Today we visited the Prada Museum and the Royal Palace. We all ate breakfast at the hotel, there was a choice of croissants, rolls, or bread for toast..sensing a theme here? They really like bread. There was also a choice of ham, cheese, kiwi and yogurt. They had coffee, milk, juice and water. We walked together to the museum, which was not very far, and had a lovely view of a bunch of really cool buildings. Once we were there we split up into three groups. Our tour guides name was Ana and she was SO KNOWLEDGEABLE. We walked downstairs and were given a one way walkie talkie that looked more like a skinny remote. Ana talked into hers and then if we put ours up to our ear we could hear her loud and clear. It was really nice to have this because otherwise we never would have been able to hear her. The art was very interesting and risque. A lot of naked bodies, in paintings and sculpture form. Ana knew so much about each piece of art and about the artist, plus a million random other things. We spent three hours in this museum. Listening to the stories was cool, but we spent a long time at each exhibit and didn't get to see the whole museum. The two artists we learned most about were Greco and Goya. Both who painted for the Royal Family and are very famous in Spain.
Next we walked back the opposite way and went to the Royal Palace. Just walking into the square was magical. If you didn't know, the royal family does not live in this palace, they have their own palace on the outskirts of the city, but it is used for royal processions and events. There were 2800 rooms, we didn't get to see them all though, obviously. The rooms were so intricately designed and beautiful. My favorite room was the throne room and Tara's was the ball room. I liked the throne room because it was so regal and elegant and just being in there made me feel like fairytales are real. Tara liked the ball room because it was amazing and she wants to go to a ball. All of the ceilings had a different design. And we aren't talking like textured, these were painted, carved, molded and full of history. You could lay down in a room and stare at the ceiling forever. They had rooms for ridiculous things. One of the past kings had a three room chain that was basically a man cave. The first was a billiards room, the next was a smoking room and the last room was to chill in. (We are sure they called it something more royal.)
For the rest of the day we were free, our guide and directors left us at the palace to spend the day as we pleased. This also meant finding our way back to the hotel. Thinking we would be shown the way back from the fieldtrip, neither one of us or our roommate brought our map. After a few hours, a slice of pizza and an almost panic attack from me..we made it back to the hotel! Haleigh is our roommate, by the way, she is going to Alicante, is from Boise State and is really cool.
Once we finally made it back to the hotel the kids going to San Sebastian had a meeting to learn about our housing. Tara and I each have our own rooms and possibly share the apartment with two other kids from USAC but we weren't entirely sure.
After our meeting Haleigh and I napped while Tara looked at our pictures from the day, fought with the hotel wifi and waited for us to wake up from the dead. We walked around for a while and were so starving we decided to get a snack because it was too early for dinner since the Spanish locals don't start eating until after 9:00. The three of us shared nachos and had margaritas and mojitos to drink. We walked around even more and could not find a place for dinner when it was actually dinner time. Two guys asked us if we were from USAC because we looked American and they thought they recognized us. They had already eaten dinner but went with us to a little cafe and bought us all sangria while we ate dinner and chatted with them. We walked around with them for a while and were planning on going out to the clubs, but after a few hours at dinner and an hour at a small bar it was still too early to go to the clubs and too late for us to be awake. It was one of the kids birthdays so we kind of felt bad for being lame, but a girls gotta sleep.
Day 2-Segovia and the Valley of the Fallen
Today we once again ate our fill of bread then got on the bus to go to the Valley of the Fallen. Our bus driver was amazing. Apparently all the good women drivers are in Spain. Bu dum cchh. Anyways, the Valley of the Fallen is a Catholic Church built literally inside of a mountain. There is a huge cross coming from the center of it that can be seen from kilometers away. The main alter is directly underneath the cross. Inside of the church inside the walls are at least 30,000 tombs of fallen soldiers from the Spanish Civil War. It was kind of creepy, especially when two of the tombs people were stepping on when we walked next to the alter. The inside was so big, but we learned that it isn't the longest Catholic church because according to Catholicism, the St. Peter's church in Italy has to be the biggest. Even so, it was quite large. The outside of it was just amazing as well. It had a lot of concrete around it so it looked like a giant patio. We decided it was the prime place to get married. The view of the forest below was beautiful and our visit there was unforgettable.
