El Fin

I´m leaving Spain tomorrow and I am really sad...but don´t worry I cannot wait to see everyone at home. I miss you all soooo much. So I´ll tell you a little bit about my last two weeks in Segovia. Hopefully when I get home, I can also put some pictures on here too, and make it a little more interesting!

Last week was kind of busy with school, we had a test and we also had to start preparing for our exams which were this week. But we still tried to fit everything in! Wednesday, we went to La Granja...it is a little city, about 15 minutes away from Segovia where there is a Royal Palace and a Real Fabrica (Royal Factory). It is a glass factory, and my señora, Lola, works in the library there. Some other girls in the KIIS group had visited earlier and said it was a cool place to visit. We decided to plan a little day trip there.

Last Wednesday was one of the three days of the year that the they turn on the fountains in the palace garden, so we really wanted to see that. After class, we took the bus to La Granja. Lola met us there and showed us around the glass factory. It was so cool, we even got to watch them make a wine glass right in front of us! After that we ate some lunch and toured the palace...which was beautiful.

Around 5:30, it was time for the fountains to turn on. The gardens were full of people, and I did not really know what to expect. We started at one end of the garden and made our way to 7 fountains. They turn on each fountain for a while and then everyone there runs to the next one for it to turn on. They are gorgeous fountains and I have never seen any fountains so big...the Goose Girl fountain in Covington is nothing compared to these haha! ;) Some of them even shoot off so much water that people get wet. It was crazy, but fun. And we had a great day with Lola...all the other girls who came with us were so jealous of our awesome señora!

Thursday, we went on our last excursion with the group. We went to two nearby small towns...Coca and Pedraza. In Coca, we visited a castle that was built in the 11th century, I think (???) Anyway, it´s really old :). It was pretty cool, but we had more fun just finding all kinds of nooks and crannies to take funny pictures in! Then we headed to Pedraza. It was a pretty sleepy little town, but it was beautiful and almost stuck in another time. We visited an old jail there.

So those were the highlights of last week. Saturday we went to the pool, and Sunday we went to an old monastary for mass. And other than that, we have just been trying to enjoy Segovia. I have been trying to find places to sit outside and study, and we try to meet every night at least to have a glass of wine in the Plaza. Everyone is both excited and sad to be coming home and leaving Segovia. I´m going to miss it here :( Can´t wait to see you all tomorrow! ¡Hasta mañana!

More from Paris

So after our cheerleading pose at the Eiffel Tower, we headed to the Arc de Triomphe and Emily guess what? We did cross the street in front of it! There is a tunnel for people to walk underneath to get to it, but we saw and opening in the traffic and went for it! Now I can say that I have crossed a five-lane roundabout. haha! Don´t worry, we took the tunnel to cross back over ;). After that we wrapped up our Saturday with a nice dinner out.

Sunday we decided to go to Monmatre and see Sacre Coeur and the Moulin Rouge. The view was amazing from the Sacre Coeur, and the inside was just as beautiful. I think it was one of my favorite churches that we visited. Then we walked over to the Moulin Rouge...I had to get my picture there...since it´s one of my favorite movies ;).

For the afternoon we had planned to go on a boatride down the Seine. I am so glad we did it. It was a beautiful day and it was a different view of Paris from the Seine.

Finally, for our last night, we decided to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower at night. Everyone was pretty tired by then, and it seemed like I was the only one excited about doing it! I couldn´t believe I had to convince people to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower! I mean c´mon, we´re in Paris!!! But we all went up, and it was gorgeous. We even got to see it light up, which was amazing. Being up there on top of the world was the best way for us to end our trip to Paris!

Ohhh Paris!!!!

Last weekend was our long free weekend. After classes on Thursday morning, we were free until Monday afternoon at 4:30. The group of Bellarmine girls had decided to go to Paris. We had a lot of fun.

Our flight was out of Madrid at 5:45 a.m....ewww. So we had planned on taking the last bus out of Segovia to Madrid, maybe hanging out in Madrid and then catching the last metro to the airport.

We took the last bus out of Segovia, which was around 9:30 p.m. Lopez was headed to Madrid too for a few days. When we got to Madrid, we didn´t really know what we were going to do. Lopez was our savior and let us put all of our bags in his room while we went out for a while. The original plan was to take the Metro to the airport but we decided to hanging out in the city a little longer would be more fun than sitting in the airport. So we opted for a taxi.

For some tapas, we headed to La Taurina again. We had some sangria and more bull tail, a tomato salad and we tried octupus and squid dishes...mmmm. Sofian, the waiter from last time (he told me I wasn´t as pretty as Ashley) was excited to see us (especially Ashley).

