Right now it's a cold and rainy spring morning in Boston and as I was sipping on some tea I started thinking about the warmth that Salamaca, Spain brought into my life. I had a lot of intention to finish this blog a long time ago but I lost track of myself.
The Madrid airport is the hardest airport to navigate! We were in and out of it several times and each time we saw multiple foreigners lost and confused. When we arrived to Madrid for the first time it was late and of course we had to call our hotel shuttle to pick us up, but how could we call without a phone? We learned very quickly that people do not speak English there and our Spanish was very limited but that didn't stop me. I went up to the information desk and asked a man if I could use a phone to call our hotel and he agreed. We got to our hotel and passed out in enough time to miss breakfast and head back to the airport to catch our bus to Salamanca. In all the drama, I realized that my brand new laptop was not with me. The hotel called the airport and everything was just a huge mess. We retraced our steps and finally at the info counter I had been at the previous night, I located my laptop. Now, it was time to find the buses and purchase a ticket. After walking for a long time we figured out that tickets could only be purchased online. AGAIN, we did not have a phone with data and the airport wi-fi would not allow us to use it on our phones. I took out my laptop and said a prayer and poof the wi-fi allowed me to access it. I was able to purchase the tickets but now the problem was, WHERE DO WE CATCH THE BUS??? There was not 1 sign NOT 1!!! We asked and people would say go to terminal 4 or 1. We went to both of the terminals and saw nothing. Finally we found someone to tell us that at terminal 4 you have to leave the airport and go towards the rental area and the buses are there. We found our way to a line of foreigners and asked if they were waiting for the bus. Finally we were on our way to Salamanca. When we arrived to our beautiful city we decided to walked from the bus station to our apartment to meet our new landlord. We were shown our room and around the house; met our roommates, saw the mound of dirty dishes, the disgusting bathroom, and kitchen. IS IT to late to change our minds? Our fourth roommate we met at 1 am (AM stands for MORNING!) because he thought it was fun to watch movies and have a party when our rooms are half joined together. He didn't speak ANY English and so our conversation went like this:
Lauren: "Hola"
Not amigo: " Hola"
Lauren: We are trying to sleep!
Not amigo: no intendes
Lauren: *Puts hands together and under head and makes snore noises..... then looks at him and covers her ears and starts screaming! YOU ARE TOO LOUD!!!!
Not amigo: lo siento
He closed his door and turned down the music and then everyone started whispering! We could still hear every word but at least we could sleep through it. We found out the next morning that another roommate was moving at the end of the week and we asked to have his room. They agreed and we had three weeks of peace and quiet.
Although our living situation was less than ideal we picked an amazing University and town to take classes. We fell in love with everything immediately.
A popular shop was the tobacco shop, so we decided to see what all the jazz was about... just kidding! Remember that I hurt myself really bad before we left? Well I bought some tobacco and put it on my skin to help the bruising and pain. It worked and it also stained my skin... haha
Did I mention that we ate a lot of food? One thing I would say to any traveler is don't don't go in somewhere just because you are nervous. Suck it up and just do it. Yes we ate some really bad food because the menu was not translated into English, but you live and you learn(speaking from experience. I ordered a meal on our second day and got food poisoning!! Picture of that food is on the far right) This pizza was at a beautiful restaurant. We ate outside and did a lot of people watching. The water was expensive and so was the pizza, but it was worth it. OH AND THE OLIVES!!! SO DELICIOUS!
If you know Nick then you must also know his love for Pizza. All the foreigners had their favorite pizza place that they would recommend, but Nick wanted to know which one had the best pizza, so we did an experiment. We went to EVERY pizza place within a few blocks of our place and ordered the same pizza (Nick's favorite is pepperoni and mushroom). I can't remember the names of the places but I do remember that all of the pizzas tasted different. They all had distinct different crust, sauce, cheese, and pepperoni.
A fun tradition that we have when we are visiting a place for the first time is going to the grocery store and buying a lot of different snacks that we have never seen before. Then we eat them!! Here you can see store bought flan and some kind of mint cookie. SUPER GOOD!
Seriously this trip feels like a lifetime ago. I truly miss it and all the fun times we had. I miss all of the olives, tapas, soda, pastries, smothering hot nights, freezing mornings, and most of all I miss all of the friends we made and our Spanish classes!
I hope you enjoyed our memories just as much as we do!!
I cannot tell you how much this makes me want to go spend time in Spain!!! I think when I retire I'm going to spend my first month there! My Spanish will be rusty, but it's still good enough to get me around. Your "not amigo" would know what I was saying... Haha.
ReplyDeleteBest times, best peeps, best experiences...����spain. Hope you guys are fab xx (think of you often)..kylie 😙
ReplyDeleteLove your post! Which pizza was the best?
ReplyDeleteThis is great to see
ReplyDelete