22 Marzo: Fiestas, Fuego, y Familia!

Hola todos! Espero que estéis bien :) I am in a verrry good mood today for many reasons! I hope that it is as lovely wherever you are as it is here today, because it is glooorious!

So, since I last wrote, I have been to Salamanca and to Valencia.

As a reference point, I live just a little bit north of Mérida. I just found this map, and I like it because I've been to over half of the cities listed!

Anyway, let's do Salamanca first, since I went there first.

So last Friday we had our final class trip to Salamanca. I was not excited. Why, you ask? Have you ever heard of Salamanca? Oh really? And what do you know about it? Exactly. Nothing. Of all the places in Spain left to visit, we are going to Salamanca? Also, it's north of it and the weather of late has been chillier. Anywhoo, point is, I wasn't excited.

Salamanca was lovely.

First of all, the 2-2.5 hr bus ride was gorgeous-the scenery was so picturesque, it didn't even appear real. I just kept thinking that Spain is the most beautiful place in the world. I'm convinced of it.

So we got to Salamanca and waited for everrr for our guide, and some of us had to go to the bathroom, but it's like impossible to go to bathroom for free in this country, so we went to a Pans&Co where we were able to use the bathroom (fun fact: when looking for a bathroom in this country, look for the word aseo, servicio, or WC) if we bought something, of course. They had cookies. Like, American cookies-like Subway. Two for €1.60 or one for €1.90 (I know, it made no sense) and they warmed them up for us! Oooh it was so yummy, so worth getting in trouble for taking too long when we got back.

Then the tour started. Have you seen Vantage Point? If not, you should, it's totally good. And it takes place in the Plaza Mayor of Salamanca! Yup.

Here, have a dramatic reenactment by some of my classmates:

Haha.

Anyways, so that was cool. The thing about Salamanca, though, is it's a University town! It kind of felt like the east coast with all the old buildings but a very "young" college-town atmosphere. There were students playing music in the streets and school stores etc that gave it an awesome feel. Immediately, a bunch of us were like, we want to move here! haha. but actually. It was really cool.

 Really old library that isn't used anymore.

please appreciate for a second how incredibly intricate this is. Every building was like this! here's a close up:

Oh so I forgot to mention that the University of Salamanca is the oldest in Spain, and the third oldest in Europe! Yeah. So there's that. And Salamanca is called "La Ciudad Dordada" (The Golden City) because all the buildings are the color you can see in that picture, kind of goldy. This is because of the type of rock that was used to construct them, which turns this gold color over time, and obviously, time has passed.

Like every University, it has its myths, and on this wall above there is a frog. It is said that if you find the frog, you will have good luck in your studies. Finding the frog would be virtually impossible if you didn't know where to look. Luckily, we did... can you see it?

No, of course you can't. It's that tiny bump on the top of the skull.

Another fun fact: Salamantinos have a really generic accent, and I found this to be true, as I could understand the guide better than anyone else I've met in Spain. Despite this, I remember very little from the tour, as much more exciting things happened this weekend. To finish up quick, here are some other pics from Salamanca:

See how that tower on the right isn't straight? that's from the earthquake in LISBON in 1755

 Yes, that's an astronaut. When part of this super old church had to be restored, the artists took some liberties...

 Yes, this church.

so intricate

 the whole city is this color

 This beautiful statue of the virgin was done by a woman

Known as "La Casa de las Conchas" (House of the Shells)- those are all shells on the side!

You, as my dearest friends, will not be surprised to know that my favorite part of Salamanca was the font in which everything was written on the buildings. They all looked like this!

So yeah. Salamanca was cool. before I finish this entry, I'm going to go write my paper on Salamanca for my history class, so I feel like I'm being productive. brb.

wow that took a long time. Okay, so then I stayed in Cáceres for the weekend which was delightful! It was such a change of pace to have so much time to myself, just doing whatever I wanted. My roommate was in Madrid for the weekend with her fam and surprisingly enough, my host family kept decently busy, so I was left to my own devices, and I love love loved it.

Then at 1am on Sunday morning, I boarded a bus with 13 other ISU students and a bunch of Erasmus students (Erasmus is a Europe-wide study abroad program, so there are a bunch of Europeans studying here) to start the 7-8 hr trip to Valencia! I slept as much as I could, because when we arrived at 9:30 in the morning, we had just that one day to enjoy in the INCREDIBLE city of Valencia. If you ever come to Spain, you mustn't miss it!

But we weren't just randomly in Valencia for the fun of it-this past Monday was Las Fallas, a giant festival that only Valencia throws every year to welcome in the spring! The essence of the celebration is this: people build these GIANT sculptures made out of burnable material, muchas veces satirical cartoons, and they are displayed throughout the city all day, and then at night they are all burned down. And when I say burned down, I mean exploded. But I'll come back to that. Anyway, it's supposed to be symbolic, like a pheonix, burning the old in with the new. Whatever. The point is, it is IMPRESSIVE. And absolutely a once in a lifetime experience.

