Vantage Point

So everybody has to go see the movie Vantage Point because it takes place in Salamanca Spain. It also looks like a good flick anyway, so everybody has to go see it this weekend. I think there might be a big premier here in Salamanca tonight with all the actors and cool stuff like that, so I may go check that out. I'm going to my host brothers soccer game tomorrow and I think Avila on Sunday so it should be a fun weekend.

Spanish elections 08

So what a contrast there is between the election process in Spain and the US. As I'm sure eveyone is aware, the election process in the Us startted probably a year ago for an election in November, still months away. The candidates have spent millions of dollars had multiple debates and we still don't know who the candidates will be for the general election. While in Spain it's an entirely different story. Spain holds its election on March 9th, or somewhere around there. The candidates just started their campaigning last week and had there first debate the other night. I found the contrast between the two election process's interesting and the spanish think we are absolutely crazy for having out elections go on for so long. So that's that, hope everying is enjoying the snow and sun in VT.

Ham anybody

So here is the leg of ham I talked about in the previous post

Tapas and other news

So I went out for tapas the other night with some friends and we went to the most gourmet tapas bar in Salamanca (this means tapas ranging from 2-3 euros) so not that expensive. I had already eaten dinner by the time we went so I only had 2 tapas. The first was some great roasted chicken and the second was a yogurt desert with honey and nuts. Both were eligently displayed and delicious. IN other salamanca news I realized the other day that the pig leg in our kitchem (I'm not sure you can see it in the pics of the house, but I will put one up soon) was actually not decoration but is for eating. So this I thought was interesting and something very different than the states where we never just have cured meat lying around, and certainly not an entire pig leg. I've continued to ride a lot, usually going between 50-60 km and its been great, unfortunatly it looks like rain is coming in for the rest of the week. So thats the Salamanca update and I'll try to get a picture of the pig leg up soon for your viewing pleasure. Hasta Luego.

Chocolate con churros

So after going out the other night I was treated to an very traditional spanish dish of chocolate con churros early in the morning (Churrerias usually don't open till 5 am) and they were great. Churros are fried dough and then dipped into a super rich chocolate sauce and they are absolutely amazing.

My House

GOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

So this country is absolutley futbol crazed. And by futbol I mean soccer, not american futbol, which though fun to watch at times just cannot come close to comparing with the real thing. I think everyone growing up here wants to be a soccer player when they grow up and everyone watches all the games or listens on the radio and is just passionate about the sport. It has been really fun for me to be able to watch the likes of Ronaldinho and Robinho and all the greats on TV, a very rare occurrence in the US where all you can see is the mls which is not close to the same caliber and features amateurs and washed up european pros (coughdavidbeckhamcough) sorry I has something is my throat. For example I walked back to my room the other morning to see my host mother checking up on the soccer highlights from the night before. But it's really just been lots of fun for me to be able to see this soccer, now I have to find somehwere to play, hmm.

Sun!

So after 3 days of drizzling, and at times hard, rain, the sun shines again in Salamanca and the prospects of a ride this afternoon look very good, so I'm excited. My time in Salamanca is flying by, as already nearly 2 of my 5 weeks here are gone.

I've started to think abouit my two weeks of travel during which I will visit Wille and Simone (for those of you who don't know them, they were exchange students from Germany and Italy respectively). However I'm trying to figure out where else I should travel, so if anyone has any suggestions for exciting or fun places to go in western europe, please let me know. Also if you have any tips for european travel (trains, buses, etc..) it would be much apreciated. Thanks!

Ciudad Rodrigo

So I went to the ciudad Rodrigo today about 80 kilometers outside Salamanca with a group of friends from brazil. It took us an hour by bus to reach the city. The public transports is great, the buses left on time and were really nice, very different experience from my last bus ride in a foreign country in Costa Rica, but I won't go into that. Anyway, it was a bit expensive for my cheap taste but well worth the sights at the end of the ride. Ciudad Rodrigo is a really cool old walled city. Besides the city itself being really cool, we also got some great views of the surrounding country side. To learn more about the city here's the link www.wikipedia.org/wiki/ciudad_rodrigo

Here are some of the pics:

Disclaimer

So I feel as though I should put out a disclaimer because I have been getting some negative feedback about some of the content of the blog. First, I am not an idiot, I'm just not spell checking the blog because using the computers here is expensive, so I try to spend as little time as possible on them. I hope that everyone will understand what I'm saying no matter if I spell their with an i or not. Also, I am not trying to offend anyone, I am only expresing my opinions and observations about the differences between life in Spain and in Vermont. If I have offedned you I apologize. Hope this clears things up for everyone.

