I am going to make this blog post more brief since I have been thinking, writing, reading, and speaking English far too much over the past two weeks of vacation. I have practically lost my Spanish soul entirely! I admire those who have adopted a language other than their native one to live by. This is a task of great exertion, strength of will and mind and heart and soul!
From Sevilla, I left Tuesday afternoon and was supposed to arrive in Madrid at a fairly reasonable hour of 12:00. Zipping along the Andalucian highway I was thinking about how good the traffic situation in Spain is and that, basically, its a perfect country. Then suddenly the highway stopped completely for an hour and a half: there was an accident. I got into the bus station at about 1:30 and to the hostal where Mrs. Clark and Lauren were staying with an extra bed at 2:00 am!
We got up bright an early at 7:00 to go to the tour bus place to get tickets to go to the Medieval town of Toledo, about an hour south of Madrid in Castillo- La Mancha that was a bit pricy but well worth it! Toledo was a beautiful town and most of all the incredible cathedral, that was built over hundreds and hundreds of years. You know, it takes a heck of a long time to upload photos to my blog, so if anyone is interested in seeing them, tell me and I will send you my yahoo photo albums. Or, just wait a month, I´ll be back, and I´ll really want to show them to you then to!
There was a lot of El Greco paintings in the Cathedral and the sacristy and we saw his famous painting in another Church nearby. I got some gifts and postcards around town too. Then the lunch was included in the tour so we went up to this isolated restuarant where the food was not bad, the marzapan cost 1 euro each little piece, and we were serenaded by.... MARIACHIS!?! If only it hadn´t been raining, I would have thought I was in So Cal in that restaurant! But after lunch, we went up to see a panoramic view of the city, which was just phenomenal. Its surrounded by a large river, like a huge moat. And the city itself if up on the cliff, where the river is below.
We came down to go to a steel factory, which Toledo is known for and we saw demonstrations of some workers carefully imbuing some steel with gold lining and welding the hot metal. That was cool! There were a lot of swords and armor all over the whole city but especially here in this factory. I didn´t buy my brothers any armaments, but Lauren and I took some funny pictures for them. Next door, there was a store called "Wine, Steel, and Cheese" or something to this effect and I wanted to go in there to look for a gift for my Mom, but it was closed.
We came back to Madrid, met up with some of the Clarks friends from Germany and went to dinner. Then I took off to an internet cafe to write to you, my dear readers. I slept in a hostal room by myself that night in Madrid and it was quite cozy. The next morning, I woke up and wondered down past the Puerta del Sol in Madrid, past the Plaza Mayor, to the Plaza San Miguel, where the Basilica of San Miguel is, where there are priests of the Work. I took some pictures of the pasos then: they were really beatiful in that Church especially.
I caught the bus to Valladolid at noon and that is another adventure I will tell you about in my next blog!
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