El Escorial y Valle De Los Caidos

This weekend was the weekend that we were scheduled to El Escorial and Valle de los Caidos, so that’s what we did! We were supposed to be at the bus at 9, and this time we weren’t helping the Shumway army (there were even more of them this week, the mom’s family was visiting, so that added another like 7 people.) Me and Paige figured we would avoid the stampede towards the bus and just get there on our own. So we actually got there early and got PRIME seats on the bus, and we finally headed out at like 9:15 or so. The ride wasn’t that long, but I was in one of those moods where I just did NOT want to be riding on a bus at all, so I was a little bit like a 3 year old always asking “are we there yet?!” but its alright because that was the mood that the girl sitting next to me was in too, so we sat there in misery together! But after what seemed like an eternity, we pulled into the small parking lot of the Valle De Los Caidos (Valley of the Fallen) and got off the bus. This place was built only like 50 or so years ago by Franco (the last dictator of Spain- its argued both ways that he was good and bad) as a memorial to those who fell in the civil war. Some of us think it was more like a memorial to himself, because only him and his general are actually buried inside the basilica, but it could go both ways. It is the second largest basilica in the world, only because there is a law that says that no basilica can be bigger than that of St. Peters Basilica, so they didn’t dedicate the front half of it, so technically it’s the largest in size, but not the area that is dedicated. And another cool fact, it’s built into a mountain so all you can really see is the entrance and some pillars and such on the outside of the mountain. We got there right when they were holding mass so we weren’t allowed to go in and tour while this was taking place, obviously, so some people went in to attend mass and the rest of us stayed outside taking pictures and playing random girls camp games (good ol’ girls camp!) until mass was over and then we could go inside and see everything! Its huge! Its basically this one long hall that leads to the area when mass is held, with one big cross with Christ on it that is lighted in the center of the round room. There are big statutes on the side or the mass room that are big hooded figures and are kinda creepy, but the ceiling makes up for all the weirdness that the statutes bring! It’s a mosaic done with tiles and its gorgeous! I would have a picture but they weren’t allowed and I was not in such a rebellious, take a picture anyways mood, so… I am waiting to get pictures from those who were! Haha! The rooms on the side are separate worshiping areas with their own statutes and benches, and have some GREAT acoustics in there! Katelyn asked me to hum something in there for her, so I sat down and starting humming “Abide With Me, ‘Tis Even Tide”, my favorite hymn. And then after that we just kept humming hymns till some people came in and started praying. We figured this was our cue to stop humming our Mormon music and leave these people to do their thing! So we went to the other side and did the same thing till more people came and started praying. By that time it was about time to leave. There is also one of the biggest crosses that I have ever seen that is on top of the mountain that the basilica is built into! It’s made of stone and I think its somewhere around 500 feet tall! There are also statutes around the bottom of it that are bigger than any statute I have ever seen either! We weren’t able to go right up to it because the tram that goes to it is broken, so we were forced to admire it from a far, but it was still pretty grand to look at!
After that we had to leave to make it to our appointment at El Escorial, which is a palace that Phillip II built for himself about 500 years ago. It put him into debt, if I remember correctly, because it was so huge and expensive, and he had tons of other things he was supposed to be funding, like wars. Anyways… I don’t know why we ever have “appointments” to go places, we are never there for them, but we entered the palace around 3, and had till 5:30 to meet back at the bus. But it was not enough time to see everything! I think we lost a bit of time because we got lost and couldn’t figure out where we were for a while, all the halls look the same, but once we got oriented we were able to complete the tour, with one of the largest old libraries kept by one person, and all the books are stored with their spines to the wall, to protect them, which seems weird to me. You would think that you would want to preserve the pages of the books, but… to each his own! I think we should go there when you guys come! It’s pretty cool! So after getting lost in the building and wandering aimlessly for a while around till I think we saw just about everything except for the gardens, we went back to the bus. Professor Shumway thought it would be a good idea to go see a castle that was a bit out of the way for a photo op, so that’s what we did! The castle was actually pretty cool, unfortunately it was closed when we got there so we couldn’t go inside, but we got some good shots from the outside! Its what you picture when you think castle, with the tall towers with flags flying and the big, wooden gate in the front and the works! Some of the boys got kicked off the grounds for trying to forge the castle and scale the walls, including 2 of the professor’s sons, so we left pretty quickly after that, and drove the rest of the way home!

