Monastery Madness

I have travelled a lot in my days so far and slept in numerous less than comforting accommodations, but none of my experiences even begins to hold a candle to the 16th century monastery in Uclés, Spain.  Of course, as a self-labeled history nerd it took a couple of hours to get over the awe of living in a place older than almost any building in the Americas.  Not to mention, it is the second largest monastery in Spain other than El Escorial.  However, the best part of the monastery was that we (the workers and I) got pretty much full reign of the entire building (from the catacombs to the bell tower).  All was wonderful until the sun went down and the ghost stories came out.  Every creak heard, every late night bathroom break avoided.  Needless to say I was terrified almost the entire time, which resulted in a total of approximately 5 hours of sleep on average a night for 12 days.  I have never yearned for something so much than to get to sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow and not wake until the sun rose the next day.  I couldn't help thinking to myself that there were 5 year-old children sleeping in the very same monastery without even an ounce of terror in their thoughts and here I was, a 24 year-old, hiding under my sheet.  However, in my defense, our room was right next to the bathroom were a priest was supposedly drown by an unknown source no more than 3 decades ago.  Combine that thought with noises from a vicious wind that rattled the monastery and two roommates with unique snores and sleep talking and you would have been terrified too.  In spite of my traumatizing experiences I still managed to snap a few photos of my less compromising moments.  Enjoy.

Playing a bit with the shutter speed and aperture.

 Continued

End of our Lipdub project that can be seen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jTq_QOsQlk