Saturday, May 14, 2016

Salamanca, Spain: The Rude Awakening

As I write this post, I am extremely pissed off. I only should blame one person for this, but I am blaming this hostel and the whole group of guys that arrived at 8 IN THE MORNING, one of them at 7 IN THE MORNING, instead of just blaming the one guy. This morning, on my first night in Salamanca, I was woken up, after being woken up multiple times by their group, by a drunk guy with his pants around his ankles falling on top of me when he didn't even belong in my room. No I do not need someone inviting themselves into my bed when I'm half asleep, or ever for that matter. I just want everyone here to remember, or be informed, I absolutely hate being touched and it spikes my anxiety greatly when strangers on the streets bump into me, so just absorb that and think how I must feel about someone who is practically naked landing on me while I'm trying to sleep! I'm just glad I wasn't fully asleep, who knows what would've happened... I pushed him onto the floor, sadly he was uninjured, and he just laid there giggling his ass off while his friends watched him and were giggling as well until someone who wasn't drunk as hell came in and started telling him to get out and that he didn't belong there. I'm pretty sure the person that came in to yell at him was a staff member of the hostel. I am beyond pissed at this situation really. I understand that they were all extremely shitfaced, but that doesn't put any of them off the hook because that is never acceptable behavior. I don't give a shit if it was an accident or if he was confused. He's lucky I didn't do anything but push him off the damn bed. 

Okay it's now the end of the day Saturday May 14th. I had a pretty good day even if this morning was extremely upsetting. Just to be clear, I'm not a violent person and I was just very upset this morning when I wrote that rant up there. He did say sorry to me and I would've responded with "Honey you need to work on your bedside manner" but I wasn't sure how to translate bedside to Spanish on the spot. The hostel did end up blaming the whole group and they were kicked out of the hostel in the end. I'm sure something else must have happened because I was first told they were going to try and put me somewhere else but when I asked later that day I was told that there wasn't anywhere to put me and if it happened again to just tell the hostel and they wouldn't be sleeping at the hostel tonight. I feel sorry that someone's bachelor party was probably spoiled but at the same time, I am extremely pleased with the hostels decision since I really didn't want there to even be a possibility of it happening again. I was also starting to get really annoyed with them saying sorry to me every time they saw me. The hostel also keeps saying sorry for it, which is silly since it's not their fault.

Anyhoo, I spent part of the day chilling in the hostel clock room, I have no clue what they call it but it has 6 clocks. None of them are functioning but it's still 6 clocks. 
It's the only room that has wifi in the hostel. Then around 11 I headed to a cafe for breakfast. I could've done the breakfast that was included with my hostel stay, but I wasn't very happy with the hostel at that point and I wanted something more than toast. Well that something more was extremely delicious. I found a cafe that was selling toast! This toast was a lot more appetizing than the hostel's cafe's toast though because it had cheese, cream cheese, a green pepper, and chicken on it with more cheese on top. I didn't think it was going to be that good since I'm not a bit fan of peppers, but I am so glad I decided on that one instead of one of the other kinds I was eyeing.
There was about 10 different options of toast (fake sandwiches really) at this cafe. If I knew how to return to the cafe, I would be going back to have breakfast there tomorrow. I walked around for ages trying to decide on the perfect cafe. My heart had been set on a croissant but I walked in and decided to try the toast instead. 
I saw quite a few beautiful buildings today and I can't tell you what they were or anything because I don't know. I was just walking and looking. I impulse bought a few things, got myself a new wallet, and have decided that retail therapy is actually a very helpful thing.
It also helped that Salamanca has my all time favorite Spain store. I never saw it n Santiago so Salamanca has that going for it. Ale Hop has an actual cow sized cow sitting at all the entrances of their stores in Spain, I don't know if it's a store in any other country. This for some reason makes me extremely happy, plus thinking about the fact that they have to move it inside every time they close the store. Then it's also a store like Silver Spider in Mt. Vernon, which is literally a store of odd cute things. I mean some of the stuff wasn't cute, like the mankini that they were selling, but it was odd and hilarious. It's also like Tiger but I personally think Ale Hop is better,and that's saying something because I really like Tiger too. I also went in a souvenir shop and bought a post card so I could know what the things I had seen were actually called. 

