El Escorial y Valle de los Caidos

We went to the Escorial, which was a palace designed by Felipe IV which has a ton of famous art, and many different rooms. It also contains the Panteon-which is where all of the royalty of Spain are buried. It was soo crazy-all of these kings and leaders we have been learning about all in the same place! It was very interesting! The valle de Los Caidos is a cathedral in the mountains that was constructed by the dictator Franco, as a place to commemorate those who died during the Spanish civil war (which took place during 1936-39). It is a very controversial building, because Franco built it with the help of political prisoners, many of whom died. Also, this cathedral is meant as a resting place for those who died during the war, from both sides. Though the families of people who died (who were on the opposite side of Franco) don’t want them in the same place as this horrible ruler. Franco is also buried here in the church. The cathedral was the most eerie place I have ever been inside. It was dimly lit and was build to simulate a sepulcher. There were statues of hooded angels with their heads bowed down throughout the church, and it was just a very beautiful, yet completely unsettling place to be. I felt as though that these physical features truly embodied the emotional and ideological discomfort that surround that building. The outside provided a completely stark contrast to the church. The sun shining on the mountains was so amazingly beautiful. Megan and I skipped around and sang “The hills are alive”…pretty typical for us :)

A visit from Megan!

That night when we got back from Andalucia-Megan came to spend the week here with us (because it was her spring break) Though on the way, she ran into some troubles with the trains and almost had to spend the night in the train station. Luckily she made it safe and sound to Segovia. It was sooo amazing to see her and was a nice touch of home here while I am abroad. Unfortunately she came during the worst week of weather ever-rainy and cold! Though we had the best week of catching up, laughing about old memories, seeing the sights of Segovia, and going on adventures. She came and stayed the week at my house with my host family. (My mom absolutely adored her).
I can’t even express how awesome this week was-if studying abroad wasn’t the most amazing time ever-then throw in your best friend and everything is perfect!
Here are some of the highlights from that week
-Walking arm in arm everywhere and having someone to sing songs with
-Talking about EVERYTHING-our trips, the future, memories etc.
-Playing the “If I could eat anything from the caf. At CSB” game
-Watching the video of my host sister’s wedding and seeing how happy it made my host mom to show it to us.
-Going out for coffee at La Colonial
-Making plans for our European travels after the program ends.
-Having someone to finish inside jokes that I’ve wanted to say the entire trip
-Wearing matching clothes and matching hair styles (I know how dorky!)
-Buying our first pair of skinny jeans together (for 6 euros) crazy!
-Watching High school Musical 3 and eating too many cookies!
-Teaching English to the four year old classroom and failing at the English game the teacher taught!
-Going out for tapas and eating churros and chocolate
-Singing karaoke together and drinking AMAZING Sangria
And I’m sure a lot more things-it was such a fun week-it was so sad to send her back, but we will see her soon!

Cordoba

So this was the end of our Andalusian adventures and we were only there for a part of a day! When we got there, we had more activity money left over, so our director took us out again for lunch, and we are sooo much, but it was very good. Our lunch topic of conversation was what animal each person resembled the most…which was very funny. They decided that I would have to be an otter-or something with a lot of energy :). Afterwards we went to the cathedral-which was the most unique cathedral I have ever seen in my life. It used to be a Muslim mosque, but then of course the Christians took it over during the reconquista. Anyways-it was dimly lit and there were arches all over the inside-It was completely beautiful! On the way back to the bus, we were hit by an intense rain burst and we all had to run…again! And the 6 hour bus ride back to Segovia concluded our Andalucia excursion!

