Confessions of A Working Girl

So, reposting these entries, I noticed that I never put in an entry for France. I can't remember why.

Basically, I got to France by bus, which took like 14 hours. Then I took the metro to my hostel, the Three Ducks hostel. As I looked at yet another set of stairs and sighed, these two old ladies helped me carry my luggage up the stairs. And they insisted on walking me all the way to the hostel! The people at the hostel were nice.  I visited the eiffel tower, found out that France does not have peanut butter. I met a girl, Ayako and we became friends. We spent Christmas Day together. I visited the Lourve (boy is it big!) and went with Ayako to Versailles. I loved Versailles. I'm definitely going back someday when the gardens are open.

Leaving France was just as difficult as leaving Germany. The flight, again, was cancelled and I had to rush to the train...

So…leaving France they cancelled not one but two of my flights. I was pretty mad, considering that I had had to wait in the airport all day. Then, when they said that there may not even be a flight the next day I gave up, gathered my luggage, and ran to take the train. If I had known about the train before I had booked the plane tickets, I wouldn’t have bothered flying…or maybe I would have, since the train was like 230 euros or so. So on the train, the boy my seat was next to was really nice. We talked for practically the whole way. Once at the train station in England, he helped me find the way to go in order to get to Oxford, which is where my cousin lives. Since I can’t remember if I mentioned her before, I’m making up a name here and if I need to later I’ll go back and change it. My cousin “Sara” had just gotten married in October. My mom had gone to the wedding, but I was already in Spain at that point. Her husband’s name is “Joseph”.I got to Oxford around 1am. After waking up at 5am in order to get to the airport to ‘catch’ a 8am flight, that was a long time….will add more details later…Last night, Joseph, Sara and I played trivial pursuit. But it was the english edition. Some of the questions were really hard! Joseph seemed to know practically all of the answers though. I knew a few…but usually when it wasn’t my turn to answer the question. Although one I did get was “Who co-starred with Burt Ward in ‘Batman’?” Easy! Adam West!Too bad there weren’t more questions like that.Today was only packing. Packing. And more packing. Although I did put more photos on facebook, and I finally figured out how to make my computer write japanese symbols. ニス! 易い　今や　私 わ　ノウハウ・ =PI need to finish packing…but first I need to wait for the remainder of my clothes to dry…since two of the things I’m waiting for are jeans, they take up a lot of room, so I can’t pack too much more until I pack those…Oh, and I’m rethinking my idea of hell again…there’s got to be somewhere there that people who post spam and people who create viruses on computers for no good reason go. Hmmm….maybe they could go to a room with computers…all of which have viruses on them…and they can try for eternity (or at least a long while) to undo the viruses but won’t be able to. That’s what I call karma. I like that idea…So…my flight’s tomorrow…too bad there’s no internet access on planes. Otherwise I would be able to update the Germany post, write the France post and finish this one. Oh well. I will go back to them though…it’s why I at least titled it and left a space…so that I remember that I haven’t written it yet.

1 Comment » Meg:

January 21st, 2011 @ 12:45 pm Hi Wendy - I was so glad to find this again. The last time I looked there was nothing and I was a little worried. Some fluke of cyperspace no doubt. We got your post card from Salamanca. Thank you. Sounds like you’re doing really well. Eager to hear about Japan. - Meg

My friend Beth was waiting for me at the airport, as was her father. I hadn’t seen her in almost four years, since when she had been an exchange student at the high school was my junior year. And since this is my junior year of college, it’s been almost four years. Beth’s English had gotten better since the last time I’d seen her, and her father spoke some English as well. Which was good, since I don’t currently speak any German. Although, when you really listen, it’s easy to pick up the gist of what they’re saying, if not exact words.On the way to her house from the airport, Beth asked me if I was tired. I was, since I had gotten up so early for the flight, but at that point, I was past tired. “Too tired to sleep” I told her so, and she was like “Awesome! Then let’s go to Christmas market!”Germany, it seems, has a lot of Christmas Markets. Around Christmas, almost every town seems to have one. The Christmas Market in Hamburg was nice. We had to drive to the train station, then take a train to get there, though it was more like a metro. I got to taste hot spiced wine. That was good. It has some other name, but I forgot what. Anyway, after two cups of spiced wine (slightly different types) I was a little tipsy. Lack of sleep probably didn’t help. So we decided to go get food. I got potato wedges with cheese. And Beth got pizza dough with an awesome tasting sauce. I couldn’t finish the potatoes though. We wandered around a little more, then went to meet her sister, Anne, who would take the train back with us, then drive.The next day, Beth’s grandmother came over for lunch. And after lunch, Beth, Anne and I drove from Hamburg to Stralsund, a two and a half hour drive. Beth goes to school in Stralsund, and she had three more days left of classes. One of the days Anne and I went to some kind of aquarium that had a lot of fish and bones of whales and information…

