week 2

The New Cathedral

The dome of the New Cathedral

The altar area of the Old Cathedral

I can't believe it's Thursday already! This week has flown by - that's okay though, no complaints here. :) I don't feel like much has happened since Monday, when I last posted, but let's see... Tuesday was the same old, same old, except our afternoon class was film. The movie we saw was about the Spanish Civil War - I sure am learning a lot about that period of time. I didn't realize how severe and damaging it was. After the film and studying for a bit, some of our guys played soccer agains the Spaniards who live in our dorm also. Needless to say, we lost and the Spaniards won .... At least our guys had fun.

Wednesday the day was the same as usual, except that the last class was our "tour-of-the-city" course, which is always interesting. Yesterday we toured the cathedrals. Salamanca has two cathedrals - Old and New. They are built right next to each other; in fact, they connect. The Old Cathedral dates back to the 12th century, and the new was built in the 16th century. They are gorgeous buildings; it is amazing to see the detail in the architecture and art. Last night some friends and I got together to study - at 10:00 p.m. I am still having a hard time adjusting to how late everything goes here. At 10:30, while we were studying in the cafeteria/bar of the dorm, they started a Bingo game. We ended our study session shortly after 11:00, and I'm sure Bingo went for at least another hour... I don't know people are able to get up in the mornings. I went to bed as soon as I could after studying.

Today I had an interesting experience at a café. I went in and asked for a "café americano," which basically is half of a stirofoam cup "watered down" coffee. When the man handed it to me, he told that I shouldn't be ordering "café americano," but that I should ask for a "café español." He told me that since I'm in Spain I should be trying Spanish things, that "café americano" isn't good, it's too watered down, and I should drink coffee like the Spaniards do - very concentrated in tiny amounts. I told him I'm a bad Spaniard and Latin, because I don't care much for the flavor of coffee. So he told me told me to drink Spanish coffee with milk. At this point I couldn't really even believe that I was having this conversation with the man; all I wanted was my coffee. :) I told him that I'm allergic to regular milk, so I can't drink "café con leche," and besides I like to put chocolate in my coffee. Nothing I said satisfied him, so I told him that tomorrow I would stop by and order a Spanish coffee. Little does he know that I'll still end up adding water and chocolate to it, so that I cover of the coffee flavor. Another interesting cultural experience. Tonight I skipped dinner and I'm going to bed early - my goal is to be in bed by 10:30. :)