Hanna and I decided to take a trip to Segovia, my second time, her first. I was extremely happy that I was able to return so quickly and also to go with a friend! It was a great trip and I got to know Segovia in a different way. The first trip was a typical tourist trip to any city that has monuments and places to go and see, the second trip was an adventure, an exploration of Segovia from an insiders view. I wanted to go to the places los segovianos go and see what they see, do what they do. I didn't get to do quite that (this time), but I did explore almost all of the city, more or less, tried typical food from Segovia, and with the help from a friend back in Montana, Brad Wagner (muchas gracias, Brad), I was able to hit up some places that Segovia is known for by los segovianos and by everyone else!
The trip began on Friday, January 27. Hanna and I had to board the bus at 1:15, so that meant we had to get out of class early. We met in the Plaza Mayor at 12:45 and then we headed to the restaurant to pick up our bocadillos (sandwiches made with baguettes-long bread?) -lol- Little did we know that our sandwiches weren't ready, so we had to wait for about 7 minutes to get our sandwiches....and at about 1:08 we left the restaurant and literally had to sprint, backpacks on our backs, sack lunches in hand, beanies on our heads, in the freezing cold about 5 blocks to the bus station and claim our tickets, which we had luckily already bought online. While waiting to get our tickets, the bus driver of our bus came up to the ticket counter and asked the teller if he was missing any passengers, because the bus was supposed to be full, and he had 2 seats left...imagine that...so the teller told the bus driver that we were the last two passengers and the bus driver looked at us, and SMILED-thankfully-and said, "Vamos, vamos." meaning come on, let's go! We had the very front seats of the bus, sat down semi-sweaty from sprinting like wild hyenas, and just looked at each other and let out a big sigh, thinking, "oh my lord we barely made it!"
The bus ride was peaceful, I put in my headphones and listened to the great playlist that my brother made me-thanks Coda! Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to eat on the bus, so I had to sleep to keep away hunger pain! We had some stops on the way, but finally we made it to Segovia! We got off the bus and headed straight to my favorite place in the world....right by the aqueduct! Hanna was just as amazed as I was the first time I saw it...the second time, just as breath taking ( and the third, and fourth, and fifth...). We marveled at it for about 10 minutes and headed to our hotel to check in and rid ourselves of our backpacks! Traveling light is a must!! We stayed at Hotel de San Miguel, which is located on Calle Infanta Isabel which Brad had told us was the calle de los barres-the street with all the bars on it! It is also located right next to the Plaza Mayor de Segovia! Que Suerte (what luck)!! haha
Our cute hotel room!
The hotel de San Miguel We got all of stuff set down and pulled out the map to decide what we were going to do and where we were going to go! Brad had told me about his favorite cafe called Cafe Jeyma, which was right across the Plaza, so we headed there to have tea and coffee. Segovia is more north than Salamanca and it was freezing! Warm drinks were just what we needed before we went wandering around town! The cafe was precious! There was an upstairs, where Hanna and I sat, and there was a group of men smoking cigars and playing poker, the bartender/waiter wore a tux, and it was very elegant!
TEA TIME!
Hanna and her Cafe Americano
With warm drinks in our systems we braved the cold weather and took a self guided tour of Segovia! Which means we just walked around town, finding our way around, and checking out places we wanted to go to! Also, seeing my love, the aqueduct, with a night sky in the background, the kind of night sky that is not all the way black yet, it is like a clear deep blue, with some clouds, oh so enchanting! We also realized that our map was quite deceiving, everything is Segovia is relatively close, and the map made it look like everything was very spaced out! Haha we walked right past some places we wanted to see and didn't even realize and had to turn back! Our adventure was successful, however, despite the misleading map! We are both picture taking crazies!
La Plaza Mayor
There are many pasterlerias in every city in Spain. Like one on every corner! They never lack enjoying a great treat!
El acueducto!!
The Avenue that the Aqueduct is on.
Our tour left us starving! Our stomachs were eating themselves by this time, therefore we headed straight to get some tapas! We managed to hit up three different bars to eat tapas. The first one was right next to our hotel, Asde Picas. We sat at the bar, ordered some beers, Estrella Damm, which is made in Barcelona and is really yummy, and ordered tapas to share!
This is a scrambled egg mixed with morcilla and some sweet sauce!
This is a breaded onion! The next bar we wanted to go to was next to the aqueduct, Los Faroles. We wanted to go to this particular one because when we had been walking we had noticed that they had Queso Manchego! We have been wanting to try it since we have both heard from numerous people that it is the best cheese in Spain! Being the foodies that we are, indulging in every opportunity to try something new and delicious, we headed there!
