Situada!

Today has been two days for me. My travels started at 6:00 a.m. on August 23, where I traveled from Newark to Atlanta to Dulles to Madrid to Salamanca, and ended at 2:00 p.m. on August 24. I finally arrived and it's UNREAL. Madrid airport was probably bigger than where I'm from. It took us at least 30 minutes to even walk to the train that would take us to the baggage claim... eventually.

On the way to Salamanca, we passed the mountain that the dictator Franco's grave is on... you can see the gigantic cross even from miles away. Everyone was trying to take pictures from the bus, but we'll go there eventually.

Our group is a great mix of people! We're all talking and finding out about each other, as well as making plans to explore the city. This is great.

I'm working on my acento castililano. Everyone is trying to remember years of vocabulary at once, as well as respond quickly to what is said. It feels like a test and everyone, at first, was sizing each other up. I believe that we came to the conclusion that we're in this together, and it's the first 30 hours of our trip. Let's do this as a group. No judging to see who is proficient, because we will all improve drastically in a matter of days. I seem to understand everything going on, but my response time and vocabulario is rusty. Pretty frustrating at first...

...until we put our stuff down and went to explore Salamanca. Manuel showed us through the town (even though on Sundays, the downtown area is almost deserted because the shops are closed). Salamanca has old architecture, dating back to the 8th Century or 12th Century, like this cathedral? I wouldn't know.

The entire plaza is granite cobblestone, everywhere. Everyone was sitting out in the Plaza Mayor where the huge Ayuntamiento is located (just like in most cities). People everywhere, dogs, pigeons, tourists, families. We had coffee and enjoyed the view. Since then, this was my first time to shower and truly sit and relax in over 30 hours of being awake. In the Residencia, our rooms are doll-house sized. We'll see how that goes!

I'll upload the pictures later :)