Trip to Salamanca: Part 2

How we had the energy to get up Sunday morning is beyond me. We had to be out of our hostel by noon, but  we were up before that because we only had a place booked for Friday and Sunday night; Saturday was all full on the hostelworld.com. Luckily the guy at our hostel found us a place but it only was room for 3 and we had 4 in the group. We ended up going and checking it out. It had a double and a twin bed in a private room. We booked it and I said I'd sleep on the floor in exchange for drinks that night. 

We headed around town and did some more "tourist" stuff. We first walked to the Convent of St. Esteban. A couple of friends who got into Salamanca went there on Friday and had to pay. There was sunday service going on so we stepped inside to take a peak and then headed towards the river to relax a bit and catch up on some sleep from the night before. 

Salamanca

Covento de San Esteban

View from Covent

Inside the convent's church during service 

Facade of Convent

We headed to the river and laid on the banks for a bit. The weather is normally pretty cold in Salamanca but a nice warm front happened to come through while we were in town. We hung out by the river for a bit and decided to head to an Art museum that my roommate suggested we go see. 

Tormes River

Roman Bridge crossing Tormes River

Hanging out on the Roman Bridge

The art museum was pretty cool. The backside of the building faced the river and was almost all stained glass. The museum was an "Art Nouveau and Art Deco" museum. The House was constructed in 1905 by the architect Joaquin de Vargas y Aguirre. It is the only example of Modernist architecture in Salamanca. The stain glass in back is supported by iron and crystal. I don't know too much about the 2 styles of art that a majority of the pieces inside were from, but it was a beautiful building and fun to look around.

La Casa Lis - backside

Stained glass roof

Inside

There was also a Civil war museum right across from La Casa Lis. I have been reading into the Spanish Civil War quite a bit lately and I was interested in checking it out. It mainly consisted of original letters, photos, outfits, etc from the mid 1930's; items used by Spaniards during the war. 

Sunset

 Two of my friends that arrived a day earlier stayed with a "couchsurfer" For those who arn't familiar www.couchsurfing.com is a website where you can host and look for places to stay while traveling. For example my friends searched for open couches in Salamanca for this weekend. They had a list of people who were offering a free room or couch to sleep on. They sent them a message and set up everything and ended up staying 3 nights with them. Sounds a little sketchy but I did it when I studied abroad a few years back and it was a great time. They invited us over to their place and the two roommates who were staying with them cooked all of us dinner. The guys name was "floppy" and there was a other girl who lived there too. The guy was very "artsy" and had a theme going on in the apartment. Every single "couchsurfer" that stayed with him made a silhouette and put it on the wall. Even though we didn't stay he still wanted us to make one. He kept saying, "do what you feel, be creative, whatever you want!" I didn't know what to do so i decided to just draw and iPhone and place it where my brain should be. I found it pretty fitting.

Where's Zack?

 After eating we headed back out for another long night of drinking and going to bars. They have a lot of "chupiterias" which translates to "shot bar" and all the really serve is shots. For some reason Floppy decided to order a round of Absinth shots which was probably the most disgusting thing I have consumed. It burnt my throat for a solid 15 minutes after taking and I immediately regretted taking it. I managed through the night and we ended back at our place at around 5.30 am, I slept on the cold hard floor and woke up freezing. It was definitly a fun night though and luckily I slept like a rock through the night.

Plaza Mayor at night

REALLY FAST FOOD - blaahh