This weekend was an ISA trip to Salamanca and Ávila. I’ll skip to the fun stuff.

THURSDAY

My favorite part of the day was a little kid on a toy motorbike (the kind you push with your feet). I was sitting on campus eating my lunch and he was fascinated with me. He kept zooming towards me and stopping short, then staring for 10 seconds before making another lap. He was distraught by the lack of water in the garden’s pool. “No es agua” he repeatedly informed me.

• fun night starting with some internation beer pong
• then onto Madrid’s 7-floor nightclub
• unexpected carnival show with a ballet dancer and a midget on a stick pony

FRIDAY

• bus ride to Salamanca after classes
• relatively empty
• enjoyed old Simpsons episodes
• checked into the hotel booked by ISA

SATURDAY

fancy hotel

Started off with an amazing buffet breakfast. I failed to get a decent picture of it but there were more incredible pastries than I had stomach space to try. They had a bunch of different juices too, my favorite was a sparkling peach juice.

Morning

• guided tour
• caught a wedding procession
• also a lady in a nude fat suit doing some bachelorette game
• funny chinese statues
• walked along the cathedral rooftop
• many precarious spiral staircases

The tour guide pointed out tiny easter-egg sculptures hidden around the Salamanca architecture, notably a little frog that is said to give good luck on exams.

This cathedral survived some bad earthquakes. There was a cool show inside that projected cracking/destruction onto the walls along with an eerie audio replication of the event.

Afternoon

shared a large Salamancan hornazo by the Roman bridge

We got free tickets to go to the art nouveau museum. The best part was the many nightmare inducing rooms full of dolls.

• rest of my crew went to take naps
• I continued exploring
• got some lemon sorbet to enjoy the warm day

American cereal is so exotic to Spaniards, they have whole restaurants dedicated to it

Evening

The crew reconvened at sunset.

I started to feel wiped out with a tickle in my throat around dinner time. I wanted to get some veggies, and I thought my order included salad.

at least the chicken was good

I missed that it was “Russian salad” which basically meant a pile of mayonaise with tuna on top. It is strangely hard to find vegetables in Spanish food.

• earlier I’d scoured Salamanca for jazz bars
• the two popular ones existed on Google but had been closed down
• found one that existed thanks to the hotel receptionist
• it was open but silent and completely empty

At this point some of the folks were preparing to have a night out. I could tell I was getting sick so I opted for sleep instead.

SUNDAY

As I suspected I woke up feeling worse. After round 2 of the amazing buffet breakfast we were off to Ávila.

Ávila

• really out of it due to my illness
• great sunny day
• only there for a few hours

We had just enought time to walk along the fortress wall and grab lunch. I got veggie stew to make up for yesterday’s “salad” shenanigans and to subside my cold. Back in Madrid around 4:30pm.