Sunday, May 27, 2012

Blondes Have More Fun


Hace mucho tiempo, no? I know all of you have been waiting in eager anticipation.  Guess I need to play a little catch up…  We have been spending time with our Italian amigos.  I must say it is pretty intriguing to hear someone speak Spanish with an Italian accent.  They took us to a hole in the wall Italian restaurant, for the best pizza I have ever had.  Grazie mille!  It was a nice change of pace from Spanish food, which is not my favorite.  Ham is the star of a lot of meals, and I am not big on the pig.  Chicken sandwich?  They will sneak some jamon in there.  Jamon with pungent cheese on crusty bread?  Coming right up.  Would you like jamon with that?  Well, you’re going to have it anyway.  Thus it was a welcome change.  One thing that I do appreciate about Spanish food, though, is they do love their chocolate.  (Gracias Dios.)  I had my first chocolate con churros experience.   I might have even shamelessly dipped my spoon right into the delightfully warm cup of rich chocolate once, or twice.  But who’s counting?
We took an over night trip to Salamanca.  Pablo was not there this time, and we were escorted by a new guide.  First stop, she said about three sentences and started moving on.  We stood shocked.  That’s it?  No inundation of senseless information?  We went through the entire city in four hours, while with Pablo, we would still be on postcard number three.  We went through the cathedral (of course) along with a cute river tucked away, where everyone comes to relax.  We also visited the park of “enamorados” (which is pretty much every park here.  Actually pretty much anywhere here…)    We also visited the library, and I’d have to say the most interesting part of that was the several kegs behind a bar.  When in Spain…? 
Salamanca is very much a “college town.”  Home to the first university in Spain, (second in all of Europe) it was full of people our age, and after dinner we were able to walk around the plaza and enjoy the scene.  After some intense research, we looked up top songs in Spain.  Surprisingly, most are in English.  Our personal favorite is “Boys will be Boys” by Mexican estrella Paolina Rubio.  We were enjoying our time meeting the locals and hanging out when I heard a familiar pop beat.   Boys will be Boys!  My friend Travis and I proceeded to dance, as the infectious rhythm had overwhelmed us. I kid you not, everyone in the room formed a circle around us to watch the espectáculo.  Thus, you could consider us rock stars.  As we made our way to another place, we found a “tuna.”  No, not the chicken of the sea. It is a group of young guys that dress up in ridiculous uniforms and play music.  (Think like a Spanish version of a mariachi band.) They begged us to come over and proceeded to play us songs.  So in the middle of the night right in the plaza, we had our own tuna concert, and they were pretty good, velvet costume and all.


The next night we decided to go to our first discoteca.  Kapital has seven different floors so we just worked our way up.  We found our way to the Karaoke floor and channeled our inner Shakira with “Hips Don’t Lie.”  Then we decided to take things to the next level and did Karaoke in Spanish.  Paulina Rubio is our girl, of course, so we sang “Sigo Aqui,”  another one of my personal faves.  I then danced the night away.  The End.  Obviously that would be too perfect, so you know something had to happen that was out of the ordinary.  It was at that moment that Leah’s foot started bleeding. Profusely.  Some sasquatch had stepped on it, so that was our cue to take off our boogey shoes for the night.

The following evening we were invited to a party with our Erasmus friends. We walked up some frighteningly rickety stairs to the apartment.  We arrived to find it was a theme party… which we were not aware of.  It was “flower power,” as in bright neon colors.  I was in black.  Strike one Americana.  I then spotted the Italian boy I think is adorable.  We facebook chatted which meant we are in love and soon to be wed.  He then decided to bring up in casual conversation that he thought blondes were fine, but that brunettes are always more beautiful.  Oh...  Abort mission.  Did you hear that?  It was my hopes and dreams shattering.  Sigh.  With my newfound confidence the group and I headed to the club Pacha. From the stage they were splashing water on people, which people seemed to love but I found it dampening.  (See what I did there?) 
            Naturally, today we were pretty tired, so Leah and I took the day to walk around.  We ended up seeing the movie “Cuando Te Encuentre” (aka The Lucky One.) I didn’t think Zac Efron could get much hotter… until I saw him speaking in Spanish.  The dubbed voice made him ascend to the highest level of guapisimo.   New mission…

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