"One man scorned and covered with scars still strove with his last ounce of courage to reach the unreachable stars; and the world was better for this.”
- Don Quijote de la Mancha
Just as I had predicted, my updates are steadily decreasing. I honestly hadn't noticed that I haven't updated in four or five days. As usual, time sneaks up on me.
The weekend was quite lovely. After being away from Madrid for a weekend, I was in the mood to go out into the city and enjoy a social outing. Trinity and I ended up going to a Discoteca on Friday night, and as usual, that was fun. We usually go out to places like that on Thursday nights; surprisingly, the night life gets kicking at a later hour on Fridays -- the Discoteca didn't really start getting more crowded until after 1:30. I'm not sure if Thursday nights are particularly popular nights, or if this Friday was just off, or what, but I noticed the difference. Nevertheless, it was a good time, and we enjoyed dancing to some pretty good music. At one point, a violinist came out on stage, and he played along to the beat of some techno music. I must say, he gave a great performance -- he rocked out as well as any rockstar to that violin, and I was impressed. Didn't help that he was cute, but I'm pretty convinced that he was gay.
Saturday, Trinity, Robby, and I were supposed to go into Segovia, a city that's just a half-hour train ride outside of Madrid, in the morning. Unfortunately, the train we wanted to take was full, and the other train was significantly more expensive. As a result, our day trip was delayed a day (oh, boo-hoo...) and we ended up going back to Trinity's place and hung out for a while. It was probably a good thing that we ended up not going that day given that Trinity and I had been out fairly late at the discoteca the night before, and we were both still pretty tired from it. The day was not wasted, though. Trinity had gone back to the US a week before to attend her brother's wedding, and she came back with a batch of small goodies, a.k.a. American food. We made a wonderful Velvetta cheese dip, and then stuffed our faces as we watched Disney-Pixar's "The Incredibles" on YouTube (as much as some people tend to insult the Disney-Pixar duo, you have to admit that they make really good movies, Up, Wall-E, The Incredibles, A Bugs Life just to name a few). Still too lazy and too tired to do anything, we watched another movie, M. Night Shymalan's "The Village," which I had never seen. Personally wasn't overly impressed with it. M. Night Shymalan's obviously known for his spooky thrillers, and his big final plot twists, but this ending really seemed so lacking, like I was expecting it to be more dynamic, but it wasn't. Overall movie wasn't scary either. Still, it had some neat symbolism and motifs to it. Anyway, I'd say this was a fairly "American" day.
Early Sunday morning, before heading out to Segovia, we made strawberry pancakes (another gift from Trinity who brought back Bisquik). We bought some strawberries and milk and had us a good American Breakfast. Seriously, Spain's breakfasts are sorely disappointing; you don't get that much food, and it's not considered as important as the other meals. I myself don't eat breakfast that much (I like my sleep), but when I do, I expect to eat a full American breakfast; we're talking eggs, sausage or bacon, hashbrowns, juice...the works.
The pancakes, which were delicious, weren't even the highlight of the day, because the day trip to Segovia was great. Segovia is (obviously) much smaller than Madrid (not necesarily 'rural', but definitely not as much of a city feel), but out of all the places I've been to in Spain, it's probably my favorite. Immediately upon getting there, we stood before the Roman Aqueducts (a bunch of arches stacked on top of each other). Robby and I had seen a picture of this in our clase de Historia de Espana while learning about the influence of the Roman Empire on Spain. Actually it was just incredible. In some ways, it reminded me of the Great Wall of China, because it stretched a long way, though obviously not anywhere as long as the Great Wall, and it was made with beautiful stone. The city as a whole was right up my alley of interest -- it was just like everything you'd heard about medieval castles, a fortress-like structure on top of a cliff with a big wall surrounding the city for protection. The walls even had the places where guards would patrol!
Continuing, we headed into the city and immediately saw a Cathedral peeking through the alleys, above all the buildings. Of course, we had to go check it out. It was the gothic style La Catedral de Nuestra Senora de la Asuncion y de San Frutos, and like La Catedral de Burgos en La Rioja, it was jaw-dropping. Amazing. It wasn't as big or complex as Burgos, but it was just as gorgeous. The architecture and other artwork inside and out were quite stunning. Something that I didn't mention last time that I definitely should have are the ceilings inside a Cathedral -- they have some really neat, difficult-to-make designs which make you wonder how the hell people were able to make that. As usual, I could go on and on about this Cathedral. Pictures later.
