It’s been.. a month and a half since I had arrived in Salamanca. Obviously I’m not there anymore, but rather, I’m sitting on the floor at the uber-nice Doha International Airport…sweet.
Since I have 4 hrs or so, I figured I can squeeze out a post. Right now I’m on my way to Korea where I’ll be “studying” for 4 months but hopefully I’ll get to travel in-between….(Australia!) ….definitely going to India after the semester though. wooo
Anyways,
let’s start from New York. I arrived from Philadelphia the morning of 29th since I waited until the last minute to do anything(story of my life) and went back and forth between Uptown and downtown to run errands. Geez. As I arrived back at the apartment I found out that my check from the scholarship fund has finally arrived only to realize that I won’t have time to run to the mailbox down the block, so I asked the new girl to mail it out for me, freaked the fuck out, and ran ran ran (well, tried to) downstairs for the van. (wait, there’s a point to the story)
I ended up dropping the suitcase at the last staircase, which consists only 3 steps but it was enough to send my luggage flying against the wall and it bent the retractable handle. Great.
I purchased a ticket from a company I never heard of and it turns out, it was a charter flight and that was why the tickets were insanely cheap. The seats were pretty crappy, in fact probably the oldest plane model I’ve ever been on, but god, our flight attendants were so hot, like HOLY SHIT, YOUR LOOKS ARE IMPREGNATING ME-hot. lol too bad they refused to bring us any drinks during the flight save for the actual assigned drink-time. What was hilarious was that while our flight attendants were too busy to bring their own customer a cup of water, they changed their outfit(that’s right) FOUR TIMES during the 6-7 hour flight. Well at least they looked good in their crazy colored uniforms….
So some folks and I arrived in Madrid Barajas airport only to find out that the half of the passengers’ luggages went “missing.” Actually now that I think of it, it probably had to do with the explosion at Terminal 4 since another girl who arrived at that terminal had to wait a few days to get her baggage. so while spending 2 hours waiting for other people’s baggages I observed the peculiar Spanish custom of building impractical and unattractive eyesores(literally) also known as “smoking area” I should’ve taken a picture of it but I was too tired by this point to whip out my 19084 kg camera equipment. Their so-called designated “smoking area” was a box with an opening about 2 ft by 8 ft big as an entrance. Needless to mention that the smoke doesn’t really stay inside the box. People were smoking out of the box anyways with half their bodies hanging out of the entrance anyways.
After getting ripped off by a cab driver who kindly informed my friend whose parents are from Puerto Rico and Colombia that Puerto Rico used to be THEIR land, we missed our first bus, but managed to get on the next bus without paying extra fares…(ugh Spain how I loathed you sometimes) I managed to develop a very useful and sometimes fatal skill of falling asleep wherever or whenever I desired so as soon as I got on the bus I proceeded to drool all over my face. I kept on waking up every now and then and saw some surreal sights out the window. I mean, now I understand where Dali got inspirations for the landscapes in his paintings. Sure, it was miles and miles of field(or rather, kilos and kilos-did I mention, I LOVE TO BE BACK IN THE LAND OF METRIC SYSTEM) just like in the USA outside of most cities but damn, I’ve never seen anything like it. The colors were unbelivable. I at first thought it was due to my half-asleep phase but from others’ pictures and their descriptions, I can confirm that it looked like a scenery out of this world. Not particularly “beautiful” so to speak, but definitely odd. The sky was pink & sky blue while the golden grass/wheats/plants whatever they were surrounding these huge smooth rocks randomly placed every several meters here and there. There was no way it was natural because the fields were located on plane surfaces with no mountains nearby. Strange.
We arrived late at night in Salamanca where we decided it would be a good idea to walk to our places instead of getting ripped off by cab drivers. Let me tell you something about Salamanca, the old city. Well, it’s just like many other old cities, the pavements are made of small stones. I lived about 30 mins away from the bus terminal. oh and did I mention, that my handle came out 90 degrees-bent went it arrived in Madrid?
The handle snapped off on the way and it was half-dragging the suitcase and half-dragging my deadbody to a certain destination we apparently couldn’t find. oh there goes my emo-tears.
Anyways, we found our place, blah blah blah, our apartment reeked of sewer smell, blah blah yea. So we went out to get some dinner and to walk around for a bit. Oh the delightful Castillan cuisine how I don’t miss thee…(Actually I do miss their Napolitana and Palmera) First of all, most places don’t believe in plates for their bread. Even when you are buying them at small groceries, they just throw the baguette-esque loaf of bread on a pile of newspapers or whatever is on the counter at the time. Actually all this traveling has lowered my standard of what’s hygienic and what’s not and thankfully I haven’t gotten sick so far…and always remember, “what does not kill me makes me stronger” uh huh. It’s probably because I’ve been spoiled by the wide array of International food readily available at my discretion in New York, the comparatively bland Castillan cuisine failed to satiate my palate. Great chocolate on baked goods though. yep.
After eating, we walked around for a bit, took pictures of pretty places like La Plaza Mayor:
Where everyone meets…couples, friends, co-workers, guiris, Salmantinos…you name it.
Capilla de colegio de jesuita…the beauty of this building is that you can only “see” it from distance.. the architect designed it in such way so it would attract visitors from outside…it’s right in front of la casa de las conchas so it’s basically impossible to see what’s near the top once you are close to it