So thursday and friday I spent the days running around, packing and seeing friends for the last time. It was a little sad, since I like Salamanca and all the people there.ISA had a bus leaving Salamanca at 1:30 am that would take us to the airport in Madrid–a two and a half hour ride away. Usually she went to bed by 11 or so, but this night my host mom stayed up with me, waiting. I had to take a taxi from the apartment to the meeting place for the bus, since my bags were so heavy. My host mom called the taxi for me, then we had to say a quick goodbye–which was good since the taxi was arriving outside just as I got downstairs and to the door. The taxi only cost €8 so that wasn´t too bad, considering that it was about a ten minute ride.At the airport, the group split up almost immediately, since most of us had different flights from different airlines at different times.  I found my flight easily enough. I decided to go through security early, since it sounded like a pain, and no one from my group had flights in the same area. It was a good thing I did…the actual gate for the flight was like a ten minutes walk from security!Once I got on the plane, it was only a little over an hour to fly to Barcelona. And the time went quickly, since I met a girl named Karol, who was also from the US. She said that she works on a yacht, and so travels a lot. What was really funny was that she went to the college that’s closest to mine, and last summer was even working off the coast of cape cod!When we got to the airport, Karol helped me figure out where I was supposed to go, and helped me find the bus to get to the second terminal. But since her flight was from the first terminal, we thought it would be safer for her to stay at that terminal, since we weren’t sure exactly how long the bus ride was. (About five minutes) I found that flight as well. When I got there, there was no one in the line to check bags, but there was no one at the counters either. So I just waited, figuring that that was easier than waiting somewhere else.A few people got into line behind me. And they moved to the lines to either side, since they thought that there was a chance that the other lines would open earlier, since an airport worker had sat at one of them. The people were really nice–they let me move over to the front of the first line that started moving! I couldn’t quite understand everything they said, but I think that it was because they knew that I had been waiting there the longest. I went to check my bag, and was told that it was 6 kilos overweight, and I had to pay €60–ten for each kilo overweight. The first airline had also known that the bag was overweight, but they hadn’t said anything. Plus they let me get through security with my water bottle full. This airline did not. On the bright side, my seat mate was one of the nice people from earlier. =)The airport in Mallorca wasn’t that big, and since my bag had gone straight to Hamburg,  I didn’t have to go through security again. A good thing–at that point, I probably would have screamed. Mostly with frustration. I ate the sandwich my host mom from Spain had packed–”it’s your last one.” she’d said–and then waited for the plane. My seat mates were both German, but they spoke English and were really nice.The plane arrived in Germany about ten minutes after it was supposed to–maybe we’d left a little late? I was really surprised in the airport though…there was nothing saying where to check in near where I’d come in. So I followed the signs that said ‘baggage claim’, waited about 20 minutes for my bag, then was able to leave, free and clear, without checking in. How odd! When I had arrived in Madrid three months ago, there had been a check in on the way to the baggage claim area, and you couldn’t get to the second without going through the first. Not here though.

1 Comment » AUnt Roz:

December 23rd, 2010 @ 9:57 am You didn’t have all of that check in cause you were travelling within the EU as opposed to from another “country.” It is like travelling between states there.

Your host mom sounds as if she was very sweet.

I’ll be interested in hearing how your Germany visit went…

So I decided to take the 5:50 am train into Madrid on Friday, so that I would get to the consulate around 9, when I thought they opened. It turned out that they didn’t open until 9:30, but since I didn’t get to the consulate until 9:07 or so, I figured that it was easier to wait, rather than go away and come back. I didn’t end up waiting by myself either, since a lady who had lost her passport came to wait for the consulate to open as well.

Once in the consulate, it took all of 15 minutes to collect my passport and get out of the consulate. Plus, the visa was free! I’m not sure why, but they said that I didn’t have to pay for it. I think that maybe the program paid for it already?

Anyway, after that I decided to go to a nearby museum, the National Museum of Natural Science. I figured that since I liked the Science museum in Boston, this one couldn’t be that bad. It was slightly smaller than I’d expected, but then, it seemed that most for their exhibits were in the process of being changed.

