Even just by first impression, I can already tell that I am going to love it here in Salamanca. After a four hour bus ride from Toledo on Sunday afternoon, we arrived in Salamanca and headed into town to meet our families. Driving through the city, I watched out the window as row after row of winding cobblestone streets passed by, overflowing with the most stylish collection of European people I’ve ever seen. (Most young guys wear designer jeans and expensive sunglasses, and practically all the women wear heels – even the old ladies with their canes and walkers!) As we got further into town, we passed by little fruterias, carnecerias and panaderias, (Spanish people buy their fruit, meat and bread all at different specialty stores here to make sure it’s fresh), and past little neighborhood parks where dozens of people just sit on benches at all hours of the day, watching passerby, talking about life, and reading the day’s paper.
When we finally arrived at the bus stop, I felt like little orphan Annie waiting to be adopted. Twenty elderly and middle-aged women stood at the edge of the sidewalk pointing at the bus, talking loudly, and waving at us through the windows. As I grabbed my giant suitcases, I waited for my name to be called, and turned around just in time to see a smiling middle aged lady walking toward me with her arms wide open, ready to shower me with hugs and kisses. Mari Carmen was everything I had hoped and expected from a Spanish mother: warm, forgiving of my faltering Spanish, and beaming with joy at the prospect of having a new “hija” in her house for the semester.
The minute we arrived at her home, I knew that I had majorly lucked out. Six stories up and centrally located near the north end of the city, Mari Carmen’s “house” (more like an apartment/flat) has eight rooms including the bathrooms, parlor and kitchen, and is indeed very “large and nicely decorated” as it said on my housing assignment sheet.
...But of course, the best part of it all is my room. Right next to the front door at the lower end of the house, I have a gigantic bedroom with two large dressers, a desk, chairs, a queen sized bed, and a big window that looks out over the entire city. My housemate Marissa (I call her Marissa Swissa because she’s from Switzerland :) ) lives in the bedroom across the hall, and we both share a large bathroom that has a washer, a dryer, and a small stand-up shower which fills up most of the extra walking space.
Every day, Mari Carmen takes out my trash, cleans my floors, and makes my bed, (I’ve tried to make my own bed to be nice, but it doesn’t matter – she re-makes it in her special way) and she absolutely loves being the mother of our little house of women. She cooks for hours every day, and feeds us extravagantly (“estoy llena” or “I am full” is pretty much my motto at every meal, because she usually gives me 2-3 normal portions of everything, then tries to offer me 2-3 more) and already I’ve gotten into the habit of sitting and talking with her during meals, or sharing her love of ridiculous Spanish television. (At lunch and dinner we watch hilarious cooking shows, badly dubbed American movies, and Spanish Jerry Springer or wheel of Fortune.)
Oh yeah, and she doesn’t understand a word of English.
So needless to say, this is going to be quite an adventure of a quarter… but it has started out well. Already, even in such a drastically different place I feel oddly at home, cuddled here in my warm bed, watching the sun set over the crimson rooftops outside my window.
NOTE: To see my pictures thus far, click this link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2459840&id=3227554&l=12550e7a5a
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