Overdue

Hey so sorry that I'm slacking over here (it's been over a week since I last posted); I've actually been kinda busy over here (that and I've been lazy too, but we won't talk about that one). Last week wasn't as busy, the only really exciting thing I did was mail out a bunch of postcards (thanks to Katie's help), and went to a couple of stores, including a candy store. I finally bought a bunch of random Spanish candy, something I've been wanting to do for a while now (the candy has been gone for several days by now, it was tasty).

Last Saturday we went on another school excursion, this time to Salamanca, about an hour and a half away. We split up into groups for a tour of city, and saw a church, the Plaza Mayor (which was pretty big), and the University. The University of Salamanca is the 3rd oldest university in all of Europe, so it was cool to see it. Also, on one of the buildings there are a bunch of carvings, and on top of one of the skulls there is a small frog. If you find the frog supposedly you will pass all of your tests and graduate from college. Our teacher pointed it out, so I'm not sure if it's still valid, we'll find out soon enough. We then had some free time, so we went and ate and just walked around the city. There were groups of Spanish guys dressed up, who I think were going to go practice for San Fermin, or something like that. The people I was with had their picture taken with one of the groups (I was the one taking the picture so I didn't get in on that). We also got some ice cream from the Plaza Mayor; sitting in the store the ice cream looks better that any I've seen in the US, and it was pretty tasty. After that we also went to the Catedral Nueva, which isn't as big as the one in Sevilla, but it was still cool. They even had a relic inside, some priest's arm. After the Cathedral we had some more free time(=more walking around) and then we boarded the bus and headed back to Valladolid. Apparently I fell asleep on the way back.

This week I've really been working on figuring out my spring break plans. I'm pretty sure for the first part I'm going to do the last chunk of the Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage in Northern Spain. After that I'm trying to figure out the best way to get to Poland to travel with a friend through Poland, Czech Republic, Austria and Switzerland before flying back out of Milan, Italy. Part of the planning includes buying hiking boots and a hiking backpack, so I've gone out several times this week searching for those with a few friends. Thankfully Kari is knowledgeable in hiking backpacks, and has kept me from buying any lousy packs. So that has been keeping me busy, along with the fact that next week we have midterms (7 classes worth of tests in 2 or 3 days, I can't wait) so I've been doing a little bit of studying for that. Tonight I'm going to eat supper at a Mexican restaurant in Valladolid with some of my new friends from the private university in town, so I'm looking forward to that. Well I better get going, I'm meeting a friend to get bocadillos so we can take a picture for Chico, so I'll write again soon (hopefully it won't take me as long this next time!)

Eric and I posing as El Ciego (blind man) and Lazarillo from Lazarillo de Tormes, which we learned about in Literature, look it up! This is probably my favorite picture of me so far in Spain.