A Life Full of Pictures...And Rain.

My metal friend was surprised by my confession...

I was so surprised…to see an aqueduct from Roman times still standing (and working until recently!).

This weekend, we went to visit Segovia and Ávila, as I mentioned in the last post. The night before, Friday, we attempted to go out to the bars with a couple other girls from NAU. Yeah, they backed out on us as soon as we walked all the way to the Plaza and found them missing. A little angry about that (but with no surprise on my part), we decided to do another sangria night. So we sauntered over to our café/restaurant place, chose a table, and sat down. I’m telling you, either I’m a lightweight (and I very well may be) or sangria is really strong. Either way, I was feeling it, and chowing down on the free potato chips (tapas!) that are the perfect complement to sangria. It was a nice night—a little chilly—but we enjoyed ourselves, and even ALMOST got a picture with a group of costumed men. Needless to say, we are all three very sad we turned them down before realizing what we were missing.

Regardless, we got up the next cold morning and hustled off to the bus. It was a good two and a half hour drive to Segovia, but completely worth it. The aqueduct was gigantic. It towered over the city, the stones held in place by nothing but the weight of the other stones. It was a true Roman masterpiece, and even was working until sometime in the 80s, I think. Roman architecture at its best! 

Doesn't do the size justice, but still gorgeous!

After the aqueduct, we took a guided tour through the city to the castle. Yes, there was a fricking castle! It was so beautiful, and huge! We got to tour inside it, looking through all the room, gawking at the gold-inlaid, intricate designs on the ceiling, admiring the real suits of armor. Amazing. 

Hey look, it's a castle!

After that, we were left with TWO HOURS of free time for lunch and other activities. What the heck are you supposed to do for two hours in a strange city? Well, we sat at a café in their Plaza Mayor (NOWHERE near as impressive as ours), and people watched. The people of Segovia were the happiest people I think I’ve seen in my life. Everyone walked around smiling, holding hands, dancing. There was a band playing country music—blah—and men and women and children were all dancing around in their versions of a hoedown. It was great. 

And we got into the Segovian mood...

Finally our time was up and we hopped on our bus to Ávila—another hour or so away. There wasn’t much to Ávila—it was a very small city, and not much different from Salamanca with regards to the facades of the buildings. The most amazing thing, however, was seeing the city from afar. There was a little stopping point a little ways away, and the view was stunning. The city is literally surrounded by a medieval wall. The entire wall is still intact, making the city look like something out of a history book. It was amazing. I was stunned. 

Gah, can you imagine??

But that was the end of our trip, besides the drive back home. Giana still went out that night, but Caroline and I were exhausted, and my back was killing, so we chilled in our room and I passed out pretty quick.

Last night, Monday, T&E took us on a ruta de tapas—something you can guess by the words, a route of tapas bars. They split our giant group into three—and somehow Giana ended up in a different one from me and Caroline—and headed off. Officially, we visited three bars—each group trading with the other after a certain amount of time—but our group, being apparently slow and the last to even go to our last bar, got to have another round of free drinks at yet another bar.

Here’s how it went down: at the first place, we got vino tinto (red house wine), a plate of tapas full of shrimp on bread, and a plate of tapas full of shish kabob on bread. The shish kabob one was delicious, and the wine was really smooth and tasty. At the next place, the weird place with apple and snake decorations (we assume it has to do with the garden of Eden?), we asked our server what he suggested. He told us to get a cider-wine made of apples called sidra, so we did. The dude from T&E came over with a swipe card and cups, and gave us vague instructions to put the cup in the holder and swipe the card. Confused, Caroline tried it. The sidra came pouring out of the mouth of a snake sculpture some 5 feet above the cup! It was so entertaining! Then, our T&E guy proceeded to tell us that we had 7 more swipes! 

So sweet!

Well. We drank two glasses of sidra a piece, and I was feeling a little tipsy, so at the next place I elected to have a Coke, while Caroline drank a cerveza con limón, which is exactly what it sounds like. She said it was good--I don’t know, I didn't try it. Finally, our T&E dude informed us that he was going to take us to one more spot, even though no other group got to go there. Well, we couldn’t pass that up, could we? So we both tried the vino tinto de verano (a drink created in the south so that when you're drinking wine all day to cool down, you don't get drunk quite so fast), which is about half red wine and half gaseosa, which I think is like club soda. That was delicious! It had just the barest hint of the best-tasting part of wine.

Basically we had a bunch of wine and a bunch of meat last night. Spaniards do love their meat—especially ham here in Salamanca. But it was a really fun night, and really cool to try so many different things, and talk with people we didn’t normally talk with. I’m personally a fan of tapeando, which is almost exactly how it sounds—going from one bar to the next, having tapas in each. Great stuff experiencing the culture.

Speaking of which, there’s a bull fight coming up this Saturday, and Caroline and I are thinking about going. It’s only 5 euros for the cheap seats, and a once in a lifetime opportunity. I don’t think Giana’s exactly up for it, but we’ll see when the time gets closer. We got an exclusive demonstration of the techniques and the reasoning behind everything by a real matador. It was pretty sweet.

Yeah, a fat guy pushed a wheelbarrow-like thing like a bull.

Until then, I’m not sure what we’ll be doing. (Besides getting rained on constantly--this is not summer weather!) Salamanca’s having a giant festival this entire weekend though, so I’m sure we’ll have tons of fun. :]