Sevilla

Sevilla is a a very pretty city too! It has a lot more commercialization though than most of the other cities we have been to. It was interesting because when we arrived, one of the first streets that we passed by was called Kansas City Street, and apparently in Europe, most large cities have a “sister” city somewhere else in the world, and apparently Sevilla’s sister city is Kansas City-how random! When we arrived, our director took us out to lunch with some of our activity money where we had Sangria, Paella, bread, and salad which was very good! We sat outside in the sunshine and it was lovely! After lunch we walked around the city just exploring everything! Sevilla has a river that runs through the middle and several unique bridges! The streets are also super confusing! They aren’t in straight lines and there are all of these little side roads everywhere! It is very easy to get lost! That night our group went to see a Flamenco show which was AMAZING! They move their feet so fast, and there is so much emotion in the dance. There were also guitar players and singers who were incredibly talented as well. It was really amazing to see. The next day we went to the Cathedral (which was amazing). It is one of the largest in all of Europe, and SO beautiful! We got to climb up to the bell tower and look at a view of the city which was also spectacular-until the bells started to ring!! It was quite frightening. Afterwards our daring leader thought she knew where she was going and we ended up kind of wandering around Sevilla for an hour without really finding anything. Then after lunch we were supposed to go on a tour of the palace, though we went to the “entrance” which wasn’t open and our director was like-if we don’t get there in time we won’t get in! Soo…she books it and our entire group ran down a street past a largely populated park after our director. It was so funny, we could hardly run because we were all laughing so hard. Anyways, the palace ended up being closed anyways-because it was Andalucia day (the southern region of Spain). Then Katie and I met up with one of here friends that was studying abroad in Sevilla, and we talked with her for a bit in a park. It was so funny, because when we got there there was a large crowd, and we were like “What is this all about?” and it turns out, they were having like a break dance “dance off”. It was hilarious all of these Spaniards acting all gangster and intense. It surely made us giggle. Later that night we went on a night cruise with some of our activity money. It was amazing. We all got dressed up and went together as a group. It was a clear and warm night and we just cruised down the river for an hour and a half. There was music on the bottom deck of the boat, but most of us couldn’t pull ourselves away from the beauty of the city lights reflecting off the river and the warm breeze. It was a perfect evening.
The next day we finally got to go to the palace we couldn’t get into the day before, and that was amazing as well! It had a lot of Muslim art on the inside-but the amazing part was the gardens on the outside. There were all these trails that went through a variety of scenery- fountains, flowers, orange and lemon tress, Peacocks (which I chased around for a bit) :) and cleanly trimmed shrubberies. It was a very peaceful place. I wanted to just sit there and read a book, or have a discussion group or something :). That was the end of our adventures in the lovely town of Sevilla!

Granada

So we headed out for our excursion on the morning of Ash Wednesday..unfortunately at 6:30 AM. It was not the best call on behalf of our director, because there were many people in our group who had stayed out too late the night before and were how should I say….not quite in the condition to be traveling. But we made it. Granada is such a beautiful city. There are orange trees all over the city and it is surrounded by mountains! It is also a very unique cities due to the Muslim and gypsy influence in the art, music and architecture of the city.
Here are some of the highlights from Granada
-The beautiful cathedral of Granada and attending Ash Wednesday service there. The ashes there are whitish-grey and they don’t even make a cross. The Sacerdote (priest) just pinched some of the ashes and stuck them on your head. Though mine kind of sprinkled down into my eyes haha-oh the drama. (That’s an intense story that I’m pretty sure Molly would enjoy) I’m surprised I made it back to our pew.
-Seeing the Alhambra- the summer palace of when the Muslims were in power in the South of Spain. It was absolutely exquisite. The decorations were so elaborate and perfectly symmetrical. The architecture was also very beautiful. The palace had the most amazing view over the city, and it was lovely.
-Katie, Shalane, and I climbed up one of the mountains there, so we could watch the sunset. It was so beautiful, and it was definitely a good work out!
-Gazpacho- this is a Spanish specialty-and extraordinarily good! It is a cold soup that consists of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, ground up bread, garlic, and other random veggies. It tastes kind of salsa-y. It is a very common soup to have during the summer. I am going to have to find a recipe and make it when I come back, because it was so good.
-Just walking around and experiencing a city that was so unique and beautiful-both with the nature that surrounded it, the cute shops and outdoor cafes, and its unique architecture. There was also a lot music everywhere you went- a lot of talented people!