Queso manchego, chorizo, Manhou Classic Cerveza, and Sangria! 
OOO boy were people not lying about how delicious queso manchego is! So so so so yummy!! Alicia Marie Meyer if you are reading this, think about the cheese we tried at when we were serving for the Wine 101/102 which ever one it was, and times the cheese taste by like 1000! So darn good! Especially when you pair it with chorizo and little bit of pan (bread)! Spanish food is always served with pan, every meal, every dish, pan pan pan!!
Now, the next bar that we went to was my favorite! It is called La GuaGua, which means bus! Brad had told us about a bar that instead of traditional Spanish tapas, gives out candy! Hanna and I have come to find that we love sweets and desserts! There is always a dessert served, with every meal! Eating food here is all about enjoying the taste, the moment, the company, the conversation, the beauty of the whole meal-which means dessert!! Anyways, La GuaGua was the candy bar! YAY! It was small with just a bar to sit at, no tables. We ordered drinks and the bartender asked us what kind of candy we wanted...sweet & salty mix, chocolate, gummies, sour candies, a mix of everything...whatever we wanted! We went for the sweet and salty mix, but ended up just picking out all the little chocolate candies anyways! It was fun to drink a beer, eat candy, listen to music, and chat! More people started to show up and they would order half and half baskets or just chocolate. It was so interesting to see, they all just knew what they wanted! If I lived in Segovia I would definitely be a regular at La GuaGua!
Sweet and Salty!
These guys ordered chocolate!
Saturday was just as eventful! We had so many things we wanted to do before we had to board the bus at 6pm! We woke up early and headed for breakfast! Naturally, we were craving churros con chocolate for breakfast! We went to a place called Fraggi and it had really creamy chocolate and crunchy churros! So darn good. I also ordered Zumo de naranja natural-natural orange juice, they literally make it right in front of you, every bar/cafe I have been to has a juicer and they put in the oranges and make you orange juice straight from the orange! It is to die for! So I had a healthy breakfast full of vitamin C and mentally calming chocolate with churros!
Dip the churro in the chocolate! After our well rounded breakfast we headed to see the aqueduct to take some pictures before everybody else woke up and came out! I probably have about 100 or more pictures just of the aqueduct!!
I hug it because I love it! <3 Once Hanna got tired of me marveling and gawking at the aqueduct, we headed to the Cathedral that is next to the Plaza Mayor. We paid three euros to enter and it was absolutely grandiose! The Cathedral began being built in 1525! There was a big part in the middle where they still hold mass and another room where they hold mass as well. Around the outside of this part in the middle there are rooms and they each have a different theme and amazing/important paintings! It gave me the chills being in there! I consider myself a Christian, but I haven't been to church since I don't know how long besides for a wedding or funeral! And this church just made me become overwhelmed with religion! In a good way :) The presence of Jesus was every where and Mary and God! It was incredible. They had those padded kneeling/bench things that are in Catholic churches in each of the rooms, and I had an overwhelming feeling to pray, but I didn't know what people usually pray about when they kneel on those in front of certain statues or paintings, so I didn't, and I'm not Catholic so I didn't really know how that all worked...but I think I am going to start studying that! Its a big part of what has made Spain the country it is today and if I want to master Spanish history, I am gonna need to learn about their religion as well!
Que bonita!!! It was incredible! After the Cathedral we were freezing, it was, by far, the coldest day we had experienced in Spain! But, we had to continue, so we headed to the Alcazar, which is the castle that I wrote about after my first trip to Segovia! It was just as great to see the second time and I got to fixate and notice things I hadn't the first time. We also paid to climb the towers this time! The stairs were very spiral-y, steep, and there were so many of them! HAHA It was worth the climb, though, because we had the chance to see an amazing view of Segovia!
I didn't notice this the first time, but look at the eyes of the people! CREEPY!
