Getting Oriented in Valencia

Hola Todos!

What a busy first day it's been here in Valencia! Today we had orientation in the morning where we finally got a little more information about our time here. The orientation was just for me and the two other JMU girls here with me from Salamanca. There are other people interning in Valencia through this company, but I got the sense there is no definitive start or end date that everyone follows for the program, so the rest of them must have arrived within the past few days, or even weeks. I will be working mornings Monday through Friday during the week, taking Spanish classes from 6-8 Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday evenings, and attending "intercambio" language exchanges from 8:30-11:30 Tuesday and Thursday nights. I don't think its required to stay for the entire three hours of intercambio (which is basically just a chance to practice speaking to people in Spanish in a more relaxed environment), but even if it just ends up being 8:30-9:30, Tuesdays and Thursdays are going to be long! After the general orientation we took a relatively easy Spanish placement exam to give the teacher of our Spanish class an idea of where we're at. The company that runs the program I am participating in here in Valencia is a small company called Euroace. They are the ones who placed me in my internship, found me my housing, and run the Spanish classes and intercambio sessions. As far as I can tell, there are only three or four people working there, all of whom are fairly young and really nice! After the orientation and placement exam finished, they gave us a very helpful tour of the city and then took us out to lunch for tapas and sangria.

We finished lunch around two and had a short break back at the apartment. Work doesn't actually start until tomorrow morning, but we were supposed to meet our employers today to get an idea of what to expect, exactly what our work hours are going to be, etc.. Unfortunately, my boss had to cancel, so instead I went for coffee with one of the girls from Euroace, and she explained as much as she could to me. She also showed me how to get to my office. Lucky for me, my office happens to be an easy five minute walk from my apartment! The other two girls with me were not quite as lucky, and they have to take a bus or metro to work every day.

As I said, we have a Spanish lesson from 6-8 on Mondays, and today was no exception. Predictably, I got slightly lost on the way there. As a result I had to speed walk to make it to the class on time, and thanks to the unbearably hot weather, I showed up sweaty and gross. With my luck and impeccable sense of direction I would have expected nothing less for the very first day. Anyways, I was a little worried that a two hour Spanish class would be boring, but I actually really enjoyed the class format. There are only six of us in the class, and it seems to be centered around practicing talking. The teacher was very relaxed, yet extremely helpful. While I feel like my listening comprehension improved a lot in Salamanca, I didn't feel like my speaking skills improved too much. However, if every day in Valencia goes like today, both in and out of class, I have a feeling I'll improve my speaking a good deal while I'm here. At least, I hope I will!

After class KC, who is the other JMU girl in my apartment, and I needed to get food for dinner. We were too late getting to the grocery store, so we went out to a restaurant, where I got my first salad in six weeks (I'm not counting the tiny serving if lettuce and tomato I had with most meals in Salamanca...).

All in all it was a good first full day in the city, though I have no photos to show for it, and I still haven't made it down to the beach! Wish me luck on my first day of work tomorrow!

Hasta Luego!
Aubrey

Goodbye Salamanca, Hello Valencia

Hola Todos,

I have officially come to the end of my six weeks studying in Salamanca, Spain, and it is definitely bitter sweet. The past six weeks have been incredible-- I've met a lot of great people on this trip, learned a lot both in and out of the classrooms, and seen a lot of diverse and exciting places. The adventure isn't over, though; this morning, bright and early, I hopped on a train to Valencia to start my four week internship. I'm ready for the change of scenery, I'm excited to have a bit more freedom and responsibility, and I'm thrilled that I'll be able to spend all my spare time at the beach! However there's many things about Salamanca that I already miss!

 The people: As I already stated, the other people on the trip have played a large role in it being so enjoyable. There were 37 JMU students on the trip, most of whom I really like. Of the 37, only three of us are traveling to Valencia to work. One of the two happens to be a friend, so I'm excited to spend time with her in Valencia, but I am going to miss having the rest of the group around. Aside from the other JMU students, I am going to miss my Madre. She has been so sweet and helpful, and though I was initially a bit skeptical about the idea of living in someone else' home for a month and a half, I really enjoyed that aspect of the trip. In Valencia I am living in an apartment, and I am excited about that as it will be yet another new experience, but I will miss the ease and comfort of living with my Madre.

