Salamanca y Otras Cosas

Plaza Mayor in Salamanca - the view from our hostal!

A picture of one of the buildings from the University of Salamanca.

Amanda took a picture from the Plaza Mayor of Jen and I on our balcony at the hostal. It was an amazing view!

So, I tried to go to bed at 9 tonight, since I have to get up EARLY to write a paper and prepare for a presentation. I woke up about 10:30 and realized, my body is confused by my attempts to mess up the sleep schedule... so, I thought I'd say hello. Tomorrow is the last day of 3 of my classes, and Thursday is the last day of class for my other two classes. WOW! I can't believe how fast this semester has gone... there is so much I need to do before I leave in 2.5 weeks!



School has been very busy lately... ever since the beginning of November, school has been just going non-stop. I am a little nervous for finals... it will be a challenge to balance studying for them and wrapping up everything else here. Luckily, I have about 5 days after finals before I fly home, so I'll have a chance to enjoy Spain stress-free after I finish all my tests!



My paper that I'm writing is on the play Man and Superman, by Bernard Shaw. Very interesting... I love/hate it at the same time. It's very witty and makes a lot of interesting commentary on society, and at the same time, it's really wordy and I don't agree with all of Shaw's philosophical views... sometimes I've been thinking as I read it, "Shaw, stop thinking so hard." Anyone read it?



I'm giving a talk next Sunday in my ward at church, in Spanish! I'm a bit nervous, since it'll take definite preparation to speak in Spanish, but I'm also kind of excited to have the chance to do it. Learning "church" vocabulary in Spanish is sometimes a new branch of Spanish for me, since the words aren't ones I learn in classes. However, it's been cool to learn how to understand the scriptures and talk about the gospel in another language.



It's been rainy here the past few days... and it's finally getting chilly and winter-like! (The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain, and in Madrid apparently!) :-) Actually though, it's pretty dry here... they're talking a lot about how they need to save water...



I went to Salamanca on Friday night. The Plaza Mayor all lit up at night was gorgeous!! I wish I could have spent more time there... unfortunately, the university was closed, since we were trying to tour it on Saturday, and it's closed on weekends. The University of Salamanca is like the "Harvard" of Spain, it's OLD and beautiful. It made me think of Harry Potter... cause it seemed like the kind of place where students would wear robes and carry candles in the dark hallways...

Our hostal was awesome - only 15 Euro a night per person, with a balcony onto the Plaza Mayor! We lucked out for sure... we had a great time just walking around the city and looking at everything all lit up at night. Since it is a university town, we tried to see what students were up to on a Friday night, which we finally figured out after wandering the streets alone for a long time, haha. Amanda, because of her blonde hair we think, was attracting all types of cat calls from men... sort of funny!

Ok, well, I think I'm going to try to sleep again soon. P.S. I finally figured out that I had to "moderate" my blog comments... so if you've tried to comment and it never showed up, I'm sorry! I didn't realize I had to "approve" them... I changed that now so you should be able to comment freely. I was beginning to wonder if anyone ever read this! Hehe, so anyhow, sorry about that. Have a great week everyone! I'll write again soon :-)