Hangin with Franco

So last friday we had an excursion with one of my classes to go to el Pardo (Francisco Franco's palace) and el Valle de los Caidos (Valley of the Fallen) which are both very close to Madrid. It was pretty sweet hangin at Franco's pad, but kinda weird too as he was such a powerful dictator and the civil war and Franquismo and everything happenned so recently. The place itself was very pretty with a lot of beautiful artwork and it was furnished very lavishly. from there we had some free time where we bought big loaves of homemade bread and ate them in the sunshine of Franco's garden. We then headed over to the valley of the fallen, which was amazing. It was on top of this mountain, so high up that it was snowing and raining and the wind was blowing at about 800 mph, but it was so cool. Franco built this place 1. as a burial site for himself and his cousin and 2. as a memorial for all of the people who died in the name of spain during the civil war. It was enormous and somewhat tunnel like with a pulpit type church part at the other end. The picture with teh cross is the outside of it - lots of arches and a huge cross up on the hill. Because of the snow/rain up there there was also an absolutely ammaaaaazing double rainbow up there. the rest of the weekend was good, we just hung out Alcala style, oh and on sunday we ventured into madrid to go to the rostro, a huuuge street market which was really cool but also very overwhelming. the weather is getting beautiful! its about 65 degrees every day and i love it!! besos, Nat