Salamanca, España

When I arrived to Spain, I had about 48 hours in Madrid before Julia and I took a train to Salamanca. Salamanca is great because it’s a college town, and Julia has cool friends in high places. OK, so it’s a bad pun, but her friends do have the top apartment at the top of the hill that Salamanca rests upon. Needless to say, I woke up every day to a wonderful view of this small city.

When we arrived, Salamanca was in the final days of a 25-day festival of art and music. This meant art exhibits in the streets every afternoon and concerts in the Plaza Mayor every night.

In Salamanca I realized that everything is later in Spain. To leave the apartment at midnight was not unusual, and I saw the sun rise several times during my week in Salamanca. To a certain extent, this may be the result of the heat, which breaks rapidly in the evening to give way to wonderfully cool temperatures at night. At any rate, practicing my super-rusty Spanish at 4 o’clock in the morning was difficult at times.

Julia’s friends in Salamanca were a blast. We wandered around the city at night with juggling pins, rings, and balls (all juggling items are called “malabares” in Spanish – I don’t know if there’s a general word in English). One of her friends named Javier was also a fantastic improvisational poet, and would approach any person on the street to engage them in ridiculous conversation or theatrical sketch. Any pictures you see with me in them were taken by Javier, who filled my camera with about 50 pictures of random people on the street.

I spent most of my time in Salamanca salvaging what little Spanish I could remember and improving my vocabulary and grammar. Days were spent wandering around Salamanca, viewing the intricate sculpture work on the sides of the ancient buildings and sitting in the shade drinking cheap sangria. It was an amazing way to start my Spanish trip, and I made friends that I hope to never lose.