Day 5 & Day 6

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If one is tempted, do not take a Spanish class or a teacher with a Spanish accent at a time when you are tired. It lulls you right to sleep. This I found out around noon on Friday. My professor was talking and he asked me some things and I answered but as soon as he went on to the rest of the class I began wondering why my eyes were closed. Funny, I never stopped hearing his voice and I could have answered at any time. Apparently everyone else was falling asleep, too.

Lunch was deliciousas usual. I am going to have to run for days to get the extra weight that I am going to have off, but I worry about that later. After my siesta I met up with some of my friends and went around the city looking for good food. We did not really find anything good to eat but we did see a few good bars.

For dinner we had fries and sautéed eggs with mushrooms. It was surprisingly good. Some friends and I ended up heading to a music festival after that. On the way we saw some great views of the city and the aqueduct at night. We were a little disappointed by the atmosphere at the festival. Spaniards like to huddle around the stage so much that we really couldn’t find a way closer. I think we got there a little late anyway. There weren’t as many shops in the area as we though but it was still cool. We saw a beat box competition, which was pretty funny. There was also a stand there that was selling a lot of herbs and spices aimed at helping ailments like diabetes and acne. There were at least 30 baskets of spices and they were all for different things.

On Saturday, we went on an excursion. Meeting at the aqueduct at 9:30 we headed for our first stop, Santa María la Real de Nieva. It is a church in the area around Segovia that is centuries old and has a lot of history with it. There are many different columns on the inside. If you look at the very top of the columns there are carvings that are all completely different. Each side has a different carving and a different story associated with it. Originally it was for a time when many people were illiterate and friars would tell them the many lessons of the columns.

After that we headed to the winery, which ended up being closed and nothing happened there. The end.

We went to a castle afterward called Coca. It was absolutely huge. It was restored in 1956 under Franco and stands today as a monument to medieval Spain. Upon entry you go into a classroom that was used for teaching Christianity to children. Then you take a very narrow and steep spiral staircase up to other floors of the castle. The cool part was that we were able to go to the top of and see out to the surrounding which were awesome.

After that we went to lunch where we had pasta with pork and of course bread, and then lamb which it really good. The best part of it all was that right nearby the restaurant was another castle that we explored. Maybe I should take a moment to clarify. Castile y León, the province that Segovia is in, can be translated to be Castle and Lion. This is because in the area are many Castles and old Kingdoms. So this one was a ruin of a once really big Castle. We explored the area to see what the castle had. We climbed up what I can only described as castle chunks. And got to take our picture way up there. That was fun. Then we went around the side of the castle and walked through a treacherous path. The funniest part was when our program director went around the corner and said this was a really bad idea, but we all went anyway. But after that we had to get on the bus to go somewhere new again. We went to the bus and headed to our next stop.

This time we arrived at Pedraza, an old city with a few shops and another Castle. Unfortunately the rain caught up with us. We did find a foosball table and played that. I won of course. I mean come on, me lose? Nunca. All in all it was a great day and I enjoyed myself a lot. Unfortunately I do not have anything else to share with you, so I will end this one here. Be on the lookout for next blog. Later,

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Photos

El Secreto
This is one of the bars that we found. Its a good place to sit and chat.

Santa María
This was our first place that we went to on Saturday. If you look cafefully all the columns have different markings on them.

Coca
This is the Castle that we visited. It is absolutely gigantic.

Lamb
This is what lamb looks like. I think that it was one of the best things that I have had on the trip.

Castle Chunk
This is one of the castle chunks that we Climbed. If I had to guess I would say that it was an old tower.

Pedraza
It rained most of the time here. That round thing is the horno or oven. It was built to be out of the living area so that it did not heat the are in the summer.

Comments

[Erin]

What did you do to your hair?

[ctgrundm]

My hair?
I dont know what you're talking about. If its wet looking than its because I havent washed it a while and it gets greasy.

[Erin]

Oh, it looked like you shaved it. Hope you're having a good time.