Segovia!

I am still trying to catch up on everything that has happened so far, and it will probably be a few weeks before i'm totally caught up, thus let the the recounting begin.

Every couple of weeks, the IES Abroad progam plans an educational excursion for us, to give us the opportunity to experience and learn about Spain and its diverse cultural atmospheres. the first week of orientation, we went to Segovia.

Segovia is a nice, quaint little town about 2 hours from Salamanca. It is famous for the huge Roman Aquaduct that passes through the city, as well as a sizable gothic cathedral, and a Castle that looks very much like the castle in the Disney logo. We went on a guided tour starting at the aquaduct and walking through the town passing by many midieval residences and buildings each with their own story and significance, through the plaza mayor, past the huge gothic cathedral and on to the Alcázar de Segovia. the castle, that is.

On the way there, we passed by a store called Pink Elefante with a pink elephant logo, which obviously made me think of Mary Lafleur. I unfortunately didnt get to take any pictures of any of these things, because as i was taking my second picture of the aqueduct, my camera battery died. Thus, i will be forced to post pictures i didnt take. Is that allowed here? i hope so.

So the tour was VERY long, and a little boring. every room of the castle was interesting at first, but i think i would have rather received about 2 or 3 minutes of history about each room rather than 10, because we saw about 15 rooms. It was pretty though. the castle is situated on a cliff that overlooks the town and the countryside. there was also a little museum inside.

After the tour, we had some free time, so i walked around the city, looked in some of the shops, and eventually found my way by accident to the top of the aqueduct, which is 93.5 ft high. i stayed there a while and just enjoyed the view of the city. eventually, i had to leave when a group of american jocks came and one of them was being bothered by a yellow jacket. He started swatting vigorously, very violently and out of control, and eventually in his exasperation screamed "STUPID BEE @$$ 8¡+Ç#!!! to which his friends appropriately looked at him as though he were deranged. i had to leave quickly to keep my inside laughter from erupting into my outside laughter in a big way.

We soon left to go to the outskirts of Segovia, where we ate typical segovian food at a very fancy restaurant. We were served Spanish tortilla (omlette with potatoes and onions) croquetas (balls of delicious ham or seafood-flavored mush battered and fried in breadcrumbs) salad, almost a whole roasted chicken each, and a cinnimon pastry-cake dessert typical of Segovia. I was stuffed! and then we left. it was a good day.