El Cañón de Río Lobos

Day 84- 3/24




Today we had an excursion through school to El Cañón de Río Lobos. It's a canyon with a small river running through it. We didn't really have anything specific to do, just hiked the trails and climbed up some of the canyon.

Can you see those white specks in the middle about even with the tree line? That's Jenny and I! Super high up, incredibly scary.

The pictures don't do it justice for how high up we were. SCARY!

 Jenny and I in San Bartolome's cave.

Fun day hiking in the beautiful weather!

Me encanta Andalucia!

Day 80- 3/20

This weekend I traveled to Andalucia (Southern Spain). In four days we visited three cities, Sevilla, Cordoba and Granada. It was a short and touristy trip, but we visited all of the monuments that we have been learning about in our history and art classes.




It was a nine hour bus ride to Sevilla.


Sevilla


Here is the Metropol Parasol, in the middle of the city center. You can take an elevator up there and see the city lit up at night. Under it is the fresh market of Sevilla.

Here is our hostel! Free hour of Sangria :)

 Patio and bar.

On the rooftop!


We met a lot of people that were on vacations from studying or just traveling Europe. There were people from Australia, Singapore, Germany, California and Portugal. We all hung out and shared travel stories. Everyone knew English or Spanish so we were all able to communicate!


We went to the Cathedral.

We climbed this tower! 34 stories!

Facade of the cathedral.

View from the top of the tower!

Christopher Columbus' tomb.

There's a mirror in the middle of the church so you can see the whole ceiling.

Bells in the tower!

Then we went to Plaza de Espana!

Abby, Charlotte and I.

Abby and I.

There were seats all around it with maps and the shield of major cities. Sevilla.

 Toledo.

Shield of Valladolid.

Here are two panoramics! One a view from the church and the other of Plaza de Espana. I had some trouble figuring it out so the axis is weird, but they still look cool!

Cordoba


The next day we went to Cordoba and stayed in the Jewish Quarters.

In Cordoba we went to the Mezquita. A former Muslim mosque that was conquered by Alfonso X, a Catholic king, who built a cathedral in the middle.

Calle de las flores.

 Arco de triumfo.

 Rio de Guadalquivir.

 La Mezquita! Arcos de Herradura (horseshoe arches). We learned a lot about the architecture in our art class.

Arcos polilobo (ear lope arches).

 Here is the cathedral's ceiling inside the mosque.

We tried listening in on the tours but some of the languages we couldn't identify.

I was definitely laughing when I took this picture. They remind me of Ruger and Remington haha!




We also went out for tapas in Cordoba. They're very common in Spain, a small appetizer to go with your beer or wine. This one is  salmon, mayo type sauce, lettuce and who knows what else.

Granada

The last day of our trip of Andalucia we went to Granada to see La Alhambra. This was the last Muslim kingdom in Spain before it was taken over by Carlos V. It includes the Palace of Carlos V, other palaces of the Muslim ruler Boabdil, and many gardens.

First I hiked up the neighborhood of the Albaycin. This is supposed to be a great viewpoint of the Alhambra, especially at sunset, but unfortunately we didn't get to see it at night. It's a very pretty neighborhood though! My host mom's brother-in-law used to live there. All the houses are white because it gets to hot in the summer.

In front of La Alhambra and the Sierra Nevada mountain range. (This is supposed to be a great place to live because it's an hour south to the beach and an hour north to ski!)

I took a lot of pictures from here and from off the buildings in the Alhambra of the landscape. I don't have the program, but I'm hoping Becki can make some into panoramas!

 This is El Palacio de Nazaries. This cat is about to go fishing. Carlos V had a serious case of goat and ordered to have several ponds constructed after the Christians took over so he could fish without having to go far.

 El Patio de los Leones.

La Sala de las Dos Hermanas. It's hard to tell here since it's not  3D but the roof goes up into a point.

One of the gardens.

Outside the Alcazaba, in front of Albaycin!

Palacio de Carlos V

Inside el Palacio de Carlos V.

More to come!

La rana!

Day 65- 3/5


Can't believe it's already March!! The time here is going sooo fast. The next couple weeks are full of exams and then we finish our first "semester" on the 16th. It's getting warmer! Supposed to be in the high 60s by the end of the week/this weekend. 


Last Saturday we went to Salamanca on a school excursion.


Salamanca is has one of the oldest universities and is famous for it's facade. The two doors represent the good path in life and the bad path. The good one leads up a steeper path to the class rooms, and the other easier one goes down into the tavern in the basement. 

Below is la rana, frog, on top of the skull. It's in the middle of the right pillar. It's supposed to be good luck to find the frog. The trick is for someone to bring a mirror and reflect it off the sun to point it out to everyone.

We had a lot of free time so Jenny, Jamie and I wandered around town to the el Rio de Tormes. We read a story in our literature class called Lazarillo de Tormes, it's a famous work from the Spanish  Renaissance. 

Lazaro with el ciego, his blind master.

Roman bridge.

Me, Jamie, Jenny on the bridge. They took a vow to speak only in Spanish for the month of March (unless it's after 11pm :P ) so we spoke in Spanish all day! Also went to El Parque de los Jesuitos during our free time and met some guys studying in Salamanca from California. Salamanca is supposed the city in Spain with the most erasmus (foreign) students.

We then visited the Cathedral of Salamanca. It's huge! Surrounding where the big mass would take place there is a ton of smaller areas dedicated to certain families for their own private mass/funerals/tumbs.

 Freaky Birds.

 There's also areas dedicated to Saints..with their body parts. Here's the left arm of Saint Benito someone. 

Our teacher pointed this out to us.. This is a part of the facade of the cathedral. When parts of the decorations were restored in the 60s? there were some elements added. Here's an astronaut!

And here's a gargoyle..eating an ice cream cone!

The next weekend was Erin's (my roommate) birthday. Maria had her brother-in-law, sister and nephew over for lunch. We had snails!! Everyone got a nail and you stick it in the shell to pull out the snail to eat. Then our dish was squid. It was really chewy and that inky color but it was all really good. Then we had rice and potatoes for the main course and then flan for dessert. We helped Maria make it the night before. It's a dessert made out of condensed milk and eggs and you cook it in the over in a "Maria bath" and top it with carmalized sugar. Yum!!