Confessions of A Working Girl

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 ...

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...

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 kilomet...

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 Thanksgivi...

The night before the trip to Granada, I went out with Marissa and Matt. We didn’t drink though, and didn’t even really stay out that late (I was back by 12) We had a nice conversation though…and I tried to explain to them what the word ‘random’ meant since there isn’t really an equivalent in Spanish…

Anyway, 9:30 Friday morning we met up to go to Granada. It was a 7 hour bus ride. When we got to Granada, it was around 7:30pm and we had free ti...

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 y...

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 ...

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 ba...

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. ...

 I’ll get to why I’m overwhelmed later, but for the moment, let me tell about Salamanca.

So, when we got to Salamanca, all of us (everyone in my group) was a little nervous. Strangely, I wasn’t really, but I did worry about how well I’d be able to communicate. When we got off the bus, our host families were waiting. My host family consisted of two people: Matilda and her husband.  Although it sounds like Matilda’s mother also stays here during N...