Study Abroad
Day 34
February 20th, 2006
11:01 AM

The weekend started well. Danielle and I got up Friday morning and went to find Spain’s holy grail—churros y chocolate. Mmmm…they give you a whole mess of greasy churros and hot chocolate to dip them in. But it’s not like hot chocolate you’ve ever experienced. It’s basically a cup full of melted chocolate. It’s magical.

After that Robin and I started to get ready to go to our second art history class in the Prado. This week was just so much better, though. We bussed to Madrid and got there a couple minutes ahead of our entry time, so Robin and I went to go find something to drink. In the store, I discovered the second holy grail of Spain. If you buy a newspaper in Spain, they have a promotion where if you pay a couple of euro more you can get a movie (Mar Adentro or La Hija de la Novia). I hadn’t found one I was really excited enough about to buy yet. But then I found this: a DVD with 3 episodes of Friends—IN SPANISH! OH GOD! I watched them last night and it’s really funny to see how they dub it. Sometimes they have to talk really fast to keep up.

This week’s class at the Prado was considerably better than the last. Our guide was our actual professor this time, who I like a lot. I stuck to her like glue so I could see and hear. I decided not to take notes so I could focus better. We talked about Goya this week and I’ve been paying special attention to the cool stuff I can tell my family about when they come.

After the Prado I hiked to Gran Via with my giant backpack to meet Danielle at Corte Ingles. Danielle had decided to spend the day in Madrid while we were at the museum. She saw “Brokeback Mountain” in Spanish, a movie she’s now seen at least twice and has given it the honor of being one of her favorite movies. And I still haven’t seen it. Boo.

At Corte Ingles I finally bought a microphone so I can use Google Talk, which is fantastic. We went from there to the train station, where they told us that all the trains for the rest of the day were full. We stared at him in horror, and he gave us directions to the bus station. We got on the Metro again, rode to the bus station and luckily were able to get a ticket for Salamanca at 9:00. This gave us enough time to go get a sandwich and some “crack cheetos” for the bus ride. The ride took about 2 ½ hours, which wasn’t bad. They played the movie “The Emperor’s Club” on the movie screen, too, but I didn’t watch it. I turned on my iPod and almost fell asleep.

When we got there it was late and raining. I didn’t have the directions for the hostel printed out (a review on the website warned they were misleading), I just had the name and some landmarks it was near. We got a cab, and asked the driver if he knew where the “Youth Hostel Salamanca” was. He just looked at us, puzzled.
“Que?”
“Yooouth Hosteeel Salamanca”
He asked me to write it down. I did.
“Yowt? Que es yowt?”
“Joven. Youth es joven.”

He got on the radio and asked if anyone knew where it was. Thankfully, another driver recognized it.

“Yoooth,” I heard him say over the radio.
“Yes,” our driver answered in Spanish, “Where IS it?”

We got the directions and made it just fine, and also learned that the Spanish word for “youth hostel” is “alberje juvenil,” a piece of information that would have been helpful if it were listed on the hostel booking website we used.

We checked in and were shown to the bedroom. Inside were ten sets of bunk beds, for a total of 20 beds. We soon discovered, from the chorus of “Hel-lo! Hel-lo!” that 17 of the beds were occupied by Spanish boys. 10 of those boys were together in the same group. In the 20th bed was a woman, probably in her 50s, inexplicably fast asleep. It was inexplicable because each and every one of those boys was now yelling at us across the room “Fiesta? Par-ty? Par-ty tonight?” This went on for about an hour, until they finally understood that we had every intention of going straight to bed. Then there was silence. For exactly 2 ½ minutes. Then they all came stumbling back in at 4 in the morning. One woke up Danielle. Then came two more hours of madness while they settled back down to sleep.

In the morning we were awake enough to really discover the pit we were staying in. Every surface of the place was wet from the rain, and the air in the room was humid with boy smell. The boys still hadn’t understood that we speak Spanish, and took the opportunity to shout at us whatever English they knew. They all started singing, in unison “Good morning, good morning, good morning how are you?” Danielle’s response to their performance, “Oh my god…” prompted them all to repeat, like 17 parrots “O mai Gahd! O mai Gahd!” for the next 24 hours.

“What arr you doing to-day?” one of them asked us.
“You know we understand everything you’re saying” Danielle told them, clearly referring to the disgusting comments they were making about us in Spanish.
“Ohhhhhhh” they all chorused.

We got the hell out of there and made our way to the Plaza Mayor to find the tourist office. We started to miss Amy and her amazing sense of direction. We did get there eventually, and got ourselves a nice map. We walked around for awhile and really started to discover how freezing cold and windy it was. Our solution: we bought “Universidad de Salamanca” sweatshirts. And they were wonderful. The best idea we had all weekend. As Salamanca is a small town, we soon discovered it impossible to avoid the boys from the hostel. They’d spot us down the street and we’d hear them chirping “O mai Gahd!” and we’d have to duck down an alley.

We decided to have lunch. At a Chinese restaurant. What? Where are we? Whatever. I got some noodley chicken thing and Danielle got some garlic shrimpy thing and we shared. And it was delicious.

We planned to go on a guided tour at 4:30 that would go by the Cathedrals and the University and some other stuff. While we waited, we decided to walk a bit beyond Plaza Mayor. We did some shopping in stores that were warm. And it was good.

We walked back to Plaza Mayor to meet our tour guide. She was very articulate, but talked like the amazing tape recorded woman. She explained some of the features of the Plaza Mayor and San Martin, Salamanca’s oldest church. As we started to approach the Old Cathedral, dark clouds started to blow in overhead. By the time she finished explaining the façade, we could almost hear the Wicked Witch of the West riding her bicycle through the air. So we ditched the tour in favor of our personal safety. And also warmth.

