In memory of Austin Bice

My deepest condolences to Austin Bice’s family. I personally do not know Austin but some of my friends in my Spanish class personally knew the deceased. A few days back I saw one my roommate liking a facebook page that was about Austin Bice. Austin is a senior is San Deigo State University. He was in Madrid since January of 2011 to participate in a semester long Spanish program with University of Carlos III. 11 days ago, he went missing and was last seen outside the club of Sala La Riviera. Austin and a few friends pre-gamed before heading out to the club. However, upon arriving at the club, he decided to walk back to his host family home because he was not feeling well. However, nobody saw him until 11 days later when the Madrid authorities found his body at the riverbank of Manzanares River not far away from the club he was last seen. Initial investigation shows no signs of foul play and that he could have just fallen into the river. It is such a tragic event but I prayer and hope that the students of SDSU and the Bice family would have the courage to be strong in these trying times.

I was emotionally affected upon hearing the news and this made me wonder about the significance of one existence in this world and how fragile life is. One would never know when death is around the corner. However, should we let the fear of death paralyze the richness of life? Would you let the fear of death stopping one to experience and take risks in life in order to get the most out of it? Since if there is life, death is bound to happen. I guess life is too short not to experience life itself.

Once again, my deepest condolences and prayers to Austin Bice’s family.

For more news about this tragic event:

http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/missing-us-student-found-864572.html
http://www.aolnews.com/2011/03/08/body-of-us-student-missing-in-spain-found-in-river/
http://www.examiner.com/news-analysis-in-national/austin-bice-search-intensifies-madrid

Salamanca 2/2

the adventure continues...

We visited the Cathedral of Salamanca. This is the only cathedral that allowed us to take photos. Definitely a beautiful cathedral but I must say that the cathedral at the monastery in El Escorial is way more beautiful compared to the Cathedral in Salamanca. For more pics of the cathedral of Salamanca you can visit www.flickr.com/jordanncheng and look for the album entitled Salamanca.

This is a photo of a group of friends who were extremely happy when I took their photo. They were obviously slightly drunk but they were very friendly and inviting, unlike some of the other people that I have encountered while taking pictures of the various activities in Salamanca.

This time round, I was fortunate to be able to visit the oldest university in Spain, the University of Salamanca. I was told that initially, the University of Salamanca was the second oldest university in Spain being younger by a couple of years of another university. However, when the other university ceased operation, the University of Salamanca became the oldest university in Spain and it is currently the 4^th oldest university in Europe.

This is a church inside the university itself.

This is the library of the University of Salamanca. It looks kind of old and exotic.

A confused face? Well, I am sure the Spaniards would be confuse as well. The signage in front of the university's library is Antigua Liberia, which means old bookstore. The word for library in Spanish is biblioteca. It is a mistake that should not happen especially in such a famous university in Spain. In order to get to find the underlying cause of this misprint, I asked my tour guide. I was told that the original word for library is liberia, but then in the 18th century, Spain decided to replace the liberia with biblioteca. I guess University of Salamanca did not want to change liberia to biblioteca in order to preserve a part of the Spanish history.

Another thing about Salamanca is that being a university city, the drinks and nightlife is amazing. There are ridiculous offer such as 3 Euros for 5 shots, or 1 Euro for absinth and 1.70 Euro for absinth with hash. It was only the second time that I partied hard with my roommate Ryan. As you have expected all of us drank a good amount of alcohol. I must say that the clubs/bars in Salamanca are much better compared to the ones in Madrid. They play better music and the atmosphere is slightly better.

A shot with my roommate Ryan and Grace. ( I can afford to keep taking shots is because it only cost 3 euros for 5 shots. Now this is cheap!)

I have noticed that clubs in Spain in general, girls would usually dance with themselves and boys would dance with themselves. There is no grinding of whatsoever. It is boring and hardly interesting because when you dance with the opposite sex in a club, it is expected that there is “other activity” lined up after clubbing. Due to these sort of understanding, girls usually would refuse an invitation to dance if they are not in other late night activity after clubbing. What a huge turn off. When I am in a club, I would like to dance with different people just to be able to sweat it out on the dance floor and not expect more like other night activity in bed. America, I miss you even more NOW!!!!!!!!

The night scene. It is a fiesta in Salamanca.

This photo was taken around 2.30am in the morning. The party just started!!!

One thing good about the clubs in Salamanca is that there is no cover charge. It makes it much easier to club hop if the music is not to your liking.

Other than the nightlife, the night view of Salamanca is spectacular as well..

