A few last photos

Adios, Espana - Hola, Estados Unidos

Hello all,
The following posting was written on the plane ride over the Atlantic from Europe to JFK. It's taken me a couple weeks to posting it (it's been very busy coming home!) but thank you for reading, this is the last post to this blog.

My month in Salamanca has just now come to an end, and it’s been a wonderful experience. This past week I was very busy with cooking class and final exams.

I finished up my 3 classes of 9 grad credits!!! Yay!!! Obviously, the primary reason I’ve been in Spain these 5 weeks has been to study, although I definitely do my best to take advantage of every traveling and “out of the classroom” learning experience I can do. I’ve been very pleased with this program, but I must say, these classes were definitely far more challenging that I’d anticipated! I’ve definitely learned and studied a significant amount these weeks! Whenever I’ve spoken with anyone from another region of Spain and told them that I’ve been studying at la Universidad de Salamanca, they all are really impressed that it’s a really prestigious university with high expectations.

I’ve taken 3 classes, Syntaxis, which is a grammar class, Culture, which had 3 components – the history of Spain (the past 100 years), art (the past 100 years), and music (the past 50 years or so). I’ve really enjoyed them, and definitely feel that I’ve learned a lot, including a lot of material that I’ll be able to use in my own classroom with my students. I also feel that I’ve been able to progress in my Spanish language studies, and I’ve really enjoyed speaking Spanish this whole month. I had 3 exams this week, and I did very well on all of them, and I’ve done very well in all of the courses. Go me!

In cooking class, we made paella de mariscos (paella made with shellfish), torrijas (French Toast that’s fried like churros), pista de manchego (a mixture of vegetables roasted in olive oil), gazpacho (a cold soup made of tomatoes, cucumbers, and a few other veggies), and tortilla de patatas (Spanish omelette, made of potatoes and onions). It was a really interesting class, and though we weren’t able to personally prepare these foods, it was really good to be able to see first hand exactly how to authentically make them, and we were able to eat all of the foods! They were really good!!! I also learned the key to making la tortilla that I’d missed before – massive amounts of olive oil! Que delicioso!

The last night in Salamanca the university had a small reception for us our last night in Salamanca, and it was nice to have a little party to say goodbye to everyone in the program. After that, I had some churros con chocolate with a couple friends. Friday, I had the last classes, and then I took a 2.5 hour train to Madrid, where I stayed overnight in a hotel, and then Saturday morning took a taxi to the airport.

It’ll be great to be back home with my family and be back in the US, but I’m really excited to be coming back to Spain in February! Next trip will be with a group of my students to Madrid, Barcelona, and Paris! Very exciting. :)