first impressions

Salamanca has a cryptic and impenetrable beauty that I haven't quite wrapped my mind around yet. The night of my arrival here, we (a small group of new acquaintences) walked to the old cathedral and upon witnessing the baffling intricacy of this building, I realized the enormity of the adventure ahead. I feel like a tiny speck of a modern American girl accustomed to immediate gratification and the certain oversight of beauty that accompanies our fast-paced lives in the States who has been thrust into a magical foreign world where it is rude to ask for your food to go, and where the sights on the two mile walk to school (umm I used to think the MLB was a hike from my house on Church Street: long distance re-defined) include buildings constructed centuries before our country was conceived. It is refreshing to feel so...present; I am here physically, intellectually, and emotionally existing without the static interference of modern American culture. The awe-inspiring archeitecture is a mere backdrop for the little things that I have had the pleasure of witnessing thus far: last week a seventy-something year old man approached me where I was sitting alone at a cafe with a glass of wine and a book. He asked what I was working on before sitting down next to me and offering unsolicited advice for almost forty-five minutes about literature and life. I am not being dramatic, he started every other sentence with "la vida es..." talked about the book he was writing based on two points, education and respect ("the two only important things in life" he told me, although I can think of a few more.) He walked off after a while, telling me he was going to sit in the shade if I wanted to join, which I didn't because he was kind of creepy, but I think it's awesome that the locals here are brimming with prolific thoughts and observations and so eager to share them with me! Things like that just don't happen in America. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else right now...living the dream, no big deal.

Un Beso de Salamanca,

Allyson