Live for today, we'll dream tomorrow. We've got big plans in sight.

Hooray for writing more than one entry in a week right? I sure think so!


andddddd most importantly, HAPPY BIRTHDAY RACHEL SWANSON(: hope you enjoyed spending all day (minus this one time when you had to stay in this locker thing for like two hours. no biggie right?) with me here en españa hahahah. There was quite the amount of explaining that I had to do to tell people why in the world I was carrying around a yellow piggy bank all day and taking a million pictures of it. I would have to say this one is my favorite: 

So traveling days here in españa are pretty interesting. They usually involve sitting on the bus for an hourish maybe and getting some serious neck pain from trying to find a decent way to sleep. Where's that darn pillow when you need it? But anyways, we finally arrive to our destination (in this case for this past weekend we went to Segovia, Manzanares, and Escorial Valle), we normally meet up with a tour guide who takes us to some touristy places (mostly cathedrals, churches, or really anything religious for that matter). Our guide normally finishes around 1:30 - 2:00 and then we get free time! And of course that's the most important part if you ask me. Shopping for souvenirs has become one of my favorite things to do. I have to find the perfect things for people. It's quite the hunt. And then after free time, I get to have neck pain all over again. woot. 


With Segovia, that's pretty much exactly what happened. The main highlights of that trip (of course not the trip where I totally turfed it in front of like pretty much everyone. no way...) were looking at the aqueduct, going to the castle place, and really that's about it. Really, there's not that much in Segovia. It's kind of a typical Spanish city. It has the tourist shops, normal clothes shops, places to eat, quite a bit of extravagant cathedrals, and those cute tiny streets in between buildings that can barely fit cars through them haha. Though it seems to be similar to most cities here, it does have some interesting things that it's famous for. 1. The way they eat their piggies. Basically, they like throwing them in the oven skin and all. Definitely couldn't do that because it still has a face:/ But hey, their love for pigs their helped me find Rachel's present! 2. The aqueduct. flip dang that thing is big. I was told how big it was, but honestly, I just tune out numbers after 1000 that are said in Spanish(: It's quite the amazing structure though. While spending much time looking at it, I couldn't help but think about many people had to put this thing together and how it must have taken forever. Craziness. 3. The walls of their buildings. They're quite intricate. What seems like 99% of the walls there in Segovia have some crazy cool pattern on it. Not entirely sure why, but they're kind of fun to look at! 

Okay, so Manzanares and Escorial Valle were a little different. I'll begin with Escorial. Because we were a little early for our tour at the monastery there, we went to the place where Francisco Franco is buried. It's definitely one of the craziest things I've seen. Like you get to the bridge and look to your right and low and behold there's literally the biggest cross in the world out your window completely surrounded by trees. It's quite the incredible sight, but then you learn that a bunch of slaves were forced to construct it and many died in the process (hence why the place is called valley of the fallen). So it's kinda like ehhhh. incredible and saddish at the same time. 

Also in Escorial is the  crazy huge monastery. And when I say crazy hug, I mean it. Our tour guide said that we walked over a mile and a half on our tour. So this place is split into three parts: the monastery, the museum, and the school. Of course, we only saw the museum part. It's not the most intricate building I've seen, but Rey Felipe II ordered it to be built as a monastery because he was a super religious kind of guy. Also, a lot of the museum is kind of like a cemetery. Basically, I was standing like feet away from Rey Carlos V who lived in like the 1500s. But not just him, there were like a bajillion other royal people too of course. It was definitely a weird thought to have. 


So after the tour of the monastery for two hours, we ate lunch and got on the bus again to go to Manzanares. The only thing that we were there to see was the nifty castle. We didn't exactly have a tour guide so we looked around and took a BUNCH of photos. Twas fun(: The view from the castle was amazing as you can now see. 

Well, those were my adventures for the weekend(: Next weekend I get to go to Valencia and Cuenca. I'm quite stoked because I've been dying to see Valencia since I did my project on it. I'll probably write another entry tomorrow, so until then adios mis amigos!