¿Habla inglés?

This weekend was summed up rather nicely by Christin on Friday when she mumbled, giggling to herself, "It's fun listening to Lindsay try and pronounce the street names." How is this possible? We were are 5 college students from Texas and non of us speak Spanish! Ah, the fail of the education system... However, while it made communicating things like "hi, I think I lost my checked luggage somewhere in the airport" difficult, I have to admit that it is good to know that there is at least one other country out there that doesn't encourage their citizens to learn a language other than their primary tongue. Everyone should experience trying to explain where your going to a non English speaking cabby in a strange country at 5 o'clock in the morning.

Language barrier aside, however, Spain is a fascinating place. Before leaving Maastricht I was beginning to get excited about this new country. All of the place places I'd been to so far, Germany, Austria, England, seem normal in my mind, but Spain, Spain was exotic. Why this is I do not know. I do know, however, that if your going for exotic, Madrid is not the place to be because it looks like any other capital city: big streets, metro, tall buildings,botanical gardens, and of course, trash, graffiti (only this time you can't read it), and little run down stores.

We actually arrived in Madrid a little too late to see anything. By the time we got the keys to our apartment It was 4:30 and most of the museum's closed at 6:00 or so we thought. When we arrived at one of the Museum's however, we realized that it actually shut down at 2:00. So we strolled along Calle de Prado, taking pictures of the fountains and trees and looking at what the artisans had to sell. We found this one man sitting on the edge of a fountain painting the most beautiful fans! What says Spain more than that? We ultimately ended up wandering through a botanical garden and looking at all the bizarre plants and their names.


Now, I must tell you, if you wish to see that other Spain that I was referring to, the exotic Spain with the clay houses and terracotta roofs you need to go to a place like Segovia.
We were fortunate to happen to fall into knowing about Segovia. On Thursday morning we were discussing out trip over breakfast and telling Dr. Rust about how we weren't super excited to go to Madrid because we didn't know what was there. His suggestion was to use Madrid as a launching pad to take day trips into smaller Spanish towns, and he suggested Segovia. What? You say you've never heard of it? I'm not sure how many people do know about this little gem (except for my dad because he knows most places). It's about a two hour train ride from Madrid, and it is simply beautiful. It has the Spanish architecture, the alleys, cobblestone streets, landscape, and best of all, history.

The first thing that greeted us was the Roman Aquaduct that splits the city in half. It was absolutely breath taking to drive up on the bus and suddenly see it looming ahead of you nestled among all the Spanish style houses!

Then, there is the Cathedral, a church that I think puts even Notre-Dame to shame. A simple photograph cannot even begin to translate how massive and gorgeous this thing was. It was started in 1528 and not finished until 1768, almost two hundred years later. Inside there are beautiful paintings and beautiful tall, arched ceilings.

May favorite however, was the castle Alcazar. It was built by Alfonzo III and had a rather extensive history in the early years of its life, but I was most interested by the monarchs that ruled here in the later 1400s. This was the castle where Isabella was crowned Queen in 1474. She along with her husband Ferdinand happened to fund a little expedition with an Italian explorer named Christopher Columbus in 1492 (!). If I'm not mistaken, she is also the mother of Catherine of Argon, Henry VIII's first wife and mother of "Bloody" Mary, Elizabeth I's older sister. (Yes, they were all inbred into a tangled web of marriage and children!) I'm afraid to admit however, that this is nearly all I know of Isabella.

I very much enjoyed my stay Spain this weekend and would loved to have looked around a little longer. I've never really had a fascination with the Spanish culture the way I have others (namely French and English) and I'm not sure that that has changed any, but I think that I have a bit more of an appreciation for it, and I'm happy to know that the exotic Spain of my imagination does exist, somewhere.

As always, pictures.