What's Going On!

I apologize for not updating in a while. I have been kind of busy lately and when I haven't been busy I've been tired. Therefore blogging has not been a top priority, but now I am so this is what has been happening the past couple of weeks.

Two weekends ago I went up to San Sebastian in Northern Spain, very close to the French border. On the way up we stopped at Burgos for lunch. Burgos was a city I have never heard of before, but there was a large wall around the city, impressive bridges, and an incredible Cathedral. This made me realize something: I'm definitely in Europe. I can go somewhere I never knew existed and find history as old as my country. Plus I really know I'm in Spain, because every town/city is famous for it's cathedral. They are all very important and impressive... and everywhere. But nonetheless each one has something special that makes you appreciate it.

Well San Sebastian, one of the "most beautiful beaches" of Spain was a little under the weather. It was too cold to go out on the beach and one night it was raining so much it felt like a hurricane. But one night we did discover a large sail boat that had washed up on shore. From the distance it appeared like a haunted ship. When we left on Sunday we made a stop at Bilbao to visit the Guggenheim. The building was art itself, as all Guggenheims are and the exhibits actually did a pretty good job matching it. There was a large exhibit from the artist responsible for the Beijing Olympics firework show, Cai Guo-Qiang. Also another Japanese artist, who's name has escaped me, who had an animation style of art, and some more very strange things. I also walked into a video room and found
the music video to Kanye West's Good Morning playing. I think this video is somehow connected to the Japanese artist, but I don't quite know...

Haunted Beach?

Well after that trip I had one week of school before Semana Santa. I surived that and on Thursday I traveled to El Escorial, about an hour an a half outside of the city. This monastery, circa 1570, served as a place for many kings of Spain. It now is used as a tomb for many of them. This day I saw the most kings and royalty of my life, unfortunately all of them dead. After paying way too much for some bad nachoes and reading my guidebook, we decided to take what was said to be a 3 km hike to La Silla de Fillipe II, where he had a seat carved into the mountain watched the construction of El Escorial. After getting lost due to the poor direction in the book we decided to ask an old lady on the street the best way there. It was from her that we learned it was about 4 km. But she did give us some better directions. After walking about 1/2 km we found a sign knocked over hidden in the grass. Thank you Spanish signs. We then decided it would be a good idea to ask someone which way this was really pointing. We asked this old man who was the gate man at a golf course nearby. He gave us directions and told us it was about 4 or 5 km from here. Apparently the closer we got, the futher away we really were. After hiking quite a while we finnaly made it to our destination. For a king, it was a pretty lackluster seat, but after worring that it maybe impossible to find due to infinitely growing distances, it was a much welcome chair.

The Royal Seat

The next night I went to see Franz Ferdinand, which was amazing. And Troy and Eric visited from Bristol, which was very fun as well, making for a very enjoyable start to the weekend.

Ahh Franz Ferdinand!

The next few days were spent relaxing for the most part. Then on Tuesday a few of us went for a long planned hike in the Sierras de Madrid, about two hours from the city by train. But in this distance which was probably only about 50 km, the temperature went from warm spring weather, to the middle of winter. As the train to Coros scaled the mountain we got a little excited when we saw a bit of snow, but then after going through a short tunnel we realized that we were going to be dealing with quite a bit. We were in the snow covered mountains and hiked through snow for most of the way. At times it became a foot or more deep, but most of the time it was pretty manageable. Until the end when it started to snow a little bit, which eventually turned to hail and made it difficult to see. And to think, I was afraid of dressing too warm for this trip. It was one of the most unique hikes I've been on. Sometimes it seemed as if the trail markers were playing hide and go seek with us, others it seemed like mother nature just wanted us to be cold, but all the time it was in the presence of beautiful snow covered mountains all around. It was certainly a great hike.


And today I made another day trip from Madrid and traveled over to Segovia to view the Roman aqueducts and the Castle. It is rumored that this is the castle of which Disney Castle is modeled afterward. The aquaducts were amazing and the castle was everything I imagined. I would tell you more but I've become very tired and need sleep.

I leave Friday morning for Rome. I'll be spending Easter with the Pope, so I hope that it all goes well, I know he is expecting me. I'll update you more when I have some good Roman stories!