Spanish Conquerors

Spanish Conquerors

Posted by Trevor

People always tell me and Kristy that we ought to take advantage of our kidlessness now and spend what savings we have with reckless abandon on lavish trips and wild thrills. And since nothing says "lavish" and "wild" like a bunch of conquistadors slaughtering and ravaging an indigenous population while stealing their gold, Spain was the perfect destination.

Having slept on the flight there and arriving at 7 am, our first day was a blurry hangover of timelessness: perfect for savoring the artistic talents of long-since-dead artists at the world-renowned Prado museum. It mostly consisted of us thoughtfully examining a painting, nodding our heads in approval while scratching our chin and declaring aloud: "Yup. This one looks almost as good as a picture." Almost as exciting as Call of Duty. But you can't just go to Spain and not see the Prado or else your top-hat-and-monocle-wearing friends will poke fun at your barbarism.

The next day was spent in Toledo. We hiked the streets in the drizzly weather from site to site until we finally found a dessert shop.

If you ask Kristy, we walked from dessert shop to dessert shop until we found the sites.

One of our favorite sites was the Cathedral of Toledo. If you were wondering where all that Aztec gold was spent, this was the place.

Holy Toledo, Batman!

Besides steep hills and enormous, gilded cathedrals, Toledo is also known for making swords and armor. According to Mr. Wikipedia, the economic base of Toledo is built on top of the toothpaste manufacturing and metalworking industries. Personally, I wanted to see the toothpaste factory, but of course Kristy always gets her way.

Stay back or this cool guy right here gets it!

The day after Toledo, we hung out in Madrid all day. Since we apparently just weren't taking enough candid photos of ourselves enjoying the city, we posed for a few.

Quick! I can't hold this pose forever!

We wanted to take a cable car across a giant park in the city, but after a 45-minute walk to get there, we found out it was closed.

The next day, we visited a huge, underground basilica that hated dictator Francisco Franco built in "The Valley of the Fallen," a memorial site to remember the many people he killed in his civil war. As creepy as it was, it is easily the coolest war memorial church I've ever been to.

Then, we went back to Madrid, saw some castles, got lost, found Elvis, visited the Royal Palace, and ate some chocolate.

On Wednesday, we were zooming around Madrid on Segways for a few hours, zipping in and out of crowds on the sidewalk. Kristy thought the people were admiring our cool new toys, but she clearly doesn't speak Spanish and didn't realize that they were yelling and swearing at us.

Finally, we drove up to La Granja to see a few more palaces and Segovia to check out the famous aqueduct.


Oh, and since we took about 500 pictures of tiny deer with moose antlers there, I figured I ought to include at least one of them here.


David and Peggy accompanied us the whole time, making this an awesome trip filled with many many Spanish pastries and sweets. And a huge thanks to Doug and Connie who let us stay at their place the entire time.

It was awesome!