A Walkable City: Salamanca is small. Not so small that there's nothing to do and no where to go, but small enough that you could probably walk from one side of the city to the other in about an hour if you walked briskly. Here, that is not the case. Valencia is the third largest city in Spain, behind Madrid and Barcelona, and it definitely has more of a big city feel. I like big cities, so that's not really an issue, but it was nice not to need to take alternative forms of transportation to get around Salamanca. In Valencia my feet are not going to suffice 100% of the time. That means I will have to figure out the bus system, metro or cab system in order to get to some of the places here that are farther away.

The old world feel: Something that made living in Salamanca unique and exciting was all the old architecture. Valencia actually has its fair share of cathedrals and other older buildings with history, but while those places are scattered around Valencia here and there, in Salamanca the major part of the city looks like you walked into Spain a few hundred years ago. Don't get me wrong, Valencia is beautiful! The buildings here have their own style, completely different from those in Salamanca, but still spectacular. There is much more white here, for starters, which might have something to do with the fact that were right on the Mediterranean Sea. I just know I'm going to miss strolling down the Salamanca streets and walking into a Zara that used to be a monetary. Because there, everything was old and it was wonderful. After all, they don't call it the Golden City for no reason!

The Plaza Mayor: Yes, Valencia has plenty of plazas, but there is something really special about the Plaza Mayor of Salamanca. For starters, I am whole heartedly convinced it is the most beautiful in all of Spain. The plaza in Salamanca is one of only two entirely enclosed Plaza Mayors in Spain, the other being the Plaza Mayor in Madrid. I will miss sitting at my favorite café after class, ordering a drink while I finish my homework. I will miss grabbing an ice cream cone and sitting in the middle of the plaza people watching. I will miss meeting there with friends for coffee, tapas, or a drink. It really was the center of everything there, and I loved it! Seriously, the US is doing something wrong by not adopting the concept of a large, beautiful plaza filled with open air cafés.

So there are lots of things I miss about Salamanca, but there are also so many great things in Valencia that I can't wait to experience! Today I took a walk around the city near my apartment. A friend of mine who did Salamanca and is also in Valencia lives in the same apartment, one room over, so we were able to explore together. We mostly just walked around to get a feel for the area near our apartment because the city is so large, we barely made a dent in it! I'm hoping tomorrow to make it down to the beach. We have orientation in the morning and afternoon, but after that we should have free time!

I'll give more details on Valencia as the week goes on!

Last night out in Salamanca with the group

With my Madre the night Saturday night

Bullfighting area down the street from my apartment in Valencia

Hasta Luego!
Aubrey

Madrid Round Two

Hola Todos!

This past weekend was my final full weekend of the Salamanca portion of the trip, now just one week to go. Next Sunday I move to Valencia, and I can hardly believe it! For the last weekend we traveled as a group to (where else?) Madrid. Having already gotten a little taste of Madrid during my free weekend to Toledo and Segovia I was very excited to spend a little more time there, even if it only ended up being about hours. Most of the weekend was spent at Madrid's two famous art mustangs: The Reina Sofia and the Prado. Before we made it all the way to Madrid, though, we made our first stop at El Escorial, a convent, seminary, library, university, church, and palace of Phillip II.

El Escorial is a large Renissance building located not too far outside Madrid. As mentioned above, the building had many purposes, both religious and nonreligious. At the time, Phillip II was one of the heads of the church. For this reason, he placed much more emphasis on the religious elements of El Escorial. Though Phillip's palace is located in here, it is one of the smallest and minimally decorated parts of the building. When building El Escorial, most of the money and effort went into the areas of religious significance, most notably the church and the library (because although a library is not directly religious, knowledge was important to religious study). It was interesting comparing those regions of the building because the rooms of Phillip II and his family were so small and plain, relative to most other palaces, that you never would have guessed this was the home of the King of Spain at one time. El Escorial also had an area with the tombs of every Spanish monarch and their spouse since Carlos V. This area is now full though, so the current Spanish monarchs will not be buried there when they die. Aside from the pantheon-- the room containing the tombs of the monarchs-- there is also numerous tombs for all the other family members of the monarchs who did not become king or queen of Spain.

