So the first place I visited was a town/city called Avila. It is this medieval fortress with this huge wall around it, inside is a town where people still live, with shops and cars and everything, and then also the city that has grown up outside the wall is also called Avila.
This first picture I didn't take (I got here if anyone cares) This is exactly what the wall did look like as we walked up the path to it. But here too I was fighting the tourist stigma, and as I watched a cluster of students all taking pictures of the exact same angle at the same time, I decided to let this one go. I offer it here as a reference point. It might not look like there is a city outside of the wall, but there is, on this side of the wall it was a little bit down the hill.
So then inside, over here on the right, we see that the (early) gothic cathedral that is literally built into the wall, which brings me to the reason for having a fortresses town on the top of the hill. Well during medieval times in the Iberian Peninsula, rather than having an extensive feudal system that you see in other European countries, it was a period called the reconquest. During that period, the christians spent 600 years reconquering the peninsula from the moors (Muslims) that had moved in from northern Africa. As they gained land further and further south they set up castles (and cathedrals) that served as refuge points when the moors tried to reconquer the land they had just held. So needless to say church and state were intrinsically connected, literally as the cathedral in Avila is physically part of the fortress wall. I love the satellite dishes on the roofs.
On the left over here we have a part of the cathedral wall. As I was told, the pinkish parts are the original wall and on the bottom left where it is grey is the current work that is being done to "maintain" it. To my extremely untrained eye the placement of what looks like cement blocks over the beauty of the stone seems clumsy and unfaithful to the nature of the building. But I really don't know what I am talking about so I'm going to stick to saying that I really like the way the stone looks around the windows. (Mom-perhaps Spain is the place to come to get terracotta marble tiles!)
Here you can see a little better the work they have done/ are doing.
On the other side of the wall, no one seems to care that this roof has fallen in.
View from the top of the city beyond the wall. --->
Sadly, Avila is the only real sightseeing I have done. It seems that everyone in my classes have been going to Paris and Morocco on their weekends, and I'm just not there yet, that added to my fear of taking pictures in the city means I have only Avila and Majarahonda, the suburb 20 kilometers outside of Madrid where I live, is all I have to offer you visually.
This billboard reads:
"Welcome to majadahonda, where you live"
Majadahonda is a nice bigish suburb. There are a ton of schools on my street and every morning all the little kids are everywhere. Everyone walks to school together, either parents walk their kids, or older kids walk younger kids or middle aged kids walk together, everyone is usually holding hands, it's adorable. There is also the little local shops that make me smile. There is this little office supply shop right on my street, and the man who runs it knows me by now, and he is so nice. He praises me the more Spanish I use and teases me when I resort to English (of which he knows some) because how do you describe paper clip?
There is also an Estanco, (literally meaning a tobacco shop, but here they are everywhere and where everyone goes to get metro tickets and stamps) where I have been so many time and been so frustrated trying to navigate my way through buying a metro pass (which involves getting a specific ID thing,) and there is one woman there who has been so patient and so kind to me every one of the many times that I went there confused and inarticulate. She and I were both relieved when at last I was able to pick up my pass.
My room, as I have mentioned before, is lovely. In order for you to fully appreciate my lovely little haven . . .
So yeah. I love it. It is so nice and peaceful, and as my roommate decided she wanted to be in the center of Madrid and not in Majadahonda, I now have it all to my self.
So that is pretty much my life. Or at least some of it. I will post some pictures of the people I have met here soon, but the above work of art has taken me a lot longer than I thought it would, and now it's time for class!!! All that info about the moors and the christians isn't coming from nowhere!!
More pictures to come!!
Phew.
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