Advertisement
Published: April 27th 2011
Edit Blog Post
So it has been weeks…sorry. I have been super lazy and procrastinating writing these last few weeks because I was so far behind plus the weather has been amazing and I did not want to be inside 😊. I don’t have a blog for every week but I will be posting a bunch and hopefully will be caught up come this weekend; I have tons of trips planned for the coming few months and I don’t want to get any more behind.
So here goes the first week I missed
March 20th-26th : Segovia
I really had no plans for this first weekend but the school solved that problem for me. My school is part of a bilingual international program. Three times a year part of the staff goes on a trip to another country for a conference of sorts with other schools from multiple countries. This year my school actually got to host the conference. The visiting professors arrived on Wednesday but were in meetings for most of the time so I really only saw them in passing, until Saturday. Saturday was their last full day in Spain so we took them on an excursion to Segovia. Luckily,
for me, a bunch of our bilingual staff was unable to attend so I was invited to join in. I got up bright and early and caught the bus to El Molar. We all met at the school and climbed on another hour and half bus ride to Segovia. Surprisingly the weather cooperated and turned out to be a gorgeous day although the forecast called for rain. Upon arriving in Segovia we entered through the amazing aqueduct and went straight to the visitor’s center. This aqueduct was truly unbelievable. The story for this aqueduct is that in ancient times the townspeople used to have to walk up and down a large hill to the river to get water every time they needed it. One night a servant girl got very tired of this and bet the devil her soul that he could not solve this problem. The devil said he could build and aqueduct for her before the first ray of sun hit the town. Upon making their deal the devil’s demons arrived and began constructing. They worked all night long and the servant girl was so worried that she was going to lose the bet, so she prayed to
god all night. Come morning only one stone was out of place when the sun rose and hit the town. The girl was saved and the town now was able to get their water very easily. In order to honor god they placed a statue of the virgin in the empty hole so everyone would know that god answered the prayers and saved the girl’s soul. It was really fascinating. I bought postcards and my key chain and then we all climbed on the city tour bus to take a quick hour trip through the town. In reality the town is quite small so we went through it quite a few times before the tour was over. It had some great historic facts but honestly I was glad the school was paying for it and not me, although, I did get some great pics of the countryside and the boat shape to the city. When we finished up the tour we had a few minutes of free time before lunch so we all headed up to the Cathedral. Finally it was time for lunch. We headed to a very typical Segovian restaurant. We had Castellana soup and cochinillos. OH MY
GOSH! It was amazing. They literally brought an entire piglet and it was so tender that the waiter had one of the teachers kids cut the piglet in pieces with his plate. It literally melted in your mouth. Let’s just say I am glad I don’t live in this city otherwise I may come back as a porker 😉. To finish off the meal we ended with a traditional Segovian dessert and ice cream. After leaving the restaurant we were allotted a few hours of free time but we all pretty much stayed together. We all headed to the palace on the far side of town. This palace is one of the few that resembles the Disney logo. It was very obvious on the ends of the palace. We all bought our tickets and headed inside. The palace was great because you could actually take pictures in it (which doesn’t happen very often) but was bad because even the Spaniards couldn’t understand our guide our Spanish tour guide. So I separated from the group to wonder through the rooms with the British and Polish professors. We hiked up to the tower and ended our tour. After leaving the castle we
still had some time so we walked through the streets to explore. Once everyone made it back to the meeting spot we climbed back on our bus and headed to a nearby park. We walked around and played some football before loading back up to go to dinner. My school treated everyone to Spanish Tapas and Sangria to end the day. It was an amazing trip that I was so thankful to have been invited on. I met some great people and now have international contacts.
I’ll add more soon 😊…
Advertisement
Tot: 0.094s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 5; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0523s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Janet
non-member comment
Jayleen Good to hear from you, don't stress about keeping everyone up to date....just enjoy and when you have time drop a note...sounds like your really enjoying your time, enjoy... Janet