I Have Been Around the World

Dear Reader,


Today I cheated. Instead of thinking of a song I knew about traveling or seeing the world, I searched for one. Yes, Google was my assistant. The result was finding this song by Dar Williams, "I Have Been Around the World." I have never heard of her and I know nothing about her. The song was cool, so I decided to use the title. So sue me.

I am going to change it to "I Have Been Around Spain." Because that is what our group has been doing. A lot. This past weekend we took a trip to Avila and Salamanca, returned to Madrid for a Futbol game, and then finished off the weekend with a farewell concert for a missionary couple on Temple Square in Madrid. It was quite an adventure. Of course I'll share some pictures with you!

The majority of our group 

This week's trip included stops in Ávila and Salamanca. We really couldn't have asked for a better weekend. Taking off from Madrid Friday morning, we spent the morning in Ávila looking at the walls around the city and the church there as well. It is hard to describe what it fells like to be on top of a centuries-old wall looking at a city that just screams "I'm European!"

Avila

Beautiful, right? After spending a couple hours exploring that city, we continued to Salamanca. It was perfect, if I may say so. It was cool all day long, which helped us enjoy the tour we took with our director, Señora Hoskisson, through the small streets of Salamanca.


Our tours ended pretty early, so we had plenty of time to explore the streets of Salamanca. First we went to find a lock to put on the well in the garden we had visited earlier. Isabell had the idea to have me put a lock on the well with my name and a question mark and my phone number. I then reminded her that I would be back in the states before anyone could call me. Although, we are now going to start a 'love-lock' tradition at Brigham Young University. The only thing needed is a place that will be around for awhile. I'll let you know how that goes.

We found the lock and grabbed some food. After visiting the garden, we grabbed two tubs of ice cream from the grocery store and went to the Plaza Mayor where we had several adventures, including eating ice cream with straws, sitting in the middle of the plaza, meeting a drunk Portuguese band, taking pictures with said band, and dancing to music of said band. The pictures below will give you an idea of what kind of night it was.

Santi demonstrating how to use straws as
either chopsticks or a spoon. We tried both.

The Portuguese Band. They were pretty good for being drunk.
They even offered Santi and I a drink. 

It was a night better than we could have hoped for. Later we discovered a bridge that was beautifully lit up at night and we walked around it. Between dancing, singing and sharing our life story, there was nothing that could have made the experience better. Except for maybe a band that wasn't drunk. 

Saturday was an incredible day as well. We visited the Castillo de Coca on our back to Madrid. It is almost as amazing as the Alacazar de Segovia. It was breath-taking to be inside the massive outer walls and explore the different parts of the castle defenses. We took a guided tour up the towers (Which was a little hard considering how steep the stairs were) could amazing views from the top. The thing that impressed me most of all was a room inside the castle. The room's design allows for different phenomenon of sound waves. There are two different things that you could do. The first was having two people stand on opposite sides of the chamber. While facing the walls, they could whisper and it felt like the person on the other side was right next to you because of the ways the sound waves traveled. It was kind of creepy. It made it really easy to eavesdrop, though. The other cool trick was standing in the exact center of the room. While talking/singing in the center, the sounds all came back to you immediately, as if you were in a recording studio and hearing your own voice through the recording equipment. It was insane. I loved it!

When we got back to Madrid, everyone in our group got together to go to a futbol game between the Athletico Madrid and Sevilla, two teams here in Spain. Our seats were perfect. The game was perfect. There were a couple of mishaps, the first being one that brought our group closer together. Unfortunately one of our group had lost her ticket to get it and we had no way of getting her in without it (It seemed really dumb that they couldn't just print us another one, since they had just done so). However, it was good because we all got together and pitched in a few bucks to buy her another ticket so she could sit with us. She was incredibly grateful. With that, we enjoyed the game, which Athletico Madrid won 4-0. It was the perfect way to end our awesome weekend in Spain.