As I mentioned last time we had a guy from Italy, Fabio, join our mini family here on Calle Zamora. A week passed with just him and then we had another addition! Laura, from Germany, arrived a week and half ago. And the past week and a half has been marvelous! We get along so well and we have done so many things for it only being such a short amount of time. The sad part of it all is she is only here for two weeks, she leaves this Saturday :( But, that is why we are taking advantage of all the time we have now! We have met with Silvia and Miriam two times. Once was to go to a bar that Silvia's friend's boyfriend worked at to have some homemade Spanish desserts...which were absolutely delicious! The bar was precious and very home-y! The second time was to go to dinner at an Arab restaurant. The food was enchanting and they had an arabian dancer that did a number during dinner, which was quite impressive, the way she moved her body seemed almost impossible! And this week we will be meeting with them to go out for some tapas :)
Salam- Arab Restaurant
Pan de Pita (Pita bread)
Oh how happy I was to see HUMMUS on the menu!! yum :) en espanol=hommus
Laura's Salad/Miriam's dip
Silvia's veggie rolls
Couscous with Arabic sausages, red peppers, and green peppers 
Little chicken with a sweet sauce and potatoes
Quesadilla with tomato and cheese
The biggest list of desserts!
My choice: brownie!
Laura's Mango Cream
Miriam's sweet cream with fruit
And Silvia's cream with fruit!Besides all of that we have basked in the Spanish sun in the magnificent Plaza Mayor, explored some parts of Salamanca I had yet to see, and cooked 3 dinners together at home for everyone to enjoy. The first meal was one of Laura's original pasta recipes, she loves pasta and Italian food. She made an amazing sauce mixed with vegetables and bow tie pasta while I made the salad, painted red with cherry tomatoes and red peppers, and sprinkled with feta cheese. Cristina, Maruja, Fabio, Laura, and I all sat at the elegant dining room table and toasted with Spanish white wine... Buen Proveche!
Preparing the meal.
dinner table 
Laura and Cristina
Cristina (my Spanish mom) and I
Cheers!
The famous Spanish Tortilla :)The second meal I would like to proudly call Tana's American Breakfast (eaten for dinner) -lol- I'm sure you could imagine what it consisted of: Pancakes, scrambled eggs, and bacon. The pancakes were eaten with the choice of peanut butter-which turns out is quite expensive here in Spain-or nutella topped with strawberries. Sadly we had to go without the sweetness of maple syrup because the only syrup I encountered was a small jar of "Maple Syrup from Canada" for about 6 euros (approximately $8-ish). The scrambled eggs were the way I like them with some veggies and cheese. The bacon was iberico, which means it is from a pig that was raised in Spain and was well-cared for. Everyone loved it! We had surprise guests that night-Cristina's brother Paco and his wife-who also enjoyed the food. I was very happy that I could share something from my culture with my Spanish family!
Don't judge the mis-shaped pancakes -lol- The third meal was another one of Laura's pasta recipes and a salad. This time it was pasta with ham, cheese, and a sauce she made, all layered in a pan and baked in the oven! We didn't take any pictures of that one but it was equally delicious and we made so much that we got to eat the leftovers for lunch the next day...I missed leftovers -lol-
I have also taken two mini-trips over the past couple weeks. One was on Sunday, March 4. It was a trip planned by a travel agency and we only had to pay 10 euro to go. It was called Fiesta del Almendro, which is to celebrate the blooming of the almond tree in a small town near the border of Portugal. I had been told how pretty it was and what a great opportunity it would be to see the beautiful blooming flowers and enjoy the festivities, so naturally I was rather pumped. I love almonds, so why wouldn't I wanna see the trees that they grow on! The day turned out to be not what it was supposed to be. We were supposed to head to a small town in Portugal called Vega de Terron-in a region called Arribes del Duero- for an open air market that they have and then head to Frenageda for the fiesta. We went to the market, for 6 hours! The bus got there at 11:30 and we stayed there until 5:30...I was done in about 30 minutes looking at the market and taking pictures. So I became bored rather quickly. Fabio was with me and he was quite bored also. Not to mention I was the youngest person on the bus and the person with the closest age to mine was Fabio and he is 33. Therefore it wasn't a great opportunity to meet more people. The best part about being in the small town in Portugal was I got to see the Rio Duero, a river that is very important in Spain and very beautiful! I also can say that I have been to Portugal and that I spent a sufficient amount of time there! We did have fun taking pictures, though. The scenery was absolutely magnificent. After our time in Portugal we crossed the border back to Spain to arrive in Frenageda. When we got there we figured out that the festival was over and so all that remained were vendors selling their almonds and sweets. We walked through the small town for like 20 minutes, saw the almond trees, took some pictures, and then it was time to head out again. I bought almonds to give to Cristina and also to take to school to share with everyone. It was a great opportunity to see the sites, but I would count that day as one of the not so great days I have had here in Spain -lol- Not to add to the complaining, but I was fighting off motion sickness/bus sickness the whole entire trip because I was the lucky person with the very back corner seat! Haha came close to losing it all at one point-so glad I didn't -lol- But on the happy side, I would love to share my beautiful pictures of the wonderful sites!