Walking around Madrid

It's been a pretty normal week, nothing too exciting! We did go and do a couple “walks” around Madrid for our Madrid Walks class, and one on them we did in the rain! It was pretty intense to be walking around in the rain, trying to see these places that are supposed to be super cool all while trying to stay dry underneath my bright orange Xango umbrella! On the subject of the umbrella, I was walking down the street on my way to school the other day with my neon water protector and this guy actually came up to me, and told me that he LOVED my umbrella, then walked away kinda giggling. It made my day! Haha! Anyways… back to the walk! On the first one in the downpour (alright so it wasn’t really a downpour but it made it sound better, haha. To my defense tho, by the end of the walk there were streams of water running down all the roads and my pants were wet almost up to my knees, so it seemed like a downpour from where I was standing!) It was called “Medieval Madrid”, and although I didn’t really get the medieval feel from anywhere that we walked, it was cool! We saw some nice buildings and historical sites, including the world’s oldest and longest operating restaurant! I was tempted to eat there just to say that I have, but then I saw the prices and quickly changed my mind! It was like $25 a plate! I guess they think that if they are in the Guiness Book of World Records that means that they can charge whatever they want! So… I passed that opportunity and headed to another street, and it is known as something like the marriage street or something, because according to legend, you had to walk down this street and then you would be eligible to get married! (Really its because this street is where they issued the marriage licenses, but now its just a fun tradition!) So, I guess now I am eligible! Haha! Woot! The other walk was kinda lame, it was called the Museum Walk, or something like that, and all we did was walk around and see different buildings that house museums. We didn’t go IN the museum, which would have seemed logical to me because most of the time the outside of the museum looks just like any other building that you would pass on the street, but hey, at least now I know where they are so I can avoid an “I don’t know where the museum is” crisis! Not that I would really ever have one of those, but just in case! After doing the walk we were all kinda in a museum mood, so we found a museum for the blind and went to that! It was cool because it was a bunch of art pieces and miniatures of buildings that you could touch! So there were about 10 of us fully able to see (with the help of glasses and such, technology is wonderful!!!) walking around this museum touching everything. It was cool!

Segovia

We got on the bus the morning of the 15th and drove for about an hour before we got to Segovia, and our first view of the city was from a place where the bus pulled over and you could see the Alcazar de Segovia from below. Apparently this is the building that Walt Disney designed Cinderella's castle after, so they look a lot alike, and it’s gorgeous! We also walked around in the forests that are by the little pull over place, then got back on the bus, which took us another like 5 minutes to the outside of the city, where we then got out of the bus to walk to the inside of the city.
It seems like just about every city that we go to has quite the climb to actually get to it and this one was no different. We walked up the streets, following our fearless leader, who really had no idea where he was going either, but finally found the main plaza where the Cathedral was, and we still had about half and hour till we were supposed to be at the Alcazar for appointment to go in. And seeing as we didn't know where the Alcazar was yet, that was just the right amount of time to wander in the direction that we thought it would be, and eventually find it! The group sat outside for a while eating our packed lunches until they were ready for us to come in, and this is the first Alcazar that I have seen that has a mote around it! It was empty, but it was still really cool to see how deep it was and kind of picture what this would have been like when it was actually in use. When we got inside the palace whose outside was the inspiration for Cinderella's palace, remember, it was kind of disappointing, especially compared to the other places that we have been. Lots of it was under construction so we couldn't go to the second floor or out onto the balconies, but the rooms were gorgeous and the ceilings were very ornate and most of them done in gold, and then some other color to accent it. It took us about 20 minutes to go through the whole thing, and then we still had a good hour and a half until the group was meeting to go to the Cathedral. So... we walked through it again, taking random pictures with the armor that was on the wall and cannons and such, then we met these young French children who were there, too, and they were playing some game with their feet, its hard to explain, but they would jump and knock their feet together in this cool pattern and it looked really fun, so for a while we watched them intently and tried to learn the art of this game, then we jumped around pretending to know what we were doing when really nothing we were doing was the same as them, but at least we were trying!
After just chilling in the patio area of the Alcazar for a while, we rounded everyone up and walked back up the street to the Cathedral in Segovia. This one on the outside looked kind of like the sand castles that we would build in Mexico, the dribble castles. Obviously there was a little more structure to the building, but there were certain parts that definitely resembled the dribble castles! On the inside, it was a lot like the other cathedrals with different areas on the sides where you can go to worship, but usually there are big gate like things in front of them so that you can’t enter, just enjoy the splendor of the room from the outside, but here, some of the gates were open! So you could just walk right in and see what’s going on in the otherwise forbidden rooms! I felt a little rebellious walking onto one of them and apparently so did others! When me and Cassi walked by one of the rooms, Paige was just walking in, but she was walking like she wasn’t supposed to be in there, but was going to anyways, but being really sneaky about it. She was all hunched over, walking really slow (like 1 step every couple of seconds slow), holding her pamphlet really close to her and looking around the room with a really guilty look on her face. When we saw her, we just had to stop and laugh because it looked so funny, we were literally about to fall on the floor we were laughing so hard!
When we finally gathered ourselves after that, we finished the tour of the cathedral complete with a courtyard and museum area, then took off to go find the aqueducts. This city had some of the oldest functioning Roman aqueducts in the world, over 2000 years old! So this was one of those have to see things. But I think that we took the longest way that we possibly could have to get there because it took us forever, trying to follow the street signs to get there, and when we finally made it there, the rest of our group, who were planning on leaving a while after us, were just getting there too. But it was so worth the journey! It was amazing! These things are in the middle of the city, towering over everything that is around it. And so gorgeous, they are made out of stone, and I am sure that there’s something holding them together, but I don’t know what it was and you couldn’t really see it all that well. It was really cool to see history though! The aqueducts haven’t been redone or anything, they are exactly the way that they were 2000 years ago and still working!
After taking in the sight of the aqueducts, we walked around the city for a bit more, and then got back on the bus to take us to a small city about an hour outside of Segovia called Pedraza. I guess this too is a really old city, not much has been done to the buildings to modernize them, so just about everything there is antique! We got there kind of late, so we had enough time to walk through and around the city a few times (its really small), go and see the old castle that is right outside the city walls, and then it got dark. It was kind of creepy though, when we got to the city nobody was outside. Literally there was not one single person in the streets, the stores were closed, there was nothing going on! So it was almost like walking through an old abandoned Spanish ghost town! But once it started getting a little darker, people were done with siesta and came out of the buildings and were walking around, so it was a little better. When it got dark, some people chose to take the 15 Euros that the program had to offer each person to go and get a discounted dinner of roast suckling pig and lamb (and you still had to pay an extra 13 Euro), but I chose to put mine to better use and put it towards a trip to Valencia to go and see Las Fayas. So me and a couple other girls headed back to the bus, ate some bread, and talked. It was actually pretty fun! But once everyone was done eating we headed back to Alcala! It was a good day!