So life here has continued on much in the same fashion as it has for my entire time here. I must say the first week did go by quickly. Imagine 20% of my time in Salamanca already over and I've barely done anything, I must fix this. The most exciting news I think I have to share is that a nice German couple arrived in my house today and I got to show them around the city because they speak no spanish and I am now the official translator. Afterwards they gave me some great German chocolate, so I'm pretty psyched about that. I have class again tomorrow and rumor has it that some Aussie's are coming to I'll have to try to meet them and see if they know my relatives. So that's the update, hopefully I'll have something a little more exciting to share in the future.

Great Ride

So I'll try to keep this blog interesting for all of you who don't share my obsession of man powered machines, shaved legs, and spandex. However since I am obsessed I cannot help myself from writing about it. So I went for a great 70 km ride out through the farmland outside Salamanca and the surrounding area today. It was great, just kilometers of flat to rolling roads and farmland with few cars and towns in sight. Very cool, biking really is a great way to see the surrounding area. Anyway, the next best part of Spain is that I got back at 3 just in time to eat lunch and then go back to bed for the siesta. Tonight I'm planning on watching both the madrid and barca games back to back, which should be fun, the spainards are very enthusiastic about their soccer. So other than that not much to report going on here in Spain, hope all is well in the states.

First real ride!

First I would just like to say Biking in Spain is absolutely amazing!

I figured out how to leave the city yesterday afternoon and so I headed out after lunch today to see if I could retrace my steps by bike. I could. So I headed out of Salamanca towards Alba de Tormes, which I think is towards the south west (not positive). Anyway it only took 5 minutes to get out of the city and 3 or 4 kilometers to really get away from developments and other houses. The terrain was open and I went directly into a brutal headwind on my way out of town, but got to fly on the return. The terrain is very different from vermont, slowly rolling with nothing to steep, should be great minus the wind. The drivers here are infinitely better than the VT rednecks (No I'm not trying to offend anybody, this is just an observation, and I'm probably biased anyway) in their Ford F 150 with take back vermont bumper stickers who try to run you off the road, flick you off, and honk all at the same time. The drivers here will even yield to a biker in traffic, how sweet is that. Anyway, it was absolutely great. But I'm off, I think I'm going to try to sample some tapas tonight to celebrate valentines day. Hope everyone has had a great day back home and enjoyed the new snow and sun.

Pictures!

Finally some pictures






So it's not much but hopefully it helps a little

Not much going on, so lets talk about a normal day

So I'm just hanging out at the school right now, and I think later I'm going to walk around and try yo figure out how to get out of the city and set up some epic rides for this weekend. I just met the only other American student at the school, which is cool. Though there certainly are some cool aspects of being in the minority because we talk about culture in the classes and so I'm learning not only spanish but also different aspects of culture around the world.

Since I don't have any events of interest to talk about I think I'll talk a little about the differences between life here and life back in VT. Though some changes I think can be related to moving from a small town to a "big" city. The major difference is the time of day that we eat and also what we eat. Usually I have some cereal early in the morning and then head off to school. Here breakfast is really just sweets. I've been eating hot chocolate with cocoa puffs in it, an interesting combination, along with a variety of other cookies for breakfast. Unfortunatly I have yet to sample some fine spanish coffee. Anyway, I then go to class from 9am-1pm and return home or hang out at the school. I eat lunch around 2 or 2:30. It is the biggest meal of the day usually consisting of multiple courses. For example today I ate a potato and chicked soup followed by a fish fillet and then a yogurt for desert. Then I have the afternoon and evening to do whatever I want. So far this has meant homework and sleeping, as well as my bike ride the other day. Dinner is between 9 or 10. After dinner I can hang out in the house or leave again to do whatever.

