I woke up, so excited to be traveling again!.....until I noticed it was raining. and cold. Up until this point, we had had 80 degree and sunny beautiful weather THE ENTIRE MONTH. And it decided to rain today...perfect. So I grabbed my rain coat, sucked it up, and told myself that a little rain was nothing!
Upon arrival to Salamanca (still raining) we went up and saw the famous cathedral. It's soooo pretty!! We did get lucky because after walking up steps after steps after steps, when we got to the top, it stopped raining for just a few minutes, long enough to snap a few pics!
For the rest of the day, we thought we were going to have a tour or something of that sort so we knew which sites to see, but the person in charge just left us to our devices and told us to meet back for the pub crawl.
So we walked around for a bit, explored the city, walked around some more................
......and there wasn't really much else to do. We saw Salamanca's Plaza Mayor (again, it stopped raining long enough to take a picture, see below!) which was pretty cool but even that did not take too long. So, the most logical thing to do was to find some food.
This trip became a food discovery day trip. We went from restaurant to restaurant, trying different pastries, desserts, tapas, dinner, sangria, etc. By far, the best thing we ate was a gofre, or a waffle. We went to this dessert place and ordered a gofre with chocolate syrup and ice cream. This is the best dessert I have eaten thus far at study abroad (besides chocolate y churros which kind of don't count for dessert because Spanish people eat them for breakfast...) There also must have been some cinnamon sugar baked into the waffle or something because there was an added taste in the gofre that made it so much better than a normal one.
After our 7 meals (you think I'm exaggerating...), it was time for the pub crawl. Finally, time to drink and everything would be better again!!!
Wrong. The pub crawl ended up starting at 10pm, which in Spain is equivalent to starting a night going out at 8pm....aka no one is out except for weird people. They took us to a bar and we were the first people there (like it wasn't even open yet when we got there) They gave us a free shot (which I can't complain about) but then we stayed at that same bar for two and a half hours. After an hour of being weird and goofing around, there really was not too much else to do. We were full on food and so drinking a lot did not seem too appealing, and so we just had to wait it out.
We left the pub crawl at around 2 to head back to the bus. While we had decided not to drink a lot, others in our group from different universities did not feel that way. So thankfully the bus driver had plastic bags, because there were girls puking, girls falling down on the bus, people singing songs, and girls crying left and right. The biggest (pardon my french) shit show I have seen in quite some time.
I wish the weather had been better so we could have explore more and I wish I had researched the city prior to leaving so I knew the main things to do and see. Salamanca seemed like a great place for students because it is a university town, but because I was not familiar with the city, I felt like I couldn't get as much out of it as I could have..
I have absolutely no regrets about going because I would have been more mad at myself if I had not gone and had wondered what it would have been like.
If I had studied abroad there, there's no doubt I would have loved it!
However, it did make me realize how lucky I am to be in Madrid and how much I love my city :)
Sooooo while it wasn't the most amazing trip or anything, I can't say I'm mad that I went. There's no time to have regrets while abroad, so I'm embracing the failure of the trip and loving that I can laugh about it now.
Upon arrival to Salamanca (still raining) we went up and saw the famous cathedral. It's soooo pretty!! We did get lucky because after walking up steps after steps after steps, when we got to the top, it stopped raining for just a few minutes, long enough to snap a few pics!For the rest of the day, we thought we were going to have a tour or something of that sort so we knew which sites to see, but the person in charge just left us to our devices and told us to meet back for the pub crawl.
So we walked around for a bit, explored the city, walked around some more................
......and there wasn't really much else to do. We saw Salamanca's Plaza Mayor (again, it stopped raining long enough to take a picture, see below!) which was pretty cool but even that did not take too long. So, the most logical thing to do was to find some food.
This trip became a food discovery day trip. We went from restaurant to restaurant, trying different pastries, desserts, tapas, dinner, sangria, etc. By far, the best thing we ate was a gofre, or a waffle. We went to this dessert place and ordered a gofre with chocolate syrup and ice cream. This is the best dessert I have eaten thus far at study abroad (besides chocolate y churros which kind of don't count for dessert because Spanish people eat them for breakfast...) There also must have been some cinnamon sugar baked into the waffle or something because there was an added taste in the gofre that made it so much better than a normal one.
After our 7 meals (you think I'm exaggerating...), it was time for the pub crawl. Finally, time to drink and everything would be better again!!!
Wrong. The pub crawl ended up starting at 10pm, which in Spain is equivalent to starting a night going out at 8pm....aka no one is out except for weird people. They took us to a bar and we were the first people there (like it wasn't even open yet when we got there) They gave us a free shot (which I can't complain about) but then we stayed at that same bar for two and a half hours. After an hour of being weird and goofing around, there really was not too much else to do. We were full on food and so drinking a lot did not seem too appealing, and so we just had to wait it out.
We left the pub crawl at around 2 to head back to the bus. While we had decided not to drink a lot, others in our group from different universities did not feel that way. So thankfully the bus driver had plastic bags, because there were girls puking, girls falling down on the bus, people singing songs, and girls crying left and right. The biggest (pardon my french) shit show I have seen in quite some time.
I wish the weather had been better so we could have explore more and I wish I had researched the city prior to leaving so I knew the main things to do and see. Salamanca seemed like a great place for students because it is a university town, but because I was not familiar with the city, I felt like I couldn't get as much out of it as I could have..
I have absolutely no regrets about going because I would have been more mad at myself if I had not gone and had wondered what it would have been like.
If I had studied abroad there, there's no doubt I would have loved it!
However, it did make me realize how lucky I am to be in Madrid and how much I love my city :)
Sooooo while it wasn't the most amazing trip or anything, I can't say I'm mad that I went. There's no time to have regrets while abroad, so I'm embracing the failure of the trip and loving that I can laugh about it now.
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