Sad, yet Surreal Moments

Today was a pretty bitter-sweet day for multiple reasons. The main reason is because one of the other students who lives here and has been staying with us since we arrived left today! Her name was Cecilé Riviere and she was a 20-something-year-old student from France and was studying with a different program than a few others but lived with us and nonetheless, became really close to all of us here! It's weird because she was the only girl in the house (other than our Señora, Luisa) so she was easily like a big sister to most of us!

We've all had a lot of fun since we all got here though, just going out on the town, eating lunch and dinner as a family and basically just hanging out after classes in the Plaza Mayor or watching the fútbol games in our favorite Irish pub, "O'Hara's." Throughout all of that daily contact time, it's no wonder we've gotten so attached!

Unfortunately, Cécile wasn't the first person to leave though. Last week (I've forgotten the specific date by now) my friend Jamie left en route back to the U.K. :( Definitely still miss him now! He was a 21-year-old at Cambridge and minus Cecile, he was pretty-much the best student in the house to speak Spanish with.

Cecile was already fluent in French and pretty much proficient at English, but was about on the same level as Jamie when it came to speaking Spanish! Seeing them leave was slightly depressing and I don't know where I'm gonna be now that my "Luisa-Translators" have departed me! :-/ lol

Sometimes it does get hard trying to speak and listen to everything that goes on here, conversation-wise. Lunch and dinnertime are usually the two points when we totally depart our English safe-zones and are forced into speaking some hardcore español! I noticed tonight as I sat down to eat dinner that this was the first time I've ever brought my Spanish dictionary with me to the table (and man, did it ever help!)

Meeting new people, learning, laughing, and living with them is all apart of Spanish life this summer, and while it has been kind of sad meeting them and then seeing them go away, it does make me happy knowing that if nothing else, I at least have one more friend in a different part of the world who's totally down for meeting up and hanging out when we someday cross paths again!

So Jamie and Cecilé, this note is for you! I miss you both dearly and I'm so glad I had the chance to meet you (and drive you both a little bit crazy as well). :-)

Two weeks down - two more to go.

Amor,

Lawrence

Spanish differences:

Last night, we went out for Tapas and Drinks at a local restaurant in Salamanca. It was an optional trip that cost about 7€ to attend & since we have an AIFS allowance of 10.5€ for reimbursed cultural outings, I ended up choosing it over dinner with my señora and family. Plus, I've REALLY been wanting to get OUT of my WARM, semi-uncomfy house and pretty much just see what the Salamancan dining experience is like! :-)

So we got to the place and they served our drinks first. I ordered a Coke & got a Pepsi (which I guess is considered about the same so that was pretty much no biggie) but then the culture shock thing hit again & I remembered that we didn't get free refills. :-(

...Well, best believe I sipped that drink EXTRAAAA SLOWWWWWLY!

I ended up ordering some type of meat tapa which basically looked like a meat-kabob and was served on a piece of pan (bread) and dipped in olive oil. It was actually GOOD! (salty as all get out, but it hit the SPOT for sure!)

After devouring it in like 30 seconds while all my friends looked on as if I were going to share, someone finally asked

"Is this the ONLY bar we're going to for 7.50€?!?!"

hahahahaha.... Great!

For once I didn't feel like the snobby American asking for more food. :-)

(But in retrospect, I'm SO glad she asked about more food, because that lil piece of meat was not about to fill me up at all!)

Thankfully, that one tapa bar that we visited wasn't the only one on our agenda! We went to two more that night for a total of three before going back home and by that time, I had definitely gotten full off of "patatas" (potatoes), "juevos con jamón," cokes/pepsi's, and "SANGRIAS" (red wine with fruit juice - LOVE IT).

As we wrapped up our tapa excursion, we learned some pretty interesting facts about Salamancan pub/tapa life from our tour guide, Roberto. First, the few streets that we had passed (probably 15-20 total) en route to our destinations had more than 150 tapas bars in that one area!!! It was later explained that Salamanca has more tapas bars per capita than ANY other city in the world! Ridiculous.

So that was a pretty good night. Afterwards me and some friends just walked around the Plaza Mayor until we basically got tired and ready to go back to the heat! (hopefully the next few days will be a LOT cooler than those during my first week because the weather people say we've been suffering from a heat wave that was pushed North from the Sahara Desert!)

We'll see!

Get Set: The Travels Have Begun!!!

Hey there, Bloggers!

I want to first WELCOME you to my “Internet space” and THANK YOU for tagging along with me, reading my comments, posting your questions & advice, asking more questions, and basically taking some time to check-in and see what’s “nuevo” (new) in the Life of Lawrence. I do wanna apologize for the delay in getting this puppy up on the net, but I've been doing A LOT over these last few weeks and have had VERY little (free) Internet to use! So finally - the wait is OVER! :-)

About this Blog:

After talking to many folks, friends, and family members in the U.S., I decided to start this blog in an effort to capture some of the momentos especialidad de mis excursiones esta verano (special moments from my excursions this summer) - - and really just keep you all posted on my geographical whereabouts, cultural lessons learned, and everyday experiences that are truly making my time abroad some of the best in life thus far.

Now before I begin, I must warn you of a few things that will pretty much pop-up in this BLOG occasionally:

First, I have a tendency to talk – a lot. I’m going to try my best to limit my bubbly (and lengthy) words to a minimum as I write and record my days’ events. I may not succeed at this feat all the time, but just know that I am conscious of it. J

Second, I came to Spain this summer to study Spanish. That includes the culture, people, language, and everything else about Spain and Spanish that makes it so interesting to me.

Finally, there may be times that I intertwine much of my English language background with un poquito del lengua español (a little of the Spanish language). Please bear with me. The sentences shouldn’t be very difficult to discern so DON’T freak out, but DO feel free to ask me any questions about my posts and I’ll do my best to clarify their meaning as soon as possible.

¡Perfecto!

Now forget the passports (and my semi-damp humor), I think you're finally ready to follow along with me throughout my travels to New York, USA; London, U.K; Lisbon, Portugal; Madrid, Segovia, La Granja, Barcelona (newly added!!), & SALAMANCA, Spain!!! :-)

Happy reading,

Lawrence