Toledo

This past weekend I didn’t do too much, which was nice for a change. On Friday I had a class trip to Toledo, which was crazy. Toledo is very famous in Spain as the typical, quaint Spanish town. A long, long time ago it used to be the capital of Spain and now it serves as a popular tourist place. Every Spanish person I have talked to is very proud of Toledo and rank it as a must see. Unfortunately when we went it was the craziest weather imaginable. I don’t really understand why my professor didn’t postpone it for another day, and we were all banking on that when we went out the night before. I went to bed at two (very, very early by Spain standards) but still needed two cups of green tea to get up in the morning. When I woke up at 8 it was pouring rain, and it was still pouring rain as I walked to the bus without una paragua.

The two hour bus ride to Toledo did not improve my mood much as Carlos, nos profesor, handed us our worksheets for the day. When we got to Toledo it was snowing. Like really snowing. The snowflakes were the biggest I had ever seen and they were falling fast. We went up to the panoramic view and I could see about two lights down below amongst all the white in the background. After we took some pictures of us in the blizzard we went down in the town to visit the monastery and cathedral. When we got into the monastery it began to rain. We stayed and took pictures and learned a brief history of the beautiful building. It was the original place where Isabel and Ferdinand were supposed to be buried before they pushed the Muslims out of Grenada, the site of their actual tombs. After the monastery we visited the synagogue, which was quite ironic. All in the synagogue were painting and sketches of Jesus and Mary and crosses. You’ve got to love the oppression of other religions in Spain. We stayed there a bit too long and when we left it was hailing. Carlos gave us a twenty minute break to grab some coffee, but I walked around Toledo a bit and it began to clear up. I walked to a park right on the edge of a cliff and looked over at a breathtaking view. Everything was so green below and there was a wide, muddy river running at the bottom of the gorge. The hill opposite had houses built nearly on top of each other and a church sitting at the top. There was a giant stone bridge a little ways downriver with turrets at either end. It was quite a site looking below at all the green and seen the beautifully designed bridge jutting out, allowing access to the quaint and quiet pueblo of Toledo. When we met to go back (the visit was cut short because of the weather) it was sunny and beautiful. We lingered a little longer at the old stone bridge before we crossed the gorge back to our warm bus. As soon as we got in it started snowing again.