End of Granada and Going Home

We weren’t actually leaving till 1 in the afternoon, we after waking up, packing and eating another really good breakfast (it rivaled the hotel in Seville, but didn’t quite make it to my #1 favorite breakfast, even though they do have my new favorite cereal) we headed down to the market! It was quite the walk and I wasn’t really planning on exerting myself that much that day, but it was alright. The market was little and again reminded me a lot of the market in Mexico. And while we were shopping there was this guy that told me that I was beautiful, and wanted to talk to me and have me sit down next to him, because I must have been really tired from partying that night before (all in Spanish, he was one of the merchants). So I promptly ran away into another store and kept my distance from the market after that.
Also, while we were shopping, there were some very loud tourists that were obviously from the South, speaking with the really thick accent. And while we were walking by them, this one very large (by large I mean like really tall and hefty, not fat, just BIG) man said something, and Missy the girl I was with, thought it would be funny to repeat it to me while we were walking to sit down on a bench. So she did, but unfortunately she said it loud enough that not only I could hear it but so could just about everyone else that was around us, so by the time that we were sitting on the bench the entire table of southerners had stopped their boisterous conversation and were looking right at me and Missy sitting on a bench. I was completely oblivious to this until Missy told me to look over and see if they were still looking at us. They were, and she started freaking out. Luckily right at that time, a large group of people decided to walk in front of us, so we quickly stood up and walked right into the middle of them and to the other side of the plaza to “look at the flowers”. While Missy was “admiring the flores”, I turned around to see what the people who had previously been staring at us were doing, and they had stood up at their table and were looking around for us, and were moving quickly! So… we in turn had to act quickly, and walked as quickly as we could, without drawing too much attention, to the south end of the plaza, all while I was trying to shed my jacket so that I wouldn’t be as easy to recognize, because I was guilty by association! When we got there we hid behind a little model of a carousel to stay out of view. By this time, the big southern man was walking around by the flower place that we were just at, so we took this as our cue to run into the store that was across the sidewalk and straight into the back of it. I was laughing so hard at this whole situation that I could barely control myself when Missy put her long hair into a pony tail and then put her hood over her head so that then she, too, would not be as recognizable. When we finally made our way to the front of the store, the big man was nowhere to be seen, so we again walked quickly and inconspicuously down the side walk into a really touristy store, where we grabbed our other friends who were looking at fans, and took off! It was pretty intense! But we escaped, able to live another day! After that, we had just about had enough of Granada, so we caught a bus back to the hotel, and loaded onto the bus to go home. We had a 6 or 7 hour bus ride home, but the bus driver was kind enough to take a little detour and stop at some windmills out in the middle of nowhere. I guess they are the windmills that inspired a chapter in the book “Don Quixote” by Cervantes (who was born in the town where I live right now, fun fact). It was cool to see those, but it was really windy and cold, which would explain why they chose to put windmills there, so we didn’t stay too long. After that, it was just a bus full of tired students and bored professor’s children for 5 hours till we got home that night! Yet another good day in Spain!

