I´ve got lots to tell you!

Well, get ready for a long blog...it´s been awhile since I´ve been near a computer to update you all!

Where to start? Well, the weekend began on a good note Friday afternoon after class. I returned home to eat lunch, where I ate the most interesting thing that I´ve had since I´ve gotten here. My tastes have definitely been stretched and broadened since arriving in España! I´ve had lots of fish and vegetables, ham one day, and quite a bit of soup. The meal on Friday was just that: soup. No problema-and I knew if was a type of ¨marisco¨soup (seafood) when I arrived home because of the smell. Again, no problema. (i´m getting better mom! ha!) So I start eating and as I´m scooping the soup, I realize there´s something in it, and I was thinking ¨sweet! There are noodles in this!¨But no...when I stuck my spoon back in, I scooped out an ENTIRE HUMONGOUS SHRIMP! And not just the meat mind you-it´s beady little eyes were staring at me! I gagged. Somehow I managed to eat the rest of the soup, but I did NOT eat the shrimp...

Onto weekend travels--this weekend was FULL of them!

On Saturday, we headed to Segovia and Ávila, two towns close-ish to Salamanca-about 2 hours away. I absolutely loved Segovia! It was very quaint, but the castle there was an inspiration for the Walt Disney castle-it looks just like it! After chatting with some other folks, we´ve discovered that there are a few other castles around the world that look like the Walt Disney one, but this one definitely had it´s resemblances! We got to go inside and tour around-it was incredible. It had a lot of Moorish and Roman influence, so the detail was phenomenal-very ornate, and they definitely did not hold back on using gold to decorate with! We saw lots of really old stuff, and there was an artillery musuem within the castle, so I got to see (and touch!) cannons and spears from like, the 12th century! How awesome is that?! I later saw the sign (it was REALLY small) that you weren´t supposed to touch anything...whoopsies...

After the castle (alcazar), we walked around a lot of town, saw some old churches and buildings then, de repente (suddenly) as we turned the corner, there was the INCREDIBLE Roman acqueduct. It has to be one of the most fascinating things I have ever seen in my life. It was enormous, and all made out of granite blocks that the Romans hauled over from the mountain nearby...nearby as in about 20 km or more! The acqeduct itself is only about 400 meters long, but it runs from a mountain 20 km. away with a 1% slope to it. Just looking up at it and touching it was astounding. I wish I could´ve seen how they built it. Lots of simple machines, but still...I´m going to put a link in the upper right hand corner to a picture of it-it´s so cool. We got to climb up and see the top of it and just being up that high makes it seem impossible to construct it. All of the arches are perfect and exactly identical, and the most amazing thing is that there´s no adhesive holding the blocks together-it´s self-supported! AH! So cool!

After Segovia, we hopped back on the bus and headed to Ávila, to see the murallas. (mu-rai-yas), or the walls that encapsulate the old city. They were really neat and provided a great defense to the city back in the day. We thought it´d be cool to watch an invasion attempt on Ávila...by this time we were all feeling a little delirious and our bodies were wilting...it was quite hot and we´d been walking around all day...

We got home around 10:30 and then left the next morning for Santander at 7 AM to catch an 8 AM bus. We rode the bus for about 5 1/2 hours, but it was so worth it! Santander is on the north coast of Spain, and I absolutely loved driving through Spain. The terrain is beautiful-lots of farming, but there´s also this great mountain range that we drove through that was so cool-definitely felt European! Lots of windy roads and tall trees with huge dropoffs--can´t say I didn´t fear for my life a little bit becuase a few of our bus drivers were CRAZY! We arrived in Santander around 1:30, went to our hotel, which was on the beach, then hit the beach! It was a great way to finish up our time here-just relaxing. We spent the afternoon on Monday on the beach too, then headed home around 4:45.

European beaches...are quite different...We definitely saw a LOT of topless girls....Well, let me rephrase that:topless women and topless ancianas-old women. The first one was at least 55 years old-who wants to see that?! It was quite bizarre. Then, this man laying in front of us with his wife, took off his bathing suit to reveal a Speedo. Ok, I can handle Speedos-I did work with a bunch of swimmers for 4 years. But then....oh man. He rolled it up to make it into a THONG! Ah! It was horrible! And, to make it even better, his wife had a thong on too, so they matched. We nearly died laughing-silently, of course, but it was so gross.

The beach though was amazing. The water looked like the Carribbean-very clear, gorgeous, but a little chilly! Colder than our Spring Break water, but we still got in, but only about to our knees. It was incredible. I have lots of pictures!

So all in all the weekend of travelling was great. School is flying by-only 3 more days! I can´t believe tomorrow is Wednesday! I have loved my time here-Spain is a great country! When I get home I´ll see what I can do about putting up some pictures. I hope you´re all doing great-can´t wait to see you all. Thanks for reading all of this! Love, Rebecca