Hesitantly we walked into the hostel, peeked into the bedroom. And there were all the boys, more beautiful that we’d ever seen them—fast asleep. We tiptoed back out and ate our Crack Cheetos in the lobby with the receptionist.

“I just want to go in there and wake THEM up,” Danielle commented.
“No,” I told her, “because then they would be up.”

They did get up from their naps eventually and as they got out of bed exposed their sleepwear to us—as Danielle described them: “tight boxer briefs that left nothing to the imagination.” They continued to shout English phrases across the room at us: “Fuck-ar! Fuck-ar! Fuck-ar! Juan, you arr a fuck-ar!” They also didn’t seem to understand our faces of disgust when they sang that insufferable James Blunt song “You arr byoo-tee-fu-al, you arr byoo-tee-fu-al.”

Just then, another girl walked into the room with a suitcase. There was much rejoicing.

“Another girl!” we told her, “We’re so happy to see you!”

She scanned the room and started to understand the sentiment. Her name was Fernanda and she was from Brazil. We talked to her for awhile in a combination of English and Spanish. She told us the rest of her group was staying somewhere else, and that she’d hoped to come back here and sleep for awhile before they went out that night. We had to break the news to her that it wouldn’t be happening. Then we finally decided to duck out for some dinner.

“You’re leaving me alone?” she asked us.

She, like most, was also surprised that Danielle and I had no to plans to go out that night.

“We’ll probably just go to a movie.”
“What? You’re not going out? That’s the whole reason I’m in Salamanca!”

Continuing our trend of not eating Spanish food, we went to Pizza Hut. And let me tell you, it was fantastic. You eat enough nasty potato soup at the Fund and you’re pretty much craving Pizza Hut 24/7. We actually sat in the Pizza Hut for awhile, looking out the window at the hurricane outside, trying to psych ourselves up for the hike to the movie theater. The door kept blowing open ominously.

It took us about a half hour in the pouring rain to get to the movie theatre, which, we discovered, was also the train station. Thinking we were thinking ahead, we tried to buy our tickets home for the next day. Again, everything was full for the day. Apparently everyone wanted to get the hell out of rainy Salamanca.

We decided to see “Memorias de una Geisha” which I didn’t expect to like but I really did. It’s just a really beautiful movie visually, plus I liked the story. So I was happy as we hiked back toward the hostel. The good feelings were gone when we returned at 1:30 to find our room full of people—all the guys, plus some angry looking girls they’d found somewhere. Somehow we got a warm welcome even though we looked like crap, soaking to the core.

“Par-ty?” they asked, “Par-ty with us?” They invited us to the alcohol they had strewn all over the room. We looked longingly at our beds. They showed us a Spanish drinking chant and they tried to teach us some games. In one, a person would hold an ice cube between their teeth and pass it on to the next person’s mouth. We kept telling them we didn’t understand the game because they seemed to be perfectly content demonstrating it among themselves. Nevertheless, boys kept running up to us with ice cubes in their mouths. Then they went for the less subtle approach.

“One kiss?” they begged us. “Waaan kiiisss?”

Finally they were ready to go out, and in a moment of theatrical brilliance, Danielle managed to convince them that she was starting to feel sick, and that she should stay back and go to bed. And in that moment, we saw a shred of humanity in these boys.

“You okay? You sure? You need food? Water?”
“No, no,” Danielle said bravely. I promised to keep an eye on her and we left.

I’m almost positive that at that moment I heard the Hallelujah Chorus. We climbed into bed and went to sleep. Again, for exactly 2 ½ minutes. In they came rolling in at 5 AM. The one with the long hair grabbed Danielle’s foot to wake her up, then hovered by the side of her bed for the next half hour.

“I loff you,” he told her, “can I sleep in your bed? I’m afraid of the dark.”
“I have a boyfriend,” Danielle replied.
“Does yorr boyfriend have arms like thees?” he asked her, “Does he have neep-lehs like thees?”

Danielle hit him.

Yes, you have the picture now. There he is talking to Danielle on the top bunk. And here I am on the bottom, face to face with his crotch. Pleasant.

As all the other boys settled into bed, I heard them all shouting at each other to turn the bathroom light on. I thought, Oh well, I have to go anyway, I’ll turn it off. I went to the bathroom, turned off the light and heard one lone boy say “No, don’t turn it off!” I tiptoed in the dark back to my bed, and in it, I felt a body. I screamed, and as long-haired boy jumped up, Danielle punched him. How I ever got to sleep after that I’ll never know.

We tried to get up and leave as they started rustling, and said goodbye to the Alberje Juvenil forever. It was still cold and ugly outside, so we made the executive decision to head straight for the bus station, buy our ticket and leave. Which we did.

The bus ride was pleasant, and we drove through a bunch of places that actually had good weather. In some places, there was still snow on the ground from the big storm Spain had a couple of weeks ago. Danielle and I just chilled and listened to our iPods. We got off the AVE train in Toledo at about 4, and practically kissed the clean floors of the Fund when we got back. Then we showered. I scrubbed my feet until they were pink.

Then I went to Mass at the Cathedral, thinking if I listened closely I could pick up the prayers. No. Clearly, the Spanish Catholics are having a church-wide mumbling contest and I just stared around confusedly for most of the service. It was short, only a half an hour, because there was no music at all.

I got the chance to talk to Dad and Jack on GoogleTalk with my new microphone before dinner, which was awesome. Dinner was gross, but what are you going to do?
After dinner I finally got to watch my Friends DVD I bought in Madrid, which was lovely. I figure it’s a good way to learn some Spanish slang, especially since I have the episodes practically memorized in English. We went to bed early and I dreamed of Ken Jennings.

The End.