Ay, que bonito!

So, in the warning packet that IES sent to our parents about studying abroad, they included a visual description of "the emotional roller coaster that your student will be experiencing." Pretty much, we all start out excited, then get stressed right before leaving, fall in love with the first part of the trip, then get homesick, then get over homesickness, then just get tired.


I'm full-on in the honeymoon mode. As much as I'd like to prove their little scientific-looking graph wrong, I am completely in love with Salamanca.


It's so beautiful here. Today was our third day, and it still doesn't seem real to me. However, when classes start...


A little background on Salamanca, since practically no one has ever heard of it:
It's a town two-and-a-half hours northwest of Madrid, home to the oldest university in Spain.  (It's also a Rick-Steves-recommended travel destination, since it has the most beautiful plaza in the country.) I chose it after my Political Philosophy professor at Santa Clara once randomly told us in the middle of class, "If you have the opportunity to study abroad anywhere in the world, go to Salamanca, Spain." After hearing more rave reviews from lots of other people, I accepted the challenge. And here I am.


I'm living in a homestay, as is another American girl from my program. We have the sweetest señora, a 75-year-old widow who has been hosting foreign students in her flat for 31 years now. She cooks us three meals a day, and only speaks Spanish. Though these Spaniards speak really fast and have a different accent than what I'm used to, I feel like I'm doing pretty well with my communication. I even have a Spanish cell phone now! I think I can already say, "mucha grathia," with the proper Castillian lisp, on command now. It's a good feeling. And lisps are really fun.


Oh, and this is the view from our balcony:

No big deal. Except for the fact that we went outside and just stared at it for a half hour the other night. This could prove extremely distracting.


But I don't think this photo possibly does it justice. This town is too epic to be captured by cameras. (Seriously, I cannot stop using the word "epic" to describe everything.)


So moving forward, from now on, I'm going to prove IES and their emotional roller coaster theory wrong - it's not like they possibly know what they're talking about.