During the first week of the October Half term, thirteen Sixth Form Spanish students travelled to Salamanca for a week of Spanish lessons and cultural visits. We stayed in the university residence, where we had our breakfast and lunches, and were able to meet university students and practise our Spanish. In the evenings we ate out in Salamanca, sampling lots of tapas and regional food.
Each morning we had four hours of lessons at Salminter Language School, and in the afternoons we visited cultural highlights, including tours of the historic buildings of Zamora, the Garden of Calixto and Melibea, which inspired Fernando de Rojas’s La Celestina, a literary tour on the origin of the picaresque novel El Lazarillo de Tormes, Salamanca’s cathedrals and museums, and the famous university buildings.
Along with a trip to the cinema, we had cooking lessons in a local bar where we learnt how to make paella, tapas and sangria, and had salsa lessons. This was hilariously fun, and everyone enjoyed it so much that a Salsa Vol at School was proposed.
After a very busy week, on the last day some of us still had energy to join a public debate in the famous La Casa de las Conchas.
Frankie Hooper (L)
