3 Days of Soccer, Cooking, and Goodbyes

This week began with a game of soccer. On Sunday everyone in our group met at the Parque de Los Jesuitas to play. At the park they had one cement soccer field, but kids were playing there. Instead we found a grassy area and decided to play. There were a few problems with this. Salamanca is a city so there is pavement everywhere. The only place that there is a little bit of grass is the park. This means everyone brings their dogs to this grassy area at the park to use the bathroom. The second problem was that there were a few big trees in this area. The third problem was that it had just recently rained so everything was a bit slippery and cold. The area was pretty small and there were a lot of us but we made it work. The game consisted of people stepping in dog poop, running into trees, and slipping on the wet grass; but all in all we had an amazing time filled with lots of laughs.

Because we had such an awesome time playing soccer the first time, we decided to play again on Wednesday. I invited a few people from my classes that I met to come play and to my surprise they invited tons of their friends. In the end we had a huge group of people from Japan, a guy from the Philippines, a guy from Denmark, and people from all over the U.S. We went down by the river where there was a full sized soccer field to play. The soccer field was a mix of sand and dirt but it worked out well. We split up into two teams of 13 and played. My team kicked butt and won 8-0. I played pretty well and was even complimented by the Japanese kids. As an added bonus the weather was amazing. It was in the high 50’s and was sunny. It was the perfect day of soccer.

We were feeling pretty content with our soccer games. We were having fun and meeting new people so we thought we would play again. On Friday we got together. This day was freezing and it sprinkled all day. Many people didn’t show up to play because the weather was bad. Once we ran around for a while it wasn’t so cold, but after a short while some people left. After that we decided to play World Cup. It wasn’t my lucky day because my partner and I played really well but just couldn’t score. This is not the end of our soccer games. We hope to play once a week.

On Thursday I went with a few people to a cooking class. The class was held at a pretty nice restaurant called Gastrobar. We learned how to make Paella, which is a traditional Spanish dish. Paella is a rice dish that is spiced and has all sorts of different meats in it. The one we made had all sorts of seafood in it. The interesting thing is that the seafood is thrown in whole. The shrimp were cooked with their eyes and legs intact. We also made Tortilla de Patata. This dish is made out of lots of potatoes, onion, and eggs. It ends up turning out as a potato cake looking thing. I think it is similar to a quiche. After that we made Gazpacho, which is a cold tomato soup. Inside of it there are also other veggies like cucumbers and peppers. Even though we blended it, it turned out pretty thick. We drank it out of a glass. Lastly we learned how to make Sangria. It is super easy to make. You combine any kind of cheap red wine with citrus soda, sugar, and cut up pieces of orange and lemon. After we made all this food we got to sit down and enjoy our hard work.

This week was crazy because we started planning our trip to London. It has been somewhat of a fiasco at times. We had a horrible time booking plane tickets because of the crappy website we were using. Then, when we finally booked the tickets we ended up booking them for the wrong day. Originally we were going to leave next Thursday night but instead the tickets got booked for Wednesday night. This means we will be missing two days of class. In order to change our tickets we would have to pay 40euro per person. We talked to our program director and he said we should just leave on Wednesday night. The good thing about this is that we will have an extra day in London. I am very excited for this trip because we have a lot of fun things planned.

The last big thing that happened this week has left a dark raincloud over everyone’s head. Early Saturday morning over half the group left for home. Out of 28 of us, 17 went back because they were only staying for this first month. I have gotten to know so many fun, nice, crazy people that it is extremely sad to say goodbye. After everyone left the roommates were split up. My roommate Shannon had to move to a different host family, leaving me all alone. This is good because I will have to start speaking a lot more Spanish, but it is bad because it is a lot harder to get in contact with people. Things are starting to feel a bit lonely now, and I am feeling a little homesick. This event was a drastic change to the trip. Classes will be different because people are gone and going out will be different. Once we get used to everything I am sure we will have a good time again. 

It’s about time for me to turn my frown upside down because on Wednesday I leave for a long weekend in London!