Lazy Sunday.

Well, not so much hahah. I've gone to church (yay St. Thomas of Villanova), been to el gimnasio, showered, and eaten a delicious lunch (chicken not pork!), so semi-productive. And we're going to see a bullfight at the Plaza de Toros tonight as part of festival week, so that should be an interesting cultural experience (hopefully not a very gory one).

So let's see, what have I been up to the past few days?

Ohh. Well, I finally did get clean clothes, though there wound up being a big laundry debacle that totally stressed me out. I've already told the story about eight times to various different people, so if you don't already know and you're that interested, just ask me haha. But they're clean, which is all that matters.

Our second dance class was quite fun as well, although I found flamenco to be a lot harder than salsa. And the fiesta we had afterwards was nice too (although for the record, Telepizza is pretty damn gross) - they had a mariachi band from the University come and sing for us, which was so cool. They wore traditional costumes and played their own guitars, and they definitely had fun with it - they brought two girls up to serenade them, and then made four of the kids from my program sing solo lines with them (in Spanish, which just made it even funnier).

I signed up for all of my classes without a problem, and those start tomorrow. As of right now (provided I don't add/drop anything, which I can do till Oct. 3), I'm taking Regionalism in Spain, History of Spain after the Civil War (both for humanities credit), Comparative Religions (theology, obviously), Advanced Spanish Grammar & Syntax I, and Introduction to the Spanish Novel (for my English major). The first four are all IES classes, meaning they're just with the other kids in my program and are taught by IES professors. The lit class is the one I'm direct enrolling in at the University, so I'll be in a class of Spanish students with a professor there. I thought about taking two University classes, but when I looked at the reading list for the lit one, I decided doing that might be a little much if I actually have to read the entirety of Don Quixote in Spanish. So yes, I'm excited and embracing my nerddom re: classes.

Friday we had our last day of intensive Spanish classes and then an IES sponsored outing at a karaoke bar here in Salamanca. That was pretty funny, since people sang not only to songs in English ("I Want It That Way," anyone? Yay for BSB throwbacks) but also tried to sing in Spanish as well. Very amusing.

Yesterday we took a day trip to Toro and Zamora, which are both about an hour north of Salamanca. In Toro we visited a bodega (which is actually the Spanish name for a vineyard/winery) and got a tour of the wine-making facilities. We also had a wine tasting and got to sample some of the red and white wines they made right on the estancia (farm or estate, I believe; the place was called Estancia Piedra). After that we went over to Zamora, which is where one of the directors of our program actually grew up, and walked around there for a bit. He showed us the historical parts - the Romanesque cathedral, the walls around the city complete with slits for the archers to shoot through, and the ruins of the old castle. We ended the day with a very unique lunch in a converted wine cellar.

Okay, I kid you not, we got off the bus and walked through what looked like a sketchy, abandoned ghost town - we did not see one person, and I half expected to see one of those tumbleweeds roll past as eagles cried in the distance. We passed by a bunch of entrances to private wine cellars, which are basically just steel doors that open onto a staircase underground and so look like bomb shelters. And then we finally got to this restaurant and we go downstairs, and voila! People! Haha. Lunch was already - a bit too much meat for my taste. The salad and bread were delicious, but then we had chorizo (I kind of liked that, reminiscent of kielbasi at Easter), what I think was supposed to be pork bacon but was actually more like grilled slabs of fat, and then ribs (pork again). Everyone (especially Whitney, who's from Texas haha) laughed at me because I'd never had ribs before and was totally unaccustomed to the idea of a hands-on method for eating them. Anyway, then they brought out dessert - ice cream bars (yay Cornetto cones) and coffee. And we thought that was it. And then the owner was like "CHUPITOS!" and brought out two bottles to every table, one of which was a NEON green liquid that looked like Kryptonite and tasted like green apple Jolly Ranchers. We were all really, really perplexed by the fact that we were being encouraged to end our meal by doing shots, but the guys at the restaurant were very excited about it haha. (I feel like they must play it up for the Americans - "Okay, the crowd from the U.S. is here! Bring out the booze!")

Oh and also, just as a fun anecdote. A bunch of us went up to use the bathroom between lunch and dessert, and after finding out that we needed a key to the stand-alone, only-slightly-more-modern-looking-than-an-outhouse bathroom structure (guess who got to run back down the stairs into the cellar and up again with the key? Hi.), opened the door to find two toilet-like structures, both without seats, neither of which had toilet paper. Or flushed. Or had soap at the sinks. So THAT was fun. This is the reason why I carry Purel with me, honestly. I'll have to figure out how to fit the Charmin To Go in my clutch, because lack of toilet paper in Spanish bathrooms seems to be a theme. Blargh.

Anyway, that's all for now. I have to go get ready for the bullfight. I think Whitney and I are going to split a taxi there because it looks like it might be kind of far away. I'm going to post pictures from Toro and Zamora on Snapfish (for those of you who don't have Facebook), and I'm sure I'll have a bunch from the bullfight too. Love you and miss you, hope everyone's well!