The people at the museum were very helpful! One took a picture of me near one of the exhibits for me, and helped me find information on some of the exhibits that I had questions about. The other I met in a different part of the building, and he showed me that if I looked between two of the cases, I could see part of the closed dinosaurs’ exhibit, since the dinosaurs were so tall.

I spent about 2 ½ hours in the museum, then had to head back to the train station to take the train back to Salamanca.

The bus to Segovia left a little before 9am. It was a two hour drive.Segovia was really pretty. Their big attraction is the aquaducts that you can see for a kilometer. The rest of the aquaducts are underground, and its thought that they are approximately 2000 years old. The guide said that the part of the aquaduct that is above ground has the potential to work, and is used on special occasions, but other than that, it isn’t in use. The part below ground, which goes for another 3 kilometers doesn’t work anymore.We visited La Caja de Segovia. It was a museum type place that was pretty interesting. That’s where I got photos of tapestries and sets of armor.  Most of it isn’t original, since the place burned down a long while ago, but some things were replaced in that age, and others have been replaced since. One of the things that there are copies of are the ceilings, since those were one of the things that burned. Part of La Caja is a tower, since it’s sort of like a palace. The tower was probably for guards or something.Anyway, we had the option of going up to the top. I figured, why not, since we were already there. That staircase is now at the top of my ’staircases I don’t like’ list. First of all, there were 150 steps. The sign said 156, but I only counted 150. That could be because I had to stop to breathe every so often. And they weren’t even normal stairs. They were taller, and much narrower. It should have been a one way staircase, but since it was the only staircase, people were going up and down at the same time. And when that happened, one of the people would have to stop and squeeze against the wall. Going up wasn’t so bad, despite the fact that it was like 10 minutes before I could breathe normally once we reached the top. It was going down that was the problem. It was a spiral staircase, so there was a pole in the middle. But because of the height of the steps and the spiral, it was scary going down. Especially when I came across people who were going up at the same time! I think the people generally realized that I was sort of scared, since some of them were very careful to squeeze against the wall or the spiral so that I would have plenty of room to go down. I found some of the other kids from my group and ate lunch with them.Then we headed to a place that is apparently known as a ‘mini-Versailles’. It was like a museum, and it had pretty gardens, although they are probably prettier when the flowers are actually alive.  After that was the 2 hour drive back to Salamanca.At 11,  I met up with friends. My clothes still smell like smoke, since the bars we went to allow smoking. The first one was relatively quiet, and there were just three of us, me Marissa and Matt. I had coffee with milk, since when the person came to take our orders I didn’t understand that they were ordering beer. Marissa left after a while, and Matt and I waited. About a half hour later, she called us and told us where to go. We went to another bar, this one loud. Apparently it was the birthday of one of their english teachers. Here, I got rum and coke. It was 6.50 euros!!! At that price, I figured that that was the only drink I was going to buy.I’m not sure how long we stayed in that bar. Long enough for Marissa to introduce me to about 20 people whose names I don’t remember, and long enough for some of the others to get tipsy. Then we left and went to another bar, this one the quietest one of the night. I got a chance to talk to a couple of the English teachers.Which is what led to, at 4am, a discussion on religion. At that point, I didn’t know when we were going to call it quits for the night, and I had passed the point where I was tired. I had never thought though, that there would be a time when, at 4am in the morning I would be discussing religion with people who had all had lots more to drink than I had. It was….interesting.When we actually called it quits, we still had the walk back. So I ended up getting back to the house at 5am. No wonder I slept till 11 this morning.  Then, a little after noon, Marissa called and asked if I wanted to go to her house for lunch and help her practice her english. I said sure. Marissa’s parents were really nice. Her dad and her little sister both know a little english, so the one or two times I misinterpreted something or didn’t understand, they jumped right in and helped explain. We had paella for lunch. Until coming here and eating paella, I’d never eaten shrimp–I think they were shrimp–whose heads I had to take off before I could eat them. But they were good.I had to leave a little before 4, because I had made plans with other friends a few days ago. These friends are Japanese students studying here, and they’re helping me learn Japanese! They’re really nice. There’s three of them. I’ll think of names for them later.And tomorrow, I have class at 9. And I forgot to memorize the lines for the ISA play…

First, I’ll start with yesterday. Yesterday was Thanksgiving. The first Thanksgiving, I might add, that I wasn’t with my family. Because most of the kids in my program were complaining about missing Thanksgiving dinner, ISA (the program) decided to take us out to a restaurant for Thanksgiving dinner. It was fun.

