Holy Toledo

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And holy it is...Pretty much every which way you look is either a church, mosque, or synagogue. Laurel and I took a daytrip there on Saturday, which was only a half hour by train, but felt like a time warp, because Toledo is Medieval style precious. We went to the Cathedral first, which gave me a neck ache from all the looking up I had to do. The architecture in this place is AMAZING. It was built over a period of 250 years, so it combines Gothic, Baroque, and Neoclassical styles. We spent about two hours in that place (thanks to our self guided Rick Steve's tour), and probably could have spent more. Other Toledo highlights included world famous marzipan, seeing el Greco and Goya masterpieces, and one heck of a calf workout (that whole city is uphill).

But I'm getting ahead of myself, because there is still a whole week before that to catch up on. The weekend before last, we visited El Museo Del Reina Sofia, where we saw none other than GUERNICA. I've always desired to see Guernica in person, because my 11th grade english teacher Mr. Wendt had a minor obsession with it, and apparently it was contagious. I was not disappointed...Laurel and I stumbled upon it by accident and all of a sudden, there it was, all 10 feet of it (I'm not really sure of the actual measurements, but it's BIG.) The best part about seeing it in person, though, was seeing the 8 or so photographs of the rough drafts, which were all different in some way.

For halloween Laurel and I actually found pumpkins to carve!! It wasn't so much of a hunt for your pumpkin at the pumpkin patch on skyline experience, but more of a pick from your choice of 4 on a shelf in the back of the grocery store one. It was still fun though. Afterwards we even roasted the pumpkin seeds, which was quite nostalgic.

And now, The latest trend Laurel and I have started is watching Spanish movies. Well, either Spanish movies or American movies dubbed in Spanish (it's quite entertaining to hear Steve Carrel talk in Spanish.) Spanish movie wise we saw "El Orfanato" two weeks ago, a scary movie, and last week we saw "Las Trece Rosas", about the Spanish civil war. Look for both at the oscars, i'm sure. The dubbed movies so far have varied from Surf's Up to Bridget Jones' Diary to Minority Report. I forget how american actors sound, really.

Last week also we got to play hostess for the first time since Laurel's mom was here! Duncan's (for those of you who don't know Duncan, you should.) sister Mary and her friend Christy have just spent a year teaching English in Japan and are slowly backpacking their way back to the States. It was really nice to see a face from home and also quite interesting to hear their thoughts on going home after being out of the country for 14 months. I've already realized how being here is making me appreciate American culture in a whole new way. Laurel and I have begun a list of things we miss, and I wrote myself a time capsule letter to open right before I leave. It's all the little things really, like lined notebook paper (it's all graph paper here) and peanut butter and fall weather. So let it be a lesson to all of you back home to eat as much peanut butter as you possibly can, because only rich people get it here. I bet it's on the black market, too.

Tonight I'm going to a flamenco show, this weekend will be another day trip to another nearby city, and next week the REAL crazy stuff starts (STAY TUNED FOR THAT!)

Oh and I finished Spanish Harry Potter. It ends the same.
Now reading El Amor en los tiempos de colera, because apparently it was written in spanish first, y tengo que aprovechar mi habilidad de leer en espanol, y hubiera querido leerlo de todos modos.
hmm. no accents on this computer but you get the idea.
or do you?

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