We got back on the bus and drove 45 more minutes to a small city called Segovia. The streets were cobbled together and very narrow. The aqueduct is very famous and many people come to see it. It was built with no cement, just stacks and stacks of large stones. It is still standing and could work as an aqueduct if they still needed it to. We had a walking tour that led to a castle on the highest part of the city and then back down to the other side. The palace was just as amazing as the first one we saw, but a lot smaller in size. After that we were set free again. It was rather chilly and we were rather hungry. They gave us a map that had places to eat on it. We set our sights on a creperie on the edge of town. After a lot of hassle of figuring out the menu, we each ordered three things for one price. A salad, a lunch crepe and a dessert crepe, as well as water. The salads we ordered were amazing. The first fresh fruit and vegetables we had gotten to eat on the trip. Both our lunch and dessert crepes were delicious and we finally felt full and satisfied. We got back on the bus and drove back to our hotel. When we got back we slept for three or four hours. Haleigh and I could have kept sleeping if Tara didn't want to get up so badly. We went to starbucks and ordered some water so we could use their wifi. It didn't work that well and that is the reason why we couldn't post anything on our blog. After an hour and a half of trying to get it to work we went to dinner at a place called Nebraska. It had pretty decent food but we were there a lot earlier than most locals. After that we went and got ready to go out. And by ready I mean we put different pants on and changed our shoes. Walking through the halls and talking to other USAC students we realized that this was not the proper club attire. Deciding that we didn't care, we left and went to a placed called Hawaii Bar. Everyone here was drinking from really long straws out of a big volcano. That is what we ordered and we were given snacks with it as well as a lei, a flower and a paper umbrella. It was a really fun atmostphere besides the older couple making out at the table next to us. After that we went to a club called COCO that was right across from our hotel. The music was really loud, really Spanish and really awesome. The lights were really fun as well. Everyone was dancing, but their dancing is a lot different than in America. We found ourselves copying a lot of the funny hand motions the locals were doing. At 3:15 am we decided to leave even though there were still plenty of people coming into the club. It was a really cool experience and was a lot of fun. We went straight to bed after showering away the smell of the club. ( A lot of people smoke in Spain and in this club)
Day 3-Toledo
We woke up at 8am and were VERY sleepy. Another round of a bread filled breakfast and we were on the bus again! We had to drive around the whole city so we could get a panaramic view of the city before going inside. There was an Old Toledo, which we were visiting and a new Toledo, which was built outside of the walls. We had to take three really long escalators to make it up to the outskirts of the city where the tour started. The streets in this city were built long ago and were made for horses, not cars, but like everywhere we have seen so far, the sidewalks seem to also be the streets. We went inside another huge Catholic church and we were allowed to take pictures inside this one, but with no flash, so our pictures didn't always turn out that great. It was really big and amazing but once again had a lot of tombs inside of it. We are glad that none of the churches we have attended have tombs in them. The one weird thing about this church was that it was not able to be heated well because of the massive size and stone everywhere, but it did have working wifi. A lot of the people that had their phones with them were distracted with the working wifi during the tour. Our favorite part of this church was the treasure room which held the most magnificent crown along with a few other interesting treasures including a bible handpainted with gold. On the way to the Jewish Mosque we stopped at a small church building with Grecco's masterpiece. It looked to us like a bunch of vampires and we decided that the movie directors for Twilight must have gotten their dressing ideas for the Volturi. The Jewish Mosque wasn't that amazing but was still pretty cool and Ana told us a good story about it. This city was like a maze so they walked us back to the main square and let us have free time. We found a place to eat and then walked down the main street in search for skarves and any other souvenirs. We ended up finding a good deal on skarves and Tara and I each got one. We also got some pretty sweet presents but we can't divulge that information for surprise purposes.
We took a short nap on the bus ride back to our hotel. We went to Churros and Chocolates and had as you can guess, Churros and Chocolate. It was delicious! We then walked down to Retiro Park. It was huge. We got there just as darkness had hit the city, but there were families and lots of people roaming through it so we figured it was safe to walk through. There was a large pond that you could rent boat rides on during nice weather. We walked all the way to the other side hoping to see the Crystal Palace. We did see it, but only in the dark. It was still really cool and hopefully we will get to go back on our way home in May. We walked back to the hotel and sat around for a while. When it was finally close to dinner time we walked to a place down the road. It looked really nice but wasn't too expensive. Our waiter was super rude and made the experience even worse than it already was with our lack of sleep. We did have a good dinner of Carbanara even with his bad attitude. (Don't worry Cindy, yours is still the best.) We returned back to the hotel, packed our bags, showered and went to bed ready to leave in the morning!
No comments:
Post a Comment