Quoth the Arrowhead students in our group! Today brought us to Segovia, a smaller town to the northwest of Madrid. The "ciudad vieja" (old town) dates from MANY centuries ago. To start with, you have the aqueducts, built over 2000 years ago by the Romans. Yes, I meant for that to have all those zeros. It was actually used to carry water all the way to the end of the 19th century. No mortar, still gorgeous. Then we walked up towards the plaza mayor (yes, nearly all Spanish towns have one) and wandered past the 15th century mansions of nobility from those days. One 12th century church later, we arrived at the plaza, and went into the cathedral that took over 200 years to build. Started in the 16th century, finished in the mid-1700s. Honestly, probably my favorite cathedral - it's so gorgeous. It is nicknamed "la dama" (the lady) because of its different look from all the typical cathedrals of Europe. Then the kids got some free time to wander the town, SHOP (holy **** these kids can spend money), get some lunch, and once again find their own way, this time to the Alcazar. This is one of the three or four castles in Europe that claims to be the inspiration for the castles at Disney. We took the main tour and then each and every one of us made it up the 152 steps to the top of the main tower. Now, when I say 152, I'm giving the official count. Since these stairs are mostly about twice the height of normal stairs, and about 100 of them are in a TIGHT stone spiral, I think 152 doesn't give us the credit we deserve! But, the view up at the top is amazing, and as the spaniards would say, "vale la pena". :) After this, the kids were DONE walking, so we headed back to the bus, and only had one kid throw up on the way home. Yes, it seems the motion sickness finally reared its ugly head. Fortunately she was very nonchalant about it, and it barely broke her stride. Unfortunately the other kids had to make a big deal out of it (there went that maturity they've been demonstrating for the last 3 days!) but I think all is well now. :) we made a huge order to Telepizza for dinner to be delivered since we have to be out the door, fully packed, at 6:45 am tomorrow. We have an 8 am train to Bilbao tomorrow, and so starts a week of home stay for the kids. We pretty much don't see them during that week, so hopefully Jeanne and I will be able to get some adventures in. We are staying just a short trip over from the city I did my study abroad in during college, so I am VERY excited to get back there. So now it is time to pick out tomorrow's clothes and get everything else packed up before hitting the hay. Even though it is 9:30, there is no sense in even thinking about sleep for about an hour as the sun doesn't set until about 10:30 here in the summer. Hopefully I'll have consistent wifi access in our home stay (that's right, we have a host mom, too!) to be able to continue filling you all in. Happy Thursday to you all!