I can't go on, Sam!: climbing Mount Doom and other adventures

Aaaaaaaaand almost caught up.  For those of you just checking back, I have two more recent posts as well.  I'd suggest starting with the "Goooolllll!!!!!" one.  Anyway, the next weekend, we had a group trip to El Escorial.  One of the historical residences of the royal family, the building also serves as a monastery and a school.  Apparently, I didn't find it pertinent to take pictures of the outside, but here are some shots of the inside (and our guide's head.  His hair made me think of an '80s actor a little bit):

 There were some great views, too:

 And sheep!:

My favorite part was the mausoleum (of course).  There were some beautifully decorated sarcophagi, let me tell you, and the children had a tiered circular structure that looked like the wedding cake Kronos/Saturn always wanted.  There was an incredible library, too.  Saturday, Javier, his friends, and Veronica and I went hiking.  Well, I was told we were hiking, anyway.  In fact, we climbed a mountain.  A MOUNTAIN!  Between the altitude and me being out of shape, I panted like an asthmatic rhino and thought I was going to keel over any second.  Apparently everyone else thought so, too, and kept asking if I was alright.  Nice.  Veronica looked stoic as ever, and I kept telling myself that if she could do it, so could I.  I wasn't about to be the only fat, lazy American wheezing up the hill.  Near the top, though, she gasped "this is horrible!" and we both just burst out laughing and took the excuse to stop.  I was incredibly relieved not to be the only one suffering.  Through the last bit, I felt like Frodo and Sam making the final trek up Mount Doom and found myself wishing for a winged deus ex machina to carry me away as well so I wouldn't have to climb back down. To make matters worse, the Spaniards broke out wine and cigarettes near the top, which made me feel even worse that I was dying.  And the fog was so thick we couldn't see the view.  Perfect.  The way down was actually fun, though, and we got hot chocolate afterward.  I would say no harm done, but I spent all of Sun. in bed because I hurt and had to read a lot anyway.  Some pictures of Orodruin itself:

 At this point I felt ridiculous... cows can scale the mountain without a problem:

 El Escorial, as viewed from the mountain:

Oh, I almost forgot, but Ángeles is back (yay!) and her mother is now living with us too.  My host grandma, I guess.  She speaks mostly Gallego and I kind of try to avoid conversation, which is probably awful of me, but I've been really busy lately anyways.  This past weekend (I don't do much besides class during the week) we had another Fund trip to Segovia.  The alcázar (palace) looks like a combination of Hogwarts and Cinderella's castle and was the residence of the kings of Castile back in the day.

 A real moat!:

The throne room:

 Apparently these boots were used for spiking people while on horseback:

This is the crossbow that that one Uruk-hai used to kill Boromir:

Some views from the alcázar:

 An incredibly unsettling mural inside the palace (what's with the Spaniards and missing eyes?  Remember the peruvian mummy/creepy monkey car ornament post?):

 Views of the cathedral and the streets...

 ... looking oh so gothic (and I mean that both architecturally and otherwise)...

...with a LOT of pigeons (these ones missed the memo about my window at the Fund)...

My favorite part of Segovia was the Roman aqueduct.  It's awing to think of just how long it's been there (1st or 2nd century):

We hit the tetería when we got back and I thought to take some pictures (I mean, it is the Holy Spirit):

