Okay, so today was eventful. I met a new friend and I GOT HIT BY A CAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I told myself that I wasn’t going to take a nap because I haven’t been able to sleep much at night due to the 2 hour siestas I’ve been taking. I hate time differences. Anywho, instead of taking a nap I decided to go to la plaza to read for a bit. Well, long story short it was too sunny so I moved to a building where I have class at to sit on a bench. I’m just sitting there for a few minutes, staring into space when an old man comes over and sits next to me on the bench. He starts saying, “beep, beep, beep, beep.” At first it was really bizarre but then he started throwing bread on the ground because apparently this is how you do bird calls in Spain. He starts to chat with me about the birds and such, explaining to me how you can tell the female from the male by their markings and such. Mind you, this is all in Spanish so I was pretty proud of myself for being able to hold a real conversation. While this is happening there is a group of four men (probably late 20s) who look scary as hell a few benches from us. They are obviously drunk and on some sort of drug (mind you its 3 in the afternoon). They are yelling obscenities and shouting at people as they pass. The old man starts his next remark with, “en el era de Franco esta nunca ocurrio.” (in the era of Franco this never happened.) Kind of surreal. Well, one of the boys pulls down his pants and that was just lovely as well. The next thing you know two of them are fist fighting. This is when the police show up. They simply walk up to the guys (laughing at them) and the guys stop physically fighting but continue to verbally fight. The police then get back in their car and start to drive off. This is when the fatter of the two guys pushes the other to the ground and starts beating him up and screaming, “voy a matarte!/ im going to kill you.” The police then back up and get out the car and come over. They attempt to break them up but then the one that was on the ground punches one of the cops. Well they take him away in the car and leave the other 3 (including the one that was actually beating the guy up) in the plaza. It was crazy to see cops literally do nothing. They left 3 incredibly drunk and rowdy guys there even after they were screaming at citizens and hitting each other.
After this the old man and I continue to chat and he is telling me all of these things that I need to do in Salamanca. This week is la Fiesta de Salamanca so there are tons of little carts that sell beer and tapas, concerts, bullfights, among other events. He is telling me about the bull fights and how its something that you have to do if you are here. He then asks me if I have a map so he can show me where I can get tickets. I pull my map out of my bag (it was in about 5 pieces because I’ve been using it way too much due to my lack of any sense of direction at all). He tells me right then that he is going to walk me to the office of tourism and get me a new one, which he does. I was so thankful because even though I don’t really know which ways is north, nor do I really know how to read a map at all, I use that thing like my life depends on it.
While walking to the office of tourism this old man (Manuel) is asking me if I’ve been to all of these different places of which I had been to none of them. He also was telling me something about a horse that bit this bull a few times but I feel like this was just a bad case of ‘lost in translation’ so I pretty much just nodded my head and smiled like I usually do when I have no clue what is going on. He tells me that he has to go meet his brother but if I wanted he would meet me back at the same bench at 8p.m. so he could give me a tour of a few building in Salamanca. I agreed.
At 8 p.m. I see Manuel coming through the plaza. I got to meet his older brother (who was probably about 70 and Manuel was probably in his late 60s) which was also pretty cool. We walk around for about an hour and he tells me about all of the architectural history and details of several of the surrounding buildings. He is telling me dates, names, and fun facts about each of the buildings. It was actually really awesome since I love art history. He buys us these flat pastries that kind of look and taste like flat ice cream cones. It was actually a lot of fun. Yay for making friends with the locals and yay for being able to practice my Spanish in real life.
Oh, and yeah I got hit by a car. I was just walking down the street and this car just comes by and clips me on the side. I pretty much just screamed and proceded to laugh uncontrollably. People here are crazy drivers.
Today was a good day.
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