Trip Home

My trip home was quite exciting. I left my apartment at 6am, and even though I was only a few blocks from the bus station, I called a taxi (my first time calling a taxi in Salamanca) to take me there because I had 2 suitcases, a carry-on bag, and my backpack. One of my suitcases was full of rocks and books, and although it was very small, it weighed over 100lbs. A few weeks before I left, I found out that there was a new bus service to the Madrid that went directly from Salamanca to the airport, which was excellent, because I had way too many bags to worry about. When I got to the airport, I found out that my small bag was too heavy to legally fly, so I switched a chunk of eclogite with a pair a sneakers, and that did the trick. The person who ended up checking my bags was in a hurry, and didn't charge me any over-weight luggage fees, even though both of my bags were over-weight. It was really annoying when I was at the counter getting ready to leave, and the people started speaking English to me as soon as they saw my passport, because their English was hard to understand, but I wouldn't have had any trouble understanding their Spanish.
The flight to the states was pretty uneventful. The person I was sitting next to was really friendly, and it was a pretty pleasant trip for 9 hours in an airplane. We left an hour late, which is perfectly normal when you're flying out of Spain, and had to change our flight path to avoid a big storm, so we ended up getting to Dallas 2 hours late. It took forever to go through customs, and by time I was ready, my flight had left. I was really tired from my trip, and I didn't know what to do, so I ended up at the information desk looking lost a bewildered. Fortunately, there was the really nice woman named Dianne who helped me figure out what to do. I ended-up flying flying to Minneapolis, but there was a mechanical problem with the plane, so that flight was delayed an hour. When I finally got to Minneapolis, the airport was nearly empty, and my flight to Madison was going to leave in 20 min. I ran through the airport, and got there just as they were boarding the final passengers. I got to Madison after midnight, and got home at 1am, after more than 24 hours of traveling. My bags didn't make it with me, but they got home the next day. So it was a successful trip. 8 months and 30 days, and it was quite a challenge, but exceptionally rewarding.

Adios España

Madrid (ballet and geology)

The weekend before I went to Costa del Sol, I took a short trip to Madrid to help my flatmate move home. She wasn't taking any classes at the university, so she was done, and I wanted to go to the ballet and the geology museums in Madrid, so we decided to go the night before she left, go the the ballet, and then after she left, I would spend the day in Madrid and go home for dinner. When we got to Madrid, we decided to take a taxi to our hostel, because my flatmate had all of her earthly belongings with her, and we didn't want to risk her bags to the Madrid metro. There was a big outdoor concert on the street that our hostel was on, so we had to walk a bit, but we figured it out without too much trouble. Our hostel was really close to the Teatro Real (royal theater), so walking was easy. We saw Romeo and Juliet by Ballet Stuttgart (they are from Germany). The dancing was good, but I didn't really like the color scheme. I was also really surprised by how small the theater was. The floor area was quite small, and the balconies were really steep, but it was lavishly decorated, and there was royal box for the King and family (they weren't there). After the ballet, we got Turkish fast food, since the tapas in Madrid were horrendously expensive.
The next day, I went to the airport with my flatmate, and then went to visit the geology museums in Madrid. There are two: The Royal Geologic Museum, which is housed in the same complex as a whole slew of other natural science museums, and the Geologic and Mine Institute of Spain's museum, which is smaller, so I went there first. Since the museum is in the same building as the offices for the Geologic and Mine Institute of Spain, I needed to show ID to get into the museum, but that was fine. The museum was a little old, but really well-organized, and it showed how Spain changed over geologic time and highlighted the mineral wealth of the different provinces in Spain. I spent more than 2 hours there, and it definitely exceeded my expectations. The Royal Geologic museum was a little more of a disappointment. The geology museum was closed because they were renovating the biology museum that was in the same building, and the main exhibit was about Darwin's time in Spain, but they were dismantling it when I was there. They did however have a really cool exhibit on the Mediterranean, and a really good outdoor geology museum, plus they didn't charge admission because so much was closed, but it was still disappointing that the main geology museum was closed. Those silly biologists.
The trip back to Salamanca was uneventful, and, because I didn't spend much time at the geology museum, I got home with plenty of time to study for my exams the following week.

The ceiling at the Geologic and Mine Institute of Spain.