Carnival

The Tuesday before Ash Wednesday here is a festival called Carnival, and it is just like Halloween! Everyone dresses up in Desfrazes (costumes) and parties! The people in our group all dressed up and we partook in the festivities. Katie and I got ready together. She was a clown, and I hand made a little crown that I could wear and be a princess. After we were dressed up, we went to the plaza where there was a big parade! There were so many people there and it was so cool to see. Afterwards, we went to the dinner they had. It was Potaje (a special soup) and a ceramic bowl (that you got to keep!) for a euro. It was really yummy, and after Katie and I finished this guy kept coming up to us and asking us if we wanted more soup. We said no, but then he gave it to us anyways. We ate it and Katie and I were joking around that we hoped that we would survive to see the next day…we did so no worries :). Then there was a big dance with a live band in the plaza mayor. It was definitely an experience, because the lead singer of the band was dressed up as a nun. It definitely made us laugh. The party continued long into the night and it was a lot of fun!

Fatima

Katie and I woke up and ate breakfast at our hostel (which was amazing, bread with Nutella and cereal) Then we went to the train station where we caught our train to Fatima. So as we got off the train in”Fatima” there was the train station, one lonely street, and some goats. And we were wondering where in the world we were and how come we couldn’t see the basilica, so we went in and asked the guy working there how far it was away…and he told us that it was 25 KM away and you could only get there by taxi, or by a bus that would be coming in like 3 hours. So Katie and I set out to see where this so called location of Bus picking-up-ness was down the street of desolate goatness, and we were approached by a guy who said “You two must speak English” and we were like well, yes. And he was like “Let me ask you, what in the world are you doing here in Fatima?” we found out that his name was David he was from Ohio, studying abroad in Italy for the semester with Kent State University, and also trying the find the Basilica. So we decided that we would all just split the cost of the taxi. As we were getting into the taxi, another girl asked us if she could split the cost with us, because she was also on her way there. Her name was Bruna, and she was also our age and she was from Brazil. She had taken 2 months off to travel around Europe. She was very helpful, because she could speak both English and Portuguese, so she became our translator! The ride up to the sanctuary was a beautiful and hilly country side and our driver was explaining all the places we drove past (and Bruna translated). When we got there we decided to all stick together, so it was so fun. We spent the entire day there with these two people we had just met. It was interesting how our faith brought us together, because we were all Catholic, but we were all from different places and here we are seeing Fatima together! The Basilica was absolutely stunning. The artwork inside was so beautiful and depicted the scenes of Mary appearing to the children. These were directed by what Lucia (one of the children) recalled it looking like. There was both a Basilica, and then a chapel in the exact location the lady appeared. There were pilgrims who were walking on their knees to the chapel. It was so interesting. The other thing they have is a place to light candles for the lady, If you light one and pray for something it is supposed to be granted, though you can only light one the normal way, otherwise they have a huge fire, and if you have more than one candle, you just throw them into the big fire. They recycle the wax at the end of the day for new candles to sell.

It was funny because the entire time I was there I was like “This is just like in the cartoon movie of Fatima” Though I couldn’t remember the title, and Katie and David were like “The Day the Sun Danced”. They had both seen it. So we kept making movie references all day. We went to one of the masses there, and it was interesting, because it was in Portuguese and we couldn’t understand any of it!

Across from the Basilica they have another church which is the fourth largest church in the world. It can seat like 11,000 people, or something crazy like that. Right beside it was a building, that I thought was like the “Catholic Megaplex” It had all of these chapels with all of the sacraments going on. They had confessions going on all over the place in all these different kinds of languages and many holy water fonts and places for reflection. It was definitely interesting :)

-Our experience in Fatima was absolutely wonderful. It was such a beautiful, and holy place. It was also very special that we got to spend it with our new friends!
**By the way Katie and I are friends with Bruna and David on facebook now and we’ve been staying in touch!