La Vida Española Part 3: La Granja

Soooo... I have been graciously informed by my lovely Spanish professor from UofL that gypsies are rumanas because "many of them come from Romania and their language is Romani or Romany. The theory is that they are originally from India and have migrated westward. That's all Alpha knows on the subject...."

So that´s interesting. P.S., in case you were wondering, this particular professor is
(A) "Alpha" because she is the top-dog (according to her and me and pretty much the whole universe) en cuanto a linguistics and Spanish, and I am the Alpha-in-training, because she was trying to inspire some confidence in me when I took Hispanic Linguistics and was nervous about speaking spontaneously to the class about such a technical subject. She told me to repeat to myself (inside my head) "Who´s the Alpha Dog? I am!" in order to pump myself up and such before talking in front of peeps in Spanish. It has helped, I´ll tell you! and
(B) apparently a reader of my blog (while I´m in Spain at least) which makes me a little chagrined, since I tend to use the curse-words more than a little frequently, with the assumption that the only people reading this already know I´m a pottymouth. Well, now Alpha is in the loop too.

Onwards and upwards... I went to La Granja today. It is a royal palace and gardens that look like this:
Here is a website about it for those of you who read Spanish, and for those of you who don´t, there are still some cool pictures! http://www.rurismo.com/pueblo/pueblo.asp?poblacion=8777

It was incredibly beautiful, and is only about 20 minutes by bus from Segovia--a busride which costs a mere €1.08, I´ll have you know. La Granja is gorgeous: filled with acres of hedges and flowers and statues and statuaries, not to mention the incredible palace--fully appointed--and the breathtaking mountians in the background. The place (yes, I meant place, not p-a-lace) was built in the early 18th century (that´s the 1700s, you guys) by Felipe V (which we say en español "Felipe Quinto," which sounds funny said aloud and amuses me, although not as much as Carlos Quinto. That´s just hilarious. Ah, the alliteration...). This is what his rich, sissy ass looked like:


OMG, I´m so glad the 18th century is over. Except for the gardens, of course, which were so much more amazing than the palace, as beautiful as the palace was. I think I´ll go back for a second gander in the gardens, because there is a hedge maze I didn´t get to see, and lots and lots of artwork in the forest that I didn´t have time for, either. Plus, now I have a bus schedule, so I don´t have to worry about getting stuck and having to walk 20 miles and then getting sun stroke and dying. And all because I wanted to walk in a hedge maze.

In other news, classes are fine. I love my professor (singular, because I dropped the theatre class, but that´s a story for another post), and I love the subject, and I love being able to walk in and around and on and through the subject. It´s good to be here while studying "here" as a topic. Spain has so much history, and so much culture, and it´s just amazing. My señora told me they found human remains from Roman times underneath the city when they were constructing a parking garage a few years ago. And I´m sure it´s not the first time; Spain has had people in it for like at least 4,000 years. It´s freaking amazing. The Phoenicians came here a bajillion years ago and the iberocelts were already like, "Wassup, homies? You want to grow some olives here? That´s cool. We got this whole sheep raising thing going on, but whatevs. Oh, and you have wine! That´s a neat idea. You guys can hang with us, but you have to worship bulls. Okay?" And it just got crazier from there, I tell you. It´s so cool.

Also, next time I´m writing about Salamanca, which--I have decided--is one of the coolest places I´ve ever been. Hope y´all are well. Happy July.