Adventures from España: Salamanca

Oh gosh, where to start?!
Salamanca is a beautiful city. Most of the places I have been to so far have some sort of grand reputation and have been great, but I was expecting them to be. I hate to say that I didn't expect much from salamanca because it is just another college town. However, the minute we got there we all seemed to fall in love, and it has been my favorite place thus far (besides my lovely Oviedo of course). It is full of history and the university is the oldest university in Spain. Everything is way closer than it is in oviedo or Madrid or any other bigger city, so when you go out it only takes like 10 minutes to walk back. And when its 3am and you're drunk, this is a huge plus haha. Also, there is a large plaza mayor, which is the one thing I really wish oviedo had. Most cities have a main square that is always full of people, but for some reason Oviedo is lacking that. I love hanging out at the main plazas, and anyone who knows me well knows that I love to people watch. On Sunday I spent the afternoon sitting in the plaza enjoying the sun, a beer, and some good old country music as I watched 4 little boys play futbol with an empty water bottle for hours. Salamanca has a very lively vibe, and the whole city is just full of life. It also helped that the weekend was absolutely gorgeous!

On Saturday night all of us girls went out together. This was the first time all 7 of us went together, and it ended up being a ton of fun. We drank vodka and sang 90s songs in the hotel room (I'm sure they hated us after the 3rd Backstreet Boys song in a row, sung by tone deaf 21 year olds haha), then we went to plaza mayor to take pictures. I apologize in advance for any pictures I may get tagged in, I'm sure I ruined all of them because I felt the need to photo bomb EVERYTHING haha. After this we went to a bar that had a really good deal on chupitos (shots, this is one of those absolutely necessary words to remember if you come to Spain hahaha), then ended up going to a club called Camelot. We were dancing and having fun til some of the girls left and our group got smaller. So then Laura and Chloe and I decided to go on stage and dance, and were having a blast. One guy started dancing in front of us, so Laura started goofing off and making moves behind him and he had no idea. His friends started videotaping it and before we knew it the whole club had cameras out and were recording us. This lasted for hours and we had a blast dancing and being silly in front of everyone. Around 3 we got tired and went home (once again the lame Americans going home early haha).

During the days we visited the university, the cathedral, and a couple museums. The university has a frog carved in the stone, and if you find it then it is good luck. We found it! Also, we went to the cathedral and got to climb the tower to the top. It was scary since it was an old narrow spiral staircase, and I'm super afraid of heights. But I've done worse, and when I got to the top it was well worth it! You could see the whole city and the view was gorgeous! We took a bunch of pictures and then came down to wait for everyone. As we were waiting, Eiton (David's oldest son) made friends with one of the street beggars. Eiton has a big heart, and every time we see a beggar he asks everyone to give them coins to help them out (he's only 7, yet he cares so much!). This beggar played an accordion and so Eiton danced to it and ended up getting a lot of money from people, all of which he gave to his new friend. It was adorable! Even though I don't generally like to give money to people on the street (charities of course though!), it is refreshing to see such a young little guy with such a big heart and who genuinely cares about everyone, even strangers! The world needs more people like Eiton :)