Granada

We woke up that morning in Cordoba and had a nice little breakfast of a HUGE roll and jam, with juice and hot chocolate, then a bunch of people decided to go to the Alcazar that was there, because of Fridays it’s free, so we headed over to check that out! This is one of the many places that Columbus when to present his ideas to Ferdinand and Isabella so that he could go to America. You walk into the building first, past some kind of intimidating security guards, and walk into a hall, that was alright, just kinda white with displays of random things. But upon more wandering through the halls, we found stairs that took us to the top of the wall that surrounded the Alcazar. That was really cool, you could see a lot of Cordoba, not quite as grand as the tower in Seville, but it was still nice! There was another set of stairs at one end of the wall that lead to a watch tower with an even better view. That is if you want to put your life of the line and walk up those stairs! They were the spiral kinds of stairs and each step was really skinny with barely enough room to put one foot. I am glad to report that I am the brave, risk taking kind of girl and scaled the stairs, even tho it was pretty intense, but it wasn’t as grand of a view as I had hopped. But hey, it was a view all the same! What I really liked about this place was the gardens. When we got down the stairs of death and back through the bland halls, you walk out into the gardens and its like a whole new world! And these gardens were even better than the ones in Seville! You walk out onto a big patio with a little built in pond, with a trickle of water flowing down the wall to the side and into the pond, that is surrounded by moss (the kind that looks good) and flowers. Then when you reach the end of that patio, just below it is another one, that is even more beautiful, and then after that, just slightly lower is a longer pool, surrounded by trees and flowers with little streams of water shooting out of the sides of the pond and crossing in the middle, if that even makes sense. Then on the one side of that, there is a small patch of trees with a path running through them, and on the other side of the long pond is yet another amazing garden! So some people took fake engagement pictures, and the rest of us just took regular pictures and enjoyed the scenery.
When we were done with that, we went to a street in Cordoba that is famous. It’s called Calle de los Flores, and on the walls there are flower pots and its gorgeous, and when you walk down the street and get to the little patio area at the end, you are able to take a picture of this gorgeous street, with the tower of the Mezquita in the background, its gorgeous! So we took pictures there, sat by the fountain and ate a pastry, then went back to the hotel to check out and get back on the bus to go to Granada.
It was another pretty long drive to get there, so we all read our books and talked to people till we arrived. The thing in Granada that is big is the Alhambra. And luckily enough, our hotel was right across the street from this place! So the bus pulled into the bus parking and we unloaded and walked right into our hotel and after checking in, we had about 45 minutes until we had our appointment for the Alhambra. So a few of us thought that we had time to go and grab some lunch at a little restaurant down the street, which turned out to be a stupid idea. Spanish service is not quite as prompt and caring as they are in the states (probably because they just add the tip into the check everywhere you go), so after waiting for a while they finally sat us, and then left. We all already knew what we wanted, so when they brought us the menus and we tried to tell them that we were ready, they just kinda looked at us and then walked away. It then took us a good 15 or so minutes to get someone to come over and talk to us, and after telling them that we were in a slight hurry (because we now only had 20 minutes) we ordered sandwiches (bocadillo de patata España, I’ll explain what it is another time, but its amazing!) and a couple soups, and then didn’t see the waiter again. So we waited, and waited, and kept trying to flag people down to check and see what’s going on, and with about 5 minutes until we were supposed to be meeting to leave, they brought the soup out to two of the girls, then a couple minutes later they brought out the rest of our sandwiches, and luckily the check. So we threw some money on the table, some of the girls were able to finish their sandwiches, but I decided that I wanted to save half of mine, so while everyone else was running out the door, me and Cassi were sitting there, me wrapping my sandwich in napkins to save for later and Cassi trying to finish her soup, when Prof. Shumway shows up in the restaurant, tells us that we are late, gives us our tickets and runs out of the restaurant. The logical thing was obviously to run after him, so I put my sandwich remains in the water bottle pocket of my new bag, and we ran out the door behind our professor and power walked down this long hill because inconveniently the main entrance was closed. Well we got there in time, with time to spare actually, and while we were sitting there doing nothing, I was really wondering what the reasoning behind the power walk was.
Anyways… the Alhambra was the home of many kings and such people, and was actually the last strong hold that the Moors had in Spain before the Christians took over. When we entered, we went into an elaborate room where they held meetings and then through some rooms or queens, coming across a little pool every now and then. There was this one patio area where there was supposed to be a statute of 12 lions in a circle, and when the Moors had control, a lion would spit water out of its mouth every hour, so if it was 1 o’clock, the lion in the 1 o’clock position would spit water and the 2 o’clock lion would spit water at 2 and so on, but when the Christians came they took it apart to see how it worked and never were able to make it work again after that. But this too was under construction, so there was a big opening in the middle of the plaza with a nice picture of what should have been there but wasn’t really. We then walked over to where they would keep the prisoners and saw the dungeons (there was just a couple feet of the walls remaining, but you got the idea), walked up on the wall and into watch towers, and this was probably my favorite part of the whole tour! The view was amazing from anywhere that you stood! You could see the Cathedral from one side, gardens from another, the rest of the castle from another, and then a breathtaking view of the city from another! It was so cool to be there and see! There were more gardens to see after that, and while they were not quite as grand to me as the ones in Cordoba, they were still fabulous! Half of them were actually around the Alhambra itself, and then the other half, you had to walk along this nice path for like 10 minutes to get to. One cool thing about these gardens, tho, is they had water running everywhere in them, whether it was from a fountain or a little stream, there was even this place where the rails by some stairs were made out of rock and had crevices carved into the top of them with water running down those too! But when we reached the top of those stairs, I guess it was time for them to close, because the guards started herding people towards the exits not even letting us stop for 2 seconds to take a picture.
So when they closed the gates right behind us, we headed back to the hotel for the night. Katelyn went to town and actually ended up buying a guitar (no, she doesn’t play… yet. Haha!) which was the entertainment for the rest of the night! Brock, a guy in our group, used to be in some rock band in high school where he played the guitar and was the lead singer, so we sat in someone’s hotel room and sang songs while he played the guitar. It was then that just about everyone in the group found out that I can sing. Haha. Brock started playing a song by Keith Whitley that nobody else know, and so I harmonized with him (very not like me, I know!) and we got quite the applause after it! Haha! It was fun! We ended the night with a song and dance to “Breakfast at Tiffanys” and then went to bed! And yes, it was another amazing day!

