Toledo

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This morning we had to get up early because I was going with Jasmine and her school on an excursion to Toledo. Toledo is the religious capital of Spain. It used to be the political capital too, but for reasons I can’t remember, that changed to Madrid. The reason it remains the religious capital is because back in the time when Catholicism was dominant, and most places were intolerant of any other religion (in Europe), Toledo was. It was the one place that people catholic or not were accepted. Therefore, to this day, there are many churches, cathedrals, synagogs, and mosques. The city was cute. It reminded me of villages in fairytales because the streets were narrow and made out of small stones, the buildings reminded me of cottages, the whole city is surrounded by a river (like a mote), and to enter, you have to go through one of the many puertas (“door” ways). We visited an old mosque, a huge…incredible cathedral! (beautiful stained glass, HIGH ceilings, sculptures, organs, gold, unbelievable! And we couldn’t take pictures!!! Ugh.), we saw a Jewish synagog, a church where apparently they use to torture people (I didn’t get it either). For lunch we went to this restaurant and I tried sword fish for the first time. It was really good. My lunch came with the house white wine, fish, salad, French fries, and a really gross dessert! It was some kind of baked apple thingy…but it was ice cold. Ugh. After lunch, we walked around for a little while, then met back up with the rest of the group to go to another synagog. It was pretty cool. Then, it was time to go back, so we got on the bus (which takes about 1 hour to get to Madrid from Toledo). When we got back, Virginia, Jasmine, Tais, (a Brazilian friend of Virginia and Jasmine) and I went to this music festival in one of the plazas in Madrid. It took us awhile to find it, and when we finally did, I wasn’t very impressed. The music was not very good, and they took forever between artists. We sat there with some of Tais’ Brazilian friends for awhile, they were drinking beer, smoking, and eating bread…I just had some ice cream. After about an hour, Jasmine, Virginia and I decided to head home, and maybe later, find a little café and have some coffee. We headed home, but by the time we had showers, we just wanted to stay in. So Jasmine and I watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding…that movie never gets old for me! “I can snap you like a chicken bone” !!!! Love it. I also got to talk to Ray for awhile which was really nice (sorry Mom and Dad, my phone bill will probably be kinda high this month!!). He told me he took the whole week off the week I get home! Maybe we’ll go camping…which is where my family is right now…at Cleburne State Park. I’m jealous…but then again…I’m in Spain!! 😉

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Photos

Bus
This is all of us on the bus right before we left for Toledo.

Puerta de Sol
This is the main entrance into the city. (I actually have a keychain of it)

Desayuno
This is the place we had breakfast. This is the Brazilian girl and my cafe con leche!

Breakfast
I really liked my coffee!! ha. Actually, that was on purpse.

Cathedral
This is the entrance into the Cathedral. It's really big, but unfortunetly, I couldn't take pictures inside.

Cathedral
Here's the other side of the Cathedral

Synagog
This is in the tunnel they had at the Synagog

Lunch
This is where we had lunch. More wine. Good food.

The "mote"
This is the river that surrounds the city.

Me and Jasmine
That's some of the city behind us.

The 4 of us
We're in the most famous plaza in Toledo, but I forgot the actual name

At the "music festival"
Here's a pic of the Brazilians we were sitting with during the so-called Music Festival