Saturday afternoon we visited the Museo del Prado, which is one of, if not the, most famous and most important art museums in Spain. The Prado has an extensive collection of European art dating from around the 12th century to the early 19th century, which includes the best collection of Spanish art in the world. As we are studying Spanish art, this is where we focused our attention. Most notably, we saw paintings by El Greco, Diego Velazquez, and Francisco de Goya, including Velazquez's "Las Meninas". My favorite paintings were Goya's Cuartos Negros (Black Paintings) because they were much less realistic than a lot of the other works we saw. These paintings were much darker and a little scary, but for me that made them more interesting then the portraits of Spanish kings or religious scenes that we saw in other parts of the museum.

Saturday night after dinner we went to a Flamenco Opera of the show Carmen. Carmen is a famous opera, but this was not the normal version. Instead of opera singing to tell the story, the performers used flamenco dance and music. The plot was a little hard to follow, but years of deciphering near plot-less ballets made it a little easier for me to figure out. Though the dance style was the same as the flamenco show we saw in Granada, the addition of story made the experience very different. The dancing was good in both, but I enjoyed the added elements in this show, and ultimately preferred the flamenco opera to the flamenco show.

After the flamenco opera, almost the entire JMU group went out to a club in Madrid called Kapital. It was much the same experience as the club in Portugal-- loud house music, dancing, lights-- except it had seven floors with seven themes. My friends and I stayed primarily on the ground floor because that's where the main dance floor was, but we did check out most of the other levels, if only for a minute. We made it back to the hotel in time for three hours of sleep before we had to be up early for Sunday's excursions.

Probably my favorite part of the weekend was Sundays trip to the Museo de Reina Sofia. Another famous art museum in Madrid, the Reina Sofia houses a collection of contemporary Spanish art, unlike the older works found in the Prado. The Renia Sofia has many paintings by famous Spanish artists such as Picasso, Dali, and Miro, and I really enjoyed seeing the art by these artists because in general, I prefer contemporary art to the older styles like the ones featured in the Prado. The Reina Sofia is also home to possibly the most famous work of 20th century art, Picasso's "Guernica." This, for me, was the highlight of the museum. The painting is huge, and at first glance very chaotic and nonsensical. After taking a good look, though, you start to notice all the significance and symbolism in the painting-- the blacked out image of a bird representing the lack of peace, the flower next to the broken sword signifying hope, and of course the anguished faces of mother, child, man and beast showing that the war is harming everyone involved-- and you realize just how powerful a work of art it is.

For the final excursion of the weekend (and the Salamanca trip!), we visited the Royal Palace of Madrid. This is no longer the home of the Spanish monarchs because they downgraded to a smaller and cozier palace in another part of Madrid, and I could definitely see why! The place was enormous and the decor was absurdly extravagant! Just to give you an idea of this, they had separate rooms for breakfast, meals, coffee, and dining with guests. The rooms had floors with different colored marble arranged in designs, often with ornate rugs over top. The walls were covered in colorful printed designs or gold baroque, with furniture to match. Lastly, the ceilings were painted with beautiful frescos depicting angels and the heavens. This, all just in the family´s various dining areas (both public and private). This amount of over-the-top decor followed through most of the rest of the parts of the palace that we saw.

Photos for this trip are limited because most of the places we visited didn't allow them. That said, here are the few I managed to snag:

El Escorial

Library of El Escorial (Only photo I managed to sneak from inside)

Kapital 

Royal Palace of Madrid

Hasta Luego!
Aubrey

Andalusia: Granada, Cordoba, Sevilla, and Merida

Gardens of the Alcazar of Sevilla

Hola Todos!

Sorry it took me so long to finish getting this together! It’s been a crazy week! We’re now in crunch time with classes, so teachers have been assigning tons of homework, presentations, and essays, not to mention the fact that finals begin in exactly one week. On top of all that, I woke up sick Wednesday morning, so yesterday was basically a waste as all I did was sleep and try to recover (I’m feeling much better today, thankfully). Anyways, Sunday night I returned from a long four-day weekend in the southern most region of Spain-- Andalusia. Andalusia is known for a rich Muslim history, a unique culture, and sweltering hot summer weather, of which we got none. Comically, despite the fact that the summers in Andalusia are notoriously hot, this was the coolest and rainiest weekend we've had here in Spain. The weekend was packed full with activities, most of which were based around the our art presentations. Though we didn't have as much free time on this excursion to do and see what we wanted, what we saw as a group was all pretty cool, so that made up for the lack of free time.

