Toledo

This weekend we headed over to Toledo with the whole group. On our way over we stopped off at a palace. The funny thing about this palace, is that it was merely used as a summer home, so it is rather small palace. Still, we could have fit the white house in it a few times over.

The gardens were really beautiful, though they would probably be even prettier in the springtime. Here I am in front of yet another fabulous fountain:

Me and Lara in the gardens:

Most of the girls in the garden:

After the palace and gardens we got back on the bus and continued on our way to Toledo. About an hour later we stopped at a lookout point so that we could get a good view of the whole city. It was amazing. The view was absolutely breathtaking.


Once we were actually in Toledo we all went to the Cathedral together. Unfortunately you couldn't take pictures inside, but it was beautiful and enormous. It had a lot of paintings by El Greco in it, which was exciting. Here's Lara, me, and Kim in front of the Cathedral:

All of the streets in Toledo are really narrow. This does not stop cars from whizzing up and down them without regard to pedestrians. We spent many a time smashed up against a wall trying to avoid being taken out by the side of a car. But the streets are still fabulous.

All of Toledo is built on a big hill, so wherever you go you either walk up or down a steep hill. This makes for lots of good views of the city though.



The city also has a river that runs around most of it, so there are cliffs and bridges going across. Here I am in front of an awesome castle. The edge that I am standing on actually drops off down a steep edge. Awesome.

Toledo is famous for making swords and daggers. It is actually where all of the swords were made for the Lord of the Rings movies. I got Matthew this sweet little mini sword (I figure he can use it as a letter opener):

Here's Mark stabbing me on the edge of a cliff with none other than Robin Hood's dagger:

Another great view:

Basically, Toledo was awesome. Mostly it was just fun to walk through the city. Our director told us to 'get lost in Toledo' and we certainly did that, though the interesting thing was I never felt lost, even when we had no clue where we were. I was too busy just looking around at the fabulous cobblestone streets and amazing buildings and views.

Valencia

This weekend 12 of us headed up to Valencia. We took a train to Madrid and then switched to a different train that took us to Valencia. Six hours later we arrived and headed over to check in at our hostel. The hostel was pretty full this weekend so we ended up split between several rooms. I was in a room of 8 people with two other girls from our group and five random girls, 3 of which turned out to be studying in Alcala too. The hostel was pretty nice, the rooms were all painted bright colors and the atmosphere there was really fun.

We split up into smaller groups and headed out around the city. Lara, Ally, Sandra, and I headed over to the Science museum/aquarium. Unfortunately it closed in an hour so it didn't seem worth the 25 euro entrance fee, so we just saw the outside of the building. It was so beautiful. I don't know how someone can come up with the design and make it actually stand. Lara, me, and Ally in front of the aquarium:

Awesome jumping shot of me and Lara:

Surrounding the different buildings that are part of the aquarium were shallow pools of water. It was so beautiful with the light reflecting off the water and the building, which was covered with shiny white mosaic tiles.




After looking at the aquarium, we wandered through the city. It was fabulous. We got some delicious helado (ice cream) at a little shop. We wanted to go to dinner, but in Spain restaurants don't open for dinner until at least 9, so we kept wandering until places started opening.

After a lovely night in the hostel, we all headed out to the market for breakfast. Valencia's market is one of the biggest in Europe. It was really cool because it was just a lot of little stands set up inside of an enormous building. Mostly they were selling fruit and vegetables and different kinds of meat and fish. There were some bakery type stands with breads and pastries. Here's a shout out to my home state:

And here are the famous pig legs in large supply:

We stopped in at a pastry shop so that I could get a chocolate croissant. Mmmmm, so good. This is the best one I've had so far in Spain.

After the market Emily, Jenna, Lara, Sandra, Ally, and I headed over to the Lladro factory, where they make the famous handmade porcelain from Spain. Unfortunately you had to have an appointment to go inside the factory and see the process of them being made, but a super nice lady showed us around the museum.

This is one of the lladro pieces, a dragon:

They had lots of nativity scenes there, selling for upwards of 200 euros. This one is similar to the one that I got for my mom (at the outlet-type store, so it was less expensive):


A bunch of us went to the beach, but it was super windy. Here's me in front of the Mediterranean sea.

Me and Lara:

Sweet beach jumping shot:

Like I said, it was very windy:

Living on the Edge in Cuenca

Some of us took a day trip to Cuenca. Kiley and I left our house at 7 in the morning to catch a bus to the train station in Alcala, where we took a train to Madrid, where we switched to a train that took us to Cuenca. Basically, we love public transportation.

Cuenca is known for it's hanging houses. True to their word, these houses are literally hanging over the edge of a cliff. To say the least it is awesome and my pictures do not do them justice.


The house with the brown balconies is now a modern art museum, so we got to so inside and see the view from within.

Tim and I crossing the bridge.


I love the colors of the houses in town. This never would have been acceptable in Superior, Colorado and yet it is so superior.


We walked clear up through town to get a view from above. It was outsanding to say the least. Probably the most beautiful view I have ever seen. Made you feel on top of the world.

After being blown away by this view Kiley, Tim, and I decided to try and hike down to see what looked like the ruins of an old castle. Unfortunately we never made it all the way there because we kept running into barbed wire and losing the path. This was as close as we got, but it was still super cool.

The view from below:

Like I said, we got a little lost.

But we eventually found the path again and it was much easier getting back up than coming down.

Yay Cuenca!

Prado y Parque

First off, to supplement yesterday's post about dinner, here is a picture of the fish we ate...the plate was still on the table when we came down for breakfast this morning.

Today we hit up the Prado for the first time. The museum is amazing, but also gigantic. There were lots of very famous works of art there that I had studied in Art History such as Las Meninas by Velazquez and The Anunciation by Fra Angelico. I think my favorite piece that I saw was Goya's 3rd of May painting:

There's something about the colors and the size of it that really brings out the emotions of the innocent victim against the faceless soldiers.

After spending a couple of hours at the Prado, we headed over to el parque del retiro because it was such a nice day. The temperature was up somewhere in the 50's we think, which was wonderful after below freezing weather for two weeks. Here's me in front of a lovely fountain (which they seem to have an abundance of in Madrid).

The park was full of people running and walking and just taking advantage of the nice weather.

A bunch of us in front of the Crystal Palace, which is a building made of pretty much all windows.


Also in the park was this sweet area with lots of columns. We weren't sure what it was called, but it was right next to a lake full of people in rowboats. Very awesome.

So everything is coller in Spain. Even the very ground we walk upon looks more awesome.

And finally, a comical story about our return home from Madrid:
You see this train station?
Unfortunately, so did we. This is a random train station that is not on the way to Alcala. Apparently somehow about 12 of us managed to get on a train headed the wrong direction even though we've made the trip from Madrid to Alcala many a time before. After going through a tunnel for about five minutes we realized we had to be on the wrong train because we never went through more than 30 seconds worth of tunnel on our way to or from Alcala. Lucky for us it was easy enough to get back, but still it was a good example of those time when everyone is following but no one is actually leading because everyone thinks someone else is.