Forewarned is…

First things first, my hornozo meal last night was not a total success. The hornozo was just to much dry bread to be really good – it wasn’t bad, but I’ll chalk that one up to experience. The marzipan was a winner though!

Partly to compensate for the hornozo meal and partly because I had a tough morning of Spanish grammar, I went to a local wine bar for lunch. I had an ensalada de queso de cabra, which really is god’s gift to salads, accompanied by an excellent local wine suggested by the waiter. The waiter and I wrestled over languages as he insisted on lobbing questions in English and I consistently responded in Spanish – it was a bit disconcerting, but we each seemed to understand the other, so maybe language learning was the winner on the day.

After lunch I had to deal with some practical matters (getting rid of rubbish, getting washing powder, fun stuff like that) and cruised through them in Spanish which restored my bruised confidence somewhat.

My afternoon outing for today was a visit to the Cathedral. Salamanca actually has two cathedrals joined at the hip – the ‘old’ one and the ‘new’ one; although the ‘new’ one is only new in comparison to the old one. The old one is a bit smaller, a bit plainer and a lot more Romanesque. The new one is huge, lavish, and gothic. The new one is undeniably beautiful.

However the little thing that really grabbed by attention was someone’s arm displayed in a glass case. Specifically Julian Rodriguez arm – he was killed in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War. And his forearm just sits there on display. I just find it perplexing that a supposedly modern religion goes about displaying people’s arms in glass boxes. I mean, really?