After we ate, we went to this latin dance club and danced for a little while. It was a lot of fun...everyone danced a little. After that we kind of just wandered around and went in a couple of other bars...but they were boring.

So we headed to the airport. While we were in line to check in, this really cute boy got in line behind us. He started talking to all of us and kind of stuck with us for the rest of our flight and busride to Paris. His name was Ignacio and he was from Spain. We were sad to later find out that he was going to Paris to visit his girlfriend, but he was very nice and enjoyed talking with us.

When the plane landed, we found out we had an hour busride we had to take to get to the city. We weren´t expecting that, but it was no big deal. Around 10 a.m., we were finally in Paris!!! It took us all a little while to figure out where we needed to go, but we did it and hopped on the Metro. MacKenzie and I headed to our hotel. It was about a 15 minute walk from the Louvre and it worked out great for the weekend.

Later we met the other girls and got some lunch at a cute little cafe. We had croque madames...which we decided were our favorite dish from Paris. We decided to spend to spend the rest of the day at the Louvre. It is so much bigger than imagined....I think it could take months to go through the whole thing! So we were a little overwhelmed and very tired, but we just kept going, because we had to see the Louvre! We saw the Mona Lisa, of course, and Hammurabi´s code, and then just kind of wandered around some of the Roman and Greek sculpture areas and renaissance paintings. By the end of the day we were exhausted, and we made it an early night. We had a big day planned in the morning...there were so many things we wanted to see.

Saturday morning, we met to plan our day. We started off at Notre Dame. We walked by the Seine to get there and it was so cool. It was amazing to see the thing that our cathedral in Covington is modeled after. I lit a prayer candle in the chapel of St. Joseph. For lunch we walked through the Latin Quarter and sat in the Luxemburg Gardens to eat some sandwiches. It was a beautiful sunny day and the gardens were gorgeous.

After that we headed over to the Musee d´Orsay, and saw some really great paintings. It was all of my favorites like, Van Gogh, Monet, Manet, Renoir and Degas. We also found this Cézanne painting that looks exactly like López...it was hilarious...but also kind of eery how much it looks like him.

For the rest of the afternoon we headed over to the Eiffel Tower. We decided not to go up, some of the other girls wanted to wait until nighttime to go up...so we went the next night. But we got some ice cream and laid out on the grass beneath the Eiffel Tower (how many times can you say you´ve done that?!?). Then we were taking some pictures for the Bellarmine brochure and we decided to make a pyramid...well these two French guys wearing fake NFL jerseys came up to us and asked us a question. They wandered if they could take their picture with us since we were "almost cheerleaders." We were laughing so hard, we almost couldn´t respond, but we finally agreed, and the picture is priceless!

This is a good stopping point for me....I´m running out of time, but I want you all to stay updated...don´t worry I´ll have more soon. I have a tough final exam tomorrow, but I´ll try to finish up Paris and another post about this past week tomorrow (Tuesday). Thanks for reading everyone! Hope you are enjoying it!

Madrid Otra Vez

Our day trip turned out to be the most fun that I have had yet. Four of us decided to take the bus to Madrid for the day. López and Bernhard were also going to spend the afternoon there, since Bernhard had to fly out that night.

Brittany, Ashley, Ashtin and I caught the 8:30 bus into Madrid. The first stop was El Rastro. Every Sunday in Madrid, there is an open air market and it is huge. It takes over one main road and a lot of the side streets around it. People there sell everything from clothes, jewelry, purses, posters, shoes, music, movies, touristy stuff, souvenirs; we even saw this guy selling duct tape and tools...haha. People were everywhere! We walked around and checked everything out. I bought a few things and then we decided to head back toward the center of Madrid to get something to eat.

We wanted to visit the Royal Palace, so we took the metro to that area and found a cute café where we could sit down and eat. We sat for about 2 hours outside, just watching all the people and taking in the sun; Ashtin even played a little bit with the pigeons :).

After that, we headed for the Palacio Real. It is a huge building...I don´t even think we saw half of it on the tour. But it was still amazing. It was very decadent inside and it was fun to be inside a real live palace...pretending to be a princess ;).

Around 3, we met up with Lopez and Bernhard. We decided to go grab some dessert. We went to Corte Inglés and had the best chocolate cake ever! mmmmm...Dad and Molly, you would have loved it!

After dessert, we went to my new favorite place in Madrid....Retiro Park. It is a giant park...I didn´t even see the whole thing, but I am in love with it! It is so gorgeous there! There is a giant lake where people can rent row boats and it is right in front of this giant statue with steps in front of it leading to the lake. The statue and steps are surrounded by a semi-circle of columns where local musicians come and play the drums and bongos.