Thursday afternoon when we arrived in Granada we briefly went to see the Cathedral of Granada which, unlike all the cathedrals I had seen thus far, was in not in the Gothic style, but rather was a Renaissance cathedral. My favorite part of this Cathedral was a starry light blue sky painted on the inside of the cathedral's large dome, with stained glass windows surrounding it. It brightened the Cathedral and looked wonderful against the white cathedral walls. I also liked that it felt less heavy and extravagant than the ornate gold decorations covering the walls while still being heavenly and extracting religious sentiments. The other really cool part about the Cathedral was that King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella were buried in a tomb there. The same King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella that sent Christopher Columbus (whose tomb I also saw this weekend) to discover America in 1492 and the same King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella who conquered Granada from the Muslims in the final battle of the Reconquista to unite Spain also in 1492 (they were busy making history that year). Aside from seeing where they were buried I also got to see Isabella's crown and Ferdinand's sword, so I enjoyed all of that a lot.

Thursday evening was one of the highlights of the weekend for me. For dinner we went to a Flamenco show in the old part of Granada called Albayzin. The Flamenco club was in a building that had been built in a cave in the side of a mountain. I should mention Granada is located right next to the Sierra Nevada Mountain range, so in general the area was fairly mountainous. It was a quaint little restaurant with a small stage at the front. We had a traditional Andalusian dinner, which didn't seem too different than the other traditional Spanish foods I have been eating-- lots of pork just like everywhere else. Side note: you should not visit Spain if you don't like ham/pork because sometimes it feels like that's all they eat here. Well, that and bread. The food was good though, and after we were finished eating we got to see an hour long Flamenco show. I lucked out and had one of the seats closest to the stage, so I had a good view not only of the dancers in general, but also of their feet specifically. Flamenco was very different than any style of dance I am used to. For starters, for music they had a man playing Spanish guitar and a man and woman singing occasionally. The singing was not normal singing though. It sounded very tribal or primitive to me, and the words did not seem to be in modern Spanish. The dancing consisted of a lot of stomping, clapping, and dramatic movements. In relation to dance styles I am familiar with, it reminded me most of a mix between character and tap. I spent the majority of the show staring at the fast moving feet. After the show we took a brief walking tour of Albayzin. This old, small area of Granada has narrow cobblestone streets and sits on a hill opposite La Alhambra, so at the end of the tour we had a stunning view of La Alhambra lit up at night, a view which my photos do not even come close to doing justice.

Friday was crazy! We were in three different cities that day, and I had my presentation to give for art, which was stressing me out. This was the most overwhelming day by far, but we saw some pretty cool places, starting with La Alhambra first thing in the morning. La Alhambra was a Muslim fort turned palace. The name Alhambra means "red palace" in Arabic, a name which it gets for the reddish color it has when seen from afar. Over the course of my Spanish career so far, I've had to do two presentations on Granada and La Alhambra, so it was fun to visit there and see it for real. After La Alhambra we got on the bus and drove to Cordoba for city 2/3 for the day.

The only item on our itinerary in Cordoba was the Mosque of Cordoba (which is now the Cathedral of Cordoba). Unfortunately that was where my group was giving our art presentation, and the lead up had not gone too smooth. In the research phases everyone kept getting their parts confused and we even had to change some of the information at lunch right before our four o'clock presentation because after asking Jesus a question, we discovered an entire part was ever so slightly wrong. I was finally feeling confident about my part, until we got there and he told us that, unlike the other group that had gone at La Alhambra, we would be wearing headsets and microphones so we could give the presentation as a tour walking through the mosque. That made me a lot more nervous, and I didn't get to enjoy the mosque as much as I would have if I wasn't preoccupied with presenting as we went through the building. As interesting and beautiful as the mosque was, I was happy when that part of the weekend was over. The mosque itself was really cool though. Its really large and all the arches are red and white striped, so they kind of resemble candy canes. Also, right in the center of the mosque is a church, thus the reason it is now called the Cathedral of Cordoba. After the Reconquista, the Catholics built a church in the middle of the mosque to keep the beautiful and impressive mosque intact while asserting the dominance of Christianity.

