Salamanca

Well, my test was cancelled this morning, and then we only had half the class, so I figure I have time for an entry... First of all, don Quijote. I read a grand total of about 170 pages this weekend, leaving me 200 pages short of where I was supposed to be for the test today, but I was feeling *ok* about it because I had a good summary and I knew I had read as far as I possibly could. Then about 10 minutes before class I found out the test was cancelled. Boo. That would have saved me a LOT of stress if I knew beforehand. (she put it on the email account that we have access too, but she doesn't use that too much so I didn't think about looking there all weekend). But, on the good side, it pushes everything else back- we were supposed to have a test over some other readings next Monday and then a 20-30 minute small group oral exam over critiques of don Quijote that Wednesday or Thursday... but since we don't have classes the 15th, all that gets pushed back two weeks. *phew* That means I can finish part 1 of don Quijote this week, and have 2 weeks to read all that other stuff.

Anyway. Salamanca. Absolutely amaaaaaaazing. It was a much needed retreat, and sooo relaxing (although, I did do quite a bit of homework there). Salamanca is a relatively small town (15,000)in a valley about 5 hours north of here. The Chilean tenant who lives with my host family is from there, and so we went to visit his family for a few days. First of all, his family is pretty cool. They own a vineyard/orchard (but their house isn't there, its in the town), they have all sorts of fruit trees in their backyard from which we had fresh-squeezed juice every day, and they lived in Denmark 16 years. The town is pretty neat too- although unfortunately due to the nearby mine it is getting more and more modernized and such. But while Alejandro's mom grows all sorts of fruit and olives and avocados in her backyard, the next door neighbor raises chickens- and the yards are smaller and just as closer together than mine at home in the US! Besides that, it was really warm there- I would go outside on the back patio in the mornings and read, sitting on the rocking chair in the sun, after a breakfast of fruit salad (fresh oranges, apples, pears, bananas, kiwi, etc) mixed with yogurt. yummmmm. And the area was just gorgeous. Surrounded by mountains. I always called Pittsburgh mountain-y, coming from NW Ohio area, but now I would call those hills at the most, more like small bumps. Because I thought the mountains surrounding Salamanca were big, but later (on the bus) I saw them in comparison to the cordillera (the Andes). Then they looked small! When we went driving around the area surrounding the town-to the vineyard, to the reservoir, etc.- we saw that horse and bike seem to be just about as common a form of transportation as car.

The first full day we were there, we went climbing for about 3 hours, and though it really wore me out, it was pretty spectacular:


Looks pretty steep from here:


This is at the vineyard. Remember, you can click on the picture to see the full-sized version.

The backyard.


You should definitely look at the Facebook albums, though, if you haven't already and if your computer isn't too slow.... it was gorgeous. Especially the ride home, curving through the mountains- the views were magnificent (although, its harder to get that impression from a little picture) It was sad leaving there knowing I probably would never come back in my entire life. Because even if I come back to Chile someday, I'm pretty sure I won't end up in this little town nestled in a valley, and I definitely wouldn't end up back at the vineyard...

Then we came home to reality- stress and homework. How fun.

This past Friday we went to Santiago for the day- I'll post on that later, maybe when I finish writing my essay for tomorrow.

Sorry if this entry comes across really scattered or doesn't make sense... I kept going back to add more, plus its been over a week, and words can't really describe my trip...

Love, Katie

P.S. Its October now!! Which is usually my favorite month, but thats partly due to it being autumn... so we'll see how it goes haha