The Da Vinci Code

Yesterday afternoon me and another girl decided it would be fun to go to the Archaeology Museum. So we set off only to find that it was closed. But that is A-Okay because the museum was situated in a beautiful park right next to the Plaza de Espana. So instead of touring a museum I got tons of pictures! So here they are!

This is the park that the museum is in! It is so pretty! 

This is another museum its something about culture but this one was also closed.

These next pictures are of the Plaza! 

 Today we had a tour of Alcazar which as I mentioned before is a castle that apparently the Spanish royalty still occasionally use even today (I didn't realize that Spain still had a monarchy). The castle is greatly influenced by Arab architecture since it was originally built by the Arabs. Stupidly, the Christians tore down most of the original architecture just to replace it with almost the exact same thing...just slightly Christianized. The palace also has expansive gardens to go with it! The gardens have plants that came from seeds brought over by Christopher Columbus. In fact Christopher Columbus' personal office was in the palace so that was really neat to see as well. So here are some pictures of Alcazar.

This is the family crest of Christopher Columbus.

These baths were a gift to one of the kings' mistress. 

 Another cool fact is that in one of the rooms there are little faces carved into the walls. Now what is strange about these faces is that they are scattered around the room and they are in no way symmetrical like the rest of the Arabic decor and no one seems to know why they are there. Our professor suggested we write a novel like The Da Vinci Code about it. I don't think that person will be me. Tomorrow starts the first day of our two week intensive language course!