After we left the mosque, we almost immediately had to get back on the bus to drive to Sevilla, our third city of the day. We didn't do anything in Sevilla Friday night, but we had a busy day there Saturday. The first place we visited on Saturday morning in Sevilla was a beautiful plaza. The plaza had a large fountain in the middle with bridges all around connecting the part with surrounding buildings to the part with the fountain. There were mosaics all around the plaza and bridges, and the back half of the plaza opened up to a large park area, where lots of very fit runners were getting a nice view during their morning workout. In the park was a statue of the Spanish poet Gustavo Adolfo Becquer, who we had studied in my lit class. As homework, my lit professor told us to take turns reading Becquer's poems in front of his statue, so we took about fifteen minutes for that.

After the plaza we had two more stops to hit as a group before free time in the evening: the Alcazar of Sevilla and the Cathedral of Seville. We first visited the Alcazar of Sevilla, which is a large, stunning palace for the Spanish monarchs, created in a Muslim style. There were lots of stunning mosaics on the walls and ceilings throughout the palace, but the most beautiful part were the gardens. The alcazar had large, lush gardens filled with plants and flowers. There were small ponds with fountains and walkways that wove though the greenery like a maze. Andalusia has a warm climate, so patios and gardens in the middle of houses and buildings are not unusual there, but the gardens at the Alcazar of Sevilla were among the nicest I saw (and that includes the gardens at La Alhambra, which were also incredible!). A fun fact about the Alcazar of Sevilla: a scene (or multiple?) of the show Game of Thrones was shot there.

After the Alcazar we visited the Cathedral of Sevilla. The Cathedral of Sevilla is the largest Gothic Cathedral in the world. And remember how I said I saw the burial site of Christopher Columbus? Well, this was it. Actually, that’s an interesting story. Apparently there was some controversy over whether Columbus was buried at the Cathedral of Sevilla here in Spain, or if he was buried in the Dominican Republic, so they tested the DNA of his bones in the Sevilla grave with the bones of his son who is buried nearby. The results tested positive for some bones, but not all, so I guess it would be more correct to say that I saw the burial site of part of Christopher Columbus, and the burial site of some other random people as well.

Sunday was the shortest and least busy day of the trip. We left Sevilla in the morning and drove to Merida, a smaller city with Roman ruins. In Merida we saw the ruins of an old roman theater and amphitheater. The theater was semicircular with a stage, an orchestra area, and tiered seating. The stage had roman style columns and statues. In the theater they would have out on plays, but in the amphitheater, they held gladiator fights. The amphitheater was more circular, with seating on all sides. To be honest, it was relatively small and plain, and would not have been all that impressive if it weren’t for the fights that were held there thousands of years ago. Around the time we finished seeing the roman ruins, it started to rain, so we all had a quick lunch and then got back on the bus to Salamanca, cutting our time in Merida about an hour short.  We got back to Salamanca around 7:30, so I took a run before dinner, and then immediately after dinner I fell asleep.

A very poor quality photo of La Alhambra by night

Gardens of La Alhambra

Mesquite de Cordoba

 

Plaza de Espana in Seville-- this was used as a filming location in Star Wars Episodes I and II

Alcazar of Sevilla

Tomb of Christopher Columbus

View of Sevilla from top of the Cathedral

Gladiator battles were held here

Roman Theater in Merida

Hasta Luego!
Aubrey

 

 

 

 

En Route to Andalusia

Hola Todos!

 

This weekend we are traveling to Andalusia. I am currently on route to Granada, the farthest of the three major cities we are visiting this weekend. It was a short but stressful week this past week. We only had classes Monday through Wednesday, but in that short time I think I did more homework and studying than I have during the rest of the trip combined! This was because I had an art test on Tuesday, and I have an art presentation to give on Friday. How do I have a presentation tomorrow if the school week is already over? Well, my presentation is on the Mosque of Cordoba, and the assignment is for my group to give a short tour of the Mosque. I'm not really sure how were supposed to give a tour of a place we've never visited... But I guess the assignment has worked out in the past, so I'm sure well figure it out!

