Three of my roommates and I decided to take a day trip one weekend to El Escorial! It is free with our metro cards and only about an hour outside of Madrid, perfect for a Saturday trip. So we hopped on the bus and set out!
I was excited to find out that El Escorial, a monastery and palace, is in the town of San Lorenzo, the city in California where I lived for the first four years of my life! It was kind of exciting. The truth is this sort of thing happens a lot in Spain, obviously with the Spanish claiming and naming most of California, there is a lot of crossover. These little similarities that I see every day give me a little sense of home and comfort.
El Escorial was a Monastery for monks and the Royal residence for Philip II.
It was just a beautiful day!
We couldn't take pictures inside the palace but it was all very interesting!
This day we took a day trip to Segovia, my favorite day trip so far! Segovia is about an hour North of Madrid, also by bus. This was our little CIEE army.
The aqueduct is the most famous part of Segovia, constructed in the late 1st or early 2nd century AD. It is the most important Roman civil engineering work in Spain and consists of about 25,000 granite blocks held together without mortar.
Hard to get four girls all together!
Danielle, Jessica, Crystal and Me!
This is the Segovia Cathedral, the last Gothic cathedral built in Spain. We didn't go inside this though...
We did go inside the Alcazar of Segovia! The Royal Palace built in 1122! Here Laura and I are waiting to go inside and tour the castle.
Super mature hangin with some kid armor.
Thanksgiving! Día de acción de Gracias! We found a turkey (not popular in Madrid) and divided up our tasks so we could have a great day!
Then we found out our turkey still had feathers on it.... and like internal body parts....and blood. Super gross. After some minor (major) freaking out, we facetimed my mom to ask what the heck we do! This was all of our first times cooking a turkey. Jessica and Danielle took over plucking while I prepared the trimmings. Thanks Ma!
Hillary basting our bird!
She's ready! And delicious!
Our table!
desserts :-)
Jessica hand made pumpkin pie! Even the little leaves on it! So crazy.
All the roomies! Left to right: Hillary, Danielle, Crystal, ME, Jessica!
Last day trip of the month was to Cuenca! Cuenca is about 45 minutes southeast of Madrid in the Community of Castille-La Mancha, home of Don Quixote!
This was the backdrop of our lunch, the center of town and so beautiful!
The Cathedral of Cuenca!
One of the cool things about Cuenca are the hanging houses. They were built in the 15th century over rock and a gorge!
I don't think I'm brave enough to live in a house hanging over a gorge!
It's been a great couple months exploring and living in Madrid! I am loving my 1st and 4th grade classes and co teachers. I am definitely not used to this cold and NEED to get a warmer coat basically yesterday but everything is going really great so far!
"This world is too big not to try and see it all."
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