The Alcazar was amazing, but by this time it was already 1:30 and we were starving! We head to a restaurant called Candido, which is famous in Segovia for the chef and for their Cochinillo, which is suckling pig. We had already tried almost every typical Spanish dish, except cochinillo, so we were excited! If you google cochnillio, you will see that it is a pig that is cooked, head and all! We arrived at the restaurant, relieved to get a break from the cold! We luckily got a table and ordered soup and cochinillo! It was such a dainty, pretty restaurant! And, although I was quite nervous to try a pig that is just whole, I was also excited to experience it! We didn't get the whole pig set down in front of us because we just ordered like a serving, which alone was 20 euro! Quite expensive, but we shared it and it was plenty! It was very soft, juicy, and semi-salty, with a crunchy outside. It was yummy! I can now say that I have successful tried all the well-known Spanish foods and that I like them all! Out of my whole entire time in Spain I have not tried something that I hate! Its all so delicious!!!
Cochinillo!
The sun decided to come out for while right about when we finished with lunch! We couldn't go to any museums until 4:30 because everything was closed for siesta! We decided to walk around the aqueduct because there was more of it behind some buildings to the right! We explored some more of Segovia and then stopped for some yummy hot chocolate before heading to our last two places on the list: La Casa Museo de Antonio Machado and El Museo de Segovia - both museums!
The other side of the aqueduct
ufh! so heavy!!!
climbing!!
and once again, I hug it because I love it!
Shadow puppets! Killing time wasn't hard to do in the town of my dreams! 4:30 rolled around quickly, though, and we headed to La Casa Museo de Antonio Machado. Antonio Machado was a Spanish author/poet. He was very famous and was a part of "La Generacion del '98" which means the generation of 1898. There is a group of Spanish literary genesis' in this group and he is one of the most important. They are called this because this is the year that Spain lost their finally territories, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Guam, and the Philippians, and also lost the war with the U.S.. Spain was no longer a strong empire and this made the people spin into an identity crisis! The authors in La Generacion wrote about very pessimistic, sad topics, trying to figure out what happened to their Madre Spain, their motherland! It is all very interesting! Machado is well known for his poetry and he was also a French Professor. He lived in many places in Spain, including Segovia for sometime! His life story is very sad. He married a girl named Leonor when he was about 34 and she was 14. They were deeply in love, but not long after they got married, she grew ill with tuberculosis and after 2 years of being sick, she died! So sad, makes me tear up! He wrote a lot of poems during her sickness and after she died, he slipped into a depression, and he wrote more poems then. But, the sad story doesn't end there. He also died a sad death! He was trying to get out of Spain to live in France because he had been involved in activities with the Republic, which was against Franco's regime. He got to France and was very tired, sick, cold, and hungry. He had no money and had gone days with out food. A family took him in and fed him and gave him shelter, but just days after arriving in France he died :( Days after his death, a letter was sent to him from Cambridge University asking him if he would like a position as a professor! Awe, it makes me so sad! Poor guy! His poetry is very beautiful! Anyways, they made his house that he lived in in Segovia into a museum! It was really tiny, must have been short! It was really awesome being able to see where he lived and walk through his house! See books he had in a collection, his bedroom, his bed, where he ate dinner, where he played music, where he cooked! I loved it!
Painting by Rafael Alberti- and poet/painter of La Generacion del 1927
Segovia!
Drawing by Picasso
Sadly, we had to leave Antonio Machado's house, but not without writing in his guest book first! I will forever have my name in his house! QUE GUAI! (WOW) We didn't have much time left but we had one more stop on the list before having to go to the bus station! El Museo de Segovia-Museum of Segovia. It was very interesting and had so much information about Segovia! There was history from the first people the settled in the area, all the way through to present day! There were artifacts from how they used to make things all the way to paintings and clothes from early farmers! There was also a video and a section for the aqueduct and how it was built! Unfortunately we didn't have time to look at things in detail! And my camera died so I didn't get many pictures, luckily the entrance was free, so when I return I will take more time going through the museum!
We had to hurry again to the bus station and had some complications with the mean lady at the ticket counter, but finally got on the bus and I fell asleep after about 10 minutes! It was such a great trip and I was exhausted! We did so much in so little time! It was wonderful. Segovia is a peaceful town and I am in love with it. I want to go back in the spring when it is a little warmer! I am very interested in the town, its history, and its people! I am also very intrigued (if you couldn't already tell) by the aqueduct and I plan to study about it more in detail. I would say, without hesitation, that Segovia (and the aqueduct) has become an inspiration for me! Not just Segovia, but being in Spain has made me more relaxed and I have been able to think clearly about what I want in life! I love it here, I love Spain, everything about it, Spain, Segovia, the people, the history, the culture, the food, the art, school, my experiences, have all helped me free my mind! Tomorrow I will have been gone for one month! The next three months in Spain can only get better :) I am looking forward to every second of it!
Besos, Tana <3
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