End of second week

We’re now about halfway done with our time in Salamanca. We’ll be here for another two weeks. In two Fridays, we’re meeting up with some friends from Manila, who are here in Spain visiting family. They’re actually going to drive up to Salamanca from Granada to spend a few days here. Then they’re taking us with them back to Granada where we’ll get to sightsee for a few days before returning back to Madrid to catch our plane back home.

We have a great and simple routine here: swim in the morning, eat a quick breakfast of fresh fruit, then walk to Grace’s school and the public library (sometimes with a stop at the public market for some cherries or sheep cheese). I work at the library from 10:00-2:00 while Grace is in class and then we walk back to our apartment, where a big meal is waiting for us. We’ll catch up on email, take a nap, and then head back to the library for an evening work session. This past week, we’ve been stopping by a place serving tapas on our walk back to catch the second half of whatever World Cup game is playing.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it before, but the weather here is unbelievably perfect. Everyone warned us that it would be really hot but there is zero humidity in the air. So while it may get up to 90 in the afternoon, it still feels fantastic.

Below are some more photos from our wanderings around Salamanca.

we can't get enough cerezas!

Grace's school hosted a night of sampling various tapas

Patatas brava and tortilla while hanging out with some of Grace's classmates at a big park near our apartment

a typical menu for a fixed-price meal (but we don't really eat out since the food at our apartment is so good)

view of the cathedral (note the stork flying in the top right part)

a view of the Puente Romano from another bridge

this is what the rest of Salamanca looks like

we crossed the river to get a different view of the city

the Puente Romano is thought to have been built in the 1st century AD

crossing the bridge back to the city

view of the end of the bridge

another view of the cathedral

University students apparently used to write their names on the walls of buildings when they graduated

an evening view from the Puente Romano

The intricate facade of the University of Salamanca

It has this famous little frog on top of the skull.

The Plaza Mayor at night

note the TV showing world cup games on the right

Madrid

         On Sunday, we took a quick trip (Sunday afternoon to Monday morning) to Madrid to meet up with some family friends from the U.S. They were on a twelve-day tour of Barcelona, Valencia, and Madrid and we wanted to see them while missing as few days as possible of Grace’s class.

         Madrid is a beautiful 2.5-hour train ride from Salamanca. The route starts off in the plains and then crosses the Sistema Central mountains before dropping back down towards Madrid. There are some gorgeous views from the train of olive trees and steep slopes. One of the amazing sights was all the ancient looking stone walls that dissected the landscape, even out in what seemed like the middle of nowhere.

         We planned on trying to get to some of the main sights in Madrid before meeting our friends for dinner. Our first stop was going to be lunch at the highly recommended Mercado de San Miguel. We battled through crowds of tourists on our walk there and upon entering the market discovered 1) that it was impossibly packed with tourists, and 2) everything was ridiculously expensive. For example, a kilo of cherries in the market was 12 euros when the most expensive we saw in Salamanca and at other grocery store in Madrid was only 3 or 4 Euros per kilo. We turned around immediately and left without getting anything, making our way onto much less-crowded streets. Grace found a delicious restaurant for lunch that was recommended in the Lonely Planet and quite near our hotel.

         After seeing all the crowds in and around the market, we scrapped our plan to see the Reina Sofia or Prado museums. We realized that it was going to be a very unpleasant experience if we could get in at all. Instead, we had a lot of fun wandering around the neighborhood, called Chueca. It was full of trendy clothing stores and restaurants. In the evening, before dinner, we walked down to the Prado and Reina Sofia to see the scene after the museums closed.

         Our friends chose a restaurant a few blocks from our hotel that served a variety of tapas. It was fun catching up with them and hearing about their trip.

The next morning, we went for a brief walk through the gigantic Parque del Buen Retiro before catching a morning train back to Salamanca. We’ll have another afternoon in Madrid the day before we leave so we may try again to get into those museums.

We had a great view of Avila's old city walls from the train

It was hard to get good photos from the train, but I tried...

Mercado de San Miguel

We enjoyed seeing all the incredible buildings along Gran Via

looking up at the massive Banco de Espana

The Prado

San Jeronimo church next to the Prado

The Palacio de Cibeles on our walk to the park

The Puerta de Alcala near the entrance to the park

One of the many different views from inside Parque del Buen Retiro

And a quick pic of the Metropolis building on Gran Via as we walked back from the park

Paella

June 24, 2014

We just got back from a quick trip to Madrid yesterday and are happy to be back in our newly established Salamanca routine. More on Madrid soon…

         On Saturday, the woman we’re staying with had her oldest daughter’s family come visit from Madrid so she cooked up a big lunch of paella. She let us into the kitchen to watch her make it so we thought we’d share some of what we saw. It actually looked pretty simple to make so long as you get good, fresh ingredients. The crabs that she put in, for example, were still alive when she threw them on the hot pan.

fresh ingredients

garlic, onion, and red pepper in olive oil to start

add in some chicken, boiling mussels, too

add in shrimp, clams, and live crabs

mix in the boiled mussels and olives

toss on the rice, water is 2 to 1 (she uses the water she boiled the mussels in)

add a pinch of saffron

let simmer with no lid until done

we had some jamon iberico de bellota to start - delicious!

the finished product

reserved some boiled mussels to have with lemon

each serving of paella was slightly different