Today, nine of us went to Avila. It’s a small town about an hour and a half away that was the birth place of Saint Teresa and also has the oldest preserved fortress walls in all of Spain.
The walls enclose the entire city, and they were used during the Roman era as security against invaders. The day was so much fun, and everyone who went made me laugh the most I’ve laughed since I’ve been here. When we got off the bus around noon, we sat in the freezing cold bus station to eat our bocadillos, or sandwiches that all our Spanish madres made. Avila is at a higher altitude, so there was a good amount of snow on the ground. As we were approaching the city on the bus, we could see people sledding down the hills around the walls. I don’t know why, but it surprised me that they sled here. People don’t often goof around in public, and I never see a head nod or customary smile on the street. So to see grown-ups sliding down snow-covered hills on plastic circles was odd for me.
Anyway, once we got into the city walls, we flashed our International Student ID cards and got a discounted ticket to walk up the stairs onto the tops of the walls, which are called Las Murallas. We walked on tops of the murallas, which I can only describe as the great wall of China only MUCH MUCH smaller.
But it was the same idea. After walking on the walls, we wanted to go through town and see what kind of shopping they had, but of COURSE it was at 2:00 when all of the Iberian peninsula shuts down, so nothing was open. By the time we realized there was nowhere to go, we were all thoroughly frozen, and went on a quest for yemas. Yemas, second to Saint Teresa, is what Avila is famous for. Supposedly made by the nuns of the Convent of Saint Teresa, yemas are candied egg yolks rolled around in sugar. Every bar and pastry shop had the word “YEMAS” on their signs, so we figured we had to try them. We found a cute little pastry shoppe with some tables, so I ordered a box of 12 yemas and everyone else got some sort of sweet. I don’t know why Avila is famous for yemas. They are gross. I mean, I don’t know what I expected candied egg yolks to be…but they were just gooey yellow sugar balls. They didn’t taste like anything but the texture was like a gritty banana. However, the pastry shoppes other goodies more than made up for it, and we sat there for an hour savoring the amazing chocolate cakes.
After siesta was over, we went to the Museo de Santa Teresa, which is under her Convent. The Museum is full of paintings, statues, and writings of Saint Teresa. Her writings are famous the world over, and all of Avila has her face on their doors.
We read in a guide book that her dedo, or ring finger, has been preserved and is on display with a huge emerald ring on it, and that it is somewhere in the gift shop and relics exhibit next to the convent. We wanted so badly to see it, but couldn’t find it in the relics room. Just as we were about to leave, I checked one more time in a glass case of what looked like ancient knick knacks, and I realized I had found it. I found the dedo! And it was so disgusting let me tell you! It looked like it was falling apart, but to keep the ring on straight they glued little feathers into where the bone had fallen away. And it had to be 7 inches long. There is no way that it belonged to a little woman in the 1500s. Ewe w ewwww.
And just our luck! Right next to it in the very same glass case were some of St. John’s bones. They looked like arrowheads chipped from granite. I have no idea why anyone would want a finger or a random bone from a saint after 500 years. It was just so nasty. But apparently preserving the body parts of Saints is a common practice in Catholicism, so maybe one day I’ll go on a Saint Parts scavenger hunt around Europe.
As the sun started to go down, almost the whole city fell into shadows because it’s so compact within the city walls that all the buildings to so high. It was below freezing, so our group chased the sun to the western edge of the city and sat beyond the walls to watch the sun set. We also managed to take 500 pictures in that last hour. Most of them are dumb goofing around pictures, but it was fun nonetheless.
The greatest part of the day happened after we got back to Salamanca. Hannah and I, set on eating Mexican food, managed to convince 3 people from our Avila tour group to come to dinner with us at a Mexican restaurant that we had found right off the plaza. We had the BEST dinner ever, especially because I’m getting tired of the same flavors and ingredients and cooking styles day in and day out. It was like a fiesta in my mouth! It is very difficult explain why that was such an amazing meal. It just was.
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