First Weekend-Salamanca and a Bar!

• a day trip by train to Salamanka with Jennifer
• my first night out-dinner an a drink
• just how weak is the dollar, and just how expensive is a tiny fanta?
  
• massive misconceptions about america (its like american pie and shawshank redemption right? thats right, shawshank redemption)

My confidence grows that i can make it here as the days go by, especially after today. Jennifer (candice's chosen name) and I made a day trip to the sun-drenched tan city of Salamanka, home to a massive university and a cathedral that puts the 'god' in the exclamation 'oh god that's big'. We started the day at a very unspanish 7 in the morning and purchased train tickets, with my spanish working well enough to even make a joke or two with the cashier lady! Enough has been said on amazingness of spanish train system, but lets just say it kicks amtracks booty.

Salamanka is a wonderfully condensed city, and we chose this day to visit because they are having their week of festivals honoring their patron saintess. Apparently in spain, honoring someone who died a horrible death for their beliefs includes gay french acrobats and washed up American rock stars (we only saw the former). On our way from the station into town towards the fair we ran into a spanish version of Portland's Saturday market, where i didn't buy any of you any gifts, sorry! We also ran into many churches and managed to not get lost. One church we tried to visit had a disproportionate number of people dressed very very well, and long story short i crashed a baptism, if only briefly. (Whoooola!)

While salamanka's plaza mayor usually gets all of the attention, its its 'new' cathedral that really knocked my socks off. I've seen alot of these babies all over Europe, and this one competes with the best


Other highlights of the day included yet another example of what phenomenal foresight Romans had (their bridge is still standing and being used, for 5 times longer than my country has existed) and just spending a whole day wandering the city.
Although Jen and i have different approaches to touristing, we do get along pretty well. She really wants to fit in, and i know that its impossible for me until i find extra wide nikes, tight jeans, and enough jell to make a fo-hawk, an image that should never be in any one's mind nor be posted here. However, people do assume we speak spanish which is certainly a plus, and sometimes a minus!

I'll cruise through the rest of this before it gets too long.

As we came home from salamanka we ran into all of the police buddies playing ping pong, i joined in briefly and then they all left to go to one of their birthday parties, and they invited me! We walked to a restaurant with more screens for watching soccer than their are Os in a spanish announcers exclamation of 'goal' and chatted away (no jennifer on this excursion). Afterward we went to a bar for a drink and since there was a map of spain on the wall, a geography lesson as well. And so i had my first experience drinking alcohol legally in a bar. Rum and coke is great (thanks mas), but it was 5 euros.

And that leads me to one of two rants: goddam dolar and being a pansy just at the time i'm going to spain. Five bucks for a drink is bad enough, but add in exchange rate and 7.50 is just preposterous. Time for us to start kicking economic tooshie- when i jokingly offered to pay for dinner with dollars 'the strongest currency in the world' people laughed at me, for a long time, and then broke out a Moroccan curency and said that that was even stronger than the dollar.

during these evening i was asked many questions about the states, most notably is everyone as beautiful as in the movies, are all colleges like American pie (I answered only Arizona), and is there a shark problem in California. Thank you hollywood, oh so much.

I'll save the rest of my observations for another post before ya'll get bored.