Sat. night, Veronica and I met up with her intercambio, Jonathan, and some of his friends at O'Briens, an Irish pub near Zocodover (one of the main plazas in Toledo).  This was at 11.  After some time there, we moved on to the clubs: Camelot, Circulo de Arte, and Pícaro.  I got home at 7 am, exhausted, with my ears ringing and my eyes and lungs burning from inhaling smoke all night.  It was fun, I guess, but not something I'd ever do again.  I'm not a huge fan of O'Briens- just a bar with a smoky, greasy feel and no tapas or anything.  They have Guinness on tap though, which is nice.  Oh, apparently you have to pronounce it Gueeeeeness or they have no idea what you're talking about and give you some sort of coffee drink.  True story.  Anyways, we chatted there for awhile and taught the Spaniards pick-up lines, and one of Jonathan's friends who we will refer to as Creeper Jesus (his name was Jesús (pronounced hay-soos), but it's funnier to me without the accent) talked to me for a bit.  I didn't think anything of it at the time, only that his Spanish was difficult to understand.  Well, we then moved on to Camelot, another place I'm not really a fan of.  It's like walking into an ash tray, the entire Fund hangs out there, and it was incredibly crowded.  I spent most of our short time there trying to avoid dancing with Creeper Jesus and finding other Fund people.  We finally moved on to Circulo around 2, and it was much, much better.  Better music, more spacious (it's a beautiful building, actually), and relatively less smoke.  The downside was that it seems to be where all the older people go.  I had this guy who must have been at least 50 follow me around the whole time we were there (and I purposefully moved around a lot).  Seriously, I think I have some sort of creeper magnet.  All the creepers in the club see me and think "easy prey" or something.  Anyways, at first I had a great time dancing and even meringue-d with Jonathan for a few songs.  Then, biggest regret of the night, I deigned to meringue with Creeper Jesus as well.  It's a social dance, dammit, it's not like I had intentions!  Anyways, it was like inviting a barnacle to stick.  I spent the rest of the night trying to get away from him.  I couldn't dance with anyone else because he was ALWAYS THERE, and he must have called dibs on me or something because anyone else who had expressed interest before all of a sudden backed off.  At one point, I ended up between him and 50 year old and was about ready to freak out on them both.  Did I mention he smelled and had rotten teeth and a face that looked like pizza?  Plus he kept touching my face and telling me I had beautiful soft skin and beautiful green eyes (they're brown, fyi), and actually blew, BLEW, my hair away from my face!  In no way is that acceptable!  I told him I wasn't interested several times and kept trying to move away, and finally resorted to telling him I had a boyfriend (which I had to do about four times and he STILL kept trying to kiss me and pull me into a corner).  Finally I snapped that I was going to the bathroom and he asked if he could come!!!  WHAT THE HELL?!?!?!  I don't think that's a euphemism in any language!  Anyway, at that point I was more than ready to go home, but Jonathan was our ride and wanted to go to Pícaro.  This was at around 5 am.  I felt a bit like Odysseus, going from place to place and running into obstacle after obstacle just trying to get home.  They played disco music at Pícaro, though, and I was having fun dancing like an idiot BY MYSELF when Creeper Jesus decided that he was going to dance with/around me.  My god, take a hint!  He even tried to kiss me again and pull me onto a bench with him, at which point I was thoroughly pissed off and just done with the whole evening.  I've never been so glad to get away from someone as when we finally left!  I didn't get home until 7 and my hair still smelled like smoke after showering twice.  Ugh.  Sun. improved markedly, though, after I had a few hours of sleep and went to the mall in Madrid with Sergio.  They have a ski hill in the mall!  Check it out:

Really, only in Spain.  That phrase applies to so many things here.  I must say, I nearly bought some playmobile in the toy store- they have an ancient Egypt set and a ghost pirate ship!  Why didn't they make these when it was still acceptable for me to play with toys???  Well.... I guess that's it for now.  Over and out.

My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard...