Around 2, I participated in Siesta by sitting in the clock room for a few hours playing games on my iPad and reading (also on my iPad). Part of the siesta I was surrounded by the stupid bachelor party group of guys so I put my ear plugs in and Bachata'd out to my Strictly Bachata Amazon playlist (which is my favorite Amazon playlist). I almost did by Tarzan, Mulan, and Lion King playlist (my fav iPad playlist) but I realized I had wifi there so I was damned if I didn't chose to use it. After they left, leaving trash everywhere might I add even though there was a trash can on their way out of the room, I chilled for maybe an hour more and went exploring some more. My previous visit to the souvenir shop sparked my interest during this exploration because one of the cathedrals had a postcard of a astronaut engraving and frogs were on everything they were trying to sell. I did a bit of research while I walked, after hunting down a Smooy and learning that Santiago Smooy ruined all other Smooys for me ( Salamanca Smooy didn't put very much on for toppings and didn't give me as much nata as Santiago normally gives). Back on track though, my research revealed that frogs were the school mascot ( I have no clue I made this part up but I'm pretty sure it is) and that in order to graduate as doctors they had to find the frog on a university building or something along those lines. It's actually very interesting. Supposedly the frog represents Prince Juan's physician who failed to save the Prince's life, which is why the frog is on the skull. Then Salamanca has two cathedrals nowadays, the new one being from the 16-18th centuries. During restorative work in 1992 apparently the restorer decided to add his own touch, so there is an engraving of an astronaut (which didn't exist when the building was built remember) and an engraving of a gargoyle eating ice cream. I never tried to find any of these engravings but the stories are very interesting. 
The caption for this picture would be that Morgue's pirate ship is ready to raid the Convent but captions don't exist on the app and I'm unsure whether that is a convent or a cathedral or what because there are so many.

Around 6ish I was bored of walking around and was going to go get a Telepizza for dinner, but I found the hostel first so that plan went out the door. I really like Salamanca and would definitely consider coming back, but in a group that does tours and history of the place because there are so many old buildings here that have stories to be told. I really outta just become a historian so I can always have the opportunity to learn about my favorite subject. Tomorrow I leave for my 10 day visit to Madrid, where I will hunt down Telepizza at least once, maybe three times, while I'm there. I suppose I'll have to go to Taco Bell just for kicks and giggles too. Hopefully there is an available train tomorrow! 


I did forget to mention, on the day I changed my plans to just go straight to Madrid instead of other places, I met this older gentleman from the UK and we had a nice chat about how 10 days in Madrid was too long. He also called me bipolar because I was making it so I didn't have to travel so much but in June I am doing really short times in places again. Yesterday we talked about a large tire fire outside Madrid, after he realized he was talking to me again. I'm the girl from Ohio to him and he never remembers who I am. It's hilarious. Then is morning, Sunday May 15th, I went to breakfast with him since we happened to be heading towards the hostel's cafe at the same time. We had a lovely chat about what I should do in Madrid while I'm there and obviously we talked about soccer since his team, Arsenal, is playing today. He also kept saying I should spend more time in Salamanca because that's where everyone in Madrid goes for vacation and it's a nicer place than Madrid. He travels about once a year and he's been coming to Spain a lot lately to try and learn Spanish, so I suggested he visit Santiago next time since he's been finding it hard when everyone switches to English with him. He found it hilarious that someone fell on me, I gave him a nice good laugh about that for sure. Then we parted ways and I got to the train station just in time to catch the 12:30 train to Madrid.  Didn't even have to wait around forever for the train to leave or arrive. Quite pleasant. 

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