Oh hey Thursday night.

So last night me, Sarah, Rich, Jordan, Emily, Megan, Eric, Evan, Andreas and Jen all went out to celebrate...thursday night? haha We started off by the beach, which ended up being disastrous because of the downpour tsunamii-like rain that engulfed the pensinsula of Santander, but eventually, we made our way to La Chupeteria where Rich and Evan bought numerous rounds of shots (thanks Rich and Evan).
We had various shots of Naranjita, some weird Ice Cream tasting one, Tequila Shot, a grenadine shirley temple shot,two Kahlua tasting shots and a few others. My favorite was definitely the Naranjita because it tasted like a orange starbust!
After La Chupeteria we went over to El Divino (a discoteca)in Plaza Canadio where we met up with our friends from Michagan State and Tennessee. I hung out with a lot of people from the other programs and met a group of people from Barcelona which was cool. It was a lot of fun and it was pretty packed for a thursday night...When we left El Divino around 4AM, I ran into my friend Carlos (who lives in Santander) that I met a couple weeks back. We got home around 4:15 and had to wake up at 8AM which completely sucked. School was kind of torturous, but we siesta'd right after we ate lunch.
We are off to Picos de Europa manana which is a mountain range two hours away. Should have some really awesome views as long as the weather upholds!

La Rana de la Suerte

If you can read spanish...this is my composition-Mar was so proud of me she called her friend from Salamanca to show it off! :)

La rana de la suerte...

Este fin de semana pasado, mis compañeros y yo viajamos a la región de Castilla y León dónde visitamos Burgos y Salamanca. La historia se lleva a cabo en la ciudad de Salamanca, dónde está la Universidad más antigua de España. Eileen, Elizabeth, Chandler y yo estábamos caminando cerca de la Universidad y nos encontramos una tienda pequeñita. Chandler quería un alfiler para su colección y Eileen quería comprar un libro de cocina para su madre. Yo compré una camisa para mi hermano que llevaba el título de la Universidad de Salamanca. Dentro de la tienda, había ranas y otros muchos recuerdos para comprar. Cuando salimos, vimos en la ventana de la tienda una rana. La rana brincó en la calle y comenzó a hablar. ¿Fue un milagro? ¡Las ranas nunca hablan! ¡Pero esto era una rana de la suerte! La rana nos dijo: “Seguidme, voy a la Universidad de Salamanca, y si obedecéis, os concederé dos deseos”. Mis amigas y yo la miramos y la seguimos.
Caminamos diez minutos hasta que la rana nos mandó parar. Las cuatro amigas entramos en un aula de la Universidad. En el aula, había millones de libros y una silla. La rana nos informó de su historia. El estudiante, antes de hacer su examen de doctorado, se quedaba él solo en la clase tratando de resolver todos los problemas. Una vez hecho su examen, si aprobaba, se celebraba con una gran fiesta.
Aquí, en esta clase histórica fue dónde nosotros pedimos nuestro primer deseo. Como estábamos en la Universidad, nuestro deseo tenía que referirse a ella. Con todas mis fuerzas, yo pronuncié mi primer deseo: “Ojala que obtenga un buen trabajo cuando termine la Universidad”. Cada uno de mis compañeros expresó su deseo y la rana solo respondió “vale”.
La siguiente parada fue la Casa de las Conchas, la rana nos habló de su estilo gótico y nos contó su historia. El tesoro de una judía se oculta debajo de una de las trescientas conchas del edificio. En la actualidad, el edificio es una biblioteca pero la rana nos ofreció un deseo con el tema del dinero. Deseé que mi familia y yo jamás pasáramos hambre y siempre tuviéramos suficiente dinero para vivir muy bien.
Salamanca, la ciudad de la suerte, de las ranas que hablan, de los Universitarios. Es obvio que mi experiencia en Salamanca fue un poco diferente de la de mis compañeros. Mis amigos y yo siempre le estaremos agradecidos a la rana. Nos enseñó una lección importante en la vida: “el tiempo es lo más valioso que tenemos y nunca debemos perderlo”.
Estoy estudiando en el magnífico país de España y solo tengo catorce días para disfrutar de mi experiencia aquí. No necesito la suerte, porque la rana me enseñó que los deseos pueden hacerse realidad.

Tal vez si, Tal vez no...

