This week we went to the Valle de los Caidos, or the Valley of the Fallen.
It was a really cool monument built in memory of the Spanish Civil war.
Right when we got there we took one of the infamous Team A jumping pictures.
The story behind it is that it was announced by Franco on April 1, 1940 on the one year anniversary of his victory in the Spanish Civil as a monument commemorating those fallen to create his unified Spain. After 20 years of construction it currently stands as a testament to all of the interesting history of the Spanish people during the time of Franco. It is supposed to be a monument to all those fallen in Spain during the civil war.
However, almost all who were buried there were nationalists and so there is a lot of controversy. Year after year on the twentieth of November those who remain faithful to Franco and his ideals congregate at the Basilica to commemorate the anniversary of Franco’s death. I wish we had been there that day. It would have been very interesting. Franco was a pretty bad guy and did some pretty bad stuff. He was, however, one of the only rulers in Spanish history to actually get something done. For the previous 400 years or so Spain had been in a basic slump. The national debt was beyond belief and the people were living in a haze. They wanted the comfort of wealth but only worked just enough to survive. So Franco built this monument in the “Fascist” style of architecture.
Fascist Architecture is a pretty cool idea that carries the principals of a fascist government. It’s basically massive and set up so we all feel insignificant.
As you walk into the basilica you just feel small, you feel like you really don’t amount to nothing compared to the “institution”. That is the idea. When we walked in it was right during the morning mass and the choir was singing. It was really awesome to walk in right during the echo of the Catholic Latin-style singing. It was pretty darn awesome because it was all in a cave so there was no light coming in and when they turned off the lights, the whole thing was illuminated by candle light. All we could hear was the priest’s voice saying his prayers. It was a really interesting experience. We weren’t allowed to take pictures so I had to be sneaky. On the inside there are only two graves: Franco and José Antonio Primo de Rivera. I illegally took a picture of Franco’s.
From the outside I was able to get a few shots showing the grandeur of the Monument. The Cross is over 150 meters tall.
Here was my tribute to Franco and the Fascists.
The whole place was huge.
I really liked it and it was my site so I knew quite a bit about it so that made it so much cooler.
From there we went to El Escorial. On the way there we talked about how we were like the Wizard of OZ and I got volunteered as Toto.
Cassi was Dorothy, Erika was scarecrow, Missy was the tin man, and Suzanna was the cowardly lion. The Valley was kind of built with the Escorial in mind in that El Escorial was built to show the grandeur of the Spanish Empire at the time. Phillip II built it as a summer home and he was basically a huge nerd so there are a lot of interesting things. We wandered around a lot to just take in the beauty.
One of the coolest spots was the entrance to the Cathedral. We were standing in the Plaza of the Kings. It is called that because there are the Kings of Israel standing there.
It was pretty cool, huh? One of the most impressive spots was the sepalucur down below the palace. Here is the tomb of Phillip’s son...maybe.
The whole palace was all really detailed. Laura, you asked me about my favorite place to see art and this is the type of stuff I was talking about.
That was the ceiling of some random staircase. The picture doesn’t do it justice. It was amazing. The Palace is huge and has one of the largest personal libraries in the world with over 40,000 books and to show that they weren’t for show, many are personally annotated by him. Many called him the King of Paper. He was one of the OCD/Anal kings in Spanish History. He wanted everything under his personal control. He was personally involved in almost every aspect of his empire. In the center of the Escorial there was a pretty impressive church that he had set up with a window so that he could watch mass from his bed. Talk about lazy. There was a really famous sculpture of Christ on the Cross.
It’s made completely of Marble. Out back behind the Escorial there was a really cool garden.
It was a really cool day and exemplifies the amazing feats that the Spanish can do when they have the desire, control, and discipline. I was very impressed. From there we went to a cool castle that is one of the best preserved in the world.
Here it is, flying the Spanish flag.
Andrew and I are pretty awesome.
We began to storm the Castle.
Here is Andrew, Kyte, and I.
This was a very cool day.
And here is the final product.
Pretty creepy, eh? Ok, I wasn’t quite satisfied so we gave it some touch ups. 
We played a bit of Smash Brothers and then got to school when most people had already left but the few who were left really liked it. Once again we decided I looked like a Beatle. My teacher decided it was a good example of Estar vs. Ser. We met Shingo out in the hall after class and got a few good pics as we left the school. (1378 1379 1381) 
I especially loved Andrew’s hat. So, there it is. My hair rocks when its straight, huh?