Salamanca 1/2

It always feels good to be in a place that you are familiar. I was extremely excited when I was visited Salamanca for the second time with ISA. The excitement, the good memories that I had when I was in Salamanca back in 2009 felt as though I am meeting my first love once again after a very very long time. Hoping to relive the fond memories that I had experienced in the past, I was eager to party harder than never before.

Salamanca’s Plaza Mayor is one of the most beautiful plaza mayor in Spain and possibly of the most beautiful plaza mayor in Europe as well. This trip to Salamanca was slightly different. As usual, the tours were in Spanish but it did not bother me because for the most part, I have heard the tour in English. Therefore, this time round, I had time to take more photos and took the opportunity to inspect the buildings and artifacts in much more detail.

Plaza Mayor just before night time.

Another view of the clock tower at Plaza Mayor de Salamanca

Just right after a quick shower when the sky started to clear before it went back to being cloudy and moody.

I have to admit that we were not that lucky because for the past couple of days during our visit to Salamanca, it was raining and the entire place was wet and soggy. There were very few people in Plaza de Mayor because of the rain and the cold weather. However, I was lucky to have came across this group of people:

While I was in Plaza de Mayor, I heard a group of rowdy group of people walking towards my way. It seems that some of them were drunk. I had no idea what was going on but i just pointed my camera towards them and took a few shoots of them.

Later on, this group of people started calling me chino! chino! They did not even ask me politely but acted as though it was my duty as the camera man because I had a DSLR. I helped took a photo and later asked them what was the occasion. Well, their friend in red is a bull fighter and they are celebrating his victory. I could not understand what sort of victory that they were celebrating due to my limited vocab but it was great having a noisy drunk group once in awhile to lighten things at Plaza Mayor.

When I was there in 2009, it was around mid-March and it was most probably much warmer compared to this time round. I never like the rain, it is spoils everything. It could be nice having the reflection but somehow it gives me the impression of being depressed and moody. I guess the mood is translated to the dressing style of the youth of Salamanca. In 2009, when I visited Salamanca, there were hardly any youth dressed up in punk outfit. However, 2 years later, I guess it became popular with the Spaniards in Salamanca to dress and act like a punk.

The girls were posing not for me, but for her photographer friend. I saw it and somehow like the entire punkish feel to it.

This is the style of dressing of college students in Salamanca. It is punk style. I wonder how did it spread to Salamanca?

Funky color hair and hairstyles.. Are they try to emulate the Americans? If they are, I must say they are 20 years behind because it looks like the style of teenage Americans back in the 90s.

to be continue...

2011.02.18 El Escorial 2/2

Continue..

Another important attraction to the cathedral is the Pantheon of Kings. I was lucky to be able to view the Pantheon of the Kings, which is 11 meters below the beautifully built cathedral in the monastery. On the left side in the Pantheon of Kings are the coffins of the queens and on the right side are the kings. All of the coffins are about 5 feet in length and it would make one wonder were the Kings and Queens of Spain that short. The people were kind of short back in those days but the bodies of the kings and queens were stored in another place until the bodies were fully decomposed which takes around 50 years. The remains of the decomposed body are then placed in an urn and stored in the coffins located at the Pantheon of the Kings.

The pathway to the Pantheon of the Kings.

A close up of the coffins.

The chandelier is 300kgs, I wonder is it made out of solid gold?

When we were done seeing the monastery, we walked to the park and the view was just amazing. Clear blue sky welcoming us with a sun rays and a light cool breeze. It was raining the past week and this is definitely a pleasant way of spending the weekend under the sun.

In my opinion, the cathedral in El Escorial is by far the most beautiful cathedral that I have ever visited in Spain. I really enjoyed the visit to El Escorial and I definitely had a wonderful lunch. I ate an almost 2-foot long tortilla sandwich for only 4 Euros and it was delicious.

The bocadilla tortilla was moist and huge. Almost 2 feet long. Behind the sandwich is the waiter who served me.

While waiting for our bus to Salamanca, I took these two photos which I think it is kind of interesting.

The two guys who were sitting on the stairs were kind of inviting. Somehow wanting me to take a photo of them, however, their friend was kind of loud and was shouting at me, I presume he was telling me not to take his photo. hahahaha.. But it definitely looks like a photo for urban wear or similar brands.


I was right above him when I captured the photo. I thought of make it black and white. But due to the dirtiness of the floor that was slightly distracting, I kept it as it is.

Well, I am off to Salamanca. Cant wait to share with you my adventures in that city.