beautiful salamanca

This week has been quite busy for me. There were a lot of birthdays this past week, which made for a lot of good times.

Maggie and I had a library date on Monday so we went for a few hours and worked on that 50 page packet we had to read for Cine.

On Monday night I hung out at Hannah’s for a bit and then the boys and Hannah and I went of for a bit to Country. We met up with Sian and Manuela and Alexandra and their friend who was in from Italy and hung out there for a while.

hannah, alexandra, manuela, matthieu and me.


hannah and me.


mike and me.

Tuesday was my actually b’day and it was a pretty sweet day. I had a big package from the rents to open in the morning. Thanks for the vitamins Mom and Dad, I was pretty excited about that.

Maggie and I went out for a date to our favorite little café after class, and she treated me to a pot of tea. It’s nice to get away sometimes and just have time with her alone to talk about what’s really gong on. We’ve been living together for like 9 weeks now, but there are still things I’m learning about her. That’s a neat feeling.

mags and me.


the bar.


recipes written on the walls.

Tuesday afternoon I went to the library for a few hours. Not something you would think would be really fun on your b’day, but I really thrive on that. Getting a solid few hours of work in really invigorates me and helps me have a better outlook on life. I’m still struggling with the way I spend my time, so whenever I can just be really diligent for a few hours, I feel so much better about myself.

Tuesday night I was going to go to Hannah’s because she said she wanted to make me dinner. After that we were going to meet up with some JMU people and go out for a bit. So I showed up at Hannah’s around 9:45 and went up and when I got there all my JMU friends and all of Hanna’s flatmates were there for a surprise party. It was pretty fun. I had absolutely no idea, wasn’t expecting anything and hadn’t picked up on some of the things my friends had told me. So it was wonderful for everyone to be there together. I’m glad tha the two worlds collided and all t he JMU kids got to meet my other friends. Laura and some others had done a bunch of cooking and cooked all this amazing veggie, spicy food. It was pretty amazing; I wasn’t forced to eat anything fried.

So after that we went out for a bit and celebrated my b’day. All those kids are so fun to go out with.

i got a lot of sweet letters in spanish.


lisa clearly loves surprise parties.


veggie food!


b'day cakes in spain!


sporting my new jewels and accessories.
i'm a big fan of pink.

Wednesday was actually a strange day. I woke up in the morning just with this really sad feeling, homesickness to the max, like I haven’t felt before. And I just felt like I was walking in a cloud the whole day. Spain’s great and all, but it’s done crazy things on my emotional stability and I guess Wednesday I was just feeling it. It was just one of those days where nothing really makes me happy and I was on the verge of tears all day. Thankfully Hannah let me come over and I just sat on her bed and drank tea and probably cried at random intervals. I’m glad I’ve got a ‘mom’ over here.

my mood could have been attributed to the
clouds and rain that day.

Thursday I don’t really remember a lot about. I had all my classes and then don’t really remember what else I did. Probably should stop boozing so hard. (JUST KIDDING MOM!)

Friday was a nice day. Teresa’s stepdaughter to be (she’s getting married in May) Emma, who’s 9 was over at the house all morning and early afternoon, so we got to hang out with her some. She’s a riot. Very talkative and she actually knows some English, so she would try to practice saying stuff. I wish I had learning Spanish from a young age. So Emma had this game she wanted to play with us. It’s called Linea Directa, it’s basically the Spanish version of DREAM PHONE!! My favorite game ever. Katie, I know you would love to have played. So we played that game with her for a while in the afternoon. After that I went to Hannah’s. We both had some work to do, so we shut ourselves in her room in the afternoon. I was able to punch out a pretty solid outline to my paper, so it was quite productive.

emma dialing for love.


this was definately the cutest boy of all.

It was Laura’s birthday too so I did a little shopping for her and then we all went to dinner in the evening. We went to this Indian restaurant which was really great. There were about 20 or so of us.

lisa, charles and dre at dinner for laura


After that I headed back to Hannah’s because it was Alexandra’s last night before leaving Salamanca. So they had some friends over and we just hung around.

Saturday morning we went to look at some monuments in Salamanca with the group. It was cold and rainy and we had to get up early and look at historical stuff, so needless to day, it wasn’t the best morning ever. We were all wet from the rain and then went to the cathedral, where it’s about 35 degrees. I wasn’t really able to enjoy it that much; I was more concerned about frostbite. We went home and ate lunch and after that it got much nicer and Sophie called me and I met up with her and Matthieu and we went to the river and sat for a while. It was a beautiful day and I just go to sit and write and think in the sun. I wish we had a place like that in H’burg.

rio tormes


napping on the lawn


sophie and me

Saturday evening we went to the theater with the group. I was a work called Un Picasso, a semi-factual story of an investigation in to some of Picasso’s works. There were only two cast members and the scene never changed, and so it was a little hard to follow. And after you can’t follow for 30 min, your desire to follow the next 60 is pretty shot. So I just listened to the Spanish, being sure that just hearing it would be good for me.

After that Mike, Will and I went to Hannah’s and hung out for a bit. Will is Mike’s roommate and I don’t know him very well, so it was good to spend a little time getting to know him a little better. Some of Hannah’s friends from England got in that night, so I got to meet them. She was super excited about having them in, it was special for her. And Sophie left late Saturday night for Andalucia fro the week, so we hung with her for a bit until she had to go.

me and will.

Sunday was a day for work, as I wanted to get my paper pretty much done. So Laura and I went out to go to the library, only to find that libraries aren’t’ open on Sundays. And aside fro libraries, there are NO places in Salamanca to study. So we just had to come back to my apt and work here. Not a big deal.

That night we had a dinner together as a group. We went to this Italian restaurant. It was pretty forgettable. I got stuck sitting with all the boys, so the company and conversation left something to be desired. But I made it though and after went to a little pub with Lisa, Juliette and Katie, got to talk a lot with them and was able to end my night on a high note.

Monday I just worked all day, finishing my paper. Monday night I saw one of the processions for Semana Santa. There are tons of people here this week and the festivities are crazy. They have these long parades a few times a day with people in religious costumes with ‘floats’ with Jesus and Mary and stuff. Lots of people carry crosses too. More to come on that next week though…

Tuesday night we went as a group to see the movie "La Vida de Los Otros" or in it's real language "Das Leban der Anderen", a German film about the secret police in the Germany in the 1980s. Though I couldn’t give a totally in-depth analysis of it, as I missed a few things, over all I really liked it. I guess one out of three isn’t bad.

la vida de los otros.

After that I met up with Hannah and Sian and Becki, who had been watching the procession that night. Matthieu was leaving in the morning to go back to France for a week or so, so we all hung out some that night too. And let the record stand, I admit I was wrong when I said Matthieu’s English was terrible and he had a very strong French accent. I’m here to declare that his English is in fact, much better than my Spanish and I do hereby take back all previously written statements.

definatley could be an american cowboy.


I’m glad I’m leaving for Ireland in a few days. I'm so very excited to finally be going. I'll have plenty to tell next week about that! If I weren’t traveling, I’d get pretty lonely cause no one’s going to be here this upcoming week. Maggie left this morning. And the rest have left or are leaving tomorrow or Friday.

But, that’s about it for now.

Oh and one last thing, this is the haircut I think I’ll get while I’m here. I’ve been wanting to do something different with my hair and I think I found just the right thing… what do you think, mom?

oh goody, here i come.