Toledo

Buenas!

Hello everyone, sorry it's taken me a while to write a new note, but I just got back yesterday from our retreat in Toledo, which is less than an hour away from the city of Madrid, but feels like a whole different epoch in time. We stayed at a kind of satellite campus of the Fundacion which was a lot of fun. All of the guys (all 5 of us) stayed in one dorm suite. I think we'll always be rooming all together no matter where we end up. The view from my "dorm" room was incredible, the picture is right below:

So yeah, gorgeous. All the buildings were plastered walls of stone and brick with tile roofs. The streets were extremely narrow and the street signs are tiles placed in the walls of the buildings on the corners. As a result, it can be kind of hard to find your way around sometimes! Oh, and the cars drive through these streets like it's nothing, so everyone who's walking either hops on the 2ft wide sidewalk on main streets, or stands in doorways in the small streets! One funny thing happened when I was walking: a car got to a really narrow point and pulled it's side mirrors in, then proceeded to scrape the entire side of both cars along the walls of buildings as he continued down the street! As can be expected, most of the cars here are covered in dings and scratches, even the beemers.

The first day, we met as a big group and had a small orientation meeting. During siesta my friends and I went to a free museum exhibition about life during the early 1800's in Madrid. fascinating, though we didn't understand much! Then we went on an excursion (walking of course) to the Cathedral. It was absolutely stunning. Toledo has one of the biggest cathedrals in Spain. It took 300 years to fund and build! Incredible. Being absolutely massive there was no heat, but no one minded shivering as we admired the gothic architecture, El Greco paintings, and a processional object in the church treasury that had 6,000 individual pieces of gold and silver, 12,000 nails to hold it together, and weighed over 850 pounds. Yeah, really. After the cathedral, I wandered around a while before dinner (which wasn't served until 8:30). After that, I was so pooped I just slept.

On Friday, we had more orientation meetings and such. I'm getting to know everyone in our group and I think we'll all have a good time. However, there are 35 girls and 5 guys, so it's hard to remember every girl's name. I yelled at my friend Emily to get her attention when we were walking, but her name was actually Megan. Oops. In the afternoon we visited a synagogue and a church with El Greco's masterpiece, The Burial of Count Orgaz. It's so cool to actually see and smell and feel the places where artists painted and worked, not just looking at it in a picture book. After the field trip, we had lots of time, so several friends and I went walking and shopping. We found the pasteleria from my guidebook that has the best marzipan in Toledo. If you've never had marzipan, it's a very rich candy made from sugar, almond paste, and in the case of the house specialty, candied egg yolk centers. I tried one, and ended up buying a whole box. Sooooooo good. Many of us also bought an item of damasque jewely, a Toledo specialty. Later in the evening, we went out to a club or discoteca to see a live band... which never showed up. Oh well. Many people, myself not included, decided to enjoy a glass (or bottle) of Toledo's finest... aka whatever was the cheapest wine at the bar!

Yesterday, there was doubt we'd return to Madrid because there was a 'massive' snow storm here. It ended up being nothing much, but it's like Dallas, where no one knows how to drive in the snow. But we made it home, tired and worn out! I want to go back to Toledo and see the sights that I missed, including the Alcazar and the house of El Greco....