Hola Todos!
Two weeks of classes are officially
finished, and before Friday! That’s because tomorrow morning (at 6:30 am… uhg!)
I leave for Cantabria, a region in the northern part of Spain. This week went
by particularly fast, partly because it was only four days long, and partly
because I had a visitor!
My friend Hyland is backpacking around
Spain until the end of July. She arrived in Madrid about a week ago, and after
spending a few days there, she came to Salamanca on Monday to see the city and
ME! In my free time, we hung out at cafes and walked around the city to
do some sightseeing. Many of the things I saw with her were not new to me at
that point. However, Wednesday after my classes, we toured the Convent of Saint
Stephen, which until that point I had only seen from the outside. The convent
was fairly large and really beautiful. The building had an intricate façade
carved into it. Once inside the first thing you saw was an open square
courtyard. The courtyard was peaceful and almost completely silent, except for
a slightly creepy prerecorded audio/visual of a nun confessing in one of the
confessional booths off to the side of the courtyard. I sat in the confessional
for a few minutes, but left quickly because something about the video of the
fake nun creeped me out a little.
All around the courtyard there were doors
leading into other various places in the convent: a tomb, a museum with old
artifacts from the church, and a church. The church was by far the most
impressive part of the convent. It was large and in the shape
of a cross, as was typical of catholic churches built at that time. The front
of the church had intricate gold columns and statues of angels as well as a mural. The choir sat on a balcony in the back with an another large mural on the wall above. I’m not sure if mass
is still held there, but if it is, I would love to sit in on a service.
Earlier tonight my roommates and I got yelled at for the first time by our Madre. Truth be told, she didn't really yell, and it was actually kind of comical. She did laundry today, and we accidentally took our clean clothes before she had ironed them. In the US this wouldn't be a big deal. I never iron my clothes at home! But when she saw we had taken the clothes before they were ironed, she came in our rooms and demanded the clothes back so she could iron them. I have to admit, they looked a lot better after they had been ironed...
Earlier tonight my roommates and I got yelled at for the first time by our Madre. Truth be told, she didn't really yell, and it was actually kind of comical. She did laundry today, and we accidentally took our clean clothes before she had ironed them. In the US this wouldn't be a big deal. I never iron my clothes at home! But when she saw we had taken the clothes before they were ironed, she came in our rooms and demanded the clothes back so she could iron them. I have to admit, they looked a lot better after they had been ironed...
Seeing Hyland and the Convent were the two
main highlights of this week. Now I need to get some sleep because I have an
early wake up for Cantabria in the morning!
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| The Convent form the outside |
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| The Courtyard in the Middle of the Covent |
Hasta Luego!
Aubrey
