Blogs from Segovia, Castile & León, Spain, Europe - page 13

1st day of class. Only an hour an a half long. Jackpot. My teacher seems nice. Hopefully bu the end I'll be writing these journals in Spanish. Met more people yesterday, LOVE sangria, ate Burger King. Hah! Only because we were too afraid to use our Spanish in a restaurant. Tonight, some Spanish students form teh dorm (in Madrid) are making homemade sangria for us. mm. Went shopping iwth Lindsay yesterday. Esplored Madrid and, of course, got lost. I was kinda scared, but she kept cool. The only way we know home was through this dangerous park because the taxis didn't seem to know how to get to our dorm. We ran all the way throguh it carrying rocks to throw at attackers. haha Yes, I am a loser, but we did arrive home safely. Lindsay ... read more

Started our day by hiking down the hill to the Monasterio de Santa Maria del Parral. A monk (from India) gave us a brief tour of the allowable areas and the chapel. Pretty informative and was probably free, but we gave him a donation. After checking out a couple of other sites nearby that were uninteresting, we hiked back up the hill (phew!) to visit the Alcanzar. This is the castle/palace that Disney modeled their Magic Kingdom castle after. For 8 Euros we toured inside, and I climbed the 152 steps of the tower (pant!). The Alcanzar had a lot of cool historical artifacts, like suits of armor and an artillery museum, along with a lot of fancy royal furnishings and tapestries. We decided that for lunch we were going to take some advice from one ... read more

Roman ruins and fairytale castles Where is my prince? We took a daytrip to Segovia today to see the Roman aqueduct (still functional, but not in use) and Alcazar castle (whichWalt Disney used as an inspiration for his castle for DisneyLand). We started at the aqueduct and Jaime (our guide) explained the history of the area and the modern lifestyle they enjoyed 2500 years ago. The aqueduct allowed them indoor plumbing and sewage systems. Jaime is a Ph.D. student studying international relations and had wonderful English. Mary and I were lucky enough to have lunch with him and soak up knowledge from him. Except for his amblyomyopia (lazy eye), he was quite attractive - in a Spanish way. Anyway, the highlight of the trip was the castle! It was so beautiful. It was so fun to ... read more

Viva the Spanish holiday! Hombre, do these people know how to take vacation seriously. Only two weeks ago was Semana Santa, and here we are with another four day weekend. Monday May 1st is Dia del Trabajador for the whole country, Tuesday May 2nd is the Madrileno celebration of El dos de mayo (commemorating the Madrilian uprising against Napoleon), Sunday May 7 is Dia de la Madre (signifying that no one will work the following Monday), and Monday May 15 is the day the Madrilenos celebrate Madrid's patron saint, San Isidro. Even though it's the day of Mexican independence, it wouldn't have surprised me if the Spanish celebrated Cinco de Mayo, just for another excuse to have a fiesta! To kick the weekend off right, Tracie and I took a day trip to Segovia on Saturday. ... read more

Wow! What a day! Just got back from a wonderful day of sledding in Navacerrada in the Sierra de Guadarrama mountain range 1 hour north west of Madrid. In case you haven't been following the weather it has been snowing all over Europe for the past week and Spain is no exception. Let me tell you, it was coming down thick today and it was freezing! So, I headed up this morning to Navacerrada with a group from the school where I work. The school provided the sleds and the transportation so all we had to do was show up and pay for lunch. It was great! We spent the morning sledding down a slope almost at the top of the mountain. We were like kids again, making sled trains and running over people. It as ... read more