salamanca is probably the oldest, coolest city i have ever been to. we lucked out and happened to have come here on the second day of a week long festival that is dedicated to patron saint. the hostel we planned on staying in was completly full, probably because of the festival. after walking around for a few minutes we found a hostel, and it turned out to be much better than we expected because we had our own room and bathroom. the lady who ran the hostel wouldn´t stop talking to us though, and she didnt speak english, so i just nodded at her and had no clue what she was saying.

the streets of salamanca are packed with people and lined with all these little stands that sell beer, wine, and different kinds of tapas. the plaza, which is the center of the city, has a huge concert stage set up and a ton of restaurants that all have seats outside that are full of people. for dinner we went to four or five of the different stands and got a tapa and a glass of wine at each one for about a euro. the tapas were amazing, especially this one plate of ribs that were probably the best ribs i have ever had. not surprisingly, mike got two plates of ribs, and definitely creamed his panties afterwards.

after dinner we showered and changed and then headed to the plaza for the concert. the music kind of sucked, but it was nice to just sit and drink wine and watch all the people. as we were drinking wine, we noticed that a group of american girls had sat right next to us. we started talking with them, and it turned out that they were from wesleyan college and were doing a semester abroad in madrid. they seemed pretty cool, and reminded us of america because they all had different kinds of soda bottles that were filled with rum and vodka that they were pouring into their empty coffee cups. they had come to salamanca the day before, so we figured we would let them take us out and show us what the fun bars were. turns out they didnt know s*** and had us walking around the whole city trying to find the bar that they barely remembered going to the night before. eventually mike and i took the reins and we went to this bar/club called camelot (not like the camelot back home). the bar was pretty fun and the girls we were with were pretty cool. one of them was pretty wild, and got up on the stage where this dude was dancing and just started dancing and making out with him. it was pretty funny. eventually we ditched the girls and went back to our hotel and crashed.

the only thing that sucks about salamanca is that our train to go to portugal leaves at 430 monday morning. which means that we have to walk around all day with our backpacks, find a grassy knoll to sleep in til 3a.m., and then walk to the train station. walking around with these backpacks gets tiring, and i am pretty sure our calves will be as big as virginia hams by the end of this trip.

one other thing kind of sucks actually, and that is that the hostels have 1030 checkouts. so every morning we pop out of bed at 1015 having missed our free breakfast, and pack our s*** as fast as possible so we can checkout on time and not loose our deposit. i actually dont mind it that bad because you pop out of bed so quick to pack that you dont have time to be tired.

off to liboa, portugal.

justin