el final dia en madrid

Our last day in Spain we went on a group API (my program) trip to Real Monesterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial. It was about an hour bus ride away and in the Mountains. This was my favorite thing that we have done so far. I was put in a group with a guide who did the entire tour in Spanish and I think I understood almost everything. He was a hilarious older man and my friend Molly and I followed him around and asked him a lot of questions (in Spanish!). We learned that it was built in the 1500’s after San Lorenzo was literally grilled alive on top of a parilla, grill in Spanish. It took 21 years to build and is MASSIVE and the most beautiful place I have ever been. Unfortunately we couldn’t take pictures, but it was incredible. It houses the second greatest library in the world, second to the Vatican.
Monks still live and pray and do their thing in the monastery so we could only see about 1/50th of the whole thing, but it still was about an hour or two hour tour. Our guide told us if you were to walk all the corridors it would be about 10 miles of walking, yikes! We saw the tomb room where the last 5 centuries of Spanish kings and queens were put, it was pretty creepy, especially since we walked past the door where the bodies are sent to rot for 25 years before they’re bones are placed in the tombs. We also saw all the tombs for the royal families of these kings and queens and there was room after room of these.
There were paintings EVERYWHERE in the main rooms we got to see. Some were by El Greco and some other famous guy, tiatian, titian, something like that. There were paintings on almost all of the ceilings and they were all sorts of styles of art since they were painted throughout the last 4 to 5 centuries. The architecture was incredible and I cannot get over how these things were built without the technology that we now have today.
We went to a Sangria Bar last night that was like a cave and it was a lot of fun. Yesterday for lunch we saw 4 men at a table around 3 pm (middle of the workday) that were probably between the ages of 40 and 55. They were drinking tons of brandy, wine, and shots and were playing cards. They live America’s nightlife during the WORK DAY, it is amazing. Everything is much more relaxed here and I think American workers would be a lot happier if this is how they could spend their afternoons as well.
We leave for Toledo and then onto where we we will be living for the next four months, GRANADA! I cannot wait to get there. It is a college town with about 200,000 people and 80,000 plus are students. Classes don’t start until February 11, but starting the 4th we begin language refresher courses for about 2 or 3 hours a day. So we have tons of free time and hopefully I can get some traveling in before school starts.
I miss everyone, and I wish everyone could just come move to Spain with me, it would be impossible to dislike, I promise. I will try to write again soon!