Segovia Photos

We took a day trip to Segovia, a city about an hour North-West of Madrid, in Castilla-Leon. It was amazing. The castle (called the Alcazar) helped inspire Cinderella's Castle at Disney World, and the Roman Aqueduct has stood for over 2000 years!

Enjoy the photos!

Parlez-vous français?

I got back a little less than a week ago from Paris, and I still feel a bit like my head is in the clouds! Paris is one of the most amazing cities I have ever seen (I seem to be saying that a lot recently about everywhere I go), and I had an absolutely fantastic time. Nearly every building in Paris is beautiful in some way, and it was great to just walk along the Seine and watch the street performers or stop in a cafe to have a hot chocolate. We spent six days in Paris and had the opportunity to take a day trip to Versailles, the famous palace build by King Lous XIV. The gardens and the fountains are incredible! The weekend we were there they were having a festival, so from 3:30 to 5:00 they turned all the fountains on and played classical music throughout the entire area. It made me feel like I should have been part of the Royal Court and wearing a huge dress or something.

Visiting the Louvre was surreal - seeing all the paintings you´ve looked at in a textbook your whole life is very strange - and the Musée d´Orsay was really cool (they´ve got quite a few famous paintings by Van Gogh, Monet and others). My favorite part of the entire trip, though, was visiting Notre Dame and climbing all 400 stairs to the top and being able to look out over the city. I felt like I was going to die before we reached the top, but once we got there I realized that every step was worth it; you could see the Eiffel Tower and Sacré Cœur off in the distance, and the gargoyles are very, very cool. Overall, the week I spent in Paris was an amazing one and I would definitely recommend that you make the trip if you study abroad in Europe anytime in the future.

It was great, however, to get back to Madrid and fall back into my routine. My second round of classes started this week, and I´m taking an advanced grammar class, and another called Art in the Prado Museum. I only have to come to campus twice a week (I still have to keep up with my UF classes, though) but I do have a lot more time to experience Madrid which is great.

On Sunday I had the opportunity to go to El Rastro which is, essentially, a huge flea market in the La Latina area of Madrid. You can find all sorts of interesting things being sold - scarves, shirts, purses, sunglasses, electronics, jackets, hats - pretty much anything you can imagine, all for a reasonable price. I can tell you that I will definitely be visiting again soon. If you´re interesting in going, El Rastro occurs every Sunday from about 8:30am to around 2:00pm right outside the La Latina Metro stop.

There are always interesting things going on here in Madrid, so I´m sure I´ll be posting again soon!

¡Hasta Luego!