We arrive in Spain at 11 o’clock local time and sail through security and customs. Sleepy faces all round because it’ s only 5 in the morning for us and some have managed to sleep more than others. But every one seems excited. After a long lay over in New York we’re finally here! We meet Cristina our bus driver, load our bags onto the bus, and start the last leg of our journey. The ride to Salamanca is nearly 3 hours long. We head westward out of the Madrid region and its multitude of satellite towns, with the snow capped Sierra de Guadarrama on our right. An hour later we enter the plateau that makes up the region of Castilla-Leon, where Salamanca is located. The landscape is stark with patches of snow. There is not much to see until the walled city of Avila appears on our left like a mirage. As we get closer to Salamanca we begin to see more towns with their classic stone churches. We see lots of cattle roaming the high plains.
We cross the Tormes River and enter Salamanca. It’s Sunday and traffic is light. Our ride comes to an end at pretty town square where our “new families” are waiting for us. Lots of kisses on both cheeks are given out to our students by the waiting Spaniards and we head out to our respective new homes but agree to meet at 6 at plaza Mayor, the historic heart of the city.
Ada, the director of our school takes us for a walking tour of the old city.
We walk though narrow streets marveling at the rust colored stone buildings
many of which date from medieval times. We stop in front of the main building of the university with its ornately decorated façade to take pictures and continue our tour. We do a loop around the historic center passing many coffee shops, tapas restaurants and craft stores. This is a lively city. Many “Salmantinos” (residents of Salamanca) both young and old are out for a stroll. We run into several young people dressed in costumes for carnaval. We circle back to Plaza Mayor where we
stop at Café Las Torres for churros and chocolate at Café . This is a tradition observed all over Spain especially in the cooler winter months where you dip the stick like churros made out of fried dough and sprinkled with sugar into a of thick hot chocolate. I notice at the café that most of the tables are occupied by groups of nicely dressed people in their 60’s and 70’s for their night out in the town. While we sit enjoying our snack at Las Torres, Laura one of the assistants at the school shows up with a map for each student highlighting where the school and their apartments are located. We say goodbye and return to our apartments to catch up our sleep.
Monday morning the families all walk our students to Letra Hispanica,
the language school we will be attending. It is an attractive setting with artwork on the walls and comfortable workspaces. The school follows the European framework for languages that recognizes 6 levels of linguistic proficiency. Based on the placement test they took on line, our students are placed into 4 different groups. Over the next two weeks our students will work on grammar, conversation and culture from 9:15 until 1:30 in the afternoon with a 30 minute break in between.
We reconvene at 5:00 in the afternoon for the official tour of the historical part of the city with Maria Gonzalez, one of the teachers at Letra. She is a font of information about the history and the architecture of the city. She explains
how the two cathedrals were constructed. We then stop at the Casa de las Conchas (house of shells) a renaissance palace whose outside is dotted with enormous sculpted shells, a symbol of the founder’s connection to the order of Santiago, patron saint of Spain. The palace now houses a library. We end our tour at the University of Salamanca, Spain’s oldest founded by King Alfonso the Wise in the 1218 We marvel at its beautifully ornate façade then take a detour into one the buildings that houses an impressive fresco of the Zodiac which dates from the 1400’s. We end our tour back in Plaza Mayor and our students return home to rest and have dinner with their families.
We cross the Tormes River and enter Salamanca. It’s Sunday and traffic is light. Our ride comes to an end at pretty town square where our “new families” are waiting for us. Lots of kisses on both cheeks are given out to our students by the waiting Spaniards and we head out to our respective new homes but agree to meet at 6 at plaza Mayor, the historic heart of the city.
Ada, the director of our school takes us for a walking tour of the old city.
We walk though narrow streets marveling at the rust colored stone buildings
many of which date from medieval times. We stop in front of the main building of the university with its ornately decorated façade to take pictures and continue our tour. We do a loop around the historic center passing many coffee shops, tapas restaurants and craft stores. This is a lively city. Many “Salmantinos” (residents of Salamanca) both young and old are out for a stroll. We run into several young people dressed in costumes for carnaval. We circle back to Plaza Mayor where we
stop at Café Las Torres for churros and chocolate at Café . This is a tradition observed all over Spain especially in the cooler winter months where you dip the stick like churros made out of fried dough and sprinkled with sugar into a of thick hot chocolate. I notice at the café that most of the tables are occupied by groups of nicely dressed people in their 60’s and 70’s for their night out in the town. While we sit enjoying our snack at Las Torres, Laura one of the assistants at the school shows up with a map for each student highlighting where the school and their apartments are located. We say goodbye and return to our apartments to catch up our sleep.
Monday morning the families all walk our students to Letra Hispanica,
the language school we will be attending. It is an attractive setting with artwork on the walls and comfortable workspaces. The school follows the European framework for languages that recognizes 6 levels of linguistic proficiency. Based on the placement test they took on line, our students are placed into 4 different groups. Over the next two weeks our students will work on grammar, conversation and culture from 9:15 until 1:30 in the afternoon with a 30 minute break in between.
We reconvene at 5:00 in the afternoon for the official tour of the historical part of the city with Maria Gonzalez, one of the teachers at Letra. She is a font of information about the history and the architecture of the city. She explains
how the two cathedrals were constructed. We then stop at the Casa de las Conchas (house of shells) a renaissance palace whose outside is dotted with enormous sculpted shells, a symbol of the founder’s connection to the order of Santiago, patron saint of Spain. The palace now houses a library. We end our tour at the University of Salamanca, Spain’s oldest founded by King Alfonso the Wise in the 1218 We marvel at its beautifully ornate façade then take a detour into one the buildings that houses an impressive fresco of the Zodiac which dates from the 1400’s. We end our tour back in Plaza Mayor and our students return home to rest and have dinner with their families.