The 10 of us that were there. From left to right: Mary Beth (Minnesota), Catherine (New Zealand), Pinja (Finland), Sarah (Portland), Linda (Iceland), Me, Zeke (St. Louis), Danielle (Houston), Caroline (Boston), & Mackenzie (Phoenix).

Saturday, January 22nd, was the 18th birthday of fellow AFSer Linda from Iceland. She, and Sarah from Portland, Oregon, are both in Segovia, a small city 60 miles north of Madrid. Those two frequently take the bus into Madrid for activities that the 17 of us in the Madrid area with AFS are constantly planning. We've done stuff such as go to the Parque de Atracciones, see the premier of the latest Harry Potter movie, and have a white elephant gift exchange, and let me tell you, we still have a long list of things to do together.

We've been talking for a while about how we need to take the trip up to Segovia one day since they're always coming down, plus we wanted to see the city for ourselves, and Linda's birthday ended up being the perfect opportunity.

And she had no idea.

Thanks to Sarah who had the great idea in the first place, we began to plan it out secretly during weeks. We would all meed up in Madrid and catch a bus together Saturday morning, surprise her when we got to Segovia, and spend the whole day together.


We got into Segovia at about 11am, and the plan was to meet in front of the Aqueduct, the most famous landmark of the city that was built the year Jesus was born to move water around the city.


We still didn't know exactly how we were going to surprise her when we arrived. But someone came up with something last minute. We bought a newspaper and split the pages between us. Then, we spread ourselves out around the plaza that's right in front of the Aqueduct, and hid behind the pages. We didn't know which direction she was going to come from (accompanied by Sarah) so the Aqueduct became 12 o clock, and who ever saw her first had to yell out the number she was coming from according to the clock, and we had to yell it between us.

I was sitting on a bench at about 10 o clock, and I while I was sitting there I overheard a man next to me telling someone on the phone that he was scared because the plaza was full of "American spies". Yeah. We're that good.

What ended up happening was the instant she walked into the square with Sarah, she spotted Danielle standing there with a newspaper. We all witnessed it happening, and Danielle played it off like "woah, what are you doing here? I'm here with my host family" type of thing. Meanwhile the rest of us all ran over to where they were. She was SO surprised, and really excited to see us all.

The cathedral

The cathedral from the top of the Alcázar



El Alcázar