come!

1 comment:

  1. Some of my favorite snippets of this post deal with the insanities of geography. First off, Myrtle Beach? Seriously? That's so hilarious! They'll enjoy it, I'm sure, but it's great how much we take advantage of its close proximity and therefore are more apt to overlook it when planning our own vacations. As for Canada and the U.S. being "neighbors", can you imagine that being said from here? If we ran into someone from Canada on Franklin St. the very LAST thing we'd say would be "Hey, we're neighbors!" Your perception of the world, señorita Maricita, will forever be altered after this lifechanging experience.

    Secondly, I propose that the moment you get back to UNC you dress in the same outfit and coat and have someone (like me!) take a picture of you in the same position in front of the Old Well, then post it side-by-side with your photo from San Esteban! :P Too cool, guay guay guay.

    Thirdly, you've got to stop posting pictures of cakes and pastries and amazing-looking food. It is so unfair.

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