Arrival to Vigo

     I took a night bus from Sevilla to Vigo and sat next to a nice lady from Ourense. When I arrived at 8 in the morning I took a taxi to my hostel and walked to Plaza de América where I was meeting María, so she could show me the flat. I then went to a cafe to wait for my next flat viewing appointment. When you order a drink in Galicia the waiters or waitresses will give you a snack to accompany your drink, so I received churros with my orange juice. The cutest old man sat next to me at the bar and was telling me about how his grandsons also love to travel and how one of them is in a band in Vigo.

    I met my friend Ana who is a volunteer for ESN. Although I am a teacher, I am still considered an international student. We saw the next flat and then she showed me the University. The University of Vigo is in the mountains and so beautiful. We then walked around the city center and port area. I went to the hostel to sleep and obviously needed it because I slept through my alarm and missed out on meeting up with my future roommate. I then went to meet Ana and Fran at a bar called Oz, where the international and Spanish students were having some drinks. We went to several clubs and I even met someone from Sevilla!

    I woke up early Friday morning, excited to move into the flat. María told me to come at 10:00 because the owner of the flat was going to give me the keys and review the contract. This all sounds really easy, but there was one problem, I didn't have the address of the flat. Earlier in the week I had asked María for the address but she never gave it to me because we decided to meet at the shopping center near the flat, so that I wouldn't have trouble finding the flat. María's phone died the night before, so she never responded to any of my texts. I took a taxi to the general area of the flat and I realized that I wasn't as familiar as I thought with the area, so I asked a woman in a store if I could leave my suitcases with her for 10 minutes while I look for my flat.

    I walked up and down the street , looking through the doors of the entrances to the flats to see if I was able to remember something familiar. All of the entrances to the apartment buildings look the same and because I was essentially running on no sleep when I first saw the apartment (due to the overnight bus ride and the fact that I didn't sleep much in Sevilla) I walked up and down the street for 30 minutes with my red backpack probably looking super creepy as I peered into all the doors. I finally found the apartment because María yelled my name. The owner of the flat said that he was about to get me because he saw a girl that fit my description walking around. I am so glad that the owner stayed 30 minutes after I was supposed to be there because I would have had to stay in the hostel for a few more days, spending money I would rather spend on travel.

   When I went back to the store to receive my bags the woman told me "you are going to like Vigo more than Sevilla" she obviously saw my baggage tags.

ESN viaje a Salamanca

     I spent three days traveling in and around the areas of Salamanca, Spain. I went with international students who are currently in Galicia. We first stopped at the Quinto de Bublé winery. We arrived during the time of vindemia (grape gathering) so we were just able to see the workers put the grapes in the machine and learn about the bottling process. We ate lunch in a beautiful setting, overlooking the winery and ate our sandwiches.

     Our next stop was Zamora, a town located in the province of Castilla y León. Zamora is the city with the most Romanesque style churches in all of Europe. We walked around a castle and later enjoyed the wine from Quinto de Bublé wineries.

We arrived to Salamanca at around 8 o'clock ate dinner and walked around the city before going out for the night. The University of Salamanca, which was founded in 1218, is the oldest university in Spain. 30,000 students attend the university, which makes it a very fun city to go out in. In Spain and other European countries students start attending university later than most students in the United States. I love being in Spain right now because although I have already graduated from university, I am the same age (or younger) as all the other Spanish and international students.

La Plaza mayor in Salamanca seems to be the meeting point for people of all ages. I ran into a group of university aged guys, dressed in traditional clothing playing traditional instruments and serenading the people in Plaza de Mayor. From the pension we were staying at I heard people singing the song "bailando" and complimented one of the members on his singing abilities. He responded to me in Portuguese (which I'm used to because the city I currently live in is located less than 20 miles from the border of Portugal. This group of friends from Portugal was visiting Salamanca for the weekend to play their music and have a good time. I later saw them them in the discoteca.

     We stayed in a pension in Plaza mayor and I shared an apartment area with seven other guys, because there was a mixup. One of the coordinators was on the phone trying to figure something out, when one of my best friends in Vigo, Carlos, suggested I stay with them because there was an extra bed in their room. Among all 8 of us we shared a bathroom (if anyone was keeping score I took the shortest shower haha)

    We went out for some beers and then met up with the rest of the group to a bar where we each paid 5 euros for unlimited beer and sangria.  I was standing next to a girl names Petra and our friend Julio asked Petra and I if we were related. I didn't even know Petra, but we became quick friends because, "we are cousins." People were actually really confused when we said we weren't related because everyone automatically thinks that I'm from a central European country like the majority of the foreign students. We then went to a discoteca and as I mentioned before I saw the Portuguese students who were part of "la tuna" I came back to the pension at around 5:30. It is not uncommon to go out until 7 or 8 in the morning in Spain, but we had a long day of touring ahead so most of us wanted to go to sleep.

     The next day we ate delicious croissants and then went to visit the roof of a cathedral. My favorite part of the trip was climbing the spiral staircases. In order to prevent collisions there was a clock displaying the amount of time we had to wait to either climb up or down the stairs.

     After the visit to the cathedral we saw people dressed in fancy clothes and realized that a wedding was about to occur so we sat near the cathedral to watch everyone gather and we even saw the bride! When we left we danced around the city to the music of the street musicians and ate lunch. I ate lunch with my awesome roommates. We had a fantastic city tour and walked along the river. We then ate dinner all together and I sat with my 3 german friends and 2 greek friends. We checked out some bars before settling on a discoteca. I would like to thank my German friends (special shout out to Sophie for teaching me to say, "that is a weird guy." I didn't want to tell my friend in Spanish or English (because I didn't want the weird guy to hear) so I told my friend in German, he told me that I was understandable so that's good enough for me.

    The next day I went with Carlos to buy something for lunch before we departed for Puebla de Sanabria. We passed a street musician and his friends and they asked me to take a picture of them, and then the musician said he wanted to sing a song for me. I told them that Carlos and I were visiting Salamanca for the weekend and that we lived in Vigo, and as coincidences always seem to occur, on of the musicians is originally from Vigo.

    Puebla de Sanabria is a city located 20 kilometers away from Portugal, it is located on top of a hill with a beautiful castle. We had the obligatory cafe con leche and chocolate and then walked around the village and enjoyed the views of the river. We walked around the castle like zombies, because we hadn't slept very much over the past few days. I am back in Vigo and happy to have slept more than 3 hours.