Friday ended our week with a trip to Avila which is located northwest about an hour and a half outside of Madrid. After a whatfeltlikethelongestbusrideverbecauseweallhadtopee bus ride we wandered our way within the ancient city walls to explore the city. The city was once the home of St. Teresa de Avila the founder of the Carmelite nuns. It's famous for it's relic of her rotting ring finger and we were all pretty excited to see this 500 year old delight. The only problem was that none of us knew exactly where it was located in the city so we were definitly the blind leading the blind. We started off by visiting the one thing possible to find in every city in Spain, a cathedral. Unfortunately once inside a lot of it was under construction and it blocked a lot of the view but we were able to see up by the altar, but like most cathedrals it was FREEZING inside. They also had a little musuem part showing a lot of old paintings, including one by El Greco, old songbooks, and the robes the priests wore back in the day. After this little excursion we wandered somemore to find the convent, hoping her finger would be in there. Wandering the streets of a city none of us had ever visited, with no map, was suprisingly a fun adventure, even in the rain. We eventually stumbled across the convent and it's musuem only to find it closed for siesta, of course. We took a little break ourselves and decided to have a nice Spanish lunch. Well since my options here are ridiculously limited I thought a sandwich called "sandwich vegetal" would be safe right? So wrong, it came out with a huge plop of Tuna soaking into the bread and everything. Gross. But I was hungry so I sweetfully asked for a new one and was granted my wish. One of our friends Caitlin is also vegetarian and doesn't eat fish either and so when we both ordered this we were heartbroken, but the problem was fixed and our sandwiches came back fish free and although not the best thing I've ever eaten, worked. After lunch we ventured back to the convent in our hopes for finding the finger. We first tried the museum, which was actually a very cool musuem of her life located in the crypt of the church. But, the finger was no where to be found. From there we assumed the church would have it on display right? Wrong. So wrong. Almost desolate and ready to give up we saw a sign for the convent part of the church's plaza and wandered over to a sign for the relics, aka her finger. It was located in the most random of places, first you have to walk through a gift shop where you then enter a room filled with other random relics of her such as her clothes, walking stick etc, and in that same little room is a case with her finger. Ew. It was hard to see because the room wasn't lit and the glare off the glass was bad but it was black looked like it had skin pieces coming off. But it was pretty cool to see, its about 495 years old exactly and it looked the part. It's kept in a gold case in some type of preservative to keep it lasting. Finally our long journey was complete. Oh and heres the best part, we had to pay to go the cathedral and the musuem, only to discover the finger display was actually free, of course. But it was worth it I would have paid to see that nasty thing anyways. Unfortunatly we couldn't take pictures and they had none of it but it's forever engrained in my memory. After happily finding what we were just looking for we walked around town somemore and one of my friend's mom's had told her about these little desserts called yemas. We didn't know what they were but they're desserts so how bad could they be? ha ha ha....Well after buying them and opening the package a little yellow squishy thing covered in sugar is revealed and my friends facial expression after she stuck the whole little gooey in her mouth was priceless. She immiedately spit it out and had never looked so miserable. We found out later it's supposed to consist of an egg yolk and sugar or cinnamon. The egg yolk definitly wasn't cooked much and it was literally the only ingredient. Needless to say I definitly didn't try it. From there we found an entrance to go up top of the city walls and were very excited. It was a steep stairwell but the view was priceless. You could see the countryside of Spain in one direction and then the whole city and cathedral on the next. It made for some great photo ops. We were able to wander around up there for a bit but then had to meander our way to the bus station for the ride home. Somehow we were able to find our way back for a not as painfully long bus ride home.
The rest of the weekend was spent exploring Madrid as always. Much time spent in Sol, which is the heart of Madrid and finally making it to El Rastro, or the famous flea market, which was disappointing or just not what I was expecting at all. But I was able to find some exciting running paths right past the palace which was perfection :) Now if it would start warming up a little more we'd really be talkin....
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