So thats a normal day so far. As to the difference between culture and customs I havn't noticed anything to ground breaking. Though they do seem a little more "touchy feely" than we usually are in the States, and also tend to lean in really close when your talking. They also stare much more than we do, and it is not considred inpolite, though it can make me feel uncomfortable at times. Hope this has been interesting, I'll keep posting any other differences I notice. Iḿ still trying to figure out how I can post pictures, but I need to find a computer where I'm allowed to upload pics, which is a surprisingly difficult task, and not one I anticipated. Anyway, hope all is well is the states and that Obama continues to roll. Thats all for now, time to go scout out where to ride, bye.

First Ride

So I went for a pretty amazing ride today. I averaged a blistering 12 kph for 1 hour, WOW! I got completely lost trying to get out of the city to find some decent roads, but I eventually got to dizzy from roundabouts and had to return home. Anyway, thats pretty much the only interesting thing to happen to me today. So that's that's bye.

A detailed account of the trip and life in Salamanca

So I'm all settled in now, at least as much as can be expected on my second full day. So here's the story of my flight. The plane from Boston was delayed two hours, which meant that I would miss my connection in London, bummer! I´d never been on a delayed flight before and didn't really know what to do. Anyway, I got to London and then had to go get reassigned to a new flight. Which happened to be leaving in 10 minutes. So I literally, and I mean literallt sprinted through the airport to catch the flight. I imagine I looked like a complete idiot. But I made it. I got to Madrid and cleared customs no problem, apparently I don't look much like a terrorist, which is good. But my luggage was not there. So I had to figure out who to talk to and where they should send it. By this point I was very frustrated and very exhausted. I then met the driver who was going to take me to Salamca who was a little bummed that he had to wait in the airport for me for 3 hours. But he was still a good guy. Anyway we headed out to Salamaca at 150kph blasting Eiffel 65 Iḿ Blue da ba di da ba di, and all was well again. So I got to my homestay and settled in for a bit and ate dinner. After dinner I was invited by 2 girls from France to go out to a club with the rest of the people from their group. This was an experience, and I got to display my horrible dancing skills, lots of fun. The interesting thing was that we were pretty much the only people at the club, because it was only 11 and everyone leaves to go clubbing at 1 or 2 in the morning, so I'm not sure I really got a feelfor teh club scene. Anyway it was interesting. Sunday I didn't do much, just walked around the city. Today I had my first classes, which went smoothly and I was placed in the intermediate spanish group, so I was happy. So thats all that happening on this side of the atlantic. Hope all is well back in the states. Please post any questions for me and I'll try to answer them. But thats the update so far. Hasta Pronto.

A Traveling Fiasco

So I´ve made it to Salamanca safe and sound, but without my baggage due to a delay out of Boston. I don´t have time to write more than that, but I´ll try to get a full update to everyone soon. Oh, and I was deferred admision to Midd if anybody wants to know.

All Packed!

From This:

To This:


Not bad for three months in Europe. Anyway, all this is just crazy. I can't believe I actually leave tomorrow and said good bye to all my friends today and won't see them for months. But I can't wait to get there because it's going to be a blast. I guess you could say I have some mixed feelings at the moment. To top it all off I'll arrive in Spain and then be able to see if I got into Middlebury. Wow, everything happening at once!

Homage to the Tarmac

So I finally got my new bike today, just in time for me to take it to Europe. Waiting to the last minute does seem to make things more exciting. It's a specialized tarmac, and is absolutely amazing. So I though I would put some pics up because it's just that sweet.

In other news I've also started packing, so I'll probably get a post up about that sometime tomorrow.

One Week from Departure

So I've been getting ready, making all the necessary purchases, Its absolutely crazy to think that I've been planning this trip for a couple years and now am leaving in a week. It looks like the weather over there is alright this time of year, and I won't miss the freezing cold VT mornings.

I'm not feeling nervous yet, but who knows, that could kick in at any time. Anyway, just though I'd post a little update. The next time I'm writing in this I'll probably be in Spain, isn't that a funny thought.