 

There was an art festival in Salamanca this past week that I was hoping to see a bit of, but unfortunately studies (and bad weather) kept me from seeing any of it. Its too bad I couldn't go one day even just for a little bit because they had a stage set up in the Plaza for concerts, and during the day different streets had artists set up displaying and selling their work, as well as other activates, so it looked like fun.

 

Remember how I had hoped to catch a glimpse of some of the old windmills written about in Don Quixote on the drive from Madrid to Toledo? I just saw three from outside the bus window! They were like large white cylinders with black pointed hats and large black blades that kind of resembled a cross between a fly swatter and a cheese grater, or maybe just stiff netting (at least that's how I would describe them... Ill let you all decide for yourselves whether you agree with that description). They were cool! but you'd have to be pretty crazy to mistake them for actual giants... 

Close up image of the windmills. Photo from Internet.

Hasty luego!
Aubrey

Ps. I'm becoming very savvy with this blog... This entire post was put together and published on my phone during the drive to Granada (which still has about two hours left)

Day Trips from Madrid: Toledo and Segovia

Hola Todos!

I just had my second free weekend in Salamanca. Instead of taking the bus trip with most of the JMU group to Valencia (I’ll be living there in three weeks, so I wanted to see a different part of Spain), a friend and I decided to plan out own trip. We took a bus to Madrid Friday afternoon and got a room in a hostel for Friday and Saturday night. Rather than stay in Madrid the whole weekend, we took day trips to nearby Toledo and Segovia. It was an awesome weekend, but it almost got off to a bad start!

My friend Sara, who I was traveling with, had class until one. We booked our bus to Madrid for two thinking that would give us more than enough time to get to the bus stop. We did not count on the fact that Sara’s madre would insist on feeding her lunch before we left. We had planned to meet at the plaza at 1:35 so we could walk to the bus station. I got there at 1:30 to be safe, and then waited for Sara to show up. I wasn’t surprised that he wasn’t there right on time, but when it got to be 1:45 and she still was nowhere to be found, I started to worry. Finally at 1:50 I saw her running down the street to meet me. She was here, but by this point we didn’t have time to walk to the bus station. Luckily, not two minutes later an empty cab drove by. We jumped in the cab and made it to the bus station with about a minute to spare. Crisis averted.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t our only transportation issue on Friday. After arriving in Madrid we got lost on the Madrid train system for almost two hours. As we tried to find the stop that would get us to the city center and our hostel, we kept getting off at stations in the suburbs. These stations were not unlike Dunn Loring or Vienna metro, and as much as I enjoyed seeing these Spanish equivalents of NOVA, I was happy when we finally got off at the correct station inside the city.

Most of Friday night, we wandered around Madrid, occasionally stopping for tapas and a drink at various cafes. We came across a beautiful cathedral that we followed some people into. The interior was white and constructed in a gothic style, and the ceilings had bright, geometric paintings. To both my excitement and embarrassment, there was also a mass in session. I’ve been hoping to attend a mass at one of the beautiful churches or cathedrals I’ve seen because I think it would be an interesting experience. Walking in on this one was cool because this enormous cathedral was packed with people, and off to the sides priests were holding confession right in the middle of mass. I was a little guilty, though, that I, and so many other tourists, were invading and disrupting the holy time of so many people who actually attend the mass at the cathedral regularly. For that reason, I was happy when we left.

This was my first time staying in a hostel, and while I definitely prefer the comfort and privacy of a hotel, it was a great way to save some money this weekend. Since we spent almost no time in the hostel except to sleep, it wasn’t too bad. Actually, aside from the fact that towels weren’t provided and it was a little loud at night, our hostel was really nice. We remedied the towel situation by buying a microfiber super absorbent towel about the size of a washcloth for one euro from a convenience store, but I couldn’t do anything about the noise at night. This particular hostel was nice though. The location was central to Madrid; they had a kitchen, computers, wifi, an open courtyard, a locker, and sangria and paella at night all for free. I was in an eight person female dorm, and it was comfortable and clean enough. They also had AC, which is more than can be said for many buildings here! All in all, I would consider staying in a hostel again, and may as soon as my first free weekend in Valencia.

