comprendido?

wow it's been a while! Time for an update!

This past weekend we took an excursion to Madrid. We stayed in this cute little hotel near the Palacio Real (royal palace) and we took day trips to Toledo and Segovia. I like Toledo the best. It's this quaint little town along the river Tajo that's known for its gold filigree artwork. I visited one of the oldest synagogues in Spain while there which actually didn't look anything like a synagogue. It was built by Arabs so the architecture looks like that of a mosque, and once the Jews were kicked out of Spain in 1492, it was used as a church so there's a cross and some Christian artwork where the alter would be. However, our guide told us that this building was once a synagogue, so I believed her.

On our way up to Madrid we stopped in La Mancha to see ... you guessed it molinos del viento! (windmills) They were built in the 16th century, the very windmills that Don Quijote thought were giants. We took some great pictures next to the windmills pretending to be Quijote and Sancho Panza.

In Segovia we saw the castle of King Felipe V the inspiration for the castle in Disney's Sleeping Beauty. and if you know your Disney movies, you'll notice that the prince in Sleeping Beauty is named prince Phillip. Coincidence? I think not. My friend Lauren and I paid an extra 2 euro and climbed to the top of the tallest tower where we found a fair maiden who had been sleeping for hundreds of years. No, just kidding we didn't find anyone, but the view of the city was breathtaking.

We also went to two art museums in Madrid: the Prado and the Reina Sofia. In the Prado we saw famous works by Velazquez, el Greco, and Goya. This was especially of interest to me because I had studied all of this in Spanish class in high school. I actually knew what each artist's style was and which are their most famous works. Sra. Glunt would be so proud. In the Reina Sofia we saw Picasso's famous Guernica depicting the airstrike by the Nazis on the town of Guernica during the Spanish civil war. Franco wanted to quell the uprising of the Basques who wanted independence so he authorized the Nazis to bomb the civilian population of this town, completely destroying it. Picasso's depiction of human suffering is incredibly poignant.

And to top off a great weekend, our 5 hour bus ride back to Granada was made a little longer on sunday night. Our bus broke down for about an hour and half on the side of the road. There was no bathroom on our bus and our program director would not let us off the bus to pee so many of the girls who had to go, went in plastic bags and emptied them out the window. Ew. Luckily I was able to hold it.

Now I'm back in Granada, back to a daily schedule of classes in the morning and free afternoons to run, sleep and meet up with language partners. Hope all is well back in the states!