Best of Spain

As I said in my first post, my favorite part of Spainh was watching "La Furia Roja" win the World Cup. Because I can't figure out how to edit my earlier post, I shall add visuals from the experience to this post...

A video from the end of the Spain vs. Germany game is below...

All of Spain has been an adventure to me, from the food I have eaten, to the places I've seen, to the things I've learned. I am going to break down my time here based on the cities I've visited in Spain.

Madrid

Madrid was very pretty. I was only there for a day, but got a chance to go on a guided tour of the city and get an over view. Here is a picture of the Puerta de Sol.

Salamanca

This city is very beautiful and so unlike Michigan suburbia. It is hard to believe that I pass by buildings daily that are older than our entire country. I have gone for a few tours now. I visited major landmarks in the city through the palace tour, the cathederal tour, and the university tour. Everything in this city is so grand and opulent. I've stopped taking pictures of buildings because they are too big. Instead, I use the video setting to better capture all the impressive sights. I inserted a video of the New Cathedral at the bottom of this post...

I am studying the "leyendas" a.k.a. legends of the city for my practicum and decided to go on a moonlit tour of the the mysteries of Salamanca. I was planning on going through the Office of Tourism, but due to un poquito de confusion, I accidently joined some tour offered by a renegade "agency," that had tried selling tickets to Patty and I earlier right in front of the Office of Tourism. The tour was nice in the sense I got to see a lot of the city. Also, the tourguide was really funny. Well, actually, I can't personally attest to the fact she was funny, because I really couldn't understand her. At the beginning of the tour she had asked if we were all fluent in Spanish and the response was a deafening "si." When I looked around, I realized that I was the only foreigner in the group. The tourguide, knowing she did not need to hold back, began to speak really fast and with lots of big words and colloquialisms, leaving me in a daze. I tried standing in the front so that I could better hear and understand her, but that meant more eye contact from her and more blank stares and fake nods of understanding from me. There was a point when I understood an entire sentence and thought to myself, "By Jove, I think she's got it," but then it was all downhill from there. All in all, it was an interesting 3 hours of my life.

Flamenco

I also went to a Flamenco show while I was here, which I thought was very impressive and beautiful. Some of the steps are very similar to those you can find in Indian dance styles. At some point, I started breaking down the feet movements the way you would if it were an Indian classical dance, which was quite amusing for me.

I've included some footage from the show below...

Toledo

Toledo is a beautiful city, and I wish I could have seen it more thoroughly and leisurely. We could have spent hours at the beautiful Cathedral, but instead spent maybe a good half hour. Everything on the trip seemed to be cut short. My goals for Toledo were to try some mazapan, turron, and manchego cheese, as well as check out the windmills made famous by Don Quixote and Cervantes. I was able to buy some mazapan to take home, but the other goals were never achieved. On the plus side, the mazapan was really good!