"Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor. Which is one very strong argument in favor of matrimony."

This past weekend I went to Salamanca and Segovia with API. We left Friday afternoon on a bus and about 3 hours later we were in Salamanca. It's a college town! How great is that?! The University of Salamanca joins the ranks of Oxford, Cambridge, and the Sorbonne in Europe... according to the Spanish tour guide. It's one of the oldest in Europe, and the oldest in Spain. It was founded in 1218 by King Alfonso IX, then reorganized in 1254 by Alfonso X, not 200 years after Normans invaded England in 1066. It has something like 80,000 students. So during the day the town is rather peaceful and calm; but at night, if you can't find something to do, then you are both completely blind and completely deaf. Having said that, we stayed two nights and I did not go out at all. Leave it to me to accomplish such a feat.

Friday night, I ate a delicious dinner at an Italian restaurant with Laura, Gisella, Ginger, Stacy, Kacie, and Alejandro. After dinner we went to some packed bar, but Laura and I shortly left because we weren't in the going out mood (and I'm poor). She and I went back to our room, because we're always hotel roommates on these trips, and watched a little TV before going to bed because we had to get up kinda early for our tour the next morning.

The tour, as tired as I am of them, was quite nice. I like the little bits of info they share with us. Like the professors wore their professor robes with a colored piece on their chests which represented their field, the room they taught in had/has inscription in front of it with the subject and the same colored background, so they students knew where to go for class. Yellow for medicine, green for political science or whatever juris civili means in Latin, and BLUE FOR LANGUAGE aka "linguis". I took a picture of the blue sign. It has a little description underneath, which I believe says the languages taught, and then something probably about knowledge:

LINGUIS
Hebraicae, Chaldaicae, Arabicae,
Graecae, ut omnis pateat ad
sapientian aditus, Senatus
publicum ludum statuit.

On the elaborate sculpture decoration of one of the entrance doors, there is a skull with a tiny frog on it. Although the professors meant that as a warning to students of the evils of women to their studies, the students changed it that if you found a frog/woman you'd be sure to pass your exams. This is because the frog is soooo tiny and hard to spot on the wall filled in sculptures and decorations. So the frog in Salamanca, is a sign of luck. I wonder if "salamanca", then, has anything to do with "salamander". Anyway, the school seemed pretty gosh-darn amazing, and I really wished I had chosen that API program rather than Madrid. But no, because Madrid has the Puertos and an airport, and that's enough to say that I would not have done it differently.

After the tour, Laura and I took a nap and then went out in search of food. We ate at a bar-café, and wandered around through the Plaza Mayor/University area for a while. We bought some wine and cheese for that night because we decided not to go out again but to stay in with wine and cheese. We went back to our room, had quite a long chat about our pasts, presents, and futures, then went out in search of dinner food. I bought pomegranates and apples for dinner because I was still really full from lunch. Gisella and Ginger came over and we had our wine, cheese, and some of their bread things with herb cream cheese (a thoroughly un-Spanish selection of food), and watched the Eurovision Kid's Song Contest on TV, which was ridiculously hilarious. Russia won, that's all I know.

Sunday we had to get up early to go to Segovia for a little tour. I'd already been to Segovia so I fully planned on skipping the tour and giving Laura and whoever else wanted my own tour, and then having more time to eat. The bus was something like 2 hours late to pick us up, when we got there it was raining, and we still had to leave Segovia at the same appointed time. So Laura and I went off on our own and I showed her the important things and we ate some pasta and then I stopped at a panadería (bakery) for a bit of chocolate. We ended up with an hour left so we sat in the tourist office and waited. The tour group took almost the entire time leaving everyone with 45 minutes to eat, and they were soaked. Laura thanked me all the more for my tour. When I got back I was greeted with a large box, full of 4 tins of cookies from Mommy dearest. LOVELY! So I ate and watched a movie and did some mending on my pants and coat which were coming apart.

Yesterday, Monday, I went with Ginger to the Mercado Navideño, Christmas Market, in Plaza Mayor. I was hoping to see a bunch of different things, but it was the same 3 kinds of stand repeated. There were stands devoted ENTIRELY to Nativity scenes, I've never seen such things: animated Jesus the carpenters, breadmakers, every animal imaginable, palm trees, different mangers, etc. There were stands with bunches of Christmas junky decorations: lights, little signs, moss?, hanging things, ornaments, ribbon, etc. And then there were the joke shop stands with the masks, fake blood, whoopie cushions, trick water fawcets, face paint, costumes, etc. Ginger and I were QUITE thrown off by these. I found out later that December 28th is their sort of April Fools Day, día de los Santos Inocentes. Only they get a little more into it than we do on April Fools. Puerta del Sol and the streets leading up to it were all lit up and decorated, I got some photos. We walked back to the residencia because I had asked to meet up with Lucía because 2 of the cookie tins were for the Puertos, and I had to return their books to them, so naturally I needed to freshen up.

I went to their piso at about 8pm, and I won't recount the mass of awkward that is me, but I was finally let in by Lucía and then was greeted by Rita and Ana. I gave them the cookies, and they loved them. They were very happy that Mom had gone so far as to send cookies for them. They'd also never had gingerbread cookies, but they know who the gingerbread man is, la muñequita de jengibre. They asked me all about my trips. And when I told them about my Italy trip (Dec 16-20th) I asked if I could leave my suitcases at their house because I have to be moved out by the 16th, and not only did they readily acquiesce but they offered to take me to the airport for Italy, pick me up from the airport after Italy, and take me to the airport for home (Dec 21st). I said thanks very much, but they wouldn't be taking me to the airport for Italy because my flight is at 6am, so I'll get a taxi. Then Rita wrote down the dates to put on her calendar, and realized there's a day between coming back from Italy and leaving for home, and said I could stay with them. I'm a wretched person and pretended I didn't realize that at all and said thank you, but really had she not offered I would have asked. Rita then said I should stay and they would order some pizza with... HAM and cheese. They really don't lose an opportunity to eat ham in Spain. Anyway we ate and talked a bit, mostly I listened. We talked about differences in cultures and such. It was enlightening. So we finished and said we'd be in touch about dropping my stuff off with them and flights and such.

That's all for now, I'll post photos as soon as I swipe someone's camera to put them on my computer. I have my last class later today. Tomorrow and Friday are national holidays in Spain, so I have nothing to do. Thursday, Monday, and Tuesday I have exams. Other than that I have Madrid to myself to explore before going to Italy.