Zaragoza

(At the Palacio de la Aljafería--l to r: Sonya, Kate, Rachel, me, Christina)

So I had a fantastic weekend in Zaragoza, which is northeast of Madrid. Zaragoza is the capital of the autonomía (kind of like a state/province) of Aragón and it's located on the Río Ebro. It took us about four hours by bus to get there. I have to say, I was really impressed with the bus service we took. The bus was fairly comfortable. We watched a James Bond movie on the way to Zaragoza and on the way there and back we stopped halfway through for a 20 minute break to eat, go to the bathroom, etc (and there was a bathroom on the bus too!). Best of all the ticket was only 26 euros round trip and we were able to buy the ticket the day of the trip (and we also kept our departure date open so we were free to come back when we wanted). We just went to the bus station and bought it--it's so simple! I have travelled by Greyhound in the U.S. and I just have to say that my experience with this bus company, ALSA, was 100x better.

Then we got to Zaragoza and after a city bus ride that took us in the wrong direction and a little bit of a walk in the right direction we found our hostel. It was the only actual hostel in Zaragosa and it was really nice. There were five of us and we were in an eight person room, but we had it all to ourselves the first night and only one roommate the second night. Actually we had only planned on staying one night, but liked it so much and it was so cheap that we decided to stay for a second night. After getting settled we ate and wandered around a bit. We found the river (it wasn't hard to find because it was only about half a block away) and the beautiful basilica there. The basilica was immense and I liked it because Goya had painted some of the vaulted ceilings. There was a mass going on while we were there and it was interesting to watch. But over all the architecture and decorum of the church was just amazing. Then we walked around a lot more and went to the grocery store because the hostel had a kitchen and settled in for the night. We were all really tired, so it was nice to go to bed early.

The next day it rained and that put a damper on our plans to bike around the city. We went to this cafe for a late breakfast, but spent two hours there and ended up ordering lunch as well. I had the best hamburger of my life there. It was just the hamburger--no bun or anything like that--served with a fried egg. It was just so good...I'm totally craving it now. Then we walked around the city and found the Palacio de la Aljafería which was built in the 11th century. We also saw the Plaza de Toros. After our siesta we walked around the city and night and Zaragoza is a city that was made to be lit up. There are floodlights everywhere. The basilica and river were just so amazing all lit up at night. We were so glad it had stopped raining, so that we could enjoy the time out.

By Sunday morning though, I was ready to go back to Madrid. Zaragoza was a really nice small-ish city, but I just feel more at home in Madrid now. I know that it may not sound like we did anything super exciting while we were in Zaragoza, but I think what made the trip so much fun was that the five of us really got to know each other. I mean, I've only known Sonya, Kate and Rachel for two weeks (and met Christina the morning of the trip!) but all of us just get along so well that I'm pretty sure we're going to stay friends even after this semester ends. Also this trip showed me how easy and relatively inexpensive it can be to travel. Now I just want to stop going to school and wander around Spain for the rest of the semester!

So here are the photos from my journey. I'm sorry but I didn't have a guide book for this trip, so my captions aren't super informative. Anyway, click on any/all of these links to see Zaragoza:
The Road to Zaragoza
Around Zaragoza: Day 1
Around Zaragoza: Days 2 and 3
Zaragoza at Night
Zaragoza Graffiti/Wall Art