Location: El Escorial, Spain

So I went to El Escorial today! Now this was amazing. We only went and saw one thing, but that's all there is to see in El Escorial. And it took us like three hours to go through the palace. Amazing it was. Ok, so let's get starte, cuz there are going to be a few pictures, and I want to try and explain them...



So the entrance. I loved it... The courtyard itself was HUGE!!! Shadda thing is we only went through HALF if that, of the palace and it took us like 3 hours! HAHA! Well, the entrance was of course, just the beginning.

As we walked through I got a picture of one of the wings. Yep, I made arrangements to take over that wing, I'll be moving in during the summer. Yeah, I think I have an extra room or two you can use.




Haha, so the burial room, The walls were lined with caskets, but these caskets have been inlaid with gold and made of marble. It's amazing. But the caskets are for the royal people of Spain. There are only 3 empty caskets, one is for Don Juan's mother, father, and grandmother. The thing is they are all 3 dead already. But because the caskets are small they have to allow the body to naturally decompose; this takes 25 years. In a room just outside the burial room is where their bodies stay until they are just bones so they can fit in the casket. Funny, but ok...
So the chandelier in this room was awesome. This is my favorite picture of the three I took of this chandelier. But my favorite picture of this room is of the roof. It was again inlaid with gold, but to get this perfect picture I had to lay on my back. It was sooooo funny! Someone got the picture of me taking the picture. I have not yet got it, but someday... ;)


But as you keep walking through the palace you find more and more burial tombs. One of my favorite was the one of, well I don't know his name, but he had 13 girlfriends, and to symbolize this the coffin had a picture of a man with 13 rings on his hands. But also, he had this really cool LION at his feet. So I thought hey, why not eh?

We continued walking and there was a ton of art work, but as we walked into another hall way and as I looked up from trying to find a pen in my bag it was an amazing shot. I stopped where I was and took the picture. I didn't care what it was, I wanted THAT picture.
Come to find out an artist who painted with both of his hands painted it and 73 OIL PAINTINGS all in a matter of 3 years! How crazy! But here is my "lying on the back" shot.
We then went into a room which if you stood at one corner and whispered into the corner you could hear the other person doing the same at a corner diagnally from you. It was pretty cool. After this we went into the cathedral. What a cathedral. The lighting wasn't good enough to get good focused pictures of the alter or organ, but it is amazing to know the king and queen had their rooms on opposite sides of the alter so if they were sick all they had to do was open a door and they could still listen to mass. I need that. But anyhow, so this little beauty is just a picture of the gazebo that they used for weddings. What a place.
A tower, one of four, to the El Escorial. What's interesting is that there were 4 and if you actually turned the whole building upside down would look like a grill because of some tragedy that happened with people getting burned on a grill. It was tragic. Here is a better shot of the top part of the entrance. The kings from the bible Interesting really.
So as we leave we go into the outter courtyard I went to take this picture of a mountain and there were kids playing soccer, the ball came to me and I kicked it back to them, but they only laughed and I asked to play, but they would not let me. How rude huh?

But this is the picture I was really going for.


And then my final masterpiece. The Outside of the whole thing. What a day, and what a building.



Where in the World is Sara D. Ray? Now you know.

Location: Toledo, Spain

So it's been a while, oops! But while in Spain for my one week, which by the way, was not long enough, I went up to Toledo; yes, HOLY TOLEDO haha! Here are some of my pictures and adventures.

While I was there the clouds were perfect. Spain has the perfect clouds. This day I also decided I would LOVE to do something with photography if they offered it as a minor from ASU, but I don't think they do. So I may just take a couple courses anyhow, and give me a reason to buy a really cool camera and travel more. :)

Well we made our way up to the cathedral. It was a nice Gothic cathedral, but surprisingly it has some baroque touches to it as well. Some more really good cloud and sun shots.

So Yeah, the Cathedral was awesome. I ran into SIX elders while there and of course HAD to give them a hard time. This one greeny got so excited when I told him I knew "somethings" about the church, he started talking to me about it, and was just so excited. Then I had to break the news that I was in face a member. He was sad, but actually asked me to prove it.

