My Thursday and Saturday nights consisted of some pretty sweet (well, tiring, actually) nights out in a couple of the discotecas in Madrid. Since I consider every moment here an opportunity to practice Spanish, I was proud that I could understand my Spanish friends, despite the blasting music!
On Saturday and Sunday, I took a couple of day trips to nearby cities. The first was to Salamanca, which is a college town. It kind of reminded me of my college town... well, besides the fact that half of the buildings were from the 1200s-1500s. The vibe, however, was very similar.
I was trying to figure out why there were so many frog souvenirs around the town. Seriously: keychains, postcards, figurines, ect. Why a frog?
I realized that it's because at the University of Salamanca, built in the 1200s (making it the oldest Spanish university), has a little "game" for tourists: SPOT THE FROG. Seriously, find the frog on the building:
...not so easy, is it? How about a close-up:
:
....ahh! There it is. On top of the skull, of course! Because that's normal!
For this reason, all the tourist-y gifts there featured the frog (and usually the skull, too).
Besides touring the university, and scoping out the cathedral, we ate the menú del día at the Don Quixote Cafe.
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On Sunday, I took a trip to Toledo, which is a little less than an hour away. And let me tell you, it was old school: I'm talking walls-around-the-whole-city-to-protect-citizens-(from invaders on horseback with swords)-old school!
It was also on top of a hill, so looking off into the distance was a little like this:
And I chilled with my main man, Don Quixote de la Mancha:
I also went to the art museum there, as well as a recreation of El Greco's house:
A refresher on El Greco's art:
Between the traveling, sight-seeing, eating good food, and enjoying the night life (hehe), I can officially say that I had a busy and successful weekend!
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