Which can be a good thing, or a bad thing. In the last few
days, it seems we have had a little bit of both. As mentioned in my last post,
some people never left the bar at all on the first day. I must say, I was
surprised to see them up and ready to go to El Prado yesterday, but they were
there on time just like the rest of us. As soon as free time came about again,
however, they went right back to drinking. In fact, the majority of them went
clubbing and didn’t even come back to the hotel until 530 am (and we had to
leave Madrid at 9).
But first, El Prado. Talk about an amazing experience, even
though it was much too short. We got to
see great works by Goya, El Greco, Reuben, and more. But, the building is huge,
so there was literally no way for us to see them all. Plus, our tour guides
were mostly just trying to get us through everything as quick as possible
because we also had a walking tour of Madrid afterwards. So, you only got a few
seconds to see some of the paintings, but they were worth it. My favorite had
to have been El Greco. His works were absolutely amazing! It was even really
fun to see the progression of his work as you moved through the different halls
of his paintings.
After El Prado, we ended up on a walking tour. It was super
pretty, but also an extremely long and hot walk. It was also scary at one point
because a blind man ran into one of the girls and then started yelling at her
for nothing. During the tour, we got to see where Don Miguel de Cervantes lived
(but it was torn down) and also where he was buried (before they moved his
bones and forgot where they put them). For those of you who don’t know who this
man is, he wrote Don Quixote de La Mancha,
the third most translated book in the world after the Bible and Quran. Anywho,
as a literary nerd, it was pretty awesome (not quite seeing the café were JK
Rowling started writing Harry Potter awesome, but a very, very close second).
We also got to watch a robbery, which was pretty fun. A guy ran out of the
store, and all the security guards from that shop and all the other buildings
around them started pouring out to chase after him. Then, a few seconds later,
here they all come with him in tow. Sad that us four girls were so excited by
it, but what can I say…we like cheap entertainment.
And back to the things that never change. The best part of
this whole story has to be the girl that sleepwalks when she’s drunk.
Apparently, she walked up and down our floor banging on doors trying to find
hers, but was unsuccessful. My roommate found her near the elevators and
decided it would just be easier to have her sleep in our room. Mind you, our
beds were two twin beds, but they were side by side touching. So, around 4 am
or so, I end up getting kicked out of bed by someone that I didn’t even now was
there, let alone who they were (although I did figure it was someone from our
group). After a couple of times, she finally moved back to my roommates bed,
and I did get a bit of sleep. When our wakeup call came, she had no idea where
she was. All day, people keep asking me how she ended up in our room, and I
have no idea cause I am smart enough to wear ear plugs. And, not surprisingly,
she had no idea how she ended up out of her room either. One would think that
her roommate would be worried, but apparently not…And this morning, some guy
was so hung over that he slept through his alarm and through his roommate
trying to wake him up, so we ended up leaving almost a half hour later just
because no one could find him and he wasn’t packed to leave Madrid yet.
Today, however, good things never changed. Things like
Toledo, the first capital of Spain and the most beautiful town in the world.
The town was first constructed by the Romans on a hill that has a river running
around it on three sides (and thus is easily protected). Lots of the current
buildings were built in the 1300s and 1400s. Our first stop was the church that
Isabella and Ferdinand built in 1476 to hold their tombs (which actually ended
up somewhere else). It has amazing architecture and even a garden with fruit
trees in the middle. Next, we got to see the cathedral here Toledo.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get to go inside, but the outside is very pretty. Even
just walking around town and looking at all of the shops is fun because they
have so many little trinket stores here. Toledo is also known for their swords,
and I’m pretty sure that Uncle Todd would be in heaven here with all the
different kinds he could look at.
In short, Toledo is definitely my new home…until I go to
Sevilla that is. But, I could definitely live there no problem at all and love
every second of it! As you can see from the picture above, the views of the old part of town are wonderful!
And now, to meet my new host family.
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