Week one in Spain!!!

Sooooo.... I´ve been in Spain for a little over a week and seriously feel like I´ve been here FOREVER. Lol...some days that´s a good things and somedays that not such a good thing. However, I´m extremely glad I am here and experience this time in my life. I´m so excited for whatever God has for me while I¨m here. Since my last post I have left Madrid, visited El Escorial and Toledo, and moved in with my Granada host family. So I will do my best to fill everyone in haha.

First...El Escorial. It was a monostary back in the day and still holds the tombs of dozens of kings, queens, and their families. It is quite an experience to be standing two feet away from a kings corpse lol. We weren´t allowed to take pictures inside the building, but I got a few of the small town surrrounding and the building.

Next...Toledo. Toledo is seriously my favoite place so far. Granada is a close second, but I love the medeival times and history Toledo has. We were able to visit a couple churches and other exciting places. For those of you who don´t know, Toledo is known for their swords and actually provided all the swords for the Lord of the Rings series. This is quite ironic because Toledo itself could have very well been in a few Lord of the Rings scenes. It´s beautiful!

 (Top) Me and Toledo!










(Below) Toledo from afar

 (Top) More of Toledo...seriously...it´s out of a movie.

 (Right) One of my favorite shots! One of the oldest bridges in Spain...










(Below) Some medeival ruins in Toledo

(right) A little baby Gargoyal in one of the churches

 Courtyard/garden in a church

One of the hundreds of beautiful ceilings...












Last... GRANADA... haha this is my home for the next few months. It is a beautiful city. Thirty minutes from the mountains and forty-five from the Mediterranean Sea. I´m living with a host family. I don´t have any pictures of them, but I have several of the city.

This is Plaza Nueve. There are several beautiful plazas
around Granada

 Just a few little snap shots of the city. This is just a normal pizzeria.

 This is the Cathedral. I have yet to be inside, but I will make it there one day. I get to pass it everyday to school

 Another Plaza in town

 This is my school! It´s only part of it, but where my main classes are.

 My Spain roommie, Courtney! She makes the hard days a whole lot easier :)











La Alhambra is a huge part of Granada. It is an absolutely beautiful place. One of my fellow APIers referred to it as a neighborhood of palaces. That´s basically what it was. Back in the day, it was very secluded and only the most important people were even allowed through the gates. It housed Sultins. Several beautiful, beautiful palaces. Queen Isabel made sure it stayed in tact and it´s wonderful. Here are just a few pictures even though it´s so difficult to cut it down to just a few.

  La Alhambra (from a distance)

One king made this for his wife. It was modeled after the Collesium. The detail is amazing.

 Stairs in the palace above

 I zoomed in on one of the walls in one of the palaces.

 Probably one of my favorite pictures. So so beautiful...

 A garden/patio in one of the palaces

 View of Granada from the Palace

 Just passing along to one of the palaces.

That shall be all for tonight. I´m looking over this right now and feel like there´s so much else I want to put on here. The rest of my pictures are on my facebook :). All this and classes haven´t even started yet haha. Phew....