Cordoba

We woke up that Wednesday morning and had the same amazing breakfast, and again packed lunch from it, packed our things up, threw them in a conference room so that they would be safe while we hit the streets of Seville again, for some last minute shopping before we left. We wandered around for a while, looking for some tie shop for this one guy in the group, who later ended up ditching us to go and look for pants, so that part of the morning was pretty pointless, but then we went to some really cute shops, and ended up in the middle of this little market that they were having in the Plaza, and I bought myself a bag/purse type thing that I have really been needing to carry my lunch around and reading books or something so that I don’t end up having to hold 3 other people’s stuff and end up climbing to the top of some freaking tall tower again. So now that problem is solved! We all had to meet back at the hotel at 12 so that we could get on the bus that was picking us up, illegally I believe, where other buses stopped at the plaza. So we walked into the plaza and waited for the bus. When it got there was all had to throw our bags under the bus in record time, get into our seats and take off before the officers had time to see what was going on! And then it was off to Cordoba!
The bus dropped us off on the main street of Cordoba and we were then on our own to try and find where our hotel was. We finally found our hotel, which ended up being just up the street from the main attraction of the city, the Mezquita. So we got settled into the hotel and we were all enjoying our stolen lunches when Prof. Shumway ran into the courtyard and said “Alright, we are leaving to go to the Mezquita right now!” That was the quickest I have really seen any of us move all at one time, because we had an appointment to make. So we scrambled out the door and down the street to the Mezquita, which is where me and Paige were supposed to give our little site report/tour thing. When we were done giving the presentation, we got to go and see it! Its is a gorgeous building! It was once a roman temple, but then that was taken over by the moors, who built the Mezquita, and then when the Inquisition happened, the Christians came and put a cathedral in the middle of it, so its kinda a mix of a bunch of different cultures all thrown into one building. The arches are painted red and white and gives the inside a really cool feeling, different than the other places that we have been, and the pillars (there are over 800 of them) are all polished almost black at shoulder height from all the visitors who have come and run their fingers over the pillars! So that part of it was gorgeous! But it was kinda disappointing because the choir, which is supposed to be amazing, was under construction, so we didn’t get to see that, and the bell tower that “hardy travelers” (so says the guide book) can climb, but it was closed down too, so that was pretty lame. But the Patio de los Naranjas here was a lot better than the last one! Maybe just because here is was nice and sunny and warm, like t-shirt weather, so the oranges were all blooming in the trees, and there were fountains and such all throughout the patio, it was really nice.
The rest of the day we decided to get to know Cordoba and go to some of the sites that looked nice on the map, so we started walking to what seemed like, from the map, a really big park/garden area. So we walked for a bit, and no garden, and kept walking, and no garden. We finally stopped and looked at where we were on the map, and apparently we were right by their big park/garden which was not quite as grand as we had hopped. It was just kinda a little grassy area with a few trees. And after seeing the Alcazar in Seville, it was not so great. So… we turned around and walked around the city, singing Celine Dion and Backstreet Boys and some good 8o’s songs to keep ourselves occupied, we found a little ruin of something that we took pictures of, then came to the main bridge of the city that used to be another Roman bridge, but it had been refurbished, so it didn’t look so Roman and authentic anymore, but we walked over that too, then down the boardwalk that ran along the river, and then back! By this time it was dark and getting a bit nippy, so we went back to the hotel, ate dinner from some of the food we bought at a grocery store before we left, then a bunch of us changed into our pj’s and piled at least 20 girls into 1 room, on 3 different beds pushed together and tried to watch a movie. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, and I was really tired so I left a little ways into the movie and went to bed.

