Treasure and dead people

Trip 8 - El Escorial, Segovia - aaaand Halloween!

Friday - El Escorial.

Honestly, El Escorial was slightly anticlimactic - a very large palace/monastery/thing in the bottom of which were interred a LOT of kings and queens and royalty of Espana. It was definitely sort of weird thinking I was in a room with 50 or so dead people from the 1500s... pretty cool, though.

We also went to Manzanares - El Real - a castle near El Escorial. This is my favorite favorite castle in Spain - there's a picture of it hanging on my bedroom door at home. I just thought it looked so cool. However, after visiting it, it was not near as cool as anticipated. I like Coco Castle better - see my early post about our trip to Leon and Burgos - that castle was better. Manzanares is a re-build, and the inside's been turned into a museum, so, not as authentic. Still nice though.

Manzanares castle

Manzanares El Real - castle

Saturday - Segovia. I actually really liked Segovia. It was really pretty, with lots of fall leaves and colors. It was rainy and cold, but it was very fall-ish.

Rachel, Carina, and I jumping in leaves. Yes, our expressions are really weird... the camera blurred a bit.

In Segovia we visited the Alcazar, a royal palace - very famous. It's actually the palace the Disney castle most resembles! (see picture below). It made me miss Disneyland. The Alcazar is also where Christopher Columbus originally approached Isabel and Fernando to ask them about going to America. (Although, our guide said that, but I feel like I've been told like three different places this happened... I think every city wants their palace to be the one he went to...)

The Alcazar - see the Disney castle resemblance on the right side/tower part?

On top of one of the towers of the Alcazar, with the Segovia cathedral in the background.

Friday night we also went to a YSA Halloween dance at the stake center in Madrid. It was a costume dance; Dallin, one of the guys in our group, dressed up like Edward from Twilight, and he had an avid following of picture-taking girls the whole night. At one point seven or eight of them ran up, squealing, joined hands in a circle and danced around him. It was the most hilarious thing I've ever seen. The dance was great fun, though; it was very similar to stake dances in Utah, though there were fewer people, and they played a LOT of Latin dancing music, to which I can't dance - I'm not good enough friends with my hips to dance like that... :D

From left to right: David/Mexican soap opera character, Spanish girl, Spanish guy, Spanish friend Susie/hippie, me/cowgirl, Lindsey/Pocahontas, Kenneth/Hot Rod, Rachel/genie
(yes, I know I was sorta blinking here... but... it's the best I've got :D)