The first thing we did in the park was stop and watch this couple of Argentinian actors perform their little show. They kind of integrate acrobatics and the people in the crowd into their show...which was more like a comedy act. They were very funny, but also kind of inappropriate...they were telling some very sexual jokes and there were little kids everywhere. We all agreed this kind of show would never happen in Louisville or in the Quad at Bellarmine. We stayed and watched them for the finally, where one of them flipped over a rope that was probably higher than 8 ft in the air. They were just a couple of guys trying to make a few bucks and I think they were rollin´ in it by the end of the show...there were a ton of people watching and throwing them money.

After that we walked around the park a little more, and finally went over to the statues and the musicians I was talking about before. We sat on the steps for about an hour, making up stories about the people rowing by us on the lake and the couples sitting near us on the steps, listening to the drums and just talking. I could have sat there all day long.

Around 8 or so, we decided to go get something to eat. López of course had somewhere that he knew, so he took us to this restaurant in the Puerta del Sol. He knew the waiters, so they treated us very nicely. We all just shared some tapas and a bottle of wine. We ate a tomato salad that had peppers and fish in it, mushrooms stuffed with bacon bits, a seafood dish (I can´t remember what type of creature it was...but it was good) and finally....bull tail. The bull tail was surprisingly good.

One of the waiters developed a strong crush on Ashley (she has very blond hair and he really liked that). When we first sat down, he was telling Ashley how pretty she was, and even went so far as to say that she was prettier than me! I was a little mad at first, but then our other waiter told me that I was pretty too :). haha.

After our dinner we had to run through Madrid trying to make it on the metro to the bus station. The last bus left at 10:30 and we didn´t leave the restaurant until 9:45. It was a close shave, but we made it! I think this day in Madrid was one of the best days yet!

¡El Fin de Semana!

After a long day of studying on Thursday and two tests and a presentation on Friday, we were ready for the weekend (el fin de semana;).

Friday night, an exchange student from Austria that studied at Bellarmine this past year was going to visit us in Segovia (Bernhard). He was going to stay with Lopez in his apartment, but was not getting in until late Friday night. But we wanted to go out, so we would be out on the town when he arrived.

First we decided to go to a Cuenta Cuentos...a storytelling festival that had been going on all week in Segovia. It was held in a little courtyard and a storyteller just told funny stories about everyday life in Spain. I think it might have been pretty funny, but none of us really understood it. Lopez was sitting with us and tried to explain some of it, but we were still kind of lost....he was cracking up though.

After that, MacKenzie and I still had to go home and eat dinner (it was around 11) and put on some makeup to get ready to go out. So we scarfed our dinner and got ready really quick. I did´t know it yet, but I was in for a long night!

We met up with a bunch of the girls from the group in the Plaza Mayor and headed to the street where all the bars are (Segovia is pretty small...so there is like one street where all the young people go). A bunch of us went to this bar and had some of the best sangria I have had so far. We hung out and talked there for a while, and then some of the girls headed to a dance club or went home. MacKenzie went home, so I stayed with Ashtin and Brittany. We were still waiting to hear from Lopez about Bernhard!

Around 3 a.m. we heard from Lopez and he said he still hadn´t heard from Bernhard, so he just came and found us. After closing out one of the bars, we went and sat in the Plaza Mayor for a while, just talking and watching all the people stumble home. But then we saw this group of guys carrying instruments and dressed in Medieval gear. Lopez got really excited and started yelling, "Tunas, tunas!" (that´s what they are called...tunas) They are groups, usually from a university that go around singing, usually for a free drink.

So there we were in the Plaza Mayor at 5 a.m. and the tunas decided to play for us. We told them we were from Kentucky and they sang us a song that had the line "Viva España!" in it and substituted, "Viva Kentucky...fried chicken!" It was sooo funny and so much fun. We sat there listening and talking with them until 5:30 a.m.! Man, I haven´t stayed out that late in a long time! It was so much fun though.

Saturday, we found out what happened to Bernhard. His luggage was lost and he was very late and decided to just stay in a hotel in Segovia for the night. But we met up with him Saturday. We walked around Segovia and showed him the sites, like Alcazar (the castle) and the park below. We even got our picture taken with a bride and groom who were doing their wedding pictures in the park! haha! When we made it back to the center of town, we decided to sit down for a drink in a cafe. And who did we see walking across the plaza? Las Tunas! We had to invite them to sit down for a drink. So they played for us again.

