Segovia

Yesterday I took a day trip with my school to Segovia, which is a city about an hour and a half outside of Madrid. It was a beautiful, sunny day, with clear blue skies, but it was still a little chilly, since Segovia is located next to the Sierra de Guadarrama mountains.

The first thing we saw were the Roman aqueducts that the city is famous for. They were built in the 1st century, which absolutely amazes me. I have certainly never seen any structures that old in the US. From there we walked through the city to el Alcazar, which is the castle/palace which was built in the 11th century. I loved the fact that it still had all the original furnishings, just as they were when King Philip II lived there in the 16th century. We climbed an almost never-ending spiral staircase (which was even worse than the one at the catacombs b/c people were coming up and down, so you had to squeeze by) to go on top of el alcazar. It was worth it though, because the view of the city with the countryside and mountain range in the background was beautiful.

After that we went inside el catedral which I thought looked extremely similar to the cathedral in Toledo. I dont have any pictures inside of this one either, but this time because we weren't allowed. It was a huge and very ornate building. After that we had a lunch of tortilla y croquetas that were very good. Then we headed back to the bus to drive us back behind the city to the Iglesia de Vera Cruz. This is a church that was built by the Knights Templar. Inside the church was a circular room made out of stone that you were supposed to stand inside to experience the energy of God. I had never seen anything like that in a church before, but then again, I have not been in many churches. Since the church is outside the city walls there was a great view of the city from there. After that we headed back to Madrid.

There was only one negative aspect to the day, and that was a very obnoxious group of students who were with us. They were from Kalamazoo College and had just arrived in Spain that week. The group appeared to be composed of mostly football players (I say this not b/c of their behavior which I am about to describe, but b/c they were wearing shirts that said Kalamazoo Football.) They had a special guide to give them their tour in a lower level of Spanish, which is fine, but I didn't hear any of them speak Spanish at all the entire time, so it seemed like they weren't really making an effort. And their behavior was very poor. They were just your stereotypically loud, obnoxious Americans. We were walking inside the cathedral and they were talking very loudly, and one of them actually burped really loudly, then the others laughed. By the end of the day, after hearing conversations such as (and I quote) "Dude, gamegear was so sweet, but dreamcast sucked" I was extremely annoyed. I was embarrassed that not only are they Americans, but they are from Michigan. But when I was able to distance myself from this group I enjoyed the city.