Do You Wanna Be A Borgia?

Well... this is embarrassing.

6 days. I mean, really, I'm terribly ashamed of myself.

If it helps, I've gotten a lot done in those 6 days, including A LOT of planning for this summer. Because travel takes... A LOT of planning. Who knew?

Richtig!

On to what I did with my life like two weeks ago.

So Friday the... 28th, we went to Gandía. Which is another small town in the vicinity of Valencia. Nice sort of place. The train ride there was lovely, and we got there early afternoon.

Now, there is admittedly not a lot to see in Gandía. There is a nice beach, but it was pretty cloudy the day we went, and so I didn't actually wind up going. What we did instead, is that Elena and Alexz took us to the center of town, and sort of gave us a little orientation, and let us go wherever we wanted.

Alexz and Elena's plan was to go to the ducal palace in the city, but I'm the only one that went with them, and I am so glad that I did. It was incredible.

So, I know I mentioned this in an earlier blog (a MUCH MUCH earlier blog), but the Borgias (yes, those Borgias) are actually from the Valencia area, and one of Pope Alexander VI's children (the Borgia Pope. Yes, the one with THOSE children) was Duke of Gandía, and built a lovely Renaissance palace in the town.

 This is the inner courtyard

I was very happy to be there. Because... seriously.

So we went in

And inside it was just SO COOL!!

The third floor was furnished like the palace would have been, and it had a reception hall

 the hall

 a very impressive portrait

And there you've got a window with the coats of arms in them.

But see, the problem is that you aren't allowed to take pictures inside. Which we all found very dumb. Especially because the chapel is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been.

Like, that's a BAD picture of the ceiling I found on google.

And that's a better one that Elena took. Like, it was incredible.

But it was also kind of funny, because we were begin total secret agents and trying not to let them see us take the photos, so we would post lookouts and it was crazy. And kind of fun.

And at some point we started talking about the Borgias, because, well... that's what was there. And Elena has recently become obsessed with them. And we talked about all the intrigue, and if the rumors about them were true, and the absolute insanity of being a powerful family in that time, and Elena said that she would like to be a member of one of those powerful families. Not a powerful member of an important family, but just one of the people in the background, watching all the deals go down, but not getting her hands dirty.

And I disagreed on two fronts. First: I don't think it would be fun at all. The manipulation and backstabbing and not knowing who to trust, and just because you aren't important doesn't mean that people won't use you for their own ends, or that others won't target you because you are simply part of that family. Recently I've come to terms with the fact that I would rather live an unextraordinary life and be happy than be famous or important or part of history. And secondly, if I'm going to be in a family that messed up, I wanna be in charge. Screw being too innocent to be a target, I would want be too powerful to be a target. Also, you get to sit in a much more comfortable chair.

So we continued through the palace, and, man, it was impressive. I wish I had more photos. We also went into the room where they kept the costumes from the Spanish TV show about the Borgias, and we all picked out the outfits we would like to wear.

We went outside, where you COULD take photos

 But frankly, not as impressive as the inside

 The lovely city of Gandía.

 I did like the decoration on the palace.

 I was gonna cut that picture, but I thought it was funny

 Actual good picture!

 And Elena and I.

So we finished up the tour and went back to the courtyard where we found the turtles.

 I don't know why.

 But there were turtles in the courtyard.

So we got one last good picture in the palace

 And headed out.

But, OK, can we talk about this symbol for a moment? I don't know who invented it, or when, but it was all over this city, and I just think it is the coolest symbol ever. Because it's a FANTASTIC representation of what history thinks about the Borgias, but also a REALLY good representation of a lot of history. I mean, it's power, but the power is built on death and destruction. Also, the crown's reflection is the knives, because it's so hard to have the crown without the bad things that come with it. I just... this symbol fascinates me.

So then we wandered around the city. We went to a park to eat lunch, and sat and chatted and chilled

 and saw some really strange plants

This is the city from the park.

And then we walked around. We stopped in a bakery, and got some really excellent bread.

Bread in Spain is so good. I really don't know what the US' problem is. We're one of the richest countries in the world, and yet we accept floppy wheat squares as a substitute for bread. It's so sad. I mean, here, good, fresh bread from a bakery with a nice crust and a soft inside is really cheap, and it's the norm. And I don't know why we don't do it. As my father pointed out, it's all just wheat and water!

So we walked around some more, found some random places, and then went back to the train station and had a cup of tea before our train arrived.

Here are some pictures I took along the way

 This is a little medallion that marks the old city wall from the 16th century. And it's got the symbol on it too!

We just found this place back inside a building. I don't even know.

So I sat with Alexz on the bus ride back and we talked about her list of quotes. So, I don't think I've mentioned it before, but Alexz keeps a list of all the silly, dumb, and generally amusing things people have said on this trip so we can remember them. And on the train we decided to count how many things on the list each person had said. And, to my everlasting amusement, and ever so slight shame, I actually had the most quotes on the list. This is partially because I spend a lot more time with Alexz than some of the other people on the trip, and also partially because I say a lot of dumb things. Apparently my crowning achievement so far is my discussion of "The world's greatest Elf-Dwarf Love Triangle." But in a close second (at the time) was Elena. I had 18, she had 17, and then next person had 7. Yeah. But I think Elena has surpassed me now. Which is so sad.

So we got back to Valencia, and I basically did homework and planning and boring stuff for the rest of the weekend. There's gonna be a lot of that in my next few blogs. Sorry.

I mean, Saturday I did laundry and ran errands and all that boring stuff that you have to do when you have a cool life.

On the plus side, on Sunday night I FINALLY GOT INDIAN FOOD!!!! I almost cried. It was so good. We went for our Taste of America dinner, and it was three of us, and it was fantastic. I've really missed Indian food.

 Doesn't it look so good?

 And we even got free, weird desserts.

Which tasted shockingly good.

So, yeah, that was my weekend. It was fun, and cool, and I am so glad I went to that palace. I do apologize for how few blogs have been posted recently, but I have a long train ride to Salamanca tomorrow (by the way, I'm going to Salamanca tomorrow) and hopefully there will be a couple train blogs to catch me up to the present day.

Also, a little bit of fair warning. I've been thinking about this, and there may be a change in the way this blog works. I love using pictures and I think they're a fun way to tell these stories, but thinking about how travel has been this semester, I realize that continuing to do blogs with all sorts of pictures in them is just not going to be convenient for this Summer. Because when I'm traveling, I write on the train, and on the train I don't have wifi, and the way I do this, I have to have wifi to insert the pictures, so, basically, doing pictures means lots of late blogs. And I can't just add the pictures when I get to the place, because usually the wifi is not strong enough to take the number of pictures I put in the blogs.
So sorry about that. What's probably going to happen this Summer, then, is that there will be lots of blogs like there were in the beginning. I'll write a lot on trains, and tell you all about what I've done, and then when I get a connection strong enough to post pictures, I'll post and caption a whole bunch.

So, yeah, see you all later! I had a really great weekend last weekend, and I can't wait to tell you all about it!