A rainy Catholic weekend...

Trip 2 - Leon, Burgos, and various small towns with castles and cathedrals.

Thursday, September 16 - we left early morning by bus and headed to the province of Castille y Leon - north and west of Madrid.

On our way we stopped at this fantastic castle:
It looks like castles out of fairytales! However, this type of castle is very much designed for armies and fighting. It had narrow halls and small doors, so that large numbers of soldiers couldn't pass through at the same time, it had a dry moat surrounding it with the pillar that supported the drawbridge anciently still standing, and it had walls and towers with holes built just for shooting arrows. Very defense-oriented- and incredibly cool!


After stopping at said castle, we continued to Leon. Leon is a lovely city full of cute houses and quaint streets, and a cathedral that was AMAZING. This cathedral contains over 1800 square meters of stained glass - the most stained glass in any cathedral in Spain.






While touring the cathedral, it started raining. It didn't want to STOP raining, so we headed out into the rain to another church/museum our tour guide wanted to show us. I was foolish enough to have left my umbrella in the bus, and I got soaked. It was only about 45, 50 degrees Farenheit, and sadly I remember very little of whatever church/museum we went to after the cathedral, because I was so cold... it was awful. By the time we finished there, the rain had slowed, but we were now faced with trying to find something to eat at about 7pm. Just so you all know, basically that's impossible. Lunch ends around 5, and dinner doesn't start until about 8, and basically all the restaurants close. We finally found a supermarket and bought bread and lunchmeat and went back to our hotel and had a lovely picnic in one of our rooms. And I got dried off :)

That evening we went to a concert in the cathedral at Leon. It was SUPPOSED to be an organ concert, we thought, but it turned out to be Baroque style orchestra music, by Mozart and such. It was very excellent music - I went right to sleep, which means they did a very good job... I'm not much of a classical music person... but it was amazing being in such an amazing building for a concert!

Friday, September 17 - we went to Burgos, stopping a couple times on the way to see more churches. (By this point, we'd seen probably 4 churches, all very similar...) Once in Burgos, we ate lunch at an overpriced cafe, had a dance party in my bedroom at the hotel, watched a Spanish drumline march down the street below our hotel balcony/window, ventured into the freezing wind to do some shopping, took pictures with a statue of El Mio Cid (a legendary figure in an "epic poem" from Spain - one of the most important literary works in Spanish history. He lived in Burgos, supposedly), then enjoyed churros y chocolate in the cafe across the street from the hotel.

The little balcony off our hotel room

Awesome Spanish drumline!

Statue of El Mio Cid

At this point, most of the group went back, but Kenneth and Melanie and I wandered the streets of Burgos, and this is what we found:

Excellent trees to climb! Super fun.

We also found this awesome performance of people dancing around with fire, scattering flaming coals and dancing over them, which ended in a large bonfire in the middle, I have no idea what it was all about but it was super cool! I tried uploading a video, but it wouldn't work... sorry...

Saturday, September 18 - we first toured Burgos officially with our tour guide, entering the cathedral and passing through the Plaza Mayor - where the fire dance had been the night before. Then we jumped on the bus and went to the Cartuja de Miraflores - which is a monastery where the monks are only allowed to talk for one hour on Sundays, after dinner. It was basically just another church, but they showed us these Catholic rosaries that are made of beads made from compressed rose petals. There are 3000 rose petals in all. All of the girls bought one. I don't even know any Catholics! It was, however, very cool.

Outside the cathedral at Burgos

Altar showing the "tree of Jesse" - Christ's family tree - in the Cathedral at Burgos

We then proceeded to visit various medieval-ish villages, in which were MORE churches. By the last one we were so tired of churches that we opted to hike to this statue on the hill overlooking the town instead. It's a statue of the Virgin Mary. The view was absolutely beautiful! It was my favorite part of the whole weekend.

Covarrubias - one of the towns we went to.

Looking over the town of Silos from the hillside where the statue was.

Me and the virgin looking over the town.

A place in this world

Tonight I'm just sitting on the balcony listening to the cars drive past on their way to unknown destinations. I can hear the television from the livingroom drifting through the balcony door. The echo of an airplane rumbles overhead. The ever-present smell of stale cigarette smoke wafts through the clear night air. But the breeze is cool. The lights on the street and in the windows of the seven-story apartment buildings are mystical and somehow comforting. I watch them turn out, one by one. If I focus hard, I can almost see a star in the dark night sky above me. And for the first time since I arrived here, in this strange city with its strange language that's so different from everything I've always known, I feel completely at home and completely content to sit here on the balcony and just be me.

