Fiesta!

Well, that dance class still hasn't happened. We finally decided to go the other night and left with plenty of time to find the place in case we got lost. Finding the street it was on wasn't much of a problem, but finding the bar itself was a different matter entirely. We ended up asking three different people for directions and it seemed like they were each telling us something slightly different. One woman even told us that the place we were looking for was closed, even though we'd heard that they offer salsa classes every night at 20:30. (Military time is used a lot here, I'm going to try to start incorporating it into my blog to help me get used to it.) We finally found a building that had pictures of people dancing, but the name of the bar we were looking for was no where to be found and the building was, in fact, closed. Finally, after much frustration, we decided to try again another night when we were still looking at 20:45. We're hoping to try again Monday; Joanne went out on her own while I was in class yesterday and finally found the right place, so at least this time we'll know where we're going.

Last night was the beginning of an eight day long fiesta throughout Salamanca. I've yet to figure out what exactly they're celebrating, but let me tell you, the Spanish know how to celebrate! There was a parade with music, dancing, and lots of flowers to kick-start the whole thing. Then Joanne and I made our way down to the river to watch the fireworks at 22:00. The fireworks lasted for 30 minutes and were unlike anything I'd ever seen before. Our Fourth of July celebrations in the States paled in comparison to the display I saw last night! My friend from school, Hadar, met us at the river just before the end of the show and we then went back to the Plaza for a free concert. I don't know who the guy was, but apparently his music is played in a lot of clubs. It was pretty good, but I've come to learn that Spaniards can be very pushy and after awhile we got tired of being knocked around and stepped on. We decided to try to find a slightly less crowded place and had a drink, then realized we were hungry. Thus began our hunt for food at 1:00 in the morning. We finally decided on this place that has pizza and pastas, mostly because it was one of the only places still open that didn't cost 17 euro for a meal. I tried the pizza ibérico, which of course had jamón ibérico on it, and it was so good! I can't wait to see what tonight has in store. I know there's another concert in the Plaza, but other than that I have no idea what's going on.

My stomach is now making it very clear that I haven't eaten in almost 12 hours, and Cristina just came over and insisted that I eat something, so I will leave you with a few pictures from last night.