According to the classic musical My Fair Lady, "The Rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain." I would have to respectfully disagree. It has been raining for the past two days, which is quite dissapointing-no playa for the wolfpack :( Yesterday, Sarah and I went shopping...I bought a skirt and a top at Zara, a shirt and a dress (a white dress as a matter of fact) at Bershka, and a really freaking cool giraffe shirt at Springfield. Speaking of jirafas, Spain has loads of giraffe merchandise which really tempts me into purchasing...i have fears that my luggage will def be an oversized item.

Mar started coming down with a cold recently and not only did she completely blame me for getting her sick (which i feel kind of bad about), but also threatened to throw me out the window..NEWSFLASHHHH: MAR IS A COUGAR. Mar is 56, she started telling us about her x-boyfriend who lives in Paris the other day, he is 33 years old. Yes thats right, 23 years younger than she is. According to Mar, he chased after her....it was this whole romantic story about how they fell in love, he lived with her for 8 years! Then she proceeded to tell her about her daughter (whose name is also Mar-she lives in Barcelona) and how she has been in a relationship with a guy thats 55 years old. Mar's daughter is 28 years old. In my opinion, they should just switch boyfriends.

Sarah and I went to Punta Cana yesterday and met Jordan, Rich, Eric and Andrew there. Jordan, Andrew and I did our homework for Business Spanish and then proceeded to forget it at home, hence we did it between class. Obviously, we should just stop being such good students. Vale, hasta pronto chicos!

Salamanca, Burgos and more!

The weekend, finally. We all left Friday morning and then spent part of the day in Burgos where we saw La Catedral de Burgos and had a taza de cafe. After Burgos, we headed to Salamanca which has the countries oldest functioning University (La Universidad de Salamanca). Salamanca was def a really cool city. We went on a tour of the city and Gloria took us to a really awesome Pasteleria that had the most amazing napolitanos (it had choc and white choc inside) delishhh. After that, Eileen, Sarah and I walked around, shopped for a little and then went to eat at a restaurant. We ordered meat because we feel deprived of it in Mar's house! All of the wolfpack started drinking at the hotel and then we went out to a few different bars/discotecas....Gatsbys, Chupiteria, Campeonato, and a few others... The next day we woke up and went on a tour of La Catedral de Salamanca, La casa de las conchas, and a few other places. We had lunch near Plaza Mayor and then went on a tour of the University which was really really awesome. We went shopping the rest of the day, I hung out with Andreas, Elizabeth, Eileen, and Chandler and then we had dinner at a really cool pizza place around 9:30. After that, we proceeded to bar hop (no one goes out in Salamanca until like 1Am) so we drank in the hotel until 12:30 and then left, which led to the downfall of Elizabeth... Fun times. We all ran into Katherine and Ximena (our Spanish professors) on the streets of Salamanca around 2AM but me and Jen had wondered off and ran into them again...it was pretty hilarious. The next day me, Sarah, Andreas, and Andrew walked around for a little while and we saw a Anti-Israel/Pro-Palestine protest that was going on, i kind of felt uncomfortable... some other people in the group went to mass, and then we left for Santander!

Unfortunately, my hands are still not back to normal from the hives situation and Mar keeps telling me I am going to have to wear gloves to school. Shes also insiting that I shower with gloves. And Sarah is completely instigating the conversation... Mar asked me how my nose is doing bc its still a little stuffed and I responded with a sniffle and she cracked up and said, "Ay que es esto?-- la idioma universal!" More Mar...last night Mar told Sarah that she should go and ligar (flirt) with chicos and hacer mas que besar...basically told her to go have sex with chicos espanoles...we were cracking up. Then she proceeded to tell us that chicos only think about el sexo and that we should go to Zara and buy something "muy sexy" para snatch los hombres! We also showed Mar pictures of our family that we had and i'm a little worried because she kept on commenting how handsome my dad was....watch out daddy!

Back to school...Every day when we walk to school the guy from the Panaderia (Bakery) pops his head out the window and says the only three words he knows in english...he alternates between "Beautiful, Pretty, and Girls" every day. It's quite comical really. All of the chicos here always whistle at us-and its not considered rude here, its very strange, but we always just take it as a compliment. haha. We had our second SPN3300 test today...I can't believe theres only two more weeks of school left :(.
Hasta luego chicos!