Later that night we had dinner and went out again. We went to a bar and had a few drinks and danced a little bit. It was a fun night...and we only stayed out until 3 this time! We needed our rest...we were headed to Madrid in the morning for a day trip!

Salamanca y Avila

The next day, we had an excursion to the cities of Salamanca and Avila. We had to be at the bus station at 8 a.m. to make the two hour bus ride to Salamanca. We all arrived with our "bocadillos" (sandwiches) from our señoras and were ready to go.

It was a pretty early morning and the ride to Salamanca was quiet. Everyone sitting around me was asleep. But they don´t know what they were missing...the views of the countryside were gorgeous. I sat there listening to my ipod and taking them all in (yes Katy and Emily..I listened to your playlists ;)

When we got to Salamanca our first stop was the cathedral...well the two cathedrals. The city has two because they decided the first one was too small. So one is from the 12th century and I think the second was built in the 17th century. I was a little scared at first and having flashbacks of Toledo and the three HOUR tour of the cathedral there. But our tour guide was really cool and informative. Both of the cathedrals were amazing. The sheer age of the old cathedral amazed me. It was so cool to be standing somewhere that existed that long ago. And the newer cathedral was very extravagantly decorated and huge. On the outside there is a wall that was restored because of some damage, and the designers decided to put little stone statues of an astronaut and a devil eating ice cream to add some of their own history to the building...and they blend in very well with the whole building.

After the cathedral, we visited the University of Salamanca. It is the oldest university in Spain, and one of the oldest in Europe. We saw some of the oldest classrooms and the library, which was amazing.

We saw a couple of other buildings and then headed to the Plaza Mayor. There they set us free for about 2 1/2 hours. We sat in the plaza and ate our lunches on a bench there. Two old guys came up to us and welcomed us to Salamanca and wanted to know why we were there. This one guy was explaining to MacKenzie some of the history of the Plaza Mayor. After we finished eating, we explored the city and did some shopping. Everyone there was very friendly. Salamanca is a beautiful city.

Then we headed to Avila. Avila is known for being the home of St. Theresa (the Carmelite´s founder), its medieval walls that are still in tact and its dulce tipica (most of the cities in Spain have a sweet or pastry that they are known for) called yemas. We were only in Avila for an hour and we were starving...we had just enough time to get something to eat, buy some postcards, snap a few pictures and try some yemas. We tried the yemas with out even knowing what they were first. They are this little yellow ball that is kind of squishy (they were hard to pick up out of the box) with a little bit of sugar covering them. Turns out they are egg yolks baked in powdered sugar! Not my favorite pastry of the trip...yuck!

We arrived back in Segovia around 7 that night...and we had a ton of homework to do. We had been slacking for the previous two days and we had sooo much to catch up on. But seeing Salamanca and Avila made it a little bit more worth it!

Alcázar

Last Tuesday, after a few days in Segovia, we decided to check out some of the sites of Segovia. On our first day in Segovia, we had our "official" tour and walked by a castle that Isabel and Ferdinand once lived in. We thought we would go visit it for the day.

So the BU girls and a few others, headed to Alcázar. We all brought our Bellarmine t-shirts so we could get a few brochure shots (for the study abroad department). We looked like Bellarmine ambassadors walking around in our t-shirts. We bought tickets to go all the way to the top of the tower. We entered the castle and one of the first rooms had a giant knight on a horse...we had to get a picture with him! I mean c´mon....Bellarmine Knights. So we explored the castle and it is beautiful. There are some of the most amazing views of Segovia from the castle.

Before heading to the top of the tower, we stopped in a little courtyard. There was kind of a little box cut out in the wall with ivy surrounded it. We all decided to get pictures inside "the box." Some of them look like Senior pictures with the ivy all around. And others are just kind of crazy...at one point there were 3 people inside this 4 x 4 hole in the wall...haha! We have so much fun, no matter where we go!

After that we headed to the top of the tower. The views of the city were breathtaking! I think they are some of my favorite pictures.

Later that night we all met to go to another event that Segovia was holding...it was a festival of storytelling called a Cuenta Cuento. Storytellers sit and tell stories for an hour. It was free and our professors all recommended that we go. And we REALLY tried, but we just could not find the place where it was! We finally gave up and decided to go get something to drink.

A couple of us went to a bar and got some wine. We sat at the bar and I was at the end. I ended up having a conversation with the two guys next to me. One was an older Spaniard and the other was a guy in his 30s from Holland. They both spoke Spanish, so I got to practice a little. They were very interested in what I was studying and how I like Spain and Europe. They wanted to know how Americans viewed Europeans.

It was a nice way to end a fun-filled day!