Saturday morning we took a bus to Toledo. It’s only about an hour from Madrid, and they sell roundtrip tickets for only nine dollars. One thing I was dying to see in the region of La Mancha were the old enormous windmills described in Don Quixote. Since we didn’t have time to make a separate trip to see them, I hoped to at least catch a glimpse of the giants from out my bus window. I fell asleep both to and from Toledo, so I never even got the chance to look.

Toledo's a really beautiful city. It's in a pretty hilly area, so much so that we had to take escalators up like four or five flights to get from where the bus dropped us off to inside the actual city. Once inside, we were in for an unexpected treat! The festival of Corpus Christi, which is a religious festival celebrating the belief in the body and blood of Christ. This year it fell on Thursday, June 4, with the celebrations on Sunday. We were in Toledo on Saturday, and the entire city was decorated for the event. There were flags of all different types and colors hanging off the sides of buildings. Long white sheets covered the narrow sheets, blocking us from the hot sun. Garland and flowers and umbrellas with long strings attached (they looked like jelly fish) hung above the streets. We passed multiple street performers. All in all there was a lively atmosphere and it was fun to have happened upon it all just by chance.

Our main destination in Toledo was the Cathedral of Toledo, one of the most famous and incredible Gothic Cathedrals in Spain. We took an audio tour of the Cathedral, which was cool because we had just learned about Gothic art in class, so the tour gave us a chance to both apply our knowledge and study for today's art test at the same time! There's so much I could write about the Cathedral of Toledo, but I'll just stick to my favorite parts. For starters, the whole cathedral is incredibly grand! No matter where you looked you could find colorful stained glass windows depicting religious events, paintings and sculptures of Christ, angels, the apostles, and other holy figures, and large pointed arches with vaulted ceilings in the shapes of crosses. That was all in the main area of the church, but if you went off into the side rooms, there were many more fun things to discover, the best of which was a very famous paining by a very famous artist.

El Greco's "The Disrobing of Christ" is housed in the Cathedral of Toledo, along with a few of his other paintings. Though he was born in Crete, El Greco lived in Toledo for a large part of his life, and is considered one of the most famous and influential artists of the Spanish Renaissance. We've talked a lot about him in my art class, so I really enjoyed the chance to see one of his most famous paintings. After we left the cathedral of Toledo, we went to an art museum where they had a few more originals of El Greco.

We spent a lot of time in Toledo just walking around seeing the city. Part of that consisted of popping in and out of different shops, most notably, the sword shops. Toledo steel is world famous for being uncommonly hard and strong. Because of this, the famous Spanish swords were often from Toledo. The city has many stores, both for the casual tourist and the sward enthusiast, which sell swards, daggers, coats of arms, and other weapons, kitchen ware, and general medieval trinkets all constructed from Toledo steel. I enjoyed these shops most of all because it was a genuine part of the city's history and culture. I also considered buying daggers as souvenirs for Tate and Bret, but I decided mom and dad might not appreciate that gift quite so much, and I ultimately decided against it.

We left Toledo around 9:30 Saturday night, exhausted, but ready to see a little more of Madrid. Toledo was definitely worth visiting. It has some of the richest and most traditional Spanish history and traditions, and I would have seriously regretted coming to Spain for ten weeks and never visiting this unique city.

The last bus from Segovia to Salamanca left at six pm, and since we didn’t get to the city until around noon, we only had about five hours to see everything. Segovia is small, though, and most of the major attractions were close together, so we were able to check off everything on our list. Our must do/ must see list for Segovia was as follows: the roman aqueducts, the palace, the cathedral, and a meal of cochinillo. We started at the aqueducts because that’s where the bus left us. They were incredible—so tall—and it was amazing to think about the fact that they were built thousands of years ago and are still standing. I felt like I had jumped into my history book from World Civ freshman year! I find it so interesting that a structure built for utilitarian purposes is considered today a great work of art. It makes me wonder what of our modern appliances may one day, thousands of years in the future, be considered art. This was one of the highlights of the weekend for me, but we were on a tight schedule, so after about half an hour at the aqueducts we booked it all the way to the other end of Segovia to see the palace.

