Hope you all had a beautiful Valentine´s Day! We enjoyed a wonderful meal made by my husband-the-chef, accompanied by wine, chocolate, and my favorite flowers from our wedding. I´m writing to tell you about our weekend, though. We went to Segovia, about an hour outside of Madrid. If you come to Spain, I´d include Segovia on your itinerary. They say Segovia was founded by a great-grandson of Noah around 1076 B.C. The most amazing thing I saw there remains from the Roman period: an aquaduct built in the first century A.D. We´ll try to get the photos on our blog by March. It is 728 meters long with a maximum height of 28.9 meters and it was made of huge stones with no mortar and is still standing strong almost 2000 years later! The Alcanzar looks like a fairy-tale castle (the kind Walt Disney would create and probably copied). We´ll include these photos too. The Cathedral has the tallest ceilings I have ever seen in my entire life. This is the first European cathedral I have been in, so I don´t have much to compare it to, but Tom also thought it was amazing (and he has seen several). Visiting the Old Jewish Quarter was sad because Segovia was one of the places in Europe and Spain that suffered less persecution for a time and the Jewish community grew. Then in the early 15th century, the Catholic Monarchs ordered that Jews and Christians separate and created the Jewish Quarter, which was further enclosed to really become a Jewish ghetto. Then of course in 1492 the Spanish kicked all Jews out of Spain and that was the end of that. The old synagogue was turned into a Catholic church, but today there is an educational museum at its side. Even so, some idiots spray-painted swastikas in the alley. Yet a Spanish official claimed, ¨There is no anti-Semitism in Spain.¨ Really? The other memorable experience in Segovia was eating at a Balkan restuarant. There are many things I enjoy about Spain, but the food is not one of them. (That´s just as well as eating out is expensive, so we got a place with a kitchen.) Anyway, the Bulgarian waitresses were really nice and the atmosphere made us want to visit Bulgaria! (Who knows, maybe we will.)

¶ 11:55 AM