Salamanca: Home Sweet Home

I have finally arrived in Salamanca, my hometown for the next 8 months!


After the group left Toledo this morning, we went to another old town called El Escorial.  Most people weren't too excited to be going on another guided tour, but it actually ended up being pretty interesting. The town revolves around an old church, or monastery, which monks still study at today.  From what I understood, it's now a place where really, really old books are kept, and certain students can still come to study the original texts.

Me standing in front of the monastery:

Inside the whole square:

Anyway, the town was pretty interesting because it reminded the Colorado kids of Boulder, since it is a small city built on a foothill.  It was very dry and then suddenly mountainous landscape as we left the city of Madrid. Aside from the Spanish billboards, and occasional castle ruins, I could have been driving out to Steamboat!

Are those the Flatirons I see?! (haha jk)

After getting lunch, we headed off to Salamanca, another 2 hours away. And man, were we all nervous! Our guide, Carmen, kept assuring us that our families were definitely more nervous than we were; they were the ones who were going to have to put up with us for at least 3 months. But once we pulled up and saw all the señoras waiting on the sidewalk, it definitely hit all of us that this was actually happening.  I was one of the last students to be picked up, and not by my host mother, but by my host dad. He was nice, but I got really shy and nervous and couldn't remember any of my Spanish during the 5 minute ride back to the apartmento. Yikes!


I'll be living on the 2nd (which, in Spain, is really 3rd) floor of an apartment complex, in a 3 bedroom apartment. It's a small but tidy apartment with yellow stone floors, tight hallways, a tiny long and narrow kitchen, and 3 mini bedrooms, by American standards. Everything is clean, and there is absolutely no excess junk lying around anywhere. Very typical for Spain, I imagine. 


As for the food? I'm VERY excited to have a host mom who will cook most of my meals for me, because I certainly will not be missing meals like this one that we ordered at a restaurant: