Case of the Mondays.

Back in Salamanca to start another week. My 9 am classes are at their normal times this week, not like last week when they were moved to afternoon and evening, so I actually had to wake up early again (yuck). I'm sitting in Fonseca, one of the class buildings, using the wireless even though I don't have class again till 1- I didn't feel like walking all the way home and then potentially not being able to get online. (So I'm technologically dependent and lazy - a lovely combination).

I spent the weekend with a big group of IES students in San Sebastian, which is a town on the northern coast of Spain. We left Friday morning and took a 6-hour train ride through the mountains into Pais Vasco (another region of Spain; Salamanca is in Castilla y Leon). When we got there, the three other people I was rooming with and I had to wait outside our hostel for 45 minutes until the owner came to let us in - he owns two hostels so he'd been at the other one. That wasn't too fun, but we chatted with the other college students also stranded on the front steps. When we finally got let in, we headed down to the beach to watch the sunset and wade a little bit, then got dinner in an Italian (!) restaurant near our hostel. I actually had the first decent pizza there that I've had in my entire time in Spain, which was exciting (they actually used sauce, unlike the poor excuses for pizza I've had elsewhere), and the pasta wasn't half bad either.

We woke up the next morning and spent the entire day on the beach, which was fantastic. The coast was beautiful, and the waves were awesome. One of the guys here rented a surfboard and was so excited about the fact that he could surf better waves here than in the U.S. I did a lot of sunning, some swimming, and plenty of eating tortilla de patata on baguettes - que rica! And I got some lovely color, which I always enjoy (see: Bermuda trip). We all had dinner at an awesome restaurant right on the water which was relatively cheap (San Sebastian's a big tourist town, so that's a very good thing) and had fantastic cheeseburgers, believe it or not. Aaand also, they are very generous with their gelato in San Sebastian - a pequeno was HUGE! They also had about 50 different flavors, which was very exciting, and of course I took full advantage of. Breakfast was yummy both mornings too - a chocolate-filled croissant at the panaderia right down the street from our hostel.

Speaking of hostels, because I know Mom is probably thinking about this - it was really nice, not sketchy at all. The four of us had our own room, with a lock on the door, and no other roommates so we didn't have to worry too much about leaving our stuff there. I mean, obviously we still locked the door and I took my important stuff with me, but it wasn't like there were strangers sleeping in the next beds. They gave us sheets, and there were two bathrooms that all of the hostel guests shared - but nice ones, tiled, with shower stalls and everything, not like community bathrooms at school. So yes, good hostel experience.

Anyway, Saturday night I also walked down to the old Gothic cathedral with two of the other girls to take some pictures, and Sunday morning I woke up and climbed one of the hills in the city to get to the amazing lookout points and see the castle ruins at the top. Touristy stuff, but well worth it - wait until you see the pictures! Then we boarded the train for our 6-hour ride back home, which was not nearly as enjoyable as the way there. I bought the tickets for the four of us who were in the hostel, and I bought three at one time and one at another. I accidentally gave myself the odd ticket, so on the way home my ticket was for a totally different car of the train. The conductor wasn't nearly as laid-back as the one on the way out, who let me move up from the back of the same car to sit near everybody else. So one of the other guys and I were relegated to a separate train car, and my seatmate talked on her cell phone VERY loudly for the first hour and a half of the journey back, prime napping time. Sigh.

All in all, a great weekend. So now 4 days of classes, then an IES trip to Sevilla and Granada this weekend! That one should be fantastic too, if a lot of time on the bus. But now, since the battery life on my laptop sucks, I have to find an outlet before it dies. And I have to find some food before my 1 pm class, because I cannot go from 8 am to 2:30 pm without any snacking. Miss you and love you all. :)