Segovia Y La Granja

              So I need to explain something very unique to the city that I live in.  In Alcalá de Henares, every bar that you go to serve something called Tapas.  In Spanish the word “tapa” means a lid, top, or seal.  The meaning of the word is distorted a little in this context because whenever you buy any drink, anything, they give you a small meal for free.  Between all the bars in town they compete for who can offer the best tapas to the customers.  It is a big deal, and it is actually a great deal for us being the customers.  So a group of us went and got tapas for our first time.  We each got a little soda, and got to order something for dinner.  I ordered an ensalada de longosta or “lobster salad.” Very interesting, it tasted just fine, and I drank my soda, and I got it all for €2,50 or a little more than $3!  Pretty cool.  We did that on Thursday evening, then went to the Young Single Adult Institute and studied the book of Esther in the Old Testament.  That was a little difficult to understand, first because I haven’t studied Esther in several years, and second because our teacher spoke very quickly and honestly was a little strange.  

Ensalada de Longosta

                

                Also, interesting to me, they collect garbage in a unique way here.  They have these medium sized Dumpster bins on the streets everywhere and people just walk over and throw out the garbage.  No individual trash bins, or alleys or even a dumpster for an apartment complex, just a whole bunch in the street.

              

Trash bins in the street

 

               On Friday we had our first excursion of the program.  We went to a smaller town called Segovia.  Segovia is about two hours away from Madrid in a more mountainous area.  On our way up we went through several tunnels, one of which lasted several minutes.  It was a really big deal because we all tried to hold our breath while going through it and nobody could make it!  It was a very long tunnel!  Segovia has one of the famous roman aqueducts.  It is so huge and just looks so strong and sturdy!  No kind of concrete is used in the structure, all just stone cut and locked together.  The aqueduct was actually still in use even until the 1930s!  There for it has been well cared for in the last several centuries and is in great condition still.

Getting on the bus

The Aqueduct

 

Katie Willis and I  at the top!

                    The holes were made to be able to grasp the blocks                  with giant tweezers and lift them up

   The city was built on a hill and so everything inside the city leads up to the castle.  The city was so cool! Cobble stone roads, beautiful architecture and extremely detailed designs in the exterior of almost all of the buildings.  At the top of the hill, just before the castle there is a huge Roman Catholic Cathedral.  Like ginormous cathedral of late gothic design, that was built bigger and bigger over three to four hundred years.  It was a cold day, and we stopped and bought fresh baguettes from una panaderia “bakery” and they were delicious!

Looking down on on the city

Segovian seal

Amazing exterior designs

The cathedral of Segovia

                Next we were able take a short tour of the castle.  Built so that all but one side is surrounded by cliffs, and the other side has a 100 ft deep mote in front of it with a bridge.  Pretty cool.  There was so much gold in the castle!  All the ceilings of the kings chambers and his families chambers were done with very intricate designs all leafs with gold. I show a picture below were one of the ceilings they used over 60 kg of gold on the ceiling!  In perspective that is 132 lbs or 2112 oz and at $1600 an oz today, that ceiling is worth well over $3 million!  Holy Hannah!  That is an expensive ceiling!  But that is the thing, all the ceilings were gold leafed! That is a lot of wealth!  That had some very cool displays of knights armor, and we got to up to the top of the central tower where you can see for miles and miles around.  It was a pretty cool escalera de caracol “spiral staircase.”

The Segovian Castle

Inside, some of the amazing crown moldings

Gold ceilings

Up to the tower

                After leaving Segovia, we went to La Granja, or The Royal Palace of La Granja de San Ildefonso.  A summer home/palace formerly used for the kings of Spain.  I can’t begin to describe to you how intricately designed and how big it is! There were so many rooms! And every single room had vaulted ceiling with various different molding and murals on the ceilings, and sculptures, tapestries, paintings and anything else that might be a priceless piece of art in history.  Some of the tapestries there were 30 ft high and 60 feet long!  And they were like paintings! So many details and stories being told, they were just absolutely fantastic!  Then the property outside in the back yard was incredible! Over 1500 acres of land with intricate fountains and pools that spread several hundred yards, gardens, trees, a maze, benches, and an orchard.  It was incredible.  It is too bad that we are in early spring or my pictures would have much more color and beauty to them.  Plus we got some pretty heavy rain as we were leaving and we all got pretty wet!  But it was such a cool experience and an awesome start to all of our amazing excursions!  

This is what it looks like in the spring

I Love Spain!