So we got there, and some of us (me included, obviously) were absolutely set on going to the beach, and others didn't care, so our ISU group split in half and we started walking toward where we thought the beach must be. On the way we saw many Fallas (in case you're extremely unfamiliar with Spanish, that word is pronounce "fai-ya" like "hi-ya"- which we found amusing in many occasions, especially when we were speaking English like, "Look at that Falla over there!" haha say it out loud...there you have it.) Here, I'll show you some!

Just to show a few. Incredible, right? So we're passing these, and the famous buildings of Valencia

and we're walking. FAR. But, as you can see by the pretty pictures, the weather is gorgeous and we're enjoying the fresh air after the seven hour bus ride. But we are exhausted by the time we finally see

we've made it to the beach! We spent some lovely time hanging out in the sand, eating the food our families had packed for us, and enjoying each others' company.

 YES that is mountains and beach at the same time

But as you can see from that progression of pictures, the weather progressively got worse and worse. We took the tram back to the city (which essentially used up the rest of my €, as I hadn't planned well) and went to a cafe, where we tried to sit outside, but between the freezing wind and the constant exploding of fireworks (oh, I suppose I hadn't mentioned that? Yeah, since 9am the fireworks, firecrackers, and explosions were unceasing-it was so loud!) it was miserable, and we headed inside to warm up a little and drink some Agua de Valencia (I just had a sip, but YUM). 

Then we were off to explore some more! We ventured throughout the city, looking at the Fallas and enjoying the day. The weather had improved by the time we left the cafe, so it was fine again, and we enjoyed Valencia until the parade started around 7. We had no idea what to expect, but knew where it started and ended, and picked a spot at the end to watch. Were we in for a treat! 

Our location was perfect and the parade was spectacular-I don't suppose I'll ever see anything like it again. I need to get to bed so I'll explain most of the rest through pictures. Quick synopsis: it was a fire parade that ended with the most epic firework display ever-right in front of us!

So yeah, that was pretty incredible. Then we had some time to kill before the actual burning of the Fallas, so we searched for fresh paella (Valencia is known for its paella)-I tried someone's and had Teresa's the next day--Teresa's was much better.

So there were some Fallas that were smaller, and those ones were  going to burn first, so we went to stand by one of them to have a good vantage point. I didn't want to be right in the front so I pushed some of the girls in front of me and watched as official looking men doused the structure in front of me with gasoline and stuck explosives in at every angle. There was so much anticipation. Then a little girl in a big beautiful dress (that was another theme..lots of children in outrageous clothing) who was clearly some kind of Falla Princess, came to light the string that would set the whole thing off.

Right behind our small group was another group of Americans also clearly studying abroad. We're behind about a waist-high sign maybe 10 feet from the Falla-so SUPER close. When the thing blows, it BLOWS

Actual photo that a girl I was with took

The intensity and surprise of the explosion knocks my entire group and the group of Americans behind me to the ground faster than we could blink. All of a sudden, I'm on the ground and everyone immediately surrounding me is to. Explosions are still going, rapid-fire and things are falling from the sky onto us. The girl next to me starts army crawling backwards and the rest of us realize everyone has stepped back. We stand up, but, crouching run backwards until we hit trees and sidewalks. We turned around to watch the remainder of the fireworks from the explosion and wipe the ash and pieces of the structure from our hair. There's shouting and yelling and laughing, we couldn't control our emotions at all, there was so much adrenaline. I apologize to the strange girl behind me for flattening her to the ground and she responded, "Oh honey, don't worry, we were all on the ground!" It was the most exhilarating experience I've ever had. And that was just the baby Falla!

We spend the rest of the time trying to decide what the best big Falla would be to see burn, because we have to be back to catch the bus home by 12:45 am (we had class the next morning at 9!) and we knew we wouldn't have much time. Long story short, we picked the one closest to the bus, but it ended up burning late so we missed it anyway. Here's a pic of what we missed

It's okay, though, we were exhausted and had had a wonderful day at Las Fallas. Definitely something I would recommend-- probably my favorite thing I've done so far in Europe!

Since then, in case you haven't heard, I was heartbroken to find out that we had to put our cat, Boodles, down this week. She will be missed.

And my parents and Dawson are coming tomorrow, so I can't wait to see them!! I will update you on our weekend in Madrid hopefully before spring break, which starts already next Friday! Time flies.

Praises for:

-safety in Valencia

-spring arriving!

-caring host family

-that I get to see my real family so soon

-answered prayers

-once in a lifetime opportunities

-the comforts of Cáceres

-YOU!

Prayers for:

-safe traveling for my family

Love you all. Hablamos pronto!