Bring it on, life. No matter what you place in my path, I'll always find a way to love you anyway.

A taste of tarea...

Original poetry by me:

Dígame, compañera, ¿por qué no puedo dormir?

¿Por qué aparece en mis sueños?

Su voz me despierta con la salida del sol

Y le recuerdo con mucho cariño.

Dígame, compañera, ¿qué debo hacer?

Porque por mí no tiene amor.

Y su novia con sus ojos hermosos

Me hace llorar cuando suena el despertador.

Dígame, compañera, ¿qué voy a decir?

Cuando le veo en la clase mañana.

¿Voy a quedarme callada y sufrir eternamente?

¿O voy a mostrarle que estoy enamorada?

This is called a jarcha. (Harchah). It's a form of poetry from way back in the hmm 1500s I think? It was written by a man, but it was written as if it were one girl talking to a sister, friend, mother, etc, about love. Therefore it used lots of dramatic elements and such to make it sound like an overly emotional girl. This is definitely the most dramatic thing I've ever written. It kind of makes me disgusted with myself just to read it... haha.

Oh, and for you ingles-speakers (hmm, that would be all of you... haha) here is an approximated translation:

Tell me, roommate, why can't I sleep?

Why does he appear in my dreams?

His voice awakens me with the sunrise

And I remember him with much affection.

Tell me, roommate, what should I do?

Because he has no love for me.

And his girlfriend with her beautiful eyes

Makes me cry when I wake to my alarm.

Tell me, roommate, what am I going to say?

When I see him in class tomorrow?

Am I going to keep quiet and suffer eternally

Or will I show him that I am in love?

Yeah, it sounds much better in Spanish, with the rhyme and such, but, that's the gist of it! Hope you enjoyed it... now I have to go write two essays and read three stories and make some flashcards of Visigoth architecture, what the heck, I thought I was on vacation over here?!?!

Castles and Conquerors

Trip 1: Merida, Caceres, Trujillo

We left early Friday morning on a bus. It took about three, four hours to get to Merida.

Merida is in the autonomous community of Extremadura. I think they call it Extremadura because the heat was Extreme... haha just kidding. It's on the southwestish side of Spain, next to Portugal.

Merida is home to the best Roman ruins in all of Spain. It was the coolest place I have ever been. (besides the heat, of course...) All those years of looking at pictures of Roman temples and columns and stadiums, well, now I've stood in one. It was amazing. Really amazing.

Remains of the Roman Forum in Merida - the forum is where they would gather to share ideas, have debates, cultural and political discussions, etc. Check out those columns. They're Corinthian Columns. Ha. I've learned something in these classes of mine :)

The temple of Diana - basically temples were for worshiping, and then in the outer area they would throw festivals and that sort of thing.

The "backdrop" of the stage in the theater at Merida - Probably at one time you would have been able to access the second story, I'm not sure. This photo is taken from the top of the seating area.

Me on the stage of the Theater in Merida - Note the HUGENESS of it! It was built in a semicircle formation, and it had surprisingly good acoustics!

Me with the Amphitheater in Merida - the amphitheater is where they would have gladiator fights. It is an oval shape, with large doorways at either end for the gladiators, etc, to enter. The indented part in the middle used to be an underground chamber, filled with animal pens, rooms for gladiators to prepare in, etc. It would have been completely underground with the arena smooth overtop of it (meaning it would have been excavated much deeper than it currently is, as well. )

Here's a better picture of the layout of the amphitheater.

Caceres:

We spent the night here. We also did a night tour of the old part of the city. See my Picasa album for some excellent architecture shots :) Caceres isn't super famous, but it has some excellently preserved walls, towers, and buildings. The old part of the city is kind of up on the hill a bit, and there are really narrow streets in between tall buildings. It totally made me think of movies like Les Miserables, the Count of Monte Cristo, Zorro, etc, with the city walls and narrow, cobbled streets. I can't even express how incredibly COOL it was!!!!!

Me on top of the tower. We also went on top of the other tower you can see behind me, in the left of the picture. Amazing. And it was sunset time. Even more amazing.

Narrow streets. TOTALLY Les Mis. Around the inside of the city wall, there is a narrow street that goes all the way around. It is built that way to more easily facilitate the movement of troops from one point to another along the walls, unencumbered by people and citizens that crowd the inner streets of the city.

Trujillo: We went to Trujillo Saturday afternoon. Trujillo is fairly small, somewhat insignificant, but it has this amazingly amazingly fabulous castle up on the hill. It also has a cactus tree. We ate cactus fruit and got stickers all over our fingers. We then proceeded to charge at full speed up the hill - in the Extremadura heat - to "conquer" the castle. We are legit like that.