Seville

I woke up that morning and got ready and the hotel that we were at was supposed to be serving a continental breakfast, we me and the girls that I was rooming with got all ready for the day and headed down to what we thought was just going to be some hot chocolate and muffins or something because Spaniards are normally not big breakfast people, I have found out. But much to my surprise there was a whole spread of just about everything you could want for breakfast! It was AMAZING!!! Let me list some of the things that I had to choose from: bacon, eggs, meat (like 3 different types) individually wrapped pastries, not wrapped pastries, yogurt, bocadillos(like mini loaves of bread), cheese, fruit, another choice of sliced bread (2 kinds), cereal, juice, fruit, hot chocolate, and there was a toaster to toast anything that your heart desired. I was so happy to see real food for breakfast! So, naturally me and all of the other Americans in the room loaded up on one or more of just about everything that they had and went to town on the first big breakfast that we have been able to have since getting here! There was a small incident where I set my bocadillo on fire while it was in the toaster, but that was taken care of quickly by blowing it out when it came out of the toaster, but besides that the morning was better that I could have ever hoped! I even came away with a lunch that I made with the bocadillo and the several choices of meat and cheese that they had, and an individually wrapped pastry so that I could eat it for lunch! What an amazing place Haha! After breakfast we all met in the lobby and headed for the Cathedral that is in Seville. We wound our way through the streets and got to the Cathedral before it even opened, we were a little excited about it I guess. And while waiting we practically had to beat of the women walking through the streets with little plants that look like weeds telling you your fortune and then demanding money. Ironically, many of the people in our group have the same fate! Haha! But when we finally got inside it was totally worth the wait! It was another beautiful place with the ornate decorations and high vaulted ceilings and gold plated things all over the place. This one is special because this is where they have the bones of Christopher Columbus, inside a little casket carried by 4 people of great importance (I just don’t really remember why they are important right now). That was pretty sweet to see! This Cathedral also had a bell tower that you could climb up to the top of and see the city of Seville from the sky, so we made our way up the 34 ramps that wound around the inside of the tower, which was a little tough for me seeing as I was carrying 3 people’s lunches, water bottles and a couple books in my backpack, but we made it to the top! Good thing I’m so freakin strong! Haha! And the view from the top was absolutely breathtaking!!! You could see everything in the city, and there was a great view of the Patio de Naranjas that the Cathedral had, also. We then went down the ramps, which was a heck of a lot easier than going up, took a group photo, then went across the street to the Alcazar of Seville. This was home to Pedro the King (I don’t know when he was King, but he was sometime) and his 800 women. But now the royal family comes to stay sometimes, when they feel like it I guess. The palace itself was alright, but the gardens were FABULOUS!!! There were so many different gardens with different flowers and fountains and arches covered in ivy to get to the different gardens and trees and cute little stone paths running throughout them. And in the hour and a half that we had there, I think we only made it through about half of them! We sat down on one of the benches and ate our kinda stolen lunches and I think almost all of the ducks that were in the park came and practically attacked us for some bread off of the sandwiches. Literally I had ducks walking on my feet while I was trying to enjoy the gardens around me and my wonderful hotel sandwich. It was pretty crazy! After lunch we decided to explore Seville, so we moseyed through the streets, enjoying the sun, stopped in some stores. It was nice. Later that night we were told that there was room in the program budget to take all of us to a Flamenco Dancing show!!! We were all really excited because Seville is famous for their Flamenco dancing! So once again we all met in the lobby of the hotel and a parade of Americans walked through Seville looking for the club that we were supposed to go to. We took a couple wrong turns but finally made it to the right place! It was a pretty nice place with tables for people who want to pay the big bucks for dinner and a show, but we are not those people so we sat in the rows of chairs that are in front of the tables. We did get drinks with the show, tho, so that was fun. It was kinda funny when all of us, legal to drink in Spain, ordered the only non alcoholic things that they had on the menu. The waitresses looked at us kinda weird as they brought out 40+ juices and waters. The guys that were doing the Flamenco dancing had some super nasty, greasy hair that was long and curly and one guy kept playing with it like it was all hot or something (sick), but there was this one guy that all the girls thought was so cute, and Katelyn, a girl in the group got a picture with him. The dancing was really fun to watch! It’s not the typical dancing, they just move their feet a lot, but its super fun to watch. I have now come to the conclusion the polka-dots are sexy, because that’s what the women in the show wore, and they looked pretty sweet, so my next dress is going to be all big polka-dots! Alright, so maybe they’re not that sexy, but still. After the show we thought that we knew the way home, but really, we had no idea. Haha. Places are so much different in the dark, and when the signs are all in Spanish! So we ended up in some dark part of the city with tiny streets and no signs at all and had to find our way out of that one! All this time Paige was super tired from lack of sleep, and seemed a bit tipsy (if you get my drift); I hope that her pineapple juice wasn’t spiked with Mt. Dew or anything, haha!!! But in the end we made it back to the hotel in one piece! It was a good day!!

