On Friday night Katie and I hopped on the last train to Salamanca and we spent most of the weekend there. We stayed at a nice hotel which was pretty much the nicest place either of us had stayed at since we’ve been here (with -gasp- a real shower!) and we spent Saturday wandering the city and finding fun things to do. It’s a beautiful city with the first university in Spain (circa 13th century) that is still in operation today. It’s also got a huge cathedral and STORKS! Lots of storks, which we watched for awhile from the top of the cathedral tower after climbing some pretty badass spiral stone staircases. I had never seen one in real life, so it was exciting.

stork (stôrk) s.

cigüeña

We had dinner at the only vegetarian restaurant in town, which just so happened to be located in a dark street filled with chains and fences and dust. Once inside, though, the place was cute and the food was absolutely delicious. I had veggie lasagna that was easily in the top 5 meals since I’ve been here. Then we went for a walk through the city, which, like New York City, was very pretty in the night time. We got utterly lost, passed a whole bunch of churches, found ourselves on the very edge of our map, and made it back to the hotel.

Today after getting back in town, I think I’m going to skip the Superbowl tonight (which is 12am - 3am) as I have to be in class by 10 tomorrow and my commute is an hour long. Hopefully the MU crew won’t hate me. Dubliners is going to be packed, though, and it just doesn’t sound like it’d be worth it for me. They’ll all have fun though.

I’ve been doing some maintenence here. The photos are for the most part still a big mess… many that need to be deleted, more that need to be organized, and most that need to be labelled. But you should find a link to the correct photostat album on the left there, and the photos are clickable and everything should function within the blog layout. I’ve been venturing into my own theme editing with the hope of eventually being able to create the layout from scratch in lieu of using a pre-built one. The photo is of Katie taking a photo of Toledo, from the “panoramic vantage point” at the end of the day.

On Friday I FINALLY got ahold of Pat on the phone, at a moment when just about everybody in the City of Milwaukee was crammed into our house, which allowed me to talk for at least a few minutes with all the guys from the Kilbourn Krowd and more. It was nice to get a taste of home, but it made me miss the group. They managed to organize a Friday basketball night where *everybody* makes it to play together, and the bastards didn’t invite me. It sounds like everyone is doing well back there though, and Pat figured some stuff out that makes my Summer seem a little bit cooler (more reflections on Summer to come I’m sure).

So, as I said, tomorrow I begin the bulk of my classes, each 90 minutes long:

• 10:00am - Literatura Española (Spanish Literature)
• 3:00pm - Filosofía: Ética (Philosophy: Ethics)
• 4:30pm - Teología: Las cartas de San Pablo (Theology: The Letters of St. Paul)

I’ve heard some good things and some bad things, but I’m not too worried about any of them. We’ll just have to see how they go tomorrow.