Friendly Faces

This past week, I was lucky enough to host my good friend Amy in Segovia. She is currently teaching English in Germany and for her fall vacations, she decided to come visit me in Spain. We took a few Spanish classes together at UAA, so it was seemed rather fitting to reunite in a Spanish speaking country.

Amy and I! (taken by Amy)

The first full day that Amy was here, I got to show her around Segovia. We visited the three main monuments of the city; the aqueduct, Alcázar, the castle, and the cathedral. The aqueduct is of course a stunning monument, and scaled the stairs where the aqueduct meets la muralla (the defensive wall surrounding the city) from which we could see the aqueduct from above, as well as parts of the city. At the castle, we bought tickets so that we could explore more thoroughly that fairy tale like edifice, and we climbed the 152 (very large) steps to the tower, from which we could see Segovia. Later in the evening, we attended an organ concert in the cathedral, which not only allowed us free entry into the cathedral, but also was rather thrilling to hear.

El Rastro

The next day we took the bus from Segovia to Madrid. I cannot describe how tiring a city Madrid is. Something perhaps about it's largeness in comparison to Segovia seemed overwhelming. Nonetheless we persevered and found el rastro, a gigantic market in the center of Madrid. Although we did not do much do shopping, it was incredible to see just how much there was. At first, Amy and I were worried that we wouldn't be able to find the market, since the information she had found merely have the cross streets that enclosed the market. But once we got there, we realized that we need not have worried; there were streets and streets packed with booths and tables of every conceivable type of goods, and hundreds of people were bustling from booth to booth. In the time we were there, we probably did not get to see more than one-tenth of the market.

In Segovia, Amy decided to attend classes with me. I enjoyed having her there, and I hope that she found the classes interesting. When we weren't in class, we wandered the streets of Segovia looking at the different buildings and encountering various nooks and crannies of the city. For Amy's birthday we went on a walk to a park from which there a beautiful views of Alcázar. I thought it would be something like a forty-five minute walk, and it ended up being a terrifying two and a half hours. Poor Amy, what a birthday present!

The night before Amy left, we went to see a tango performance at a local theater in Segovia. It was fantastic, and we both wanted to start taking ballroom dance lessons after seeing the performance. Yesterday, along with another girl from the program, Chelsea, we went to Madrid again where we spent most of the time wandering through a famous park called el Retiro. Afterward, we saw Amy off. I was super sad to see her go, but I was glad that she had the opportunity to come visit me.

When I was on my way to Spain in September, I met another college student in the Washington D.C. airport (who was waiting for the same flight to Madrid) who was also studying abroad, in Madrid. We chatted a little bit about our prospective programs, and after we got on the plane parted ways. I didn't think that I would ever see him again. Today when I was working in the tourism office, he came in with a bunch of kids from his program to get some information about Segovia. I couldn't believe it! Sometimes it is incredible how small the world really is.

'Ta Luego!