Segovia, but more importantly, friends come to visit!

Friday after our first week, we had a school trip to Segovia and La Granja. La Granja is a big ol palace built by the first king of the Bourbon dynasty in Spain, Felipe V. He missed Versailles, so he did his best to build it in Spain. The palace was not extraordinary by european standards (aka still awesome). The gardens, however, were even euro-awesome. Massive, incredibly manicured, and full of fountains. Pretty awesome stuff, and the town around it is pretty cool too. It's in an area that reminds me a lot of northern Arizona, so obviously my zonie-senses were tingling and I thought it was awesome. Here's some pics...even with people in them, just for you mom :]

Cell phone pic, but looks like the route to Flagstaff

Palacio de La Granja

Oh, just the side yard

Back...yard?

After La Granja, we went to Segovia, home of the most complete, longest ancient Roman Aqueduct. Sounds boring, yeah? False, pretty crazy actually. It was built about 2000 years ago, and the Romans in typical "Look how smart we are, were gonna be talked about in middle school history classes one day!" fashion decided to build it without cement...and there it stands, to this day, without cement. Check out the 2nd picture, you can tell. I guess theyre the one's laughing now. 

Segovia is also known for a special type of roast piglet called Cochinillo that is ready once it can be cut through with a plate. You can google it if you want to learn about that though, because its expensive so I didn't eat it (regret that, everyone said it was amazing). We went to the Alcazar after that, where Ferdinand and Isabella lived. since they were the first royal couple to have "equal power" (Ferdinand was totally whipped and Isabella was pushy, she wore the pants), they had a phrase coined that goes "Tanto monta, monta tanta, Isabela como Fernando". Pretty much means that they are both equal above everything else. The coolest part about the Alcazar is that their throne room was there, which means I stood where Christopher Columbus asked them to fund his search for India. Yeah, I had an America moment there.

The actual Alcazar is as much a fortress as a castle, so it isn't the prettiest of castles, but it has some great views of the spanish countryside. I saw my future house too, built into a small cliff and had a pool that looked like something James Bond would spend his summers at, but I couldn't get a picture of it.

We came back from Segovia around 7....so tired. I dont know if it was the heat or what but everyone was wiped. But we had a big weekend ahead of us, time for a supersiesta. After successfully convincing my body that 30 minutes of sleep was all I needed, we ate dinner and rallied for the night. First stop was El Tigre, where we were going to meet all the girls that were coming into town (Julie, Christine, Meg, and Kinsey, if youre counting). Mark didnt know that Kinsey was coming into town so we did the whole surprise thing then moved on with our night. El Tigre is quite an experience. They give you 2/3 liter cups of beer/sangria/mojito and MASSIVE amounts of tapas. Each person, instead of getting a tapa, gets a plate loaded with tapas...

                          

Pretty good bang for your buck seeing as you get a meal, more or less, with every drink. Post surprise, we started the walk (to go cups, as you can see in the picture), to a disco called Joy Eslava...Slavic Joy?. We used our Americanness (read: Blondes) and flyers to get in for free...but drinks are still expensive inside. What we figured out that for the cost of a bottle, you would get about 10-12 drinks...and we were going to be there for a long time so 6 of us split a bottle, which puts you up on the stage and makes you feel cool, and saves you money, win win win situation. The part that really made it worth it though was the fact they brought it to you with a sparkler on top. 

Time travel forward a few hours...time for churros! There is a churro place that I led everyone to... in the morning they wondered how I led them there seeing as I had only been there once before (it's around the corner). Churros here are not covered in cinnamon but served with very thick hot chocolate to dip them in...jury is still out on which is better but fried dough with a topping of something sweet is a recipe for success. 

The aftermath of churros...

The next morning, mostly just a continuation of the night before, we decided to show our visitors around Madrid like good hosts. We first took them to 100 Montaditos, which is a place that has a bunch of (100) cheap, tiny sandwiches on a sushi style menu that you fill out yourself. The guy behind me in line asked where I found all my friends and if he could take a picture with them...they literally go gaga for blondes.

Retiro is next, and we finally decided to go on the boats! Which would be even more awesome if there was a breeze or something, but it was still enjoyable. Relaxing on the water is always nice. 

More Retiro, showed them the Rosaleda and the Palacio de Cristal and then it was time to retiro back to my bed for a nap.

Night 2, we walked around showing them some cool areas at first. It was "La Noche en Blanco" where Madrid basically turns into disneyland, you couldn't even walk sometimes because there were so many people. All the museums and stuff stay open til 6 and are free, but our señora told us that it wasnt even worth trying because the lines are so long. We went to a turkish bar that has these big towers of beer and hookah, kind of a dive, but everyone in there is always having so much fun and dancing and stuff in a place clearly not meant for dancing. After that, an Irish pub. Irish people seem to only be in Ireland and specific parts of America...but their bars are everywhere. All the Irish pubs here are exactly the same in as many ways as they can be, so 1 is pretty much the same as the other. 

We didnt stay too terribly long, and after that we all kind of went our own ways. I met a spanish guy who spoke perfect english, makes a living rapping in Spain. He raps now not by choice, but because he played professional basketball, went up for a rebound and someone went under his legs and he broke his neck, ouch. He told me we'll only meet foreigners and creepy spaniards who want to talk to foreign girls at the places we've been going to so he gave me his number and we're gonna try to experience the real Spanish nightlife. 

Hasta Luego!