Castles: they're big in Spain (pun intended hehehehe)

So last night was our last night in the dorms and this morning we are leaving Toldedo for good :( and we will first go to Trujillo and then to Caceres. I am kind of sad to be leaving Toledo because it was so good to me and small and cute and easy to get around. It was the perfect little town for me to get used to Spain in and to be fair there wasn't much to do for more than a week so if I stayed any longer I would probably be bored.

We had to be ready with our luggage outside for the people to load it at 8 am. rawr. And so i loaded up everything into my suitcase. So when you fly on a plane as most of you know your bag cannot weigh over 50 lbs. This usually isn't a problem but for spain i took this giant suitcase and for you non-engineers out there, let me break down a little physics for you. the more space you have the more stuff you can pack. When i first packed my suitcase it weighed 63 lbs. i got it down to like 47 by just adding a carry on bag and putting some stuff in there. Well now that i don't have a scale to weigh my suitcase AND i have bought stuff while here AND stuff from my carry on has been transferred over to the big suitcase it was insanely heavy. I am on the first floor which is like 2 floors below the street and since these are dorms of course they aren't such novelties as stairs! I worked extremely hard to get my suitcase up the first flight of stairs and was taking a break on the landing when one of our professors walked up. I tried to act all casual and like i wasn't dying of the extreme physical activity I had just completed but I wasn't fooling this guy. He was very gentlemanly and asked if he could carry it for me. I told him no thank you I would get it, but he INSISTED and he had to lug this super heavy thing up the stairs and I was just so embarrassed :( womp. mrack.

So today for our trip we were going to Trujillo to take a tour.

On our way I saw a solar farm, sweet eh?

Let me put it this way: Trujillo is like the college station of Spain. There isn't much to do here and we spent way too much time in this place. And there are so many old buildings in spain its beginning to all blend together like convention centers in volleyball. Its not like I don't appreciate the views and I'm always impressed but the only cool thing about this city is Fransisco Pizzarro was born here. He conquered Peru.
This is a statue of him in the middle of the square:

In Trujillo they loved this guy, everywhere we turned it was like pizzarro was born in this house, he blew his nose here, he went to church here.... yeah
This was a palace though that was there:

The balcony on the corner means your rich; don't ask my why it means your rich. Its probably the same reason wearing a hideous handbag or bright pink velour track suits with juicy written on the butt are things rich people do. I don't make the rules, i just observe these things and mock them :)

We got to go in some of the palaces which this region is famous for...the name of the region has castillos in it which means castles (the more ya know!). All the palacios have like courtyard type things in the middle of them and they are squares. the servants live on the first floor and the nobles live on the second. so what floors do they show us? the first. spaniards: cara de chupes (tabes hehe).

SO we just like checked out a lot of buildings where important spaniards did mundane things. Most of them we didn't even go into (lame sauce) but in the palace above that I showed you there was this nun collecting money for a cause and what did this cause happen to be something something something in spanish for ANGOLA! bahahahahhahahhahahha. hilarious. i think most people were like angola where the heck is that destitute place? boom, i know :)
Ultimately though after walking uphill both ways everywhere we went, we got to the top of the city and had a pretty gorgeous view :) mmmm:

in case you didn't notice, things aren't very green in spain. The rain in spain stays mainly on....or wait it only rains where we are :)

The view and top of the city was pretty close to this freaking sweet castle. So spain there are palaces and castles. castles are bigger....thats all you need to know. thats' all i cared to know so meh:

One of the super cool things i got to experience in Trujillo though was a public drinking fountain:

You just press a button and it comes out of the gold thing. and it even comes out relatively cold. very cool. very ancient. very fun. and very HARD. especially when a lot of people are watching you and making you nervous. not cool, especially when prone to spills hehe.

The way they made of for Trujillo being INCREDIBLY dull though was by feeding us an unbelievably delicious lunch. I got to have my frist spanish dish that i'm like in love with because it was so good. It is migas! it is like bread crumbs (similar to stuffing) with meat and other things in it. SO GOOD!! ahhh maybe my host family will make homemade migas and they will rock:

then the second course was chicken with fries. yum. this course was like right up our alley tabes! bread, meat and carbs. eat it up baby. eat it up :)

The real excitement of the day came though when we got to watch THE GAME. I had no idea about this game but tonight was the european futbol (soccer you plebeians) cup or something and barcelona was playing manchester united. i kept getting the teams wrong and for like the whole first half i was like yeah madrid is playing.....no no no. madrid was not playing, and you may be thinking the same thing i was, yeah okay its just some city in spain what difference does it make. well that would make you just another ignorant american like me then :) all the teams are from different cities so there is a madrid team and barcelona team and barcelona was playing last night. I watched the game in the hotel bar and it was super exciting and everyone was all hyped up. it was so cool and totally nuts!
dear phil negron,
thank you for making me watch 8 minutes of fifa celebrations that one time. it truly isn't a real goal unless you go freaking nuts about it. it was fun watching them in real life and i thought of you :)
the end!
While I was in the bar I just got a hamburger because it was all bar type food. OMGSH THE BUT FREAKING BACON ON EVERY FREAKING DISH IN THIS ENTIRE COUNTRY. I have eaten so much stinking pork in the bast week i am about to vomit. i never thought i would get tired of bacon. bacon makes the world a better place right? WRONG, spanish bacon is too thick, not crispy enough and super fatty. and THIS is what they do to make it:

Those are just the legs of pigs that have been cut off and hung from the ceiling. when ever you want some meat you just cut off some form this leg. people you can see the hooves!!! GROSS. and these are not refrigerated, they are just hanging like everywhere and depending on what quality you want you choose the ones that have been hanging longer. and some of these hang FOR YEARS! repulsive much?


Still loving spain and now i'm super tired. i want a castle: kyndall investment? wise? i don't think they have indoor plumbing but merrrrr....

Love,
Emily