De Vuelta en Salamanca

      Last weekend I returned to Salamanca, Spain for the weekend to visit the incredible city that was my home last semester. In some ways nothing had changed, but on the other hand, it seemed like everything had changed. Even though I'd already lived there for 5 months, in my weekend there, I got to see new places and meet new people. I also got to stay with my host family and visit some of my favorite places (i.e. La Croissantería).

Change is inevitable...

1. The butcher shop, Hipercarne, on the Villamayor (street I'd walk home on) is now a Vodaphone. The fast food pizza place next to McDonald's is now an ice cream place. 
2. My neighborhood is the best neighborhood in the world because it is filled with amazing street art. But they tore down the building that had my favorite painting on it... :( 
3. Goodbye favorite painting, but hello new installations made out of bike tires and miniature gardens made by school children. 
4. Sara's door (i.e. Villamayor 40). My best friend Sara lived a few blocks down the street from me and would always be waiting for me outside her door to walk into town together. They'd been doing construction on the interior of her building previously, but now the door is completely different! 
5. In the plaza between the cathedrals and linguistics department, there's a new Henry Moore sculpture exhibit. 
6. My host mom has another dog. While she was mostly very friendly, she also was very protective and did not like it when I was home alone and tried to do outrageous activities like peel an orange or pour myself a glass of water. 
7. There's a vegan tapas bar! And get this... Spaniards (including my host family) actually go to it. The tapas were incredible and we even went there twice. 
8. There's a new statue with a digital screen counting down the days and hours till the 800th anniversary of the university (in 2018).
9. My friends are gone... Walking around the city made me miss the people who made the place so special. Most of them have scattered across the world to their homes in America, Germany, and New Zealand. It was odd to walk down my street and know that Sara would never be waiting for me there again. I'd never walk to the croissantería with Áine again. I wished more than anything they could've all been there too, but time brings change and we all had new places to go and homes to return to.  

Some things never change...

1. LA CROISSANTERÍA PARÍS. Did I mention that I love the Croissantería? Well the first time I went over the weekend, the person working there was someone I'd never seen. The second time I went (to buy 3 croissants for the road) the owner who is usually working was there and he recognized me! He remembered me and my friend coming in every Monday and Wednesday afternoon after class. 
2. The study abroad center is still filled with all the lovely staff and professors. It was nice to see them all again and see that things are still happening as usual there. 
3. The Plaza Mayor is still looking grand as ever, and the ice cream places have reopened for spring. 
4. The cathedrals are still standing and looking a bit more lively with tulips in front. 
5. The days in Spain are still somehow way longer than elsewhere. You don't eat lunch till 2:30pm, so it's as if you have an entire day before lunch. Then, you don't eat dinner till 9:30pm, so the day just keeps going and going! 
6. There's still some holiday at least once a week. Saturday was the 'Day of the Book', which, naturally, celebrates books. There was a nice outdoor market in the Plaza Mayor filled with books from every local bookshop. 
7. All the buildings from the 15th century are still so much the same that they are using Salamanca as the setting for a new American TV series, "Still Star Crossed". Over the weekend they were setting up for filming to make Salamanca look like Verona. One of the streets was entirely covered in sand and they had old market stands set up. On Monday they started filming and they had lots of horses, riders in armor, extras wearing clothes from the period, and trucks filled with swords to be used as props. Now just to wait for the show to be released.

     Obviously in my time living there I had enough of a routine that I noticed even the slightest changes upon returning. Even with all I got to do last semester, there were still many new adventures over the weekend. In Salamanca, there's a cupcake shop run by a woman from California and I finally went there! I had an amazing carrot cake cupcake and spoke in English for a while with the owner. Not only was the cupcake delicious, but it was nice to have some homemade "American" food and speak with someone with the same language and accent as me... filled my carrot cake and American accent void all in one. I also got to meet my host mom's best friend, Lola. I felt like I knew her already since she and my host mom were on the phone with each other practically every day! As it turns out, she is also a bit of a linguistics nerd, which of course meant we somehow ended up talking about case marking systems in various languages. 

     When I left Salamanca in December I knew I'd be returning to visit sometime in Spring. I knew it truly only was an Hasta Luego ('Until Later') as they say in Spain instead of goodbye. This time I left knowing that it may well be a very long time till I return. I hope it's still just hasta luego as I know Salamanca, the people I met there, and my Spanish host family will always hold a very special place in my heart. 

Hasta Luego Salamanca 

Back at IES Abroad

New installations in the neighborhood

Trekking down the sand covered street

Me and my host mom exploring the market

Me and Lola ready for filming!