Unfortunately I did not have my CTR ring on that day, so he made me receit the first article of faith. I began, "We believe in being honest true, chaste... oh I'm sorry Elder, that's the 13th..." He was soooo funny, he was all, Elders, we have a believer. All the sudden, all of them were surrounding me. It was a sight to see. I don't think they see many members in Toledo. My dumb roomate tried to come and start talking to me, but I just continued to talk. Then my professor tried to come and intervene, he told me the next day he thought I was having issues with 6 guys around me. I explained it all to him. It was fun! I learned a lot that day. One of the girls on the trip was a member but when she was 12 she left because of members in WA that just were not accepting of her. It was sad to hear, but especially sad to hear her somewhat bash the church. I think she realized how much it hurt me because she stopped after that day. Well, not much else happened in Toledo, so enjoy the pictures, I'll post El Escorial soon now too.

This last picture is of a hole they cut into the ceiling because the cathedral needed more light. haha! It has a nice Baroquial feel to it.

Where in the world is Sara D. Ray? Now you know.

Location: Madrid, Spain

So I know I am bad about keeping this up, but here it is. I've been in Madrid for like 6 days now! WOW! Didn't know it was that much. Anyhow, so let's get started.

Say Hello to the Madrid temple. I arrived on Thursday to Spain and I stayed at the hostel the church has on the temple grounds. It was really quite amazing. So I got their on Thursday and I had to wait until Saturday to do baptisms. So Thursday night, I hung, and went to get some churros, there will be more on them later, but they are really good!

So what does one do when in Madrid with not much to do until Saturday? Well, you go exploring, alone. Shhhh, don't tell my MOM! ;) I first took off for the Plaza de Cibelles. Amazing fountains all over. Madrid definitely is the city of fountains. I do not care what anyone says. The above fountain is located there. But the above building is the Ciudad hall, I think! Bnut it's an amazing building. In the plaza of the Palace Real, or the Royal Palace, is Alfonso the XII. He again, was fixated on a fountain. Hmm, somethin is up here! But then we have the Royal Palace itself. I have not yet gone inside, but it's still cool from the outside. Now came the best part of Madrid so far, because heaven knows I LOVE Don Quixote

De La Mancha! So in the square somewhere is this HUGE reflection pool aaaaannnd, Don Quixote De La Mancha on his horse with his trusty side kick and the writer behind him. It's sooooo cool. I love it.So everyone knows I love Egypt, I truly do. I lived there for two years, and well I go to Spain less than a year from moving from there and what does Spain have? An Egyptian temple! And what's better, is it's well taken care of. SHOCKER!

Yeah, well that pretty much closed the chapter on my time alone :SAD:

So as I got to the class we got a walking tour of the puerta del sol and plaza mayor. While on the tour we got introduced to a chocoladeria. AWESOME! churros con chocolate are the BEST in the world.

Well after this it was on to an amazing park called Retiro park. I think I will just have to post pics and not comment on them, so here we go.

After Retiro everyone was goin to go to a bullfight, I didn't. It was sunday, and besides, it gives me a reason to come back next May. So I went to the ring just to take pix. Again, more posting, less talking.

So this is just so far Madrid. I am here for about 4 more days though, and I go to Toledo tomorrow. So do look for more posts.

Where in the World is Sara D. Ray? Well now you know.

Location: K-town, Germany

Mmk, so it's been a while. Forgive me, I haven't truly been anywhere. However I did get to listen to Elder Ballard and Elder Hunstman talk last night! :) It was awesome. Now my next trip isn't for 2 weeks, March 15 I head off for SPAIN! Yep, I'm goin to come back with some AWESOME pictures! Oh and of course knowledge of Ernest Hemingway ;) Haha! yeah, ok!

Anyhow, so life is good, Again I haven't truly been anywhere since Cologne. I don't think. Oh, I went to Michelstadt. I have to get pictures of that one still. Hmm, It was sooooo awesome! It was Fausching, which is like the German Halloween, and so they were having a parade and dancing down the streets and it was AWESOME, too bad it took us like 5 hours the next day to realize wha the heck was going on!

Ah well, So that's about that. I have decided to study German along with my Spanish now. I figure I need to learn to communicate with the people here and heck, I can probably learn better now that I've almost got Spanish down. But we'll see how good I am in Spanish after I get home from Madrid.

I am going to London in May, and I am trying to decide between The Hague or Copenhagen for Spring Break. I want to go to the temples there, but we'll see which I get to do. It's just a matter of which one I want to see more really ;)

So this will be fun! The next few months definitely will be interesting. Well I am suppose to be studying or cleaning, or something, so I should run.

Where in the World is Sara D. Ray? Now you know!