Tim and I left Calle de Toledo, 32 with plenty of time to spare. Our bus was to leave the IES Center promptly at 9am, but Tim was ready to go at 7am, when he got home from what I hear was a pretty epic night at Kapital. I made my instant coffee in the microwave, grabbed my tortilla sandwich out of the fridge, which Aida had made the night before, and we made our way out into the cold winter morning to the La Latina metro stop. After a transfer from the 5 line [green] to the 3 line [yellow] at Callao, we were at Moncloa, the end of the line for the three train and also the closest stop to Colegio de San Augustín, where the IES program is located.
After being ushered onto a fleet of lime-green buses, we were off, and Tim was out on the seat behind me. Although it was only an hour-long bus ride, I have to say that it was incredible to see the different parts of the city fall away until we were in the middle of the Spanish countryside in Castilla-Leon, the province that lies to the north of Madrid. We proceeded through a 3km-long tunnel, emerging into a valley that was from a different century. The land up there is for the most part pretty cultivated, as it has been for hundreds of years, but every pasture is spotted with old oak trees that reminded me of the times when Franco ruled. Old fences lay in disrepair, and farmhouses stood with crumbled plaster and dilapidated roofs. The bus felt like a time machine, taking us to Segovia, where we would see the beginning of modern Spanish culture.
We arrived at the base of the mountain with the castle/fortress of Alcázar to a hail of shutter releases. A bevy of Japanese tourists had arrived to the same place just before us and my likeness must be in memory cards all over Asia. I cannot blame their curiosity, the image of 120 white devils disembarking from a 3 enormous lime popsicles must have been a sight to behold; and besides, they love to take pictures.
Before we climbed the hill that almost killed the three heaviest members of our contingent (myself not included you will be happy to know), we visited La Vera Cruz, a church at the hill's base, to give those unlucky few their final rights and take some pictures while we were there. The church is very old and was inhabited by members of the Order of Malta. There were some relics in boxes made of lead and some tiny rooms that were meant to represent the universe or a vagina or something. It was beautiful. Every element of the architecture was either focused on the eight-sided theme of the Maltese cross or the thickness of the walls, which were supposedly four to five feet thick. That is a lot of wall.
Onward...
...and upward.
The castle was very impressive. It had formerly been a fortress and a temporary residence for the early kings of Spain, a bond making this castle rather unique. Each room was decorated in some ridiculous, over-the-top style from before the renaissance, a lot of influence also being owed to the Muslim conquerors who had occupied the land before. I don't really know what happened to them. I am sure that I will learn that soon. I've seen a fair amount of castles, but this one was pretty cool. I am too lazy to describe it in words, so I will just show photos.
Next to come from my day trip to Segovia, the world-renowned aqueduct, which was incredible...
...but for now, feudalism prevails.
*As you may be able to tell by now, I am attempting to leave shreds of my life in the pre-21st century by practicing the use of film photography. There may be a word in Spanish that describes some one who indulges in this impracticality, but to your average gringo I think it would be called "a self-loathing-ego-maniacal idiot". No matter, working with film is something that I feel strongly about, and even though I digitize my shots in order to put them on this blog, when an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) strikes the city of the future that I am living in (an attempt to sabotage our infrastructure by terrorists, no doubt), the digital guys will be sitting there while their life's work is destroyed while I am peering through a loop at my negatives on a light-box that doesn't work (EMP). Case and point. Film just looks better anyway.
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