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!

Location: Koln (Cologne), Germany

Mmk, so upon some encouragement by a dear aunt of mine I will update, life has been hectic so I'm sorry this is a little old, about a week now. So here it goes, another adventure.

Say Hello to Cologne! Bad picture, it was cold and raining, so I only took one, buuuut, this is the amazing Gothic Cathedral in Cologne. Suppose to be the biggest in the world, but I could be wrong. So here's the story, Stephani and I had plans to go to Koln and I invited two friends, Eric (a friend of about 7 months now), and Kevin (a brand new RM, got released like 2 hours before we left). So the four of us went up there, and holy heck, this thing was breathtaking! Truly, but this is only the outside!

So this first picture is by far my favorite. This is a gargoyle located on a speyer. Unfortunately I did not take a picture of the whole speyer but it used to be placed on top of the cathedral but some reason it is no longer there. Too bad... but it gave me a great pic! So inside the cathedral it was dark and cold, but there were still some good photo ops, including one containing the "three kings". Of course this is all just speculated, but oh well. Sorry for the bars in the way, but the church owners wouldn't let me go inside the bars to get my picture. But I still believe it's an ok picture.

So then as Stephani and I were walking around taking pictures of this she looked up and saw something on the ceiling. The Cathedral being dark didn't make it possible for us to read it without taking a picture, so I did... If anyone knows Old Latin and would like to help me, here is the pic... kinda funny it being on the ROOF!!

Most cathedrals have the bishops buried in the cathedral, most yes are in the basement in a *forgot the word for it* but cemetary like thing, but here in the Koln they were buried on the ground level and had some cool coffins. Check this one out. I am not too sure as to which bishop this is, but heck, if he can be buried in a box that resembles a castle wall, I figure he must be important. I have also decided if anyone ever decides to throw me into a cement box as my coffin I want a cool lookin one like this too!

More images around the cathedral, we spent a lot of time there and I'm not even half through with the pix! So a bird of some sort, but we are unsure as to what it is of importance or what he has in his talons.

But it doesn't matter, After we took a turn about the cathedral Stephani and I decided to climb the 509 stairs to the top of the cathedral. Now this is where it gets fun! I am a little skeptical of heights, but I think it's more when my family is around and the railing is low. So anyhow, the two guys decided they did not want to join us. Leave it to the two chicks to go truckin up to the top. About 300 stairs up there is a break and you can go in and see the bells. Here is the main bell right in the center. So as we walked around to see the rest the walk ways were not big at all. If you know my sister she is still about the same height and size. Well check this out! She is so little and yet she was half the size of the way. And then of course we had to take one with me in the walkway hehe!

So then we get around to the side where you can see the bell the best, and man, it is HUGE! You can put like a Euro in a machine and the bells will gong and some little punk kids decided to do this like 5 times as Steph and I were up there. OUCH! I came out with a headache. Not really, but man, they were loud!

So after walking around this area Steph and I continued to trudge up the stairs. At what you thought was the top there were more stairs, but we finally made it. If you were to look up as we did, you could see the inside of the speyer and that it went on for a bit. We were definately a good 50 feet from the tippy top, but it was still a ways up there!

So here are some pictures of other speyers around the cathedral. And the first one is of a cool cross of some sort, but I like the starburst on the top.

Then my sister was messing around with the camera and came up with a really cool almost abstract picture of a speyer in the background of a cut out in the walls.

Now that I really look at this next picture I see that it is probably one of my favorites. I took it just goofing off to see if we could get some more good pictures of how much taller the cathedral is than of where we were, but I ended up liking it.

And then of course we had to get one more picture of the sister. She surely is cute and def will continue to be cute, but in the background is just another speyer and if the sky had been clear you could see the Rhein better, but you can somewhat see it. Just another good picture of the cloudy skies and the city.

After we were done looking around we began our descent down, Stephani and I decided to count the number of stairs. Ha! The Cathedral says there are 509 but coming down we only counted some 470 something! But as we were coming down the spiralling staircase had occasional windows so I snapped some pictures, but again, the favorite is one with Stephani in it. She actually got down and in the window that for some reason was down on the stairs.

More pictures of the speyers and some really cool ones. So without explaining them I will just post them.

So now I get to the fun part. Cologne is famous for CHOCOLATE! YUM! So here in Cologne is a museum of the chocolate. Oh it was fun to try and find. Nobody with us knew where it was, we had no idea, and so I had to use what Eric likes to call my "feminine whiles" and persuade a guy to tell us where it is. So I did, and we began walking, it took us a bit to find it but we found it.

Ever wonder how they make the hollowed out chocolate? Well, they hook it up on these cool little twisty turny things and they spin the small ammount of chocolate that is put in there and so the chocolate rolls around the molds and forms the yummy chocolate. Don't believe me, well you should come and see it!

So then we continued to walk around and it was like Willy Wonka's factory. They even had a Chocolate tree with a pond of chocolate at the bottom, though this picture was taken from the top the people who work there take waffers and dip them in the chocolate and give them to anyone who takes them. It was soooooooo goood, Steph and I got like 3!

The machines to make the chocolate was ever so cool, but I did not get pictures of all of them. too many! But that was definately a cool thing to go and see. They have HUGE Chocolate Coins, in Europe the 1 Euro and 2 Euro are coins. So they had Euros made of chocolate. The Germans have outdone us on this one! But ah oh well!

Once again my tale has turned into a novel, but no worries, it is finished! But I do know that I will have another one for you soon, Heidelberg is on the list for Monday! Truly hoping to get to this one! It's been on the list for quite some time now! Where in the World is Sara D. Ray? Now you know!