Salamanca y Santiago De Compostela

I woke up early that morning to get a shower in before Amy and Rachel got back from running (which is what I SHOULD have been doing, but sleeping won), then went down to the front desk and picked up a ticket to go down to the Plaza Mayor and eat lunch at one of the little restaurants there. It was a good breakfast of a croissant and hot chocolate, with the croissant crumbling all over the table and my shirt, thought it might be a good idea to, ya know, save some for later. After breakfast we walked over to the little building where they had the town market, and it smelled a lot like the markets in Mexico when you first walk in, the overwhelming smell of raw meat hanging everywhere. Which was fitting seeing as there was raw meat hanging everywhere! But once you got past that, it was actually a pretty fun little indoor market! There were some guys who were setting up their veggie stand that kept eying Kate, so she bought some carrots from them, then we headed over to the stand right next to them, and it was here that I tried my first kumquat ever! It was kinda fun. We got a group of us, and before we ate it, we asked the lady that we bought them from how you were supposed to eat it, and she gave us a nice demonstration by eating one herself! Just bit right through it! Haha! So after wiping them off on our shirts, which probably just made them even dirtier but did good for our piece of mind, we all counted to 3 and bit into one of the weirdest things I have ever put into my mouth! The outside was sweet, but the center was sour! It was an explosion of flavor in my mouth! It was actually pretty good! Not something that I would want to eat as a nice snack between meals or anything, but good for every once in a while when I feel like throwing my taste buds off! But after that life changing experience we headed back to the hotel to pack up our stuff and throw our bags on the bus by 10, but being us we weren’t ready until about 10:30, and after that it was basically a day spent on the bus! I sat next to Christy and we talked for a long time, got to know each other a little bit better, she shared her granola with me and now we are best friends! Haha! I tried to sleep a bit to make the time go by a little faster, but its impossible to sleep on those busses, crammed into the little seat- next to someone else who is crammed into their little seat, can’t stretch out, can’t curl up in a nice little ball, can’t put your seat back without hitting the person behind you in the face. Nothing good can come from trying to sleep on the bus!
Fernando, our bus driver for this trip, decided that it would be a good idea to take us to this little beach that was kinda off the beaten path, which was pretty cool! Some of us had our suspicions that he had a friend there that he wanted to visit or something, but none the less, we spent a good 45 or so minutes wandering around. Cassi, Missy and me scaled some rocks, took some very windblown pictures. Got some pretty sweet shots of what we figured was a row boat graveyard because just about all the boats in this little area were sinking, including one that had been tied right on top of one that was already submerged. We also got kicked out of an unmarked construction area while wandering down what we thought was a dock, but no. I guess the big cranes that were moving large pieces of steel to an unfinished building should have tipped us off that this was no normal area, but for some reason it didn’t. we also found out that Spencer, the 16 year old son of our professor, had been skinny dipping on the very beach we had just left, at the promptings of his mother, who video tapped the whole thing! Haha! But after the thrilling beach experience, we got back on the bus and headed to yet another beach that Fernando thought would be a good place to go see. But this one was so much better than the other one! I don’t know if it was the HUGE lack of doing anything all day or the fact that I had consumed large amounts of sugar over the past couple of days and the effects were just kicking in, but seeing that large stretch of sand and water before me brought out an energy that I have not had in quite a while, and there was little that anyone could do to keep me from running full speed down the beach, barefooted, throwing in the occasional heel-kick. It was so amazing! By the time we were leaving I couldn’t feel my feet anymore from being in the freezing water for so long, but it was SO worth it! After about 45 minutes of pure excitement, we all ran back to the bus, loaded up, and about an hour later we finally got to our destination of the day, Santiago De Compostela! When we arrived, we lugged our bags up yes, another hill, and past some locals in a bar who were less than welcoming, throwing “the bird” our way as we headed to the hotel. Once we got there and got all checked in, it was too late to go out and really do anything in the town, so we just chilled in our hotel room and talked till about 2:30 that morning! Oh dear. That probably wasn’t the best decision ever, but the conversation and the company were good, so it was alright!