We sleep in as late as the day will let us. There fore we slept until about 10:30-11. We shower, get ready and are out the door. Kristin lets Allison and LeeAnn leave their bags at her house while we venture to Toledo. That way when we get back they can head off to their hostel. We hop on the metro to the "Atocha Renfe" suburban train station. The train to Toledo is about 35 minuets. At once we get some food. The girls haven't eatin since our food at the campsite yesterday in San Sebastian.
We catch the 1:50 train. On the train I enjoy some really great conversation with them. We talk about our trups and how much we will gain and grow from everything we're experiencing. We discuss life and relationships. They tell me about being nurses back home and how they've traveled a lot over the United States. They also continue to tell me how much they've enjoyed getting to meet and know me. they fell like they've known me forever and tell me how comfortable I make them feel. It's really reassuring and flattering. I reciprocate by telling them how they remind me of my friends back home. I remember my cousin, Amanda, explaining to me how I was going to meet people that recognize personality traits in me and instantly be drawn to it because they are the same way and/or have similar friends where they come from.
Our conversations make the train ride go by in the blink of an eye. We de-board the train onto the platform of this train station that looks like its been here for hundreds of years. It has a huge clock tower at the end and a nice little cafe. The girls use the facilities while I sit and attempt to map out our course through Toledo. the girls return and we agree to just wing it. Although we use the map to pick which direction to begin.
We start trekking out way up the road. We immediately see a castle to our left. we make an attempt to enter it by walking up a steep hill, only to be shut down by closed gates. We walk a bit further up the hill to approach the gates of the military/police base for the city. Given that were American, we really have no curiosity about any sort of authority figures. Like when the policia approached me in Pamplona, while waiting for the bulls to run, about my sangria bladder. I handed it over to him, no questions asked because I am not trying to go to jail in a foreign country. (oh yeah I forgot to add that in my "Running With The Bulls" post. Sorry folks.)
Making our