Segovia and Rowboats!

Hola! Our first trip of the semester, a day trip to Segovia, was great! Segovia is an old city about an hour away from Madrid that is absolutely beautiful! This trip was organized through the university and departed at 9am on Saturday morning. I had forgotten that I had been there when I was in Spain 2 years ago, but was reminded as soon as I saw the beautiful aqueducts that border the town's entrance. We went on a tour of the most popular cites in Segovia and all of it was beautiful! The castle there(which they call a fortress, but really its a castle) was gorgeous and we got to go inside and look at everything. The views from the large castle windows were particularly spectacular! After our tour we had some free time before we had to get on the bus and return home. We did some shopping, which is great to do during January because all of the stores in Spain have Rebajas(sales) and things are extremely cheap. We also ate at a great restaurant where I had one of the best cheese burgers ever. After that we returned home, it was a great first trip!

Sunday, my roommates and I decided to go explore a great park near our house, Parque Retiro. This park is HUGE and gorgeous. It was extremely crowded because it was about 60 degrees and sunny so everyone was out. We decided to go out in the small lake they have in row boats, we had no idea how difficult rowing would be. It was quite a site. I'm convinced we were doing something wrong because there were five year olds rowing much better than the three of us combined. However, it was still fun(and extremely amusing).

Monday started our first full week of class(if you can call it that since I always only have to classes per day for four days a week). So far this week is going great and this weekend we are off to El Escorial. The next two weekends are followed by trips to

Paris and Portugal!

Aqueducts in Segovia!

Attempting to row boat in Parque Retiro!

Roommates in Segovia!