Sábado - 19.13

(Me in front of Toledo, so pretty!)

Today I went to Toledo. I woke up at my normal time (7am) and took my time getting to the university, which is where we left from. It was I think about an hour and a half bus ride, but I'm not sure. It wasn't bad, that's for sure. We broke off into two groups when we got there, an English tour, and a Spanish tour. I took the English one. The first stop was Sinagoga del Tránsito/Museo Sefardí, a synagogue turned museum. It was pretty interesting, but I didn't understand most of the history associated with the building. It was pretty though. The second stop was Iglesia de Santo Tomé, a church which holds one of El Greco's most famous paintings. It was really interesting to hear the history behind the painting, such as who the people were, like Greco painted his son into the image, and the King of England, etc. among historic biblical figures, like the virgin Mary. Side note, when we were entering the church there was a bride getting out of a car. Her dress was so pretty!

After that, we headed to the Catedral, a really elaborate cathedral. Before we went in, we were each given 15 euros for lunch, and told to have fun. So I went with Jennifer and Mariam. We stopped into a few stores along the way, and I saw a few things for my dad that I wanted to buy. I didn't, because I didn't know if he would actually use them. They were all bowls/plates of some sort, which I thought would be cool for his salsa that he makes. I also saw a mug that I wanted to buy him for his collection, it was a regular mug, with a flat back. On the flat back was written (in Spanish) "I spent all my money so I could only afford half a mug!". I thought it was so cool! I almost bought it, but it said Toledo on the front, and I would rather it said Madrid or Spain or something.

We went to El del fin, a really "hip" looking restaurant that we passed on our tour. It was pretty good. We got bread, a starter, a main course, and a drink for 10 euros. Mariam and I started with "spaghetti with shrimp", which was the same "shrimp pasta noodles" that dad makes, except it was seasoned with lemon grass. It was really good! Then for my meal I ordered grilled salmon. When it came out, it didn't look like salmon. It wasn't pink anywhere, not even a tint of pink! It was all white. We were really confused at first, we thought maybe it was the tuna steak that Mariam had ordered. It apparently wasn't. We all tried it and not one of us thought it tasted like salmon. It was pretty good though. Served with french fries. It took a long time to get the bill, and when we finally did, we were outta there!

We stopped into a few shops on the way back to the cathedreal to meet back up with the rest of the group. On the way though, we stopped and bought Marzipan from the place that our tour guide said was the best in the city. It was pretty good, the only other time I think I've had it was at a Spanish Peña (conversation hour) at Tech. This one here was much better. Jennifer bought a Marzipan cake with what we think was lemon creme in the middle and she let us try it. It was SO good! Much better than the plain marzipan. So that was my "special food" in Toledo.

We walked around the church, which was really really detailed and pretty, most of my pictures didn't turn out because it was really dark and flash wasn't allowed. I tried at first, but in order to adjust to the slow shutter speed, you have to hold the camera steady. My hands weren't steady. I did get some cool ones though. I really enjoyed the explanation of our tour guide, she went really into detail, which I appreciated. After the cathedral she took us to "McDonald Square", which has a real name, but it's long and hard to pronounce, so the locals call it "McDonald Square" because there's a McDonald's haha. We all went in and used their bathrooms, and then I went to an ice cream vendor next door. They wouldn't let us try samples, which was sad, but I had three euros leftover from our lunch money, so I decided to try some anyway. I got walnut ice cream. I was looking for pistachio, which I tried in Barcelona and was really good, but they didn't have any. The walnut was really good though, and I was able to trick myself into thinking it was semi-healthy.

After that we got back on the bus and headed to Madrid. It was a quiet bus ride because most people were sleeping. I'm also going to include the following photos of Christina to show my parents that they raised a nice lady-like daughter. I would NEVER wear shorts that short! Especially not with a belly shirt like that... Everyone in our group was talking about her outfit. Our tour guide said the cathedral could be strict about people showing too much skin, so I was a bit surprised when they let her in. I'm not saying this to be mean, but wow those are short shorts! They could almost qualify as a bikini!

I got back to the apartment and Skyped my parents! I enjoyed actually being able to talk to them after being here so long (actually it's only been two weeks but it feels much longer!). I also uploaded my photos of Toledo to Facebook, and wrote my blog entry for today! My plans for the rest of the night include either homework until dinner or a nap until dinner. After dinner I'm going to shower, because my feet are really gross from walking around all day. Then I might meet up with a few people from today around 11 for an hour. I want to be able to go to the Rastra (a giant flea market) in the morning to see if what's around. Then homework in the middle of the day before the bull fight at 7. After that, dinner, shower, bed! In that order. But that's the majority of my day today, a pretty city and surprising lunch. I will post later about my dinner/night!