The Spain I've been waiting to see...

I’m a day behind, but don’t worry, I’ll catch you up on everything! Our final exams for the first term were yesterday! It was so refreshing to be done! We have a couple of more days left in Madrid and then it’s “vacation” in Andalucia!

After our exams we visited the modern part of town just to say we’ve seen it and came home for a quick nap and dinner. Then we met up with some friends in Gran Via and walked around and enjoyed the city night life.

Today, we went on an excursion to El Escorial and visited a castle in the Manzanares. El Escorial is where all the previous kings, queens and their families are buried. It was very interesting to see it but very “creepy.” The palace/church/library beautiful building was very cold and dark. The kings aren’t buried in the official casket room at first… they go into this room next to it where they rot. They rot until there is absolutely nothing left but bones and then they are moved to the “real” room. Very… interesting.

On to the most beautiful part of our day. This castle what we visited is the absolute spitting image of the castle I imagined when I was little. Absolutely stunning, surrounded by incredible, mountains, lakes, rocky ridges… breathtaking.