Intensivo, our intens four hour a day class, has been interesting, our professor Javier is a really cool guy, probably in his mid 40s and is pretty freakin funny too. It’s a very practical class, bare bones essentials that you need to know if you are living in Spain. We talked for a while about the huge difference in interaction between men and women here in comparison with the states…if a girl so much as smiles at you, she is basically giving you an invitation to do whatever you please with her. Not knowing that, the girls had been smiling at guys and were getting creeped on big time, it’s just SO different. In the clubs Spaniards dance in little gender circles, unlike in the states where everybody dances with each other, if you are dancing with a Spanish girl it means you are going to go home with her that night. Also we learned some spanish customs: like if you are invited to a birthday party, you always always always bring a gift. Also if you are invited to a wedding you are expected to bring a gift valued between 150 – 200 Euros. However, for a funeral, you NEVER bring anything for the family, no flowers, no food, no donations of money. Also, something I knew before I came but is still interesting, Spanish people never go barefoot in the house, never ever. I miss walking around in my boxers barefoot in my apartment, but I don’t miss daa ridge (much love for 1342 J Hunters Ridge though).
The food has been impeccable, but we do have some similarities, like the other night we had pizza and on Sunday for breakfast we had alphabet soup, which was funny. For dinner on Tuesday we started off with soft-boiled eggs stuffed with tuna, YUM. To go along with those, she made this tomato pure: sweet baby Jesus. The combo of those two was insane. BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE. Next came the main course of “Horneros” which was this tasty sandwich with fresh sausage and chorizo. The way you make it is you take this cake size piece of circular bread and put the sausage and chorizo in it, then put another piece of circular bread on top and somehow seal it – then put it in the oven! The Horneros with the tomato pure (which apparently they don’t do as my madre told me it was weird haha) was sinfully good.
Horneros and tomato pure
The Hornero!
Fiesta de Salamanca!!
This was the Lama with caramelized onions and a caña, killer!
Here is what a typical caseta looks like
Sweet Lord, Fiesta de Salamanca is amazing! It's the cities annual celebration, and it's simply a week long party! The streets are jam packed with people just hanging out, socializing, and going from caseta to caseta ordering cañas (little 10oz cups of beer). With every caña you order you also get pincho or tapa, which have ranged from beef stew (better than your grandma’s) to lama con cebello carmalizado (lamb with carmelized onions) – it is usually 1.80 euro (about $2.40) for the 10oz caña and pincho, not a bad price.
They also had a classical procession with tons of flowers and everyone dressed up in traditional Spanish garb, it went all throughout the city and was really cool to see. They had little children dressed up too, it was a grand celebration of culture and heritage, and everyone was lovin it.
Cute little Spanish kids, this little dude was not having it, but the girl was making him stay put
Thursday we had no class, for the start of the Fiesta. That night we started around 8 going around to the different casetas, and then at 10 there were fireworks. Holy shit. Absolutely unbelievable. It made the best 4th of July or New Year’s Eve fireworks display in the states, like the one on the Hudson every year, look like a crappy sparkler. They went on for HALF AN HOUR. Straight, no breaks longer than 10 or 15 seconds, it was out of this world. For a city as small as Salamanca to put on a multi million-dollar display of fireworks blew my mind.
Insane Fireworks
Video. Watch it. This wasn't even the finale!
Madre!
So here is our madre, Carmen, who is absolutely hilarious.
She has such a dry sense of humor which is kinda tough to decipher sometimes because of the language barrier, but when she is being sarcastic she usually finishes off the joke with the phrase “no pasa nada” which isn’t a phrase that can be directly translated, but the way she uses it, it means “don’t worry” or “no worries.” So recently she has been giving us shit for coming back super late at night, so any time we tell her we will be back early, she goes “so what, like 5 or 6AM this time?” She is soo funny! Last night at dinner she went on a 20 minute rant about how she hates Chinese people and how bad Chinese food is bad…it went on for a while and tim, tanner, and I were all hysterically laughing. She continued to give me grief because apparently (my family will definitely sympathize with her on this one) I do not have the ability to be quiet around the house. I guess I shut doors a little loudly and just walk loudly, which she loves to point out, but tonight at dinner I laughed harder than I have laughed in a long time, it was really neat to have that fun back-and-forth type funny conversation with her. Off to Lisben, Portugal this weekend! Blog to come sometime early next week.
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