I read somewhere that this palace served as influence for Walt Disney when he designed sleeping beauty’s castle in Disney Land. I don’t know if this is true, but there was definitely a resemblance and also, it was fun to believe that might be true. The front of the Alcazar had a tall rectangular tower with shorter pointed towers all around on both sides. The little pointed towers looked like they were taken straight out of a fairy tale book, which I loved! Inside the palace, there was a small, relatively plain courtyard, and plenty of rooms filled with suits of armor, tapestries on the walls, and stained glass windows, and elaborate, gold ceilings. To get to the tower, we had to climb a long, narrow, and steep set of spiral stairs, but once at the top the view was unbelievable. There was a spectacular view of the cathedral, as well as views of the city, the mountains, the rivers, and the open land.

On the walk back from the Alcazar, you walk straight through the plaza mayor and past the cathedral. We made a quick stop in the plaza for ice cream and to see the plaza before heading to the cathedral. Having now seen the Plaza Mayors of Salamanca, Madrid, Segovia, and Toledo, I can say that none of the latter came even close to Salamanca’s Plaza Mayor. All the others were beautiful, but after the grandeur of Salamanca’s, they all seemed almost mediocre. We ate our ice cream, and then we headed into the cathedral. Like the Cathedral of Toledo, the Cathedral of Segovia was in the gothic style. Because of this, many of the elements were very similar to Toledo’s, but not quite as spectacular. For as beautiful as it was I started to feel the ABC’s of Europe… Another Bloody Cathedral. We left the cathedral with an hour and a half before we had to head to the bus station—just enough time for lunch. As I said before, a meal of cochinillo was on the list of musts for Segovia. Cochinillo is a traditional Segovian dish of roast suckling pig cooked in a wood oven. They cook the whole pig, head and all, and they cut it after they bring it out. This was as much a part of the Segovia experience as the aqueducts and palace. The meal itself was expensive. It cost 21 euros just for an individual plate of the pig. However, they also had a special preset menu, which was a typical Segovian menu, for 25 euros. This consisted of water, red wine, a typical Segovian soup, the Cochinillo, and a typical Segovian dessert. The soup came out first, and though it tasted good, I didn’t eat too much of it. It had a broth that I liked as well as little pieces of pork, but there was also a soft thing that felt like soggy bread, but I highly doubt was actually soggy bread. The more I ate, and the longer I tried to figure out what was in the soup, the less I ate, and the less I wanted to know the answer. It was fine that I didn’t eat much of the soup though, because it left more room for the rest of the meal, which turned out to be one of the best meals I have ever had. The pig came out, and since it was only for two of us, they only brought out a leg (not the whole pig, thank goodness!). The meat was incredibly moist and fell right off the bone. It had the most buttery feel and taste (though there was no butter in it…). If the meat was like butter, the skin was the thinnest, crispiest bacon I’ve ever tasted. Together, it was the best meat dish I’ve ever had. Desert came almost immediately after we finished the pork. It was custard that tasted like rice pudding sans the rice. With the custard, there was a small cinnamon sugar covered pastry that tasted amazing when eaten with the custard. Altogether, it was a wonderful way to end the trip to Segovia, and to end the weekend.

Back in Salamanca I crashed around 10:30, exhausted from the weekend, and in major need of rest to fuel me for the upcoming week. It’s a short week this time—only three days as we leave for Andalucía on Thursday morning. However, its a busy week because I have an art test on Wednesday and a presentation to give when we go to Cordoba.

Madrid's Plaza Mayor



El Mercado de San Miguel was a fun place to grab tapas and a drink



The Cathedral in Madrid

 

The streets of Toledo were decorated with garland and flags for Corpus Christi



Cathedral of Toledo

El Greco's "The Disrobing of Christ"

Me in front of the Roman Aqueducts of Segovia

Alcazar od Segovia

A view of the Cathedral from the tower of the Alzacar

Cochinillo was delicious

Hasta Luego!

Aubrey