On the weekend of February 25, Jisenia and I took a little last minute trip to Zaragoza! Zaragoza is the capital of Aragon (of "Isabel I de Castilla y Fernando II de Aragon" fame). Zaragoza is cool because it was founded by the Romans. (Thus the name, "Zaragoza"... phonology is happening... <3... just wait for it. A museum said that it's the "only city in the Roman world to bear the name of its founder: Caesar Augustus." Caesar Augustus--->Zaragoza. Linguistics!) Then it was part of Al-Andalus and a pretty big deal then. My Andalusian culture teacher said that Zaragoza was the capital of philsophy (all my homies say booooo philosophy), Seville was the capital of poetry, and Toledo science. Then later it was Catholic obvs. There's a lot we did this weekend, so let's get it started.
(I was inspired by Ryan and my mom's contributions to the blog (and the positive feedback they got) to try to be more concise, but I am who I am. This is another long photo dump post. Sorry class.)
Okay everyone. Buckle in. It's time for some ruins. These ones are Roman.
Not really sure what this is but it's got a leaning tower.
Basílica de Nuestra Señora del Pilar. We'll come back to this.
Gooooofy.
Not sure what this is about but I'm gonna guess it's problematic in some way honestly.
After doing a lap around the main part of town, Jisenia and I went to the Goya museum. It was super cool. This was the only picture I took there; some Roman ruins next to the bathroom in the basement. Europe is bonkers. The museum was really cool though. They had Goya's first known painting, a really big collection and a giant collection of Goya's engravings from the end of his life.
Then we went to the ruins of this Roman theatre. It was giant and very cool. It was also, as you can kinda see, just in the middle of the city, surrounded by some apartment buildings and stuff. Europe is bonkers. They had a museum attached to it that was really well done. There were some students filming a contemporary dance video or something in there though. It was super weird.
That wall is what the theatre would've looked like. It's so crazy how they know stuff like that. I have so many questions on how they figure this out.
You know I love a cool floor. They had a cool informational diagram that showed where all the marbles used in the floor came from.
Then we were starving and ready for lunch. I did what I do and found the nearest non-European cuisine restaurant. This time it was Lebanese. It was so good.
The waitress told us that we would have enough food for the two of us with that salad and those two manoushes; she was wrong. We got another one. And then dessert.
Then we walked to our hostel to check in and drop our stuff off.
Jisenia with the hostel cat.
Palace! We couldn't go in because all the tickets for the whole weekend were sold out🎻🎻🎻 But we walked around, it was obviously a banger. Saddies we couldn't go in, the pictures of it are crazy, but it's cool.
Then we walked back into town.
We went to another art museum. This one we just went to because we bought a ticket pack at the Roman theatre that included like four Roman ruins and this art museum. I'm glad this museum was included in that ticket pack or I'm sure we wouldn't have gone, and I really loved it. It was named after Pablo Gargallo, and obviously included primarly his work, but it was a really cool collection. I didn't take hardly any pictures because I was trying to just absorb the works, but here's a couple. (I wish I had taken more pictures now though because I have a list on my phone of paintings/sculptures I wanted to look more into, and now I can't find them online. Like there was this really pretty one by Francisco San José called "Las cinco villas del barranco" and I can't find it anywhere :((( That's what I get for trying to stop and smell the roses, live in the moment, etc etc etc. Learned my lesson, I'm gonna start wearing a GoPro strapped to my forehead 24/7.) I'm glad I took a picture of her. I'm obsessed. She's so beautiful and neat.
There's astrology signs all around this patio. Sagittarius is on the far right let's go.
As my dad would say (when imitating me), "She's eating."
After the art museum we hit the Roman bathhouse ruins before dinner. We saw some jazz along the way. I miss my country.
Italian is my exception on non-European cuisine, and that was dinner.
After dinner it was bedtime. Then the next morning our big activity was the aquarium!!! Zaragoza says that the Zaragoza aquarium is the largest freshwater aquarium in the world, which sounded cool until I Googled a little more and literally no one else was saying that. So I was skeptical, but I was very pleasantly surprised. This was a good one. At first we thought this giant aquarium looking building was the aquarium, but it was actually behind this building.
The actual aquarium.
Okay everyone. It's aquarium time. Buckle in.
Vibes. This is for Jack--I was emulating your aquarium tank vids.
Lizard for Liam.
Claire--these babies or Snowflake and Snowball?
Kiwi time.
Also kiwi time.
Hehehe.
Turtle for Liam.
Another turtle for Liam.
Another one.
Blanket statement: all reptiles are for Liam.
That sign can't stop me because I can't read (Spanish).
Tess... that fish is so mad.
This one is for my mom :)
These turtles aren't for Liam. They reminded me of my guinea pigs, so they're for me.
This one can be for Liam.
This bird was very playful.
Emily I just typed out a translation of this paragraph and then I realized it was right underneath. Silly. Hope you like her though.
I feel bad because there are never any pigs, bunnies, or cows in the aquarium, so Ryan never gets anything. So, reaching a tiny bit, but this monkey can be for Ryan. They were also very playful and fun.
Tess......... that fish is so mad.
This can be for my mom (also a litle bit of a stretch) because there were no lionfish and giving her that snake earlier was kinda rude.
Sugar gliders are for Remi (who definitely doesn't read the blog but whatever, we're benevolent on the blog, and we're like Oprah, everyone gets a creature today).
This one is for Claire xoxo.
This one is for Mermaid Princesses--they're no Lord Stanley but they're the best I got.
Okay. Aquarium time over. We headed back into town. This is an old train station that's now a market. That statue was a gift from Mussolini.
Then it was lunchtime. Today's cuisine: Thai.
Then we hit one more Roman ruin: the forum.
Seeing old writing always makes me emotional. Even looking at this picture... wow. I am compelled.
After the forum we went to the Basílica de Nuestra Señora del Pilar. No pictures allowed inside, but it was a really beautiful building. It's (late) Baroque, very pretty and light, a lot of the walls were pastel/light blue. The virgen del pilar is the Spanish national virgen; the día de la hispanidad is also her celebration day. I am once again recommending that everyone scan the Wikipedia pages to know more, it's a cool story.
Cafe stop, where I scanned the Wikipedia pages about the basilica we just saw.
Then we walked around. 15th century bridge.
The girls.
After all that we had had enough walked around. It really could not have been windier that day; it was like nader weather. We had like four hours to kill before our train, so we went to see El gato con botas: El último deseo (Puss in Boots: The Last Wish). It was really good. Gave it four stars on Letterboxd.
This was the last picture I took. We were at the bus stop on the way to the train station and it was so windy that we were afraid of the bus stop falling over; it was rattling so much. I only realized at the train station that I didn't get postcards or a magnet from Zaragoza because the one and only priority Sunday afternoon was getting out of the wind.
Anyway it was a very fun weekend. Usually I like to have a plan, but it's also fun to show up somewhere and just see what you can find, and we found a lot of intersting things.
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