So, last Friday, our school sponsored a field trip to Segovia, a small town about 2 hours away from Toledo. After our long journey, we met up with our tour guides, one of which happened to be our history professor! Those of us in his class were pretty pumped to see him since he is such a great professor, so we made sure to be placed in his tour group. Our first stop was the Alcazar, which is an old castle that is now used as a museum and archives site. Legend has it that this specific castle served as the inspiration for the castle in Disney's "Beauty and the Beast"...you be the judge:
(ok, that's not a great picture of it, but the resemblance was uncanny, I swear!)
Anyhow, we went into the Alcazar, which was really interesting, since it was filled with suits of armor and rooms that were used by some of the royalty in Spain's history. I found it all to be pretty interesting, and the building itself was the perfect size - it wasn't so huge that by the end of the tour, I was worn out and bored. After the tour of the castle, we had the opportunity to climb to the top of the castle's tower, which was quite the undertaking. There are 152 steps to the top of the tower, and of course, no elevator. To make matters worse, there is only one staircase, so all of the people huffing and puffing their way up have to share space with all of the people on their way back down. On top of all of THAT, the staircase is super narrow...and a spiral. There are no little platforms for a person to stand on to allow another climber to pass, so it is a pretty trecherous endeavor. Hannah and I were some of the first to make it to the top, although neither of us were terribly pleased with ourselves upon our ascent, mostly since our legs killed and our lungs were on fire. It did have some pretty great views, though. Since we were the first up, it would make sense that we would be the first to begin our journey downward. Well, I am surprised I didn't fall to my death, since the staircase was filled with people heading upwards, so we had to take the inside track of the spiral staircase, meaning instead of having 10 inches to step on, we had a solid 2 or 3 inches. Amazingly, we survived!
After the Alcazar, we walked around the city a bit, seeing the church where Isabela was crowned Queen and the Plaza Mayor. We then headed to Segovia's most popular destination: the aqueduct. This is one of the longest aqueducts in the world, going on for about 5 miles, and it has been standing for 2000 years! On top of all of that, those who were in charge of designing it had the wherewithall to put little curves in the route the water takes so as to cut down on its speed; otherwise, the water would hit the end and splash out, losing precious drops. The most jaw-dropping aspect of the structure, for sure, was the fact that it has been standing for 2000 years, WITHOUT THE USE OF ANY CEMENT. That's right, the only things holding this puppy together are friction and force and pressure, and other terms I don't exactly understand. I don't even know very much about structures and force and whatnot, and I still was amazed. Here's a picture for you all:
After gazing at that marvel for a bit, we had lunch and then headed back to good ol' Toledo. That evening, I attended a play for my literature class which was pretty enjoyable, minus the fact that the theater was about 10000 degrees! After the play, a few of us went out for sodas with our professor, which was quite the experience, but definitely a ton of fun.
On Saturday, all of us packed up and prepared to spend the next 24 or so hours in Madrid. My friend Kate (from Paris) and her friend Cassi (also from Paris) were in Madrid for the weekend visiting, so I had made arrangements to meet up with them. The Toledo group made it to Madrid and when we went to check in to our hostel, we discovered that the reservation had been made for the night of the 14th (Friday) as opposed to the night of the 15th (Saturday). On top of that, that hostel was booked up for Saturday night, so we were left with no place to sleep. And guess who was in charge of the reservation? Yup, yours truly! So, I did what any self-respecting young lady does when something goes awry, and I cried a bit. Thankfully, my friends were all super understanding and brushed it off, which allowed me to get past my huge gaffe before I had to meet up with Kate and Cassi.
Sierra, Christie, and Flan branched off, seeking out symphony tickets, while Hannah and I went to meet Cassi and Kate. For the rest of the day, we toured around with the Parisians, including a bizarre series of events at the Royal Palace. It was a gorgeous day, so the 4 of us were sitting on a fountain when a Japanese man came up, camera in hand, speaking something that I couldn't quite understand. I assumed he wanted us to take a picture of him, or of him and his friends/wife, but nooooo, he instead wanted to take a picture WITH us. It was so odd! To make matters stranger, once his wife finished taking the picture, the two of them swapped positions! When all was said and done, we probably posed for about 10 pictures with random Japanese tourists. On the plus side, one Japanese woman told us "you girls so pretty" and then gave us some flavorless Japanese candy, so at least we walked away with that.
After that little charade, Hannah, Kate, and I parted ways with Cassi, who was meeting a friend, and the three of us shopped the afternoon away, which, as always, was great fun. Of course, I was in charge of finding the shopping area, and I had the street name written down. However, we were without a map, so we asked for directions and then followed the metro to the stop that matched the street name. Welllllll it turns out there is a street with this name, and a neighborhood with this same name. We took a 30 minute metro ride out to the neighborhood only to quickly figure out we were a bit off. When we asked for directions again, a nice lady explained the mistake we had made, and then we rode the metro about 25 minutes back. It turns out, we just needed to go to the next metro stop past the one where we started. Basically, we could have walked to the shopping street in about 10 minutes, instead we spent a solid hour on the metro. At least it was clean, and we all laughed it off. Another great success on my part! Once we finally hit the shopping area, we hit our stride! We all enjoyed a moderate bit of success before becoming completely exhausted and plopping down for some ice cream. We killed a bit of time there before going to a cafe to kill more time there, eating dinner, before finally killing more time at a crepe shop. Once we had depleted all of our "eat and kill time" options, Hannah and I parted with the Parisians to catch a bus back to Toledo since we had no beds to our name in Madrid. Although it was a brief little day with Kate, it was still so worth it, hostel debacle and all.
On Sunday morning, Hannah, Sierra, and I headed BACK to Madrid to do a little shopping, since there is a very reasonably-priced market on Sunday mornings in the city. Now that the semester is coming to a close, everyone has a better handle on who still requires souvenirs, so we all decided that another trip to the market would be beneficial. Although it was colder, more crowded, and a bit less successful than our journey in September, we still walked away with purchases in hand, and made it back to Toledo in time for lunch.
All in all, Segovia was fun, and our time in Madrid was like "the little weekend that couldn't" (at least for me)! I want all of you loyal readers to know: when I screw something up, I reassure myself by thinking that at the very least, that tale will be good fodder for my blog :)
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