ISA had promised us a surprise at the dinner, and that surprise was wine. Usually on ISA outings we aren’t allowed to consume alcohol, but because Thanksgiving was a special occasion, they said that it was ok. For dinner there was turkey and corn, carrots and peas. There were a few dishes of things that may have been pureed potatoes and pureed squash. There were no sweet potatoes. T_T

Dessert was a piece of cakey type stuff that had apple on top and custardy filling. It was good, but some of the kids I sat with were sad that it wasn’t pie. And then, surprising us, they brought out more alcohol along with shot glasses. One of the alcohols was purple–supposedly it was mixed berry but it tasted closer to cough syrup.  The one I liked better was a brown one. Amaretto or something like that.

Dinner had started around 9:30ish. I left at midnight, as others were starting to leave. I didn’t get to bed until one, and my roommate didn’t get back till 3:45.I had to wake up at 4:50, since I had bought a train ticket for the 5:50 am train. So yeah, I survived the day on like 3 1/2 hours of sleep. When I got to Madrid, it was 8:30am. I had to take the metro to get to near where I wanted to go–which was the Japanese consulate in Spain. I started walking in the direction that I thought the consulate was in. Didn’t find the consulate, but I found a police station and asked them, figuring that they would probably know. I headed in the direction the police officer had said.Still not finding it, I asked a guy with a green vest–one of those vests construction workers or crossing guards wear–and he gave me directions. I finally got to the consulate around 10ish.

The consulate was behind these huge metal gates. I had to push the buzzer to be allowed in, then had to go through a metal detector.The language barrier was a little bit of a problem–I may be getting better at Spanish, but the words for getting a visa weren’t something I had necessarily learned.  

Anyway, I filled out the application, then found out that I had needed to bring a photo. So I asked if there was a place to take photos in the area.

I’m just guessing here, but I think that I’m not the first person who had asked that, since the guy from the consulate pulled a printed map from the top of a pile of printed maps and gave it to me. The map showed the consulate, and how to get to a photo place. It also showed a little more of Madrid, which was helpful.

 Anyway, I went over and got the photo taken–I now have 5 extra–and went back to the consulate. The consulate took the photo and my passport and said they’d call me….I hope that means that they’ll give it to me. The man at the consulate did say that it should be ready in less than 5 days, so I’m probably going to go back to Madrid next friday.

I wandered around for a little while after that, and decided that there wasn’t really that much I wanted to do in Madrid. I had left the consulate by 11:30, and my train ticket wasn’t till 8! So I went to the station. It was free to change the time of the ticket, so I came back to Salamanca on the 3:45 train. I kinda wanted to watch a movie, but the movie I wanted to see had already started by the time the train arrived in Salamanca.But on my way out of the train station (which is connected to a mall, where there’s a theater) I ran into some friends who also wanted to see that movie. Now we’re planning to pick a day and go see it together. Which may be better anyway.

So when I first got to Salamanca, I was a little confused. Every gift shop that I went into had frogs. Stuffed animal frogs, frog keychains, t-shirts with frogs on them, frog statues…etc. Upon a little research I found out that on one of the old buildings in Salamanca (one of the University buildings, in fact) among all the latice work and other beautiful architecture of the building is a frog.

It even has its own legend! It is said both that the frog is good luck, and that if you find it without help from anyone, you will get married within a year.

Anyway, I went wandering around today. When I had said that I didn’t know where the building with the frog was, Mr. Garcia had told me the general area and added, “You can’t miss it. Everyone will be looking and pointing.” He was right. It still took about ten minutes to find it, even though I was listening in on other people’s conversations to see if they’d found it yet. It’s this little frog sitting on top of a skull. It’s very easy to overlook at first, but once you find it, you can’t really lose sight of it.

On my little exploration today, I also found a statue of Christopher Columbus. I was startled, then realized that made sense. He found America on orders of Queen Isabelle of Spain, right?

1 Comment » Dad:

October 30th, 2010 @ 5:21 pm RIBBIT…RIBBIT…RIBBIT

This time I was actually out for about 4 and a half hours, and I did drink alcohol, but let me start at the beginning.