After that, we went to the highlight of the city: the castle which inspired Disney, Alcazar. Okay. You know I love medieval history. You know I love medieval fantasy. So yeah. Putting me in a castle makes me an EXTREMELY happy panda. The Ireland castles were really cool, but we didn't really get to go inside one. We got the chance to explore Alcazar, and I had a field day. First step in, there's a 'knight in armor' on display, and I just jump like a typical fan girl. Kind of sad really, but I really enjoyed going through this castle and looking at all the displays it had to offer: stained glass, displays of weapons and armor, portraits and other paintings, the views of the outside lands, all of it was just great. Apparently, the place had been used as a prison for a couple of years, but it was so difficult for me to imagine how that was possible -- the entire place was way too elegant and royal for it to be suited solely for prisoners. We also got to climb the tower, which was actually quite treacherous. First of all, there were LOTS of stairs. I mean, if you're a coach and want to have your athletes get into shape by doing stair exercises, this is the place to do it. I was very much so out of breath upon reaching the top. And secondly, the stairway was narrow, and the stairs were steep. Imagine dozens of people making their way up and down those stairs, squeezing passed other people doing the same thing. Seriously, this was the one set of stairs you did NOT want to fall on. The adventure up was definitely worth it, though, as we got a great view of the city of Segovia, with the gorgeous Cathedral in the background, as well as the land around. Really, really pretty stuff.
We got some lunch after exploring the castle, which was nice but nothing worth describing in great detail. After, we ventured a little ways out of the city (around the castle) and visited a couple of churches. While those were beautiful in their own right, we were really camera happy because of the view of the castle that we were able to get from heading that way. The castle literally stood ABOVE everything, like a city of the sky. You could see it just standing on the cliff, towering above the rest of the land. Reminded me a bit of Middle Earth and Lord Of The Rings. Anyway, lots of pictures for sure! They'll come later. After walking all that way and back (keep in mind that the walk back was very uphill), we were pretty beat, and luckily, it was about time to catch the bus and train back to Madrid.
Overall, very successful day trip. We want to try and do a day trip to Toledo this weekend.
In other news...
Weird to think that I'm about halfway done with my entire adventure in Spain/Europe. This semester has gone by really quickly, and I feel there's still so much that I would like to do and see, even if I don't know what those things or sights are. Time is always going, even when I'm not doing anything productive, and I seem to miss it as it passes me by sometimes.
Speaking of being halfway through things, I'm probably over partially the academics, and classes are still going pretty well. I'm fairly confident that I'm doing well in all of them (although it's a bit unfair to judge some classes since the grade is based on a final or a paper). Actually, the classes really don't seem overly difficult at all. Makes me kind of worried to go back to IWU and get slammed with work.
Two things about IWU: they've sent out the email about class registration. They had a list of classes that would most likely be available during the Spring, but the official course catalog comes out tomorrow. I'm not too worried, since I guess I have a slight advantage in registration this semester, as well as the fact that I have a pretty good idea as to what I'd like to take. I guess I'm still just a little concerned about getting into what I need to, as well as covering all my credits. Class registration is always stressful for me (as it is for everyone), even though I'm generally prepared and have had pretty good luck with registering. Personal Reminder: I need to get those emails about classes as soon as possible.
Other news about IWU that I've received: H1N1 has hit the campus. I've never taken it too seriously; as a matter of fact, I've joked about it on numerous occassions, but I guess now that it's literally struck home, I'm more attentive and a bit more worried. I'm not by any means freaking out or becoming paranoid, and I'm sure the student body is healthy enough to fight it off, but it's kind of scary to think about it being that close to friends, and in my case, family as well. So to all those at IWU, please stay healthy and keep me updated!!
It's chilly here, at least in this house...but a big warm blanket makes me sleep oh so well!
Hasta luego.
~ LSquared
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