Statue of Francisco Pizarro in Plaza Mayor - he conquered Peru.

Me on the wall of the castle overlooking Trujillo

What the inside looked like - it was basically a big square with an open courtyard in the middle. More a fortress than a palace, definitely. You can walk all the way around on top of the walls - it's about four feet wide, and the walls on the side are four feet tall or so, with gaps to shoot arrows between :)

What it looked like from down the hill a bit.

The delicious fruit of the cactus...

After Trujillo, we got back on the bus and headed back to Alcala. This is basically what everyone was doing:Somehow Ken managed to sleep two hours on a bumpy bus without dropping those cards. Way to go man. You're my new hero. :D

A Marvelous Work and a Wonder

Thursday - Sept 9, 2010

We met at the train station and took the train to Madrid, minus a slight detour where we forgot to get off the train and had to get off, get on the train going the other way, and then get off at the correct location. We then took the Metro to the Pavones station, came out of the metro and walked down the street, turned the corner, and this is what we saw:
It is even more beautiful in real life than it is in pictures. I felt like crying just looking at it. I think the temple plaza is the cleanest place in Madrid, even though Madrid is a pretty clean city, at least, as far as I have seen.

We then went into the CCM - (MTC) and took a brief tour. The president, President Earl, told us the CCM takes all the missionaries going to Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, aaaannnd... somewhere else, all go through the CCM. They usually have between 12 and 20 elders and sisters there at the same time. The Russian missionaries also come down and stay there every so often while they get their Visas renewed.

The CCM is housed in an apartment building, which also contains apartments for members who travel to the temple. It takes up several floors, includes classrooms, bedrooms (which we didn't see... haha), a cafeteria, and an absolutely beautiful view of the temple:



After the tour, we watched Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration. In Spanish. I understood most of it, and it was really amazing. Then we were able to go practice with the missionaries! We split into groups of 2-4, and the missionaries practiced giving us discussions. It was amazing. The elder and sister who were teaching my group had only been in the CCM for one day. The elder was from Barcelona, and the sister was from Manti.

I was really touched by this sister, though she struggled a lot with expressing herself in Spanish, she bore a very simple and sincere testimony of how the Gospel blesses her life, and even though it was just a practice session, it brought tears to my eyes. I don't know her or her story, but I know she loves the gospel, and I am so excited for the lives she's going to touch. I love missionary work. It's the work of God, and it is so amazing. I'm so proud of all my missionary friends! :)

Oh, hey Madrid...

On the wall in my apartment last year, there was a poster with many hilarious quotes, phrases taken out of context, etc, etc. One of said quotes read, "You can sleep when you're dead!" (yes, I did say that, to illustrate the overrratedness of sleep when social activities were ocurring). Here in Spain, I have modified my slogan to, "You can sleep in the States, you can eat hamburgers in the States, you can watch movies in the States, you can talk in the States..." (pretty much anything generic that should not take precedence over uniquely Spanish activities). With that as a preface, let me recount the events of yesterday:

Melanie and I were in our little room, surfing Facebook, talking about nothing in particular.
Melanie mentions we've been here almost two weeks.
I yelp, "TWO WEEKS?!?!"
She says yes.
I slam my computer shut with, "Why the heck are we wasting time sitting in this little room! We're going to Madrid!"
Melanie senses the urgency and seriousness of the situation and immediately agrees with me.

Ten minutes later we're on the train:

Thirty minutes later we emerged from the Metro station into the Puerta del Sol, where we proceeded to walk past six ice cream stands in order to arrive at the specific one that we wanted, then we went to at least ten souvenir stores in search of a Barca jersey for me, (didn't find it, but I WILL! haha), then we ended up at the Mercado de San Miguel eating overpriced and very delicious trufas (truffles), and finally walked through the Plaza Mayor, which is undoubtedly so far my favorite place in Madrid.

The trufas were good.

VERY good. Mine is just quivering with fear, though.


I might also mention that I successfully rode the Metro for the very first time - I've never even seen a subway before, it was pretty sweet.

And as a side note, I'm pretty sure that any doubts Melanie had in her mind regarding my sanity have now been confirmed. Hopefully she's cool with having a completely crazy roommate, who randomly decides to go on soccer-jersey searching adventures in big cities and who likes to make faces at dogs, mirrors, and truffles, who has two different colored shoelaces and often talks to herself without realizing it, and who has absolutely no sense of color-coordination for her outfits... Hey, it's all good, life is more fun this way!

True football...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Villa

My absolute favorite.

That is all.