The day trip today was to La Escorial and El Valle de Los Caidos. It is luckily only 30 min away by bus, but we are all used to having such long bus rides to relax on that when we got there it was kind of like ohhh we have to get off the bus? But we started at La Escorial which is a palace built by Felipe II, a pretty legit king. The palace is enormous it has a library, basilica, relics of 40,000 dead people, the entire royal family is burried there, there are graves for all the dead royal children (lots of incest so a lot of babies died, also the spanish exiled the Jews and the Jews were all of the good doctors), and an impressive amount of art. We spent a couple hours there and probably saw less than 5% of it. Crazy! It was cool though. The grounds were built in the shape of a BBQ/Grill because the patron saint of the palace is San Lorenzo, a martyr who was grilled to death because he was Christian. The construction of the palace was very 'sencilla' aka simple because it was the time when the Protestants were getting a lot of Catholics to convert. People thought the Catholic church was spending too much money on fancy buildings and clothes (they were) so with that in mind, trying to keep people in with the Catholic Church, Felipe II built his palace very simple.
After our long tour through there we took a quick bus ride up to El Valle de Los Caidos. We had a quick indoor lunch break (thank goodness, it was in the mountains and very cold out. We were cold all day! The palace was cold, outside was cold...) which was great. After a chat about food yesterday, Puri made me an egg sandwich on real bread (like a baguette) instead of wonderbread and it was a great lunch. After that we walked up to the Valle de Los Caidos which is an enormous basilica built into the side of a mountain, very cool. The top is marked by a cross that stands 125meters tall (SUPER HUGE), very impressive. It is a very interesting place, but it has such feelings and emotions tied into it. It is grey and austere. We went inside the basilica which is run by the Benedictines (which come to find out today, our Benedictines don't associate with these Benedictines) and saw Franco's grave which is placed right by the altar directly in the middle of the church. It was freaky knowing he was buried there. I think it was a great thing to see. There wasn't much to see inside but outside had great pictures with the cross one way and a great view the other way. We took some group pictures but that was when things got a big weird. Some people got all like 'why would you take pictures of the cross, FRANCO built it' or 'I will not be in a picture with Franco's cross' and I'm like woah those are some harsh feelings for being an American who is in no way emotionally tied to the Spanish civil war. Also it is one of the Worlds' Monuments (in books as one of the top places to visit in the world) not to mention an impressive piece of architecture. I didn't think it was necessary for people to do that, but thats just me.
We then headed to the bus and came back to Segovia. A few of us went to get ice cream and then go shopping. I got a little gypsy skirt to add to my costume because it jingles and I couldn't resist. I'm really excited for Tuesday! The second I walked home Puri was like we are leaving and so I threw on some different clothes and then we went over to Jill's host families house. Jill and I got some time to chat which was great, a bit of time to unwind before the crazy. Then Gladys came over and Jill, Gladys, and I learned how to cook Spanish tortilla which is very easy. For a small one 5 potatoes and 3 eggs, cook up the potatoes in olive oil, mix it with the eggs (and a bit of salt) then throw it in a pan and cook it kind of like an omelet. Very simple! It tasted delicious too. Jill and I then excused ourselves from dinner to go meet some of the group at the Oso blanco to get some Sangria. It was wonderful Sangria! The bartender, Jesus, puts ice and fruit in cups, like real fruit kiwi, orange, apple, banana and then makes the sangria. It was sugar, lemon juice, orange juice (real oranges), cognac, three different fruity liquors (peach, apple, and something else), and then wine. Needless to say it was a lot of alcohol! But I had a great night chatting with people and got home around 2:15. It was a good night after a long day :)
No comments:
Post a Comment