El Escorial Salamanca and Avila

Buenos Dias!
Well we had an awesome weekend traveling to some of the other cities around Madrid. First we went to El Escorial. This city is where the summer house of the kings used to be, which I could understand because it was so cold in there, when it was very warm outside. It was also a church. The church was so beauitful, it had paintings everywhere and a library with I think some of the oldest books. Our tour guide told us that this library is very important because of the quality of books that it houses. They were all hand written by monks. This is also the place where all the tombs of the kings and queens of Spain are. All the kings are on one side and all the queens on another, but queens not only had to be married to the king, but had to have been the mother of the next king. There are only 3 tombs left, so where will the current queen/king go? Anyway, I thought that was interesting. Then we went to Salamanca, which is a college city for the most part. I thought their architecture was very beautiful. There were a lot of other groups of people in their Plaza Mayor, for example there was a group from Portugal wearing these black capes and suits and I guess someone said they are from a college. We toured a very pretty cathedral there and some other little parts of the city. I like the people there, it was a little more relaxed it felt like. Finally we went to Avila. This city was so pretty, but we just came on a cold day. There was fog and wind, and with such warm weather the other days we were not prepared. The city has a wall built around it, which we got to walk on. It was very beautiful. We only stayed a few hours before it was back to Madrid!

Classes have started and I'm taking so much Spanish. My head usually hurts by the end of the day, haha. But, hopefully this means my Spanish will be wonderful at the end of these three months. Im really excited for my class that hasn't started yet, Spanish culture, it is supposed to be a lot of learning outside the classroom, etc. Ill keep you posted on that. Natalie, for those of you who don't know shes my friend from 3rd grade, is coming into Madrid for about 5 days this weekend. Then we have a week and a half off for Semana Santa (Easter). For the pics: first is Avila, Salamanca then Escorial.