Quick explanation of the title: the program director, Michael (or as we call him, Miguel), is a ridiculous, ridiculous man. He means well but is mostly useless and also has gorilla arms, which is weird. Sometimes he wears purple pants and tells us to say "gracias" a thousand times to everyone we interact with, though actually Madrileños find that to be excessive and insincere. But mostly he just sends us four million emails a day (not an exaggeration) and tries to get our attention when we're in a group by putting four fingers up to his face and whispering,
"Chiiicooosss...chiiicooss..." It's 100% ineffective because I inevitably start laughing. Miguel also selected all the trips we go on this semester, which are all to cities that are kind-of-famous-but-not-really...ie, we're not going to Granada, Barcelona, or Sevilla. My host mom says the program is stealing my money.
Anyway, the most recent money-stealing expedition was to Segovia, which was kind of exactly like Toledo, except it had a cooler castle and no marzipan-making nuns. Also, there were much fewer bathrooms, which resulted in me having to unceremoniously sprint down a hill and into a ditch to berate myself for having drank a cup of tea, 16 oz of water, and a medium-sized Dunkin Donuts iced coffee (yeaaah, they have that here) before arriving in Segovia.
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| Kat ever so kindly took pictures of me as I sprinted off into the wilderness |
So I guess you could say the trip did not get off to the best of starts...also because we had to tour YET ANOTHER CHURCH. I swear, if I have to see another giant and horrifically bloody statue of Jesus on the cross... I mean, I appreciate the architecture. I really do. But every church/cathedral we go to, we hear EXACTLY the same stuff. I could pretty much give a tour by now. "This church is in the shape of a latin cross. It was built over the course of a few centuries and has both baroque and gothic architecture. There is some marble. There is some gold. There is the nave. There is the transept. There are some arches. There is an altarpiece. BLAH BLAH BLAH."
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Speaking of altarpieces...
(Iglesia de la Vera Cruz) |
Thankfully, things got a little more interesting when we hopped back on the bus and drove to the famous Roman aqueduct. Constructed in the 1st century AD using no mortar--just perfectly shaped bricks stacked on top of each other--it's the best-preserved Roman aqueduct in Europe today.
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| It's really hard to photograph something so massive... |
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| Remus & Romulus statue |
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Streets of Toledo Segovia |
