Salamander

We took a trip to Salamanca on Saturday. For once we didn’t have a guide, and we had the whole day free to wander about the city! It’s really pretty there. The buildings are cool. Pictures will be on Facebook (if not already there).

It is said that when you go to Salamanca you must see “the frog”. This frog is on top of a skull on one of the university buildings (it’s part of the wall sculpture). By seeing this frog, you are supposed to pass an exam that you are about to take and graduate successfully or something like that. Let’s hope it will work for my exam on Tuesday. If you’ve already graduated, then you are supposed to get married soon after seeing the frog. I don’t know if there’s anything else after that.

I never thought I would say this, but I miss Los Angeles. Yes, I said before that I’m Miss America…oops, I mean I miss America in general, but now it’s more specific to LA. I always say how much I miss Michigan, and that hasn’t changed (I’m sad I won’t be home for the Cheeseburger fest), but maybe LA is starting to feel more like home for me? I don’t know. I’ve just kind of been on a downward spiral. My Spanish-speaking skills have gone backwards. I feel like I’m worse than ever. English keeps popping out of my mouth randomly, and it just shouldn’t be like that. I should be thinking in Spanish at this point and feel comfortable speaking it. Maybe my frustration is getting in the way of me moving forward.

My host mom is really funny. I learn a lot from her for sure. I’m glad that she likes to talk because that does help a lot. She was telling my roommate and me how we need to go out and experience the nightlife here. We’re so young and blah blah. I told her that I already went out last Saturday, but she said that’s not considered “going out” when you come back at 1:00 am. You need to stay up all night long. You go out around 1:00 and come back around 7:00 am. And that’s seriously what everyone does here. They just hang out on the streets talking and dancing if there is music around. It’s the culture of all of Spain. I told her that I just couldn’t get used to that. I neeeeeeeeed sleep or I don’t function. Plus, these last two Saturdays, we’ve gone on excursions all day. That’s really tiring. We are done with the excursions now though, so we’ll see about this Saturday. I like hanging out with the 30+ crowd in our group because they are a lot more chill. I tell you what, there are some people in this program who are a little out of control…like you would think they passed this phase at 23, but at ages 26, 27, 28 they’re still partying constantly.

Ummm, I think that’s all. Bye.