El Escorial

So I woke up this morning at seven. I was perfectly fine after last night and excited to go see El Escorial. It's a small town a little over an hour North of Madrid and it's famous for it's monastery. Stephanie, one of my other roommates, and I had a quick bite to eat and were briefly interrupted by Mandy swaying in to the bathroom. Steph wanted to know if she was sick and I let her know that no, she's still drunk. After helping her get the bathroom door back open she let us know that she didn't get home until five that morning, we then found a copy of her passport and keys on the counter. Fun.

We got to school and met up with the others, and then we headed to the Atocha station. Once we got there we bought the tickets and checked to see that we had an hour before the next train. Atocha station is actually known to be one of the most beautiful train stations in Spain. In one wing they have a large tropical garden, while walking through the garden you can see ponds full of turtles. It was so beautiful.

Finally we caught our train and headed out. Once we got there we realized that the weather is extremely different from Madrid. We were freezing! We found out which direction to go and took off. We walked through a small town until we hit a large park with one long, straight road down the middle. Unfortunately the long, straight road was completely up hill. So I had to walk about a mile up a hill in the high altitude – I almost died. But when we got close and the trees opened up we saw the most amazing view of the monastery, which Philip II also used as a palace.

We finally made it to the entrance and made our way in. First we toured the basement, which was full of the tools and materials used to build the buildings. There were also models and drawings of the construction. After that we made our way up to the art gallery, here we saw a lot of the royal painter's works. Then we toured the royal apartments, where we saw the bed that Philip slept in (really tiny) and eventually died in. We also saw a long strip of metal in the floor of one of the conference rooms that was used as an indoor sundial, I'm getting one.

We then walked back down to the mausoleum and saw all of the tombs of the royals who were buried there. A large majority of the tombs were built for the children who died before puberty. Finally we saw the inside of the basilica, which was amazing. You could stand in the center and look all the way up into the center of the dome.

After the church we walked across the small town to a small place to eat lunch. Here we found a menu del dia for 5 euros so we were pretty excited. We read through the menu and realized that though they tried to translate their Spanish into English there is some words that didn't quite make it. For instance, espegetti con crema translated into past with scum – very appetizing. I got sopa castellana, ham, egg and bread soup – which I love. And a piece of chicken with French fries. For desert we all got café con leche.

Later we headed back down to the train station to head home. On the train ride home I talked to Alex, Josune's boyfriend. He brought up that he thought it was odd that I have a Mexican accent when I talk about some things. I didn't realize that I did, but now of course I pay attention to that like crazy. I explained to him that I was raised by the Mexican family next door and that now I spend almost all my free time with Mexicans so it sounds like they're rubbing off on me.

We also were able to see the giant stone cross of the Valley of the Fallen. This cross was built by prisoners of war in the Spanish civil war and is now the burial place of Franco. It was cool to get to see it from the train because you can't really go there. It is a fascist landmark and is one of the most controversial things in Spain.

Once I got home I stopped by the store to grab a baguette and some jamon Serrano (I'm obsessed with it now) for dinner. I ran into one of the girls from the other apartment and we shopped together for a bit before heading back home. After eating my bocodillo I jumped straight into bed and passed out.