I had texted the girl I’d met at intercambios, “Marissa” and asked what she was doing this weekend, since most of the people I hang out with went to Morocco for the week. I figured meeting up would be a good idea in order to practice my Spanish, and for her to practice her English. She called back a few hours later and, after a few minutes of trying to understand each other, asked what I was doing Thursday night. The answer was nothing. So she said that her English school was having “a fiesta” e.g. a party, on Thursday night, and did I want to come?

I have been told several times that going out with Spanish people was actually a better idea than going outwith other Americans. Plus, I had asked her first what she was doing during the weekend, so I said sure. The only problem was that I didn’t know where her English school was. Luckily, the boy that I’d also met at intercambios, “Matt” a friend of Marissa’s, lives on the same street that I currently do, and he also goes to that English school, so Marissa said that he would walk with me to the school.

That conversation took place on Wednesday. Thursday (yesterday) I had two classes.  The second class was from 6-8. During the class, the teacher mentioned a Spanish networking site that you can get into by invitation only. So, after class, I had a stupid question: “If you can only get on by invitation only, how did the first person get on? Since there was no one to invite them…” I was mostly being goofy, since logically I know that the first person on the site must have been one of the creators of the site. But overlooking that fact, I thought that it was an interesting question. One of those circle questions almost, like chicken or egg.

Anyway, I don’t think the teacher, “Mr. Garcia” quite got it, and this led into a discussion about marketing strategies. (This is one of my English classes–International Marketing) Somehow that led into a conversation about musicals. Mr. Garcia said that he went to London to see a performance of Chicago once. That’s one of his favorite musicals. His other favorite musical is Cats. (and dad, I can practically see you rolling your eyes when you read that). I told him about Sondheim a little, and about Wicked, since that was the only show that I’ve seen live. From there we went on to talk about music in general, (he plays guitar whereas I play violin). From there, I asked if there were music stores nearby. He wasn’t quite sure, but that led to him saying that I really should walk around Salamanca and explore. It was only when he said that he had to go that I realized that we’d been standing there talking for about 20 or 25 minutes!

Anyway, for the fiesta, I met Matt at the corner of the street at 11:15. We walked for a little while, and took so many turns that I was quickly lost. We waited in front of the school for Marissa. She and a friend of hers arrived soon, and then we went to the party. The party took place in the office of this business school. Some people were standing outside, some were inside. We stayed outside for a little while, and I met a few new people. (I’ll post the photo on Facebook not all of the people I met are in it, but Matt and Marissa are, as well as two others…I didn’t want to post it here since they’re in the picture and I don’t know if they want it scattered all over the web.)

I only had a coca-cola since the others were drinking beer, and I don’t like beer. There was one boy who was also only drinking coca-cola since he said that he had to drive home and then work the next day. Conversing wasn’t too hard, since all of these people had been studying English. We usually ended up speaking in sort of a mixture of both. I’m not sure how long it was, but after a while we moved inside. Towards the end of the fiesta, I ended up with coke and rum, which I had always said that I didn’t like, but this time it didn’t taste too bad. Although that could be because I had watched Matt prepare the drink, and it was pretty much half rum, half coke and a teeny piece of ice.

Around 2 am they started cleaning up the party, so we left. The boy who had work really left. The rest of us stood talking for a little, then Matt and Marissa followed a group of people who were headed towards a bar. I followed them, since I had no clue how to get back if I left then, and also because I wanted to see the bar they picked versus the one that Richard and his friends had chosen.

We lost the people in front of us, and then it was Matt, Marissa, me, an obviously drunk English teacher, and two others that were walking, trying to figure out where we were going. I talked to one of the others for a few minutes–he had studied Japanese! But he left early, deciding not to go to the bar with us.

We walked for a little while. Strangely, half of the people on the streets were dressed in costume. It made no sense to me that people were celebrating Halloween early, especially considering that they don’t really celebrate Halloween here.

Anyway, the bar we ended up in was small and crowded. But the noise was mostly from people talking rather than the music. I liked it much better than I had liked the bar I went to with Richard’s group. Here, I actually purchased alcohol. It was 5 euro for a glass of rum and coke. (That much…what was I thinking? ^^) I didn’t recognize most of the other types of alcohol, though they did have Jameson’s and Bailey’s. It was a pretty large glass though, and thanks to that, I think I discovered the feeling called “tipsy”.

I mean, I was thinking normally, and knew that even if I had a car I wouldn’t drive it, but at the same time, something was a little odd. Since it was past 3 am at that point, I can’t say for certain if I was tipsy off of the alcohol, or lack of sleep. Or both. Marissa took charge of the very drunk English teacher, and was going to escort him home.