Spring tulips at the cathedrals

Me, Mom, Sheep, and Chips

     For the last week and a half of break, my mom came to visit and we traveled all around Ireland, Northern Ireland, and London. We started off with a tour of the west coast of Ireland. We spent our first night in Glaway, which has a nice downtown pedestrian area. Ireland has loads of sheep so they make a lot of sweaters. We basically ate some dinner and went in about 10 sweater shops. My mom and I used to not be such great shopping buddies, but now I think our team shopping skills have shaped up quite nicely. Perhaps a day full of cute sheep was helpful to group shopping. The next day we went to the Cliffs of Moher, which are absolutely gorgeous. To my mom's dismay, we were unable to find a puffin, but we did see lots of other cool birds. We took some postcard worthy photos and then headed off to see the Blarney Castle. The castle is most well known for the Blarney stone, which is a stone that gives you the gift of eloquent speech for 7 years. You've got to climb up to the top of the castle and then lay on your back and hold onto a bar and hoist yourself up to kiss the stone. Let's hope the legend is true and both of us have got 7 years of eloquence to look forwards to. If anything, the adventure worked up my mom's appetite for chips (i.e. french fries) and she became an instant fan. We continued our little Irish adventure by going around the Dingle Peninsula. We saw the beehive huts, which are stone huts thought to be built in the 12th century. On the other end of the historic timeline, we saw where they are filming the new Star Wars! On the way back to Dublin we stopped at Barack Obama Plaza in Moneygall. Barack Obama's great-great-great grandfather was from Moneygall and immigrated to the US, so Obama went there to visit in 2011 and naturally the town needed to name a giant rest stop gas station the "Barack Obama Plaza". After embracing our American-ness for a tiny bit, it was back to Dublin. The next day we had a free day and decided to go to Kilmainham Gaol which is a former prison. The British kept many members of the IRA there. After the 1916 uprising some of the main leaders were jailed and then executed there. It is only visitable by guided tour and they were all booked, but we got super lucky and got on the waiting list and eventually got to go on one. The tour was definitely worth the wait and one of the best guided tours we'd been on.

     The next day we said goodbye to the Republic of Ireland and went to Northern Ireland, the 6 counties that remain part of the UK, thus we also made the currency change to pounds and adjusted our ears to the strong northern Irish accent. We did the Black Taxi Tour of west Belfast, which was fascinating. The taxi driver takes you to the neighborhood where there is still a wall up between the British (Protestant) side and the Irish (Catholic) side. Each side looks so distinct, with different flags and political murals. They still close the gate each evening. Conflict in Northern Ireland ended in the 1990s, but they think that it's best to leave the wall up for now as the conflict is still so fresh and they don't want to cause any conflict. On a lighter note, Belfast is also known for being the building site of the Titanic, so we went to the "Titanic Experience" and learned a lot about the building and saw the port where it was constructed. We also ventured all the way north to see the Giant's Causeway which is a rock formation of hexagonal basalt pillars that is leftover from volcanic tectonic occurrences millions of years ago (that's about the extent of my geological knowledge). The legend about the giant who built it is way cooler, but I'll tell that part to you in person (since my horrible story telling skills are at least slightly more comical in person).

     Then it was time to return to my temporary home country of England and experience London. Neither of us had ever explored London, so we were both ready for an adventure. We went on one of those super touristy (but pretty great) hop on hop off busses. We stopped for a bit to see some Van Gogh at the National Gallery and the changing of the cavalry guard. We of course saw the London Eye, Big Ben, the Tower Bridge (which is the really impressive one that people, including myself, usually think is London Bridge), and the Tower of London. We took a river cruise on the Thames back towards the center and then went on a guided tour of the House of Parliament, which was incredible. You can't take pictures, but the inside was so ornately decorated and full of odd traditions and history. The next day we took a day trip out to Stonehenge with my friend Shanaz who is studying abroad in London. I honestly thought Stonehenge would just be super touristy, but it was actually really peaceful and impressive. And there were sheep... always adds to the scenery. On our night out in London we went to the theater to see Billy Elliot. To quote an anonymous reviewer "If I was in London again, I'd just go to the theater every night, that's it". 

The Cliffs of Moher

Kissing the Blarney Stone

Visiting the Wall on the Black Taxi Tour 

Me and Shanaz at Stonehenge

An Irish Easter

     One of the fun things about being abroad for a year is getting to celebrate holidays in different ways and in different places. There’s also new holidays to be celebrated, such as Pancake Day, an English holiday where you eat pancakes! Anyways, for Easter weekend I was in Dublin visiting my friend from home Maggie who lives there now. I hadn’t seen her in a year and had never seen her new home, so I was super excited. Sometimes it seems like just yesterday she and I were madly playing bass and baritone to Mhondoro together and now she’s married and living in Dublin and I’m studying in York. I’ll admit I was worried that both of us had become all serious, but that was definitely not the case and we quickly returned to our silly ways. We spent a lot of time walking around and letting me see the sights of Dublin. Being the amazing host and friend she is, Maggie made sure to take me to the best ice cream place, Murphy’s. We took a day trip up to Howth to see the seaside and eat at this incredible restaurant that has beds that you can sit on to eat your meal. Naturally, we spent a good 4 hours sitting in bed eating lunch and drinking wine. Then, it was time to prepare ourselves for our Easter celebrations, which had three main components. 1) Chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream for me, and chocolate soy popsicles for her 2) Watching Kimmy Schmidt on Netflix 3) Making paper bunny ears for the large mushroom we discovered creeping through the floorboards (it has since been removed, R.I.P). Other than our fabulous little Easter celebration, that weekend was also the 100th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising, which was an Irish rebellion against British rule. Though it failed, after many more rebellions a few years the later, the Irish finally gained independence from the UK. Maggie and I tried to go see a bit of the parade for it but it was way too crowded to see, but a fun and historic experience nonetheless. Then, we took the train down to Cork to visit there for a bit, since her husband there for the weekend. Cork is the next biggest city in Ireland but it is still way smaller than Dublin. We drove to Kinsale, a costal town with gorgeous cliffs, beaches, and ports. Afterwards, Maggie and I speedily made our way to the train station to head back home to Dublin. I wish the weekend could’ve been longer, but it was time for Maggie to go back to work and me to meet up with meet up with my mom and continue my travels.