Merida

Tuesday morning we woke up early to make it to the Shumway house at 7:30 to see if we could help this time, and we actually were able to help out a lot more this time than the last, and the scene was a lot like the last time with everyone running, pulling bags and children and everything so it was pretty funny, but we all made it to the bus by 8, which is when it was leaving so that was good! Luckily I brought my iPod, because the trip was SUPER long, and it took me a good hour or so to beat this one game of Solitaire which took up some time and then I just did some reading in one of the many, many books we have to read so all in all it was a productive first leg of the trip!
The first place we stopped at is called Merida, which was a really cute town! The bus dropped us off somewhere on the outskirts of the town and then we walked into the town, over an old Roman bridge, that had obviously been touched up a few times, but still it was a fully roman bridge at one point in time. Then we made it to the city and through the winding streets of this little town, but luckily they were slightly more pedestrian friendly than Toledo, so when a car was coming all we had to do was move to the side of the street as opposed to plastering ourselves to the side of buildings and trying to become one with the brick. On our walk we passed a couple of Roman ruins, that had not been touched up, that were pretty cool. One was previously the palace of some famous princess or something like that (so apparently not that famous, haha) and I don’t really remember what the other one was, but it was sure cool to look at them, all falling apart but still gorgeous. When we made it to the Roman museum that we were trying to make it to, we were informed that we had 30 minutes till siesta and then we had to be out, so… 46 of us were speed walking through this museum, trying to take in as much as possible in the half an hour that we had, all while also taking pictures with the people that they had walking around that were dressed up like Roman people. When it was 2, the usher people were literally pushing us down the stairs and out the doors, it was kinda like when we are trying to get the horses into the coral and they don’t want to go, we were trying to slip through the cracks to see the last little bit of history in the museum, and when they got a section cleared, they would slide these huge metal doors closed to keep everyone out. These people are SERIOUS about their siesta time! Kinda inconvenient when you want to do something, but oh so wonderful when you are a bit tired after school. (I actually just got made fun of by the family because I take siestas in the middle of the day. Haha! The mom’s sister is visiting and she was like, “this one can sleep around the clock, she is a very good sleeper!”) And while we were there, someone came up to me and asked me where something was, so that means I look like I know what’s going on! Haha! When siesta was finally done 2 hours later, the park that we had originally come to see opened and we walked in, and after a brief history of the place given to us by some of the students, we roamed around. It was an old Roman amphitheater where gladiators would do their thing, there were still the remains of the places that they would keep the animals before setting them free! It was a little bit too creepy for me to walk into them, but it was an option! Me and this girl named Kari even did a little gladiator run into the stadium that we got on tape, we look super fierce, hair flying in the wind and everything. It’s intense. Then on the other side of that amphitheater, there was the remains of a Roman theater, where you could either just exit the amphitheater and walk to it, or take the underground tunnel that connected them. This is where they would do plays and such, so instead of a big bowl shape like the gladiator place, this was a circle, half with the step seats (you could totally tell a difference in the good seats and then the nose bleed seats quality) and the other half a raised stage with the remains of statutes and pillars and such behind it. It was really cool to see the actual statutes, instead of casts of them like you normally see in museums. We all sat on the front of the stage and got a picture of all 46 of us in front of the Roman remains.
After that we walked back through the city, over the re-done Roman Bridge, and piled back onto the bus and headed for Seville. We got there around 9, checked into the hotel and then went out to dinner at a cute little pizza place in the middle of the city. On our way back to the hotel, we saw the weirdest thing, and it’s pretty hard to explain, so bear with me. Right outside of our hotel there was a little synagogue place, and outside of it there was some sort of ceremony going on. There was this big, almost table like thing with tons of people underneath it holding it off the ground, and the table was draped with a blue cloth, and you could tell that there was something under the cloth, but on the table. Then there were speakers on the cloth and this weird, but happy music playing, while the people underneath were bouncing and walking and other people with turbans followed them. It was probably the weirdest thing I have ever seen! We tried asking the guy at the counter what was going on, and with our broken Spanish and his lack of English we got nothing accomplished, and ended up giving up and going to bed not knowing what was going on outside. Haha.

(More pictures will be coming later! No worries!)

Carnival!!!

So this weekend was pretty fun! Well… Saturday night was pretty fun! We spent the day relaxing and doing more of our mounds of reading and homework, well what we could get done between like 12, which was about the time that I was awake and ready for the day and about 3 because that’s when almuerzo was, and then we had to leave.
We met everyone at the train station at 4, and it was a pretty big group at first! But since the meeting time was at 4, along with Mormon standard time and the slower paced Spanish lifestyle, everyone started coming around 4:10 or so, and the train was leaving at 4:14. So there were a few of us that decided that we didn’t want to wait for the 4:45 train and took off running just in time to jump on the earlier train and made our way up to Madrid for the Carnival! I guess this weekend was Lent, or sometimes this coming week, where the Catholic people are supposed to give up something and this is their opportunity to party it up before that, so we just joined in the festivities! We made it there around 5 and still had 2 hours till the parade started, so first we went to a store that apparently had a sweet deal on some soccer jerseys (I didn’t but one, I don’t think I would ever wear it) and then walked to this gorgeous park called Parque Oeste that is in the west side of the city (hence the name) which was gorgeous! I think every park here is just gorgeous! It’ll be better when the trees get leaves, haha! But we walked up some dirt steps, the ones that are made of dirt but then have the beam of wood holding it there, ya know? Anyways we walked up the steps and into this park and there was a random, I don’t really know what it was, but it was really pretty! It looked like ruins of a temple in a pond of water, but I got the feeling that they weren’t really ruins, just something nice to look at and it was nice because we got there right at sun set so that made the experience just that much better!
After the park we hopped back on the metro and rode over to the street where they were having the parade and walked around for a while, trying to keep track of everyone in the masses of people that were hording around the gates that the police had set up, and finally, after being kicked out of 2 different spots by some very opinionated Spaniards, found a little metal fence that we could sit on and get a pretty good view of the parade. It was supposed to start at 7, and it probably did, but we were towards the end of the line, I’m pretty sure, so everything made it to us at about 7:45 or so. So we sat there in the cold for a good long time talking, pondering the meaning of life, you know the normal until the parade started for us.
It was funny because there were a bunch of different sections of the parade and they would stop sometimes and do their little dance, and they would always stop right around the corner from where we were, so we could see the lights and hear the music, but alas, we did not get to see the performances. It was kinda funny because it happened every time, so I’m sure the people a little ways down from us were getting quite the show! Haha! But it was still really fun! They had clowns, and a drag queen, lots of older men dressed up as cheer leaders (that was interesting, to say the least), people on stilts, and even a float with guys dressed up as those rolly polly bugs singing Led Zeppelin, or at least that’s what the guy next to me said it was. That was pretty creepy! But when the parade ended, we were about done for the night, mostly because it was so cold and therefore we were cold too. So once again we followed the masses of people to the metro and jammed as many people as could possibly fit in one car, onto one car. I don’t think I have ever been so close to so many people in my entire life, and it is not really an experience that I would like to repeat! Haha! It felt like I was cuddling with 5 different people at one time! And I just didn’t like it. So it was quite a relief for all of us to fall out of the train when the door opened and we were able to make it to our connecting train and head home!