Matt escorted me back. (His sister has a rat terrier puppy) He even walked me right up to the door of the apartment! The second I stepped in the apartment I checked my watch, and it was 3:45 am. I was surprised. Other than a little time at the bar, the night had passed very quickly, and…I had fun. Once I got over being nervous and didn’t worry so much about messing up my Spanish, that is.

My only problem after that was that it was very hard to get to sleep and I think I was half awake the whole night. I got up around 11, ’cause if I slept any later than tonight I would have problems. I’ll wait a little in case they’re still sleeping, and then I think I’m going to text Matt and Marissa and see if they want to walk around Salamanca with me tomorrow.

Well, technically it was only an hour and a half.

It started because yesterday (Thursday) I texted Richard and asked if he and a group of people were going out on Friday night. His reply was ‘Yea, and tonight too.’ So I thought about it. I don’t have classes on Friday, so I figured that I may as well go out on the Thursday night as the Friday.

We met up at 11:30.  Flora was there, as well as a bunch of kids that I only vaguely recognized. We went into a bar. It was jam packed solid and very very loud. The music was in English, and it was nice 70’s music. I actually didn’t get anything to drink, because I saw the prices, and it was like 4 euro for one cup. True that the cups were a bit bigger than normal, but since the bar seemed to mostly have beer, I wasn’t going to waste my money. (I do not like beer.)

I stood with the others though, and listened to their conversations, and participated in conversations. Which, mostly consisted of people yelling and/or leaning over so that they could hear or be heard.

When we left that bar, I could barely hear anything. My ears felt like they’d been stuffed full of cotton!I decided to walk with them to the next bar they were going to, just to see what it was like, but when we got there, you could hear the music all the way from the sidewalk. It was almost 1 at that point, and I didn’t think I could stand music that was even louder than the first place.

So I grabbed Richard’s sleeve to get his attention (as I said, it was loud even on the sidewalk) and told him that I didn’t want to go into this bar, because it was too loud, and my ears were already ringing. So he said “Ok, are you going to go home?” I said yes, but I didn’t quite know how to get back from where we were. So he said that he’d walk me back to the meeting point. A girl who’s in one or two of my classes, “Sara” also walked back with me.

We figured out that it would be quicker to go to a different spot other than the meeting place, because if we went all the way to the meeting place, I’d have to backtrack in order to get home. When we found the hill (there’s this incredibly long hill that I have to go up every time I go back from school) Richard asked “Are you sure you recognize this?” I said yes, he asked again, I looked around to double check, then said yes again.

As he had asked, I texted Richard once I got into the building, then I had to quietly go up the stairs and into the apartment. It wasn’t sneaking in, since they knew that I had gone out, but it was still hard, because I didn’t know where the light switch near the door was, and so had to rely on memory to navigate the hallway.

My ears rang all the way until I fell asleep.

I don’t know what I expected of going out, but it wasn’t quite that. Maybe I expected what you see in movies–one or two people at a bar, a few groups of people at the tables nearby. Apparently, I wasn’t considering the current generation in my calculations.

Anyway, I’ve decided that I may do that again. There’s no way I could do it every night, or every few nights like some of the kids do. But once in a while could work.  One thing I suggested to Richard was that a group of us buy alcohol at the supermarket or something, and then find a place to hang out–possibly the meeting place. (Which is the plaza mayor for the city of Salamanca) Wouldn’t that be less expensive and less noisy? Or would that sort of defeat the point of going out? I know I prefer quieter with fewer people.  But I will most likely end up in a bar again, with this same group, just because. And next time, I’ll actually drink some alcohol.

1 Comment » Danielle Galbreath:

October 22nd, 2010 @ 8:43 am Hi wendy

I see you are having an awesome time(-: OMG so who is Richard? Is he cute? lol So you went to a few bars awesome(-: POWER HOUR! So do they only have bars in Spain or are there pubs, pubs are much better they aren’t as loud, but I know what you mean about the music scotland was the same way(-:

Well keep having fun and keeing up on your studies we will have to Skype some night ttul

This weekend was the first excursion that ISA had. It was a two day, one night trip. Yesterday morning (Saturday the 16th) we met up at 9, and drove about an hour to the first stop on the list, Mogarraz. At Mogarraz is a walking trail called ‘Camino del Agua’. The people kept saying that the route was ‘facil’ –that is, easy–and on the map, the route didn’t look that bad, so I didn’t think anything of it.And at first, the walk was pretty easy. Of course there were several groups though. One group of people pulled in front immediately…I stayed towards the middle. That way, if I got lost or unsure where I was going, I could wait for the ISA people to catch up. I found a bunch of what I think are called ‘horse chestnuts’. I also found an acorn, but not the short squatty kind. It was the Totoro kind, except for the color. Shortly after that, the walk started getting harder.

