¡Hola! My name is Chloe and I am currently studying at the University of Valladolid in Spain! I’m living with a host family and a lovely roommate named Amanda, and I spend 5 hours each weekday in class. I’m speaking Spanish all day every day, and learning about the culture of Spain through complete immersion. Every so often, we’ve been going on trips to different cities in Spain. I’m here to tell you about our recent trip to Salamanca!
Salamanca is a beautiful city, located southwest of Valladolid, where I am staying.
Here’s a photo in case you’re not a huge fan of geography.
While this trip was super interesting and very fun, I have to point out that it rained pretty much the whole time (7 hours) that we were there. I had an umbrella and boots, and somehow I still ended up with a soaking wet backpack and sad, damp socks. This put a bit of a damper (DAMPer, haha) on the excursion. Regardless, it was still a really cool trip. We rode a bus the whole way there, for an hour and a half. It was a pretty nice bus and the route was probably very scenic, but I slept almost the entire way. Right when we got there, we were given 25 minutes for the ill-prepared students to buy umbrellas and ponchos. The rest of us got to explore the shops a bit. I got gifts for my little sister and my high school Spanish teacher, which was a fun experience. In one of the shops, I helped translate a conversation between the shopkeeper and some tourists. It almost made me feel like a bilingual grown up or something.
Anyway, after the super short shopping trip, were began our tour of the city. First, we saw the Convento de San Esteban.
We had two great tour guides while we explored the city, but between the pouring rain and the chitchat of the students from the other university (in English… *eye roll*) I didn’t manage to hear much. I did hear that while the nuns and monks lived in separate buildings (monks lived in this one, nuns were in a building close by), there are underground tunnels that connect them!
Next we walked over to the Plaza Mayor. I learned that in Spanish cities, the Plaza Mayor unifies three ideas (bear with me, since I heard all this in Spanish!): the city’s government, its economy, and its culture/history. You can see the city hall in my picture, which is the government part. The shops around the perimeter of the plaza are the economy part. Although I didn’t get a picture, there are images of famous Spaniards on the three other walls of the plaza to represent the culture part. One side is conquistadores, one side is writers/philosophers, and the last side is important political figures. Apparently, when the mayor of the city dies, his body is carried around the plaza three times. I think I like this Plaza Mayor better than the one in Valladolid, because in my opinion it is much more beautiful – and honestly, it seems to have better places to eat!
Our next stop was actually the Casa de Conchas, but I honestly couldn’t hear anything and didn’t manage to get a picture, so here is a photo from the following destination, la Plaza de la Universidad. On this building, there is a rana (frog) that is hidden among the decoration, and it is said that if a student finds the frog, they will pass all of their classes. You can’t see the frog in this picture, but it’s on the right. I actually couldn’t find it by myself since I left my glasses in the USA, so I’m probably going to fail everything but it’s fine.
After, we were allowed an hour and a half of free time to get comida (lunch). A group of my friends and I went to a very nice restaurant (Amanda and I haven’t been able to remember it’s name). I ate, for the very first time… traditional Spanish paella!
I really enjoyed the paella, though some of the seafood wasn’t my favorite. I didn’t really like eating the shrimp, because they had eyes and faces and legs, and I felt like they were very cute and friendly. They tasted really good though so I guess it’s okay.
Anyway, afterwards we went to… drumroll… LA CATEDRAL!
Somehow, this is the only picture I ended up taking of the outside of the cathedral, and it’s a picture of an astronaut. Our two tour guides had conflicting perspectives on this new addition to the cathedral. One said that it was a great way to keep recording world history, and that someday in a few hundred years students would look at it and think it was an amazing piece of history. Our other guide, on the other hand, hated the astronaut. He said its ruining the building and that the artist just wanted to be famous. I have to agree, it looks a bit strange and I don’t think it makes much sense to include it.
Each major Spanish city has its own cathedral, but Salamanca is special because it has two! The second church was built right next the first, instead of on top of it. Here’s some pictures that I took inside the cathedral:
Plus there was a severed arm, which is always cool:
I really liked Salamanca, because it is a city so full of history. Every place we went, we got to learn something that would be interesting to all audiences. Everyone I talked to was very nice and helpful. Before going on the trip, I read a bit about it on the Internet, and I think it exceeded my expectations. I especially enjoyed seeing the Plaza Mayor and eating the paella. I felt a little strange in the cathedral, because everyone else seemed to be Catholic and knew what was going on, but I was a bit lost at times. Compared to Valladold, Salamanca seems a lot bigger! I haven’t been inside the cathedral in Valladolid, but I have seen it from the outside. While it’s beautiful, it doesn’t hold a candle to Salamanca’s cathedral(s) (in my opinion). My Spanish abuela told me that Salamanca was much prettier than Valladolid, but I thought they were pretty even! Salamanca also seemed to have less open space than Valladolid. Additionally, there was a little train/tour bus that almost ran me over several times in Salamanca… they don’t have that in Valladolid, so that’s a plus
All in all, Salamanca was a great experience. I can’t wait until next week, when we head to Segovia. Hasta luego!
