Past few days through pictures

Wow, I didn't realize how quickly time passes and how much I have to say! Sorry if this is overwhelming...

LAS FERIAS
Each main city in Spain has a "ferias" or week long festival celebration full of cultural events.

Last Wednesday was the kick-off for Salamanca's feria...the Virgen de la Vega (Our Lady of the Valley) is honored through a parade where people dress in traditional (charro) clothing and participate in a procesión (parade) where there is dancing, singing, music and lots of flowers being carried to be offered at the Old Cathedral.

There is a big ceremony for the offering once everyone arrives there too, but we didn't end up staying for it because there was a huge crowd, plus we all had to get back to our casas to eat la cena! After dinner, they were having fireworks down in the center of the city, but we didn't finish in time - luckily we could just go out onto our balcony and watch them!
Here is a view from our balcony on the seventh floor:

While we were out there, I had many interesting conversations with Teresa and Isidro, including one about their neighborhood association...definitely the enthusiasm about urban neighborhood groups from NeighborWorks Rochester of this summer coming out in me! After the fireworks, there was a concert at the Plaza de Mayor with a huge crowd. Even though it was a Spanish singer (Iván Ferreiro), my friends & I enjoyed being in a crowd in such a beautiful place:

We had Thursday off from our Spanish intensive course, so the next morning I went to a mass at the large old cathedral where the archbishop, bishop, many priests and tons of civilians, some locals but some traveling far to visit, all gathered to worship. Even though it lasted about 2 hours with easily over a thousand people and it was entirely spoken/sung in Spanish AND there were no books to follow along for the readings or music, it was definitely an interesting experience! I was happy to be in a church and feel the excitement of God's presence amongst so many "strangers" - even though we are all really God's children:

In the afternoon, I went to a bunch of "artes de las calles" which were essentially street performers. The first one was basically (from what we could understand) Cinderella with puppets and kids from the audience acting as well.

After that, we went to another similar type of show but about indigenous folk - a bit hard to describe but basically the characters (puppets & humans dressed up) went on an adventure of some sort.

I was waiting for an acrobatic show to start when I felt someone grab my arm - it definitely caught me offguard until I turned to see my señora, Teresa! She and Isidro were paroozing around the festival and invited me to join them. Naturally, I accepted. We walked around a bit and ended up at the Plaza de Mayor, where of course there are at least 15 places to buy ice cream. They offered to treat me and brought me to their favorite place - an absolutely delicious frozen yogurt parlor. Muy muy delicioso. I eventually met up with some of my friends who were eating tapas and we made our way over to the plaza de mayor for yet ANOTHER concert. This singer, however, was essentially a mix between Cher and Lady Gaga. Quite the entertainment to say the least!

During the 10 days or so of the ferias, "casetas" are set up all throughout the city by local bars & restaurants, selling cheap tapas & drinks. This attracts lots of people, both locals & tourists, with live music and more fun!

After some more orientation sessions on Friday afternoon, we all walked over to a park down by the river to play fútbol with local Spanish students. Of course, they were all very talented, but indeed it did help my team win the game! We got very classy metals, though we all were just playing for fun of course :)

TORO & ZAMORA
This past Saturday was another IES-sponsored excursion. We didn't actually go to the town of Toro, but we went to a beautiful winery outside of Toro called Bodegas Monte La Reina. It was started in just 2004 but has quite the amenities:
a full gorgeous winery & vineyard

vegetable farm

castle that has been converted into a classy hotel (@ 200 euros a night)

gorgeous venue for weddings

We had a tour of the winery & how they make the wine, followed by a wine tasting. (Meghan, Liz, Rachel, me - we all live close to each other & thus walk together a lot!)

I'm not a huge fan of wine and I think this red wine was especially strong, but I did give it a try. Afer our wine tasting, we headed to Zamora, a small town which happens to be the hometown of David who is the student activities coordinator at IEZ, so he gave us a brief tour:
over 20 Romaneque churches

remnants of city walls that were built by its Christian inhabitants to keep foreigners out during the 11th, 12th & 13th centuries, including this medieval castle

Of course, it wouldn't be a complete day without trying the local food for la comida (AKA huge lunch). We got dropped off at this town outside of Zamora that was literally in the middle of nowhere. We walked through these dirt paths to get to an area where there were tons of shacks - in reality they lead to underground space for storage, housing and, yep, even restaurants.
Here are some of the "shacks"

This is the one that leads to the restaurant, Los Yugos

And here is what the restaurant looks like inside, more or less, once you descend down a claustrophobicy tunnel

The speciality of this area in Spain & restaurant is carne asado (grilled/roasted meat) so essentially every course was a different type of meat (other than salad & bread & wine) - first was thick, salty but delicious sausage, followed by ribs and then meat that is basically really thick fatty bacon. My personal favorite: dessert was a Magnum almond & vanilla ice cream bar. Apparently after every meal at this restaurant, they serve colored shots to the clients with mysterious alcohols. There was a nonalcoholic cherry one, a green apple alcohol drink, and a strong liquor of some sort...it was exciting to get course after course not knowing when it'll ever end! Indeed, it did come to an end...another successful IES excursion, though!


Sunday morning we met as a group once again but this time to load onto the public bus (rather than our usual nice coach buses for the excursions) to visit the "rastro" or flea market. They have it every Sunday in the city with tons of cheap goods, from clothes to shoes to school supplies to watches to old newspapers - quite the collection. It was HUGE though and we didn't get a chance to see it all and I don't think this picture fully captures just how large it was.

Last night, 12 of us from the program went to a bullfight. I wanted to go originally for a cultural experience - I had no idea what to expect, even after reading about some of the history & meaning of the event, although I knew it would be hard to watch. Within the first 5 minutes, my stomach was upset at the sights. I won't go into any details. After watching a program last night on the TV with my host parents and also discussing it in class today, I have concluded that while I really did try to experience & respect the Spanish culture, it is an unnecessary brutal occurrence. Many will argue the other way, yet still others (even Spaniards) argue against the brutalities, as demonstrated by the graffiti below which translates "Your tickets carry blood" or "Murderers". Here are just a few non-intensive pictures...

In other news, Wednesday morning I leave with 11 other students & 2 IES staff members to embark on our 100km trek on El Camino de Santiago. We'll be hiking for 5 days and returning on Sunday. You can check out a video on youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uinzjGdW_bA for an overview (in English!) of the journey. We'll be doing the last 100km of the trail, as the whole thing is over 700km and would take over a month to complete. It'll be a challenge mentally, physically, spiritually and just in general. I really think it'll be quite the journey, though! IES classes start Monday right after we return so it'll be a quick turn around!