So one day my friends and I had an "intercambio party", and Sergio brought us to an amazing tetería (kind of like a cafe for tea and milkshakes).  It's all very arabic looking, complete with floor cushions and a hookah.  This is actually salient information, as my friends and I now reference "the Trinity" regularly.  See, I've referred to word reference as Jesus for a while now, and Sergio is God.  The tetería: the holy spirit.  I'm telling you, it's amazing.  The leche merengada milkshake is especially delightful; it tastes like citrus cinnamon happiness.  Hence the Trinity.  I now refer to editing my papers and asking questions on vocabulary, etc. as praying.  It's funny to me, anyways.  It speaks for Sergio's awesomeness that he isn't completely creeped out by now (Sergio, if you're reading this, note that I wrote it at least two weeks ago).  In other news, it appeared some bedouins pitched a tent in Zoco the other...week... (later that night they had belly dancers and a huge crowd of middle-aged men):

Anyways, Veronica and I decided to go to Barcelona to see the pope the weekend of fall break.  I'm not Catholic or anything, but come on, it's the pope.  Plus, I really wanted to go to Barcelona.  Good decision- I absolutely loved it!  It's a wonderful city just to walk around in.  We took the night bus on Fri- exhausting, as it's hard to sleep on the bus in the first place, let alone with four asian men around you eating fried rice and screaming for the ENTIRE 7 hour trip.  Once we arrived, though, it was fantastic.  I must say, thank you to Rob for suggesting things to do.  We went to Parc Guell first thing- I'm a fan of Gaudi, so I very much enjoyed it.

These kind of reminded me of gingerbread houses:

After the park, we wandered through Las Ramblas, a series of streets full of vendors and those living statue people in a very interesting array of costumes- demons, skeletons, mother nature, a baby, the more traditional all gold and all silver... for some reason I either didn't take pictures or they somehow got deleted.  Anyway, the vendors were selling everything from flowers to food to animals.  The cutest rodents ever:

We also went to the Boquería market- it was like a huge grocery store on steroids!  I had a coconut mango smoothie and had to buy some fruit, including one that was magenta and unfortunately rather flavorless:

Those are 'shrooms, by the way:

 And I very much envied this kid's balloon:

 I almost forgot; on the way there, we passed the candy shop below (no 50 cent in sight!) and it kind of reminded me of that scene in Party Monster with the hospital-themed party... or maybe desperate housewives or something.  You put the candy in pill bottles and had a "prescription" sticker:

We also hit Manzana de la discordia to see the house designed by Gaudi:

 And I actually saw a real albino!  I feel my life is complete now.  Also, a monk in full Friar Tuck regalia, complete with prayer beads, rode by on a motorcycle.  For some reason, it struck me as hilarious.
On the way back to our hostel, we passed by Sagrada Familia.  We couldn't go in all weekend on account of the pope, but the outside was pretty neat:

It kind of reminded me of when I used to build sandcastles as a kid and drip watery sand down to form towers like stalagmites.  The next day, we returned to Sagrada Familia to see the pope bless it and saw the popemobile go by.  Everyone had banners and flags and other "team pope" paraphernalia.  Veronica and I snagged some flags, too.

The pope's on the screen:

After, we decided to hit the Miró museum and the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya.  I enjoyed MNAC.  Not so much Miró.  I wouldn't really recommend it unless you really like rather abstract surrealist art with a dadaist feel.  Not my thing.  We took the night bus back Sun. night, so to kill time between the museums and the bus, we decided to see Eat, Pray, Love, as Veronica hadn't seen it yet.  I didn't much like it in English; it was somewhat better in Spanish- maybe because I was focused more on understanding it than on my hatred of the main character.  Let's see... later in the week I went to Aranjuez for a few hours in the evening.  It's a lovely little town with a palace, but it got dark soon after I arrived, so I wasn't able to see the gardens or anything.  The sunset was beautiful, though.

What else... oh, in one of my classes, we had a "mock trial" for one of the characters in a play we read. The thing was, we had to wear costumes, and I ended up with a short black dress and hat that said "hottie police".  Yeah.  Why my professor in her late 40's or early 50's has a hottie police outfit is something I don't want to think about.  My response to the cross-examination?  "I'm the hottie police and I can do what I want".  Also, as I was loading pictures for this post, I accidentally took this one of myself:

Normally, I would wince and delete it, but it reminded my of the guy playing the guitar (?) in Goya's La romería de San Isidro:

Zoomed in:

Similar, no?