the beginning of the market
boat dock
el Rio Duero
ooo hey!
If it were nicer out I would jumped in!
Chillin' on the bridge
old train station
Pretty
Old train track/bridge
It was a little freaky walking across this
Danger!!
The sun decided to join us after a little rain
almonds! 
"La Fregeneda: Sonrisa blanca del Almendro" White smile of the almond tree.
Daddy's girl always finding John Deere tractors :)
El Almendro
Trees that look like PINEAPPLES!
Trapper's twin :( so many of his twins here! The next mini-trip I took was to a town about an hour away from Salamanca, Zamora. Laura and I went for the afternoon on this past Saturday. The bus tickets were super cheap, 4,60 euro! I had been told by many people that Zamora is beautiful, has the Rio Duero running through it, lots of churches, and also that it was small. The saying, "Zamora pasa por una hora" Means you can see the town in an hour. What I didn't get told was that the town would be almost deserted, like the beginning of a horror film. The scene: two study abroad students, one girl from Germany and one from the United States. They decide to take a day trip to a beautiful Spanish pueblo to see the sites and get out of the city for a while. They get off the bus and the eerie sensation of emptiness over powers them. There are people in the streets, but very little and they seem almost zombie like. The girls pull out their map to figure out how to get to the center of town where all the sites are. They encounter a park, where Laura, the student from Germany, decides to ask a passerby to take a photo of the two girls standing in the gazebo. The man kindly accepts, takes the photo, and approaches the two girls, asking them their names, where they are from, and greeting them with the habitual Spanish two kisses on the cheeks. To her surprise, the man kisses Laura plainly on the cheek, much more than the norm, and then gave Tana the normal kisses which are more or less like slightly touching your cheeks together. The man continued to linger and continued to creep the girls out, finally the girls started to walk away and the man points to Laura and says "I like her". (Fast forward to the arrival of the girls to the center of town) The girls are marveling in the melancholic state of this small Spanish town. The streets are now empty and the noise of any cars that can be heard on the highway is drowned out by the heavy silence. The river is placid, the large cathedral is solemn in its fixed spot on top of the hill, and the large castle, which is occupied by other tourists but, yet is still sad as the sun starts to lower in the late afternoon sky. The girls stick out, the people know that they definitely aren't from around here. Every empty street brings more silence, every stare from a lingering cafe owner brings more uneasy feelings. The girls try to ignore it and try to make the feeling go away by taking pictures and having some fun, but the eerie feeling is so strong. Where are all the people? Why does the town seem so dead? The girls want to catch an earlier bus, but the only one is not until 7:30.....sounds like the plot to a horror movie no??? Just imagine how something like that could end!?!?! How many movies have started with something like that -lol- But in all reality the feeling was like that, there was a creepy man that took our photo for us, and the town did have beautiful sites like people had told me, but the sensation of "ghost-town" or "zombie-land" took over and it was so hard to pinpoint and describe, but we both felt it! The cathedral was big and pretty and the castle was also enchanting. However, our trip to Zamora was not what we expected and returning to Salamanca felt like we were re-entering civilization! (No offense to any people from Zamora, the town was beautiful, just not very inhabited)
The gazebo where we encountered the creep
a street with really cool old buildings
from the song "Fix You" by Coldplay
13...bad number to find in a deserted town
Almost fell in!!! haha (not really)
the lone reader- probably our assassin 
even the trees are lifeless!! where's the leaves?
