It's been a couple weeks filled with serious Joaquín time. Last weekend I spent a few days at his apartment in Guadalajara which is about 45 minutes out of Madrid and in a different province (but the provinces are like tiny so). We cooked and watched movies and went to a barbecue for his friends' birthday (for which I made lemon bars to win his friends over with... or because I'm just that awesome?). Anyway, I started getting sick Saturday, though, but I couldn't have asked for a better caretaker on that miserable Sunday I spent mainly in bed with tea and tissues, because JQ was pretty much a perfect nurse.
I still had my cold throughout the week but thankfully we had Thursday off (in addition to our normal Friday off). I headed to Joaquin's Wednesday evening to watch the Lego movie and crash out of exhaustion from my week being at school while sick (I know, but it was just a cold and I really shouldn't miss anymore school). Thursday started off a lazy day, but in the afternoon we went to a park, one part of which basically consists of an abandoned village.
There are apartment buildings, a chapel,
a winery,
even a pigeon coop,
all at least 100 years old and completely abandoned. They clearly were bricked up at one time but the curious explorers and law breakers from years past have made the area completely accessible, as long as you don't mind thorns and nettles.
I'm a little obsessed with abandoned places, and I can safely say this is one of my favorite places I've been while in Spain. It was really fascinating.
We left as the sun was setting and went to hang out with Ana and Goyo in a village fiesta.
SO: The 2nd of May is a holiday here because when Napoleon invaded, the people revolted and began fighting on May second. Being the oblivious American I am, I hadn't even known Napoleon had invaded Spain before JQ told me. Oops.
For said holiday on Friday, we headed to Madrid and went to the Caixa Forum Museum to see the Pixar exhibit, which was really awesome! They had a lot of pre-movie storyboards and sketches that showed characters who ended up looking very different in the final projects
or who don't even exist anymore in the movies.
Very interesting. It was also really crowded because of the holiday, but you can't win em all! We ended up going home and watching a bunch of shorts after, too tired to watch a whole movie but needing a Pixar fix after basically reliving our childhoods.
It's currently Saturday afternoon and we're driving back from Segovia where we spent the day sightseeing. I have to say it's nice having a boyfriend with a car in Spain. We headed out around 10 and got the beautiful city by 11:30. The old city (literally, ciudad vieja) has a roman aqueduct,
a castle,
a cathedral,
and lots of gorgeous mountain and city views.
It's really well preserved, and small enough that we could see everything in the time we were there.
Now I'm starting to buy tickets for the summer (going home in August or late July) and looking at how to renew my residency card here.
