Really really cool stuff

Yesterday, I thought we were just going on some dense tour of the architecture of the Cathedral. I'd already been there thrice and it's beautiful every visit. The world's third largest Cathedral, in Spain's third largest city - something that large and historic will make your heart skip every third beat. That said, I still don't know the vocabulary in either English or Spanish for the different bricks, walls, columns, tiling, etc that form such a grandiose structure.

The tour was normal until a man popped out of nowhere and unlocked a secret door and ushered us up some stairs TO STAND ON TOP OF THE CATHEDRAL. That's awesome. There's no way around how much that's awesome. So so awesome.

I got to not just look at a flying buttress but stand next to a whole bunch of them. We were like a large group of guiri gargoyles, climbing spiral stone stairs from centuries ago, looking down at the ant-people commoners in the city. We were high and mighty.

We saw 'graffiti' carved into the stones from the 1600s, geometric outline tracings of the domes underneath (so that's what a boveda is!), and did I mention flying buttresses!? Yes, I did. But it's worth rementioning. Silly word, crazy structure, dreams coming true.

Now that's a field trip.

I am writing my final paper about this window?

Oh. Oh. Oh.

Gargoyle graveyard?

Me, Liz, Spires, BFF.

Up, up, up to the top.

Done. Study abroad complete. Buttressed.

Buttressed in every which way.

Hi, I'm the Hunchback of La Catedral.

Happy Hannukah!

And later that night I went to mass again. But that's a story for another time...