life update: one month in salamanca

Friday 23 October 2015 Salamanca, Spain

Life Update: One Month in Salamanca










So, I'm still alive after my first month or so in Salamanca! After weeks of wading and navigating helplessly around the university administration and its sprawling campus, I'm finally a fully registered student with a card. Our flat has enjoyed its shiny, new WiFi for about 3 weeks now, and commiserated a broken washing machine, a heavily flooded shower and the fact we don't have an oven (Apparently this is common with flats in Spain, who knew?).

I've felt very settled at the university for a week or so now, thanks to making new (Erasmus) friends in each class. I can feel myself adjusting to the pace and pronunciation of each professor, even my favourite mumbling Andaluz, with him I now hear about 3/4 of his sentences and normally can guess the rest. I learnt very quickly here that the Spanish students do not care that Erasmus are in their classes, all curiosity is gone now so they'll pretty much ignore us for the rest of the year. This doesn't bother me any more being honest, I've made international friends with whom I can practice my Spanish, and even if they're not from Spain, it's practice all the same.

This month I've also squeezed in a few trips around the region, including Valladolid, and more recently Segovia and Ávila for a day trip. I'd never been on a trip before with a guided tour so I was a little apprehensive, but I genuinely really enjoyed the information, and she didn't go on for hours and hours, she always knew when to stop and just let us take everything in. Here I spent the day with two English girls, an Irish girl and guy and one Dutch (no Spanish speaking took place on this trip unsurprisingly).

If you're a fan of coach trips, Salamanca is certainly the place for you. Since their tiny airport here is never used (a little pointless if you ask me), and their train system is awful, I guess you are left with no other options, but still the services don't disappoint! They offer destinations to all over Spain from the bus station, which also happens to be about 5 minutes from my flat which is super ideal. I aim to explore a few other places in the region, and with it only being about 30 quid for a return to Madrid I want to see the capital!

Sport-wise I've been extremely sporadic with keeping fit, but this week I finally went along to a badminton club to get started again. The club was pretty small and a variety of ages, with only about 15 people. Everyone there was Spanish apart from me and one other Erasmus girl, from Grenoble, so hopefully this will encourage me to keep up my French speaking as well.
It's ridiculous to think that only a few months after working in the Alps I couldn't even remember the simplest of phrases, purely because my head was functioning in Spanish. It was a big shock, showing that keeping up a language is really important because it's all so easy to lose again without practice.

I'm currently relaxing for a week back in England with the family and then I'm off to see the boyfriend for a few days. It feels a little strange but it's certainly nice to have the break.
Thanks for reading!

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