Week 12

Hello,

It is Monday 11th December today which means I have just 4 days left until I go home for Christmas for three weeks!

Last week was probably the busiest week since I've been here - we only had classes at university on Monday and Tuesday so we had the rest of the week off! There were two religious days on Wednesday and Friday, so all the shops and supermarkets closed - we had to make sure we were stocked up on Tuesday, haha!

Monday was the quietest day as we had a few classes at uni so we were going back and forth to there - in the evening, Callum came round to watch Elf which was nice, so we had a chilled night in. On Tuesday we met our Irish friends at the café for a coffee, went to the shops to do a bit of shopping, and went to uni. After that we all went to book train tickets for our Salamanca trip on Thursday.

On Wednesday we all went to a really cute café just past the Plaza Mayor, and they did really nice coffees and pastries etc. They had a really cute autumnal tree in the corner with little decorations on - it was such a cold day it was ridiculous - I had been out in the morning and it was snowing very lightly it was so cold! The temperature was in the minus figures all day! We got the bus at around 5 to the ice rink which is on the outskirts of the city centre. When we first got there we weren't sure we had come to the right place as it was in a really weird location within the building we were at, but we found it eventually and had a really great time. Me and Aine spent the first 20 minutes clinging onto the side of the rink, but we managed to skate round without holding on by the end! I hadn't been ice skating for years so it was really fun.

On Thursday, we went to Salamanca - me, Niamh, Aine and Nathan got to the train station on time, and were waiting for Callum. This is no exaggeration, he walked onto the train with 10 seconds to spare!! We genuinely thought he wasn't going to make it! We had a really lovely day - we went for coffee and food a lot, haha, and walked around the city. We found a really nice spot by the river with the cathedral in the background, so we took some pictures there. There was also a Christmas market by the cathedral selling food, frames, gifts etc., so it was nice to see all of that too. When we got home, everyone came back to ours for a bit so that was lovely too.

Friday was quite quiet in the daytime - I spent it doing work, watching TV and doing housework etc. Niamh and I went for a drink at 10y10 and then we all had a sleepover at Nathan's as most of his flatmates had gone away. We watched Harry Potter, played card games etc., so it was a really good night. Then on Saturday we went for a coffee and then walked to the science museum. It was nice to go and look round - they had a room where you had to stand by this big screen, press a button and then wait whilst this light was shining on the screen. When it went dark it left your shadow on the wall.

On Sunday we met for coffee in the afternoon, and then decided to go to the Igloo place where there was an ice rink. When we got there we were about to miss that hour of skating, and we didn't have cash on us so we decided to go and get something to eat first and then go back to the next session. In the end, we decided to postpone the ice skating until Tuesday, but we went for a really nice meal at an Italian restaurant. Then everyone came back to ours - so we've had a really busy week!

This week will be busy too, as we have birthday celebrations and uni etc. before we go home. I'm really excited to go home for Christmas, but I will soon be back in Spain.

xx