Later I realized that I had neglected to look at the bottom of the map where it explained that the walk was first flat, then uphill, downhill, flat, downhill a lot, uphill a lot, then flat again. That kind of walk–no, hike–is a bit harder than it sounds. It took about two hours to walk the whole route, which was…someodd kilometers that I think someone figured out equaled approximately 4 or 4 1/2 miles. One of my ankles still hurts from forcing my feet into the awkward position of walking down the ‘hills’!

We got back to the bus and ate lunch…and also waited for the people that had been walking in the back. As much as ISA insisted that we be there on time, they were not about to leave without everyone.

Next we went to La Alberca. There, we went into a house that had been turned into a museum. We were told that it was an example of a typical house in that town. The way the rooms were set up, it seemed tiny, but when you had actually seen everything, you realized that they had more room than you had originally thought.

We had a little bit of time, so I walked around with Eve, a girl named “Sylvia” and a boy named “Raffael.” We explored the area near where we had visited the museum house.  We found a path that was really quiet, and that had horse chestnuts all over the ground, because they kept falling off the trees. Several times we heard a noise, and when we looked, it was just a chestnut. Towards the end of the path there was a stretch that, instead of being dirt or cement was ‘paved’ by broken pottery.

The last stop of the day was ‘Peña de Francia’. It was this church on top of this wicked huge mountain. I felt better, seeing the mountains, since when I’m at school normally, I see them every day. I took a whole bunch of pictures, which I’m going to upload most to facebook, since last time I put them here it didn’t seem to work so well… I loved the mountain though. Sometimes I’m afraid of heights, but this was not one of those times. I was able to look straight down and feel only peace upon seeing the view.

Of course, on the bus ride, the other kids would not forget that we were driving up/down this huge mountain. On the way up, they didn’t seem to think so much of it…maybe because until you look down from the top, you don’t realize just how high you are. But on the way down, there were plenty of comments. It didn’t help that every now and then, the bottom of the front of the bus would brush against one of the guardrails. Some of the kids called comments like “Here we go again!” every time there was a corner. And once, I heard one kid call “Hey guys! There’s a bus down there! That’s what happened to the last group of ISA students!”

We drove to the Ciudad Rodrigo, where we’d be staying the night. I ended up with Aly as my roommate again…for about five minutes. Then we were offered a chance at having our own rooms. Since Aly jumped at the chance, I didn’t say anything, and ended up with my own room as well. I was going to go with Aly and a group of kids to dinner, but I waited downstairs for a while, but they didn’t come.

Another group of kids came down though, and they invited me to go with them. I said that I was waiting for Aly, and they waited with me for about ten minutes. When she still didn’t come, I decided to go with them anyway, figuring that Aly would figure out that I’d gone with another group. I vaugly recognized most of the kids from the group, but one I remembered meeting a few days ago, at the first theater meeting. His name is “Richard.”

We walked around for a few minutes, not sure where to eat.  We found a pizza place, and Raffael was determined to have pizza. That didn’t sound like a bad idea, so I said that if he was staying, then I’d stay too. Another boy “Jon” also stayed. The others decided to continue on in search of chinese food.

Jon, Raffael and I had just ordered when the group that had gone looking for chinese food came back. We moved our table over to theirs. They had just ordered when the group that Aly was with walked in! There was no more room at our table, so they put together several other tables to make another long one. When we counted, there were about 30 of us there! (And Aly did say that she had figured out that I had gone with another group and it was no big deal.)

During dinner, I was sitting next to Raffael and Jon, and I was across the table from “Harry.” We talked about all sorts of random things…but it was a little hard because it was so loud! Towards the end of the meal, Jon asked “Do you mind if I smoke?” I hesitated–my lungs had kind of had enough for the day, what with the walk earlier and all–but I said “I guess not.” To my surprise, he insisted “If you mind, then tell me. I don’t like when people smoke, and I don’t like second hand smoke.” he also mentioned something about ‘hating cigarettes’. So my question was “Then why do you smoke?” He kind of laughed, and said “Addiction is a funny thing.” He did go outside to smoke. When he came back in, when we were leaving, I told him thanks for being so…I think I used the word ‘courteous’, or something similar. Any other time I had given that response to that question, the person had just gone ahead and smoked…although some of them don’t bother asking. So that was something that really caught my attention.

