Valencia

Hello!!

This week we have been to a few different places close to Madrid like El Escorial (an ancient royal palace) El valle de los caidos (national civil war monument) and Sierra guadarrama (national park). The week before we went to Valencia (southern spain on the mediterranean). I have a lot of pictures to share so I hope your ready. 

Here are a few pictures at the ancient royal palace El Escorial:

That same day we went to el valle de los caidos which means the valley of the fallen. Victor Franco built it in memory of all who died during the civil war back in the thirties. Many died and Franco a general of the army ended up as the dictator of the country. I really enjoyed this trip because we got to learn a lot about Spain's history. Their history is super interesting because its so much different. Oh and while we were there we saw guess who! Yup you guessed it Arnold Schwarzenegger! Haha how random right? Here is a picture:

Yesterday we decided to do something that you can't do in the states these days. We went to a national park! Its called sierra guadarrama, it was really cool but doesnt even compare to places like glacier, yosemite or even the uintah mountains.Here is a cool picture of it:

The coolest part about the national park was that to get there we had to take this really old train up the mountain. Oh and of course the nap at the destination point.

This whole week has been semana cervantina here in Alcala de Henares. Miguel de Cervantes is the most popular spanish literature writer. He lived in the medieval age and the start of the renaissance and wrote the most printed book in the world not including the bible of course. The book is called "Don Quijote de la mancha" and as a part of this week long festival celebrating Cervantes the city put on a reading of it. Volunteers come to a really old theatre and take turns reading it. So  our profesers told us we would get extra credit if we did. Without even thinking twice we signed up. The first person to do it was... the mayor! Everybody was dressed in suits and ties and we had gone in normal clothes thinking random people from the city would have volunteered. A bunch of people from the government read and even one from france. yeah it was kind of a big deal. The good thing is that it took a long time and we were last. So by the time it was our turn it was lunch time and just about everybody had left except for us. It was awesome we pretty much just read to our group. Here is a video of me reading and a bit of the old theatre that we are in. The closest equivalent of reading this book in this place would be like reading "romeo and juliet" in "the globe" the theatre just isnt quite as big or famous. The book is even more famous, in spanish at least.

During this week long festival we also rode camels, ate octopus, saw a jousting tournament, and danced with bag pipes and arabian dancers. jaja what an awesome week!

We also ate some awesome medieval food, as you can see in the pictures. 

The week before we went to Valencia and I went to the largest aquarium in eruope. Here are a few pictures of us there:

I am super excited for this next week because were going to Barcelona! This trip could be one of the most exciting. Barcelona has a huge reputation and is way different from the rest of the country. I hope you all have a good week too!