Segovia

Yesterday we made our way to Segovia for a day trip. It was about a 2hr train ride for 14 euros so it wasn't bad. The train station is a little out of the way of down town so it took us about a half an hour to walk to the Roman Aqueduct. While we were there we saw the Roman Aqueduct, the Segovia Cathedral and Alcazar of Segovia. The Alcazar of Segovia is one of the castles that inspired Disney's Cinderella Castle. You can only see the backside and the inside though because it sits on a cliff so we could only see the front in pictures. The Castle use to be a Roman fort but the Spanish Kings and Queens also lived in it for some time. 

Our original plan was to go to Paris but since we waited so long the tickets got a little pricy. I also had the list of day trips that I wanted to do so instead of Paris we saw El Escorial, Segovia and Toledo. I'm happy with our day trips because some of those little towns were my favorite part of my trip and it was a nice change of pace from the city. Also it was much cheaper. 

Today is my last full day in Spain... So far we got up and had a cafe con leche and did some shopping since I still had some euros left over. Some of the shops here are not my favorite though I enjoy the flea market much more so I gave up trying to spend all my euros and traded Luke the last of my money. Tomorrow I will make my way to the airport for my 1pm flight and I will land in Sac about 11:45pm. All and all I had a very fun time in Spain and got to see some beautiful things.

Toledo

Took the train to Toledo today it was around 20 euros round trip and a half our train ride.  It was a really cool little town. The roads were all small and stone and it seem to me like something Italy would look like. It has some Gothic style churches and is famous for their swards. While we were there we mostly just walked around for a couple hours. We stopped in some shops and I got a Spanish style plate from Toledo and we saw a man making some Jewelry. All and all it was a fun day.

Bull fight and more

Today we went back to El Rastro (the flea market) because I wanted to get some more stuff from there. We got a later start though so it was packed. We also went to the bull fight it was pretty intense. It was close to 3 hours long and they killed 6 bulls. 2 of the guys got ran over by the bulls. One it just ripped the whole front part of his costume and the other got stabbed in the leg with it's horn. Both of them continued until they killed the bull. The one guy looked pretty bad though blood was running down his whole let and it looked like he got hit in the head too. By the end they had to carry him off. In the bull fights they have the guys with the capes. Guys that just run at the bull and stab them with two arrow and a guy on a horse that will stab the bull also. The bull will run at the horses and completely knock them down. It's pretty sad. They are completely padded and everything so they don't get stabbed but they are also blind folded so they don't even see it coming I think one or two were still pretty hurt.

El Escorial

Yesterday me and Luke made our way to El Escorial. It took about an hour on the Metro to get there and only 3 euros so it was a super cheep trip. We walked around the town for a while which seemed suprisingly quite after being in the city but it was a nice change of pace. We saw the San Lorenzo Cathedral witch I think is one of my favorite things that we have seen so far. Inside there were around probably 100 tombs for the royal family. Some of the marble ones where amazing and we studied them in my art history classes. Unfortunately you are not allowed to take pictures of anything inside. We also saw a huge art collection by many famous artists such as El Greco. I guess there is a giant cross for Franco there but me and Luke missed that.

More Madrid

The last two days have been really low key. Me and Luke were really tired on from our trip to Cadiz so on Wed we just slept in and then went to Plaza de Espana. It isn't a very exciting square it's mostly comercial shopping but Luke got a nice Italian coffee maker since he loves cafe con leche now. And I got a new tank top at for 5 euros because my strap broke walking around. 

Today we went to El Parque del Retiro it has the only statue in the world that pays tribute to the fallen angel. We heard a guy on the saxophone playing the tequila song which really made me laugh. The park was pretty but it was supper hot as usual. When we left it was siesta time so everything was closed. It gets pretty annoying that everything shuts down in the middle of the day. But today I didn't mind because I was tired so me and Luke celebrated siesta and took a nap.  When we woke up we walked into town and saw the flamenco show Carmen. It was about 2 hours long but it was fun. Made me want to take flamenco dance classes myself.

Cadiz

The train ride to Cadiz was nice. It was around 4 and a half hours and we got to see lots of olive trees and sunflowers on the way. No one was sitting in front of us so that was nice we got a whole little section to ourselves.

I found it strange that you don’t need any form of identification to ride the train. I kept asking Luke if I needed my passport and he told me no it would be safer at home… that was a mistake. We get to Cadiz and walked over to our hostel to find out they will not take us without our passports. We looked at 3 more places to also get rejected. By this point I figured we were either sleeping in the street or going back home but finally someone took us. It wasn’t the nicest place or the most professional but at least we had somewhere to sleep.

While we were in Cadiz we went to the carnival on the water and saw some cool pirate ships along with a dance competition. We went back to the hostel around 11pm because they had rules that you had to shower before 11:30. However we came to find out that they had fireworks around 12 that we missed.

 There were many pretty plazas in Cadiz. We spent most of our time in one plaza that had a giant old church. We drank a lot of café con leche and ate Spanish Tortilla’s and on our last day there they had a bunch of venders come for a market.

We of course also went to the beach. It was a nice beach but I think Luke wished it was more tropical. Along the beach there is also a bridge that leads you out to an old castle. We walked down the stone pathway and saw the castle right at sunset. It was really pretty and on the walk back we got to see some local musicians practicing on their drums.

We got to Cadiz on Sunday and we left on Tuesday witch is about 1 day too many I thought. Luke and I expected a much bigger town but you can walk around the whole thing in about an hour… maybe more so we didn’t need that much time. I think we are both happy to make our way back to Madrid and take a decent shower and not have to carry so much stuff around with us.

So Far

I finally made it to Madrid yesterday after a very long day... My flight out of Texas got delayed so I was in that airport for 9 hours. I managed to finish a whole book before my flight to Madrid.

Right when I got here we dropped off my stuff at Luke's apartment and then got some food because I was in desperate need of some. We got tortillas (made of eggs, potatoes and onions) jamon iberica (cross between ham and beef jerky) cheese and tinto de verano. It was nice and yummy. We also went and saw the Plaza del Sol, Plaza Real, Plaza Mayor and the Plaza de Santa Ana. Finally made it too bed although I think my body thought I was taking a nap because I woke up 3 hours later wide awake. When I finally fell back a sleep I slept until 11 and still felt exhausted.

Today me and Luke went into the Reina Sophia and saw all kinds of art. We saw some famous Picasso works along with Dali. I never realized how big Garnica was until today and was pretty bummed they don't let you take pictures in that part of the museum. We also went to the botanical gardens today which was really pretty and saw a photography show while we were in there. Me and Luke shared some paella for dinner but it was not very good I like the kind Luke makes better. Currently I am in Starbucks because Luke's Internet has been down for a week at his apartment. I don't think is land lord is very motivated to fix things.

Tomorrow we are going to go to El Rastro (the flea market) and then find a train down to  Cadiz in southern Spain. 

The internet in starbucks is going to slow to upload pics at the moment on here... I'll try facebook 

<3 Kara