Plaza Mayor de Zamora
My friend! they have so little people in Zamora they had to start making people into statues...hahaha
Laura with her map and our friend from Zamora
another door with 13! can't be good...
and this...was just disturbing
the beautiful cathedral
Castle!
feet!
More statues...
end of the day...Laura couldn't take it anymore...
so we went to Burger King -lol- Over the past two weeks I have also lost another friend! Greg had to go back to Switzerland :( SAD! And this week Florian leaves to go back home to Belgium and Laura leaves to go back to Germany! Everyone is always leaving and I'm the trooper hanging out in Salamanca! -lol-
Greg, with his flag signed by everyone, and I I have also been learning a lot at school and my Spanish is improving by the minute. It is a lot easier for me to talk in Spanish without having to think before I say something, it is becoming more automatic! Which is great and my accent is developing a tiny bit woo-hoo! It is amazing how much easier a language will come to you when you are learning it in the country of origin! I am so lucky to have this opportunity and would recommend study abroad to anyone! With the school we went to another museum in the Plaza de Fonseca. It was a modern art exposition. It was very interesting and had a lot of works criticizing the economy and problems in society. We also went out for tapas one week. We went to three different bars, La Casa de Murcilla, Cervantes, and Baviera. Cervantes was decorated with everything Don Quixote, it was impressive! Last week we went with Ada, the director of the school, to an exposition of art from an artist that was a friend of her and her husband! It was helpful to have her there explaining about his life and what he liked to do with his art, made the experience much more meaningful and his art is very creative and original. After that Ada showed us a beautiful park that overlooks part of the city, el Parque de Calixto y Melibea, named after two characters in a book called "La Celestina". It was absolutely precious, and will be more so once the flowers begin to bloom! She also took us to a bar that is one of the university buildings called La Caballeriza, which was made out of an old horse stable where the people would "park" their horses!
Maria, our awesome guide that takes us on a cultural excursion every week, she knows everything about Spanish art and history, and I.
Oh my classmates, Lei & Fabio, and I.
Catedral Vieja
entrance to the Parque de Calixto y Melibea
La Celestina
The well, covered with locks that couples come and put on together. The tradition started with an Italian movie.
Caballeriza, mini chairs!
Class practicing theater
Some locks close up.
Laura and I when we returned to the park.
Plaza de Anaya
Caballeriza Other news..we have a new guy in our class from Hawaii named Chris and he is very nice! I have to complain a little bit about the one thing I will absolutely not miss when I leave Spain...the public restrooms! They are absolutely disgusting! I have found 2 so far that have been "clean" compared to others. First thing is they never have toilet paper and then sometimes they don't even have seats! I am getting more skilled at squatting here than I ever was in Montana...which seems a little odd right? One bathroom I had to pay 20 cents to open the door to find a dirty seat and no toilet paper. And the bathrooms in the bars are absolutely horrid...I just make it a goal to not go to the bathroom until I get home...but sometimes that is a little difficult. Also they rarely have hand soap and never paper towels and the water is always cold! Come on Spain, get with the program, bathrooms should be clean! -lol- So the rule is always bring kleenex with you to the bathroom and hand-sanitizer is a necessity!
One bathroom I entered...not even one of the worst either... Haha, other than my bathroom complaint, Spain is wonderful! I am loving every minute of it whether it is a difficult day or a great day, every day is still just right! I have been here for exactly 2 months and 10 days. I am definitely missing everyone so much! This weekend I will be headed to Madrid to visit Hanna, go to an LMFAO concert, do some sight-seeing and get to know Madrid a little better, and I will be going to Valencia a city on the other side of Spain for a festival called Las Fallas, which is one of the biggest festivals in Spain. So, I hope to have many more stories to share when I get back! 5 day weekend-here I come yay!
Hasta Luego,
Tana <3
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