We walked back to the hotel. Some of the group stayed there, but me, Richard, a boy named “Nick”, a girl named “Ashley”, a girl whose name I forgot (sorry! I told you I was bad with names! >.<) and Raffael decided to go in search of a store that was open. Raffael and Richard were still hungry, and the rest of us didn’t seem to really care, just wanted to go anyway.

When we got back to the hotel, it was about 11:30. We went to Richard and Harry’s room and watched a movie. Apparently, it’s called ‘Dear Reader’ and it is a soundtrack that you play over the soundtrack of the first Harry Potter movie. A parody. There were a few parts that I didn’t like, but overall, it was pretty funny. A whole bunch of people came and went during the movie. And Richard had a bottle of wine that he shared. It was actually pretty good–especially since I heard someone say that it had only cost 3 euro. I made Richard laugh with my typical wine tasting line–”It needs more sugar.”

I got back to my room about 1:30 am.

This morning, I was the first person down to breakfast. I had been sitting there for only a few minutes though, when another person from our group came in. He sat across from me, and we introduced ourselves. His name is “Leon.” He let me talk about James Dean for close to thirty minutes. I was amazed, especially since he was actually interested in the information. The James Dean talk started when he had asked me about where I live, and I was talking about Cape Cod. He had asked whether the bridges were draw bridges. I had said no, they were permanent, and they had been built in…1935. I was pretty sure that was the year, I said, since last time I had gone over the bridge I remember thinking that James Dean had been 2 years old when they built the bridge. Leon laughed and said that that was an interesting way to remember, and that was how I started talking about James Dean.

A little while later, while we were waiting for everybody, I decided to wait outside with two boys who were already out there. One is “Drake” and the other is “Jack.” We talked about movies. I suggested that they watch the movie ‘The Great Race’ since that has one of the best villain side-kicks that I’ve seen. (Of course it was Peter Falk) and yes, that did go with the conversation because we had just been talking about Muttly and what’s his name…Dastardly (though we couldn’t remember the name at the time.)

We, that is, the whole group, walked around for a while–I got a ton of pictures–and then we visited another church. This church is actually a historical site, and it’s called Catedral de Santa Maria. The neatest part was a…a…sculpture thing. It had Mary standing over a glass coffin that had Jesus in it. To either side was a Saint (San Domingo and San Fransisco). On top, above Mary were two angels (they had pretty wings) and in between the angels was another saint, San Diego de Acala. He was holding a cross, and there was something about the way that his face had been sculpted that makes me want to research about him. I could have sat there staring at him for a long time…but of course, we had to look at the other things in the church, and I hardly even noticed the wicked old songbooks.

After that, we had free time for lunch. I went with Richard, Raffael, Harry, I think Jon was there…a girl named “Tiffany”, a girl named “Flora”, a girl named “Lila”, a girl named “Cara”…and there was one more boy, but I can’t quite recall who. I do remember that there were ten of us, five boys and five girls..Oh! And Nick was there. The chinese place we went to was nice, but they were a little slow. We ended up having to ‘run’ back to the hotel, since we were supposed to meet up at 3:15, and we didn’t leave the restaurant until 3:15.

Then it was on the bus, back to Salamanca. I made sure to exchange phone numbers with several people, since I know that they go out at night a lot. This way, I’ll end up going out too…because I had fun walking around with them last night, and it seems to me that it’s a little silly to spend every weekend locked in my room.

Well, I have a nine o clock class tomorrow, so I better check and make sure that I didn’t have homework!

2 Comments » AUnt Roz:

October 17th, 2010 @ 5:00 pm Hey Wedny-

Sounds like a very fun weekend. And interesting sights. Two thumbs up for going out at night rather than being locked in your room all weekend. (-:) Salamanca is supposed to have a great night life.

Adios!

Danielle Galbreath:

October 17th, 2010 @ 5:33 pm Hey looks like your having a fun time in Spain(-: Hey you been taking pictures, need to see some soon(-: Keep having fun and remember go to a bar at least once (or more) while your there its awesome lol ttul