Last week of January!

Its been another one of those I don’t feel like I’ve done anything but I haven’t had any time do to anything weeks! Haha! Monday was pretty intense with classes during the day, and Paige and I were feeling all healthy and such so we decided to walk to just about every place that we could, so that took up a lot of your day, which included a 40-50 minute walk to the church that night for institute. The professor of the group also loves to read, apparently, so we have had a ton of reading in our history books to be doing! The studying in different places thing is working out alright! I made it over to a park one day that is just across the street to read and such for a bit, and then me and some other girls went to yet another park the yesterday to work on Spanish homework. Its still a little chilly to be doing a lot of studying outside, the wind is kinda cold, but its still nice to get out of the house and doing something!

Tuesday and Wednesday were pretty much dedicated to doing school stuff, catching up on reading, doing worksheets, you know, the really exciting stuff, haha. But then Thursday Paige, myself, and some other chickas headed out to a store on the outskirts of Alcala called El Corte Ingles that is just like a big mall type thing, except its all one store with 5 different levels of shopping pleasure! Theres even this little grocery store thing that was almost a mini Wal-Mart in and of itself, INSIDE of the mall! It was intense! So I ended up buying some really cute shoes for pretty cheap, fell in love with some other shoes, but they were not in the rebaja (sale) section so I couldn’t bring myself to spend that much money on them, and also bought a really cute travel bag for the longer trips, like the one that we have coming up on Tuesday!
Then last night, being kinda like the weekend for us because we don’t have classes Fridays we went over to someone's apartment and watched a movie on the lap top and afterwards some of the other girls tried to convince us to go dancing with them again, but seeing as we wore our pajamas to the little movie shindig, there was no way I was going to get my nice warm BYU sweat pants smelling all smoky, so we went home and went to bed.
Today was quite the eventful day tho! It started out with me getting out of what I had thought was a quick shower, but the mom of the family quickly told me that I take too long of showers because there is a shortage of water in Spain and the plants need the water more than people do, so I need to make my showers shorter. Dang it!!! Haha! And I thought I was doing so good! So I spent all day thinking of ways that I could make what I thought were already quick showers to be even quicker! No good ideas yet, but we’ll see what happens tomorrow when its down to the wire and I have to get in the shower! Haha! (These are plants that need water more than me. haha!)

Then on top of all that, we headed into Madrid to go and see a museum called the Museo de America which has artifacts and maps and stuff all about Spain finding America and what they found when they got there and kinda how things changed and such, and it was pretty cool! We only made it through the first floor by the time we had to leave and decided to power walk it through a bit of the second floor so we could feel like we saw more of what we were supposed to see (we have to write a report about it) and then started walking to meet the rest of the group at the Palace in Madrid. Sounded like a good plan when we were all together and talking about it and looking at a map, but the funny thing was, that the group that I broke off with in the museum, nobody had a map, and the only thing we knew was that we needed to make it to some Plaza in the middle of Madrid and then the palace would be right down the street. So with that news, we set off walking around Madrid, following signs that were telling us that there was the plaza that we needed to go to, but about 30 or so minutes into our walk, the signs stopped and we had no idea where we were. Haha. So we walked, and walked a bit more, and still not seeing any signs we stopped a friendly looking gentleman on the side of the road and asked him where the Plaza de España was, and he laughed at us. Which was quite encouraging, as you can imagine, then he asked us if we were walking, and when we said yes he giggled again then told us to walk down the street a ways, then turn right, then walk a long ways and then we should be there. So… with those GREAT directions, we found a metro station and decided to be smart and take that instead of wandering aimlessly around the city like we had been doing for the last little while. We finally made it to the palace an hour late, ate some lunch, and then took a tour of this building that took us over an hour to find. It was amazing!!! Its just like the palaces that you see in the movies! There was a different room for just about everything, like this one room was where the king “performed the ceremony of getting dressed”. I would like a room to perform the ceremony of getting dressed too!! That would be nice! There was also this room that is now the dining room that used to be PART of the living quarters of the queen. And when we were walking down the stairs, we were all picturing ourselves wearing the big Cinderella dresses and going to a ball or something. Haha. It was fun. Tomorrow we’re gonna take it easy all day, sleep in, get ready, do more homework then go to Madrid for the Carnival. I guess theres a big celebration for… something, I don’t really know what, haha, but theres a party basically all weekend going on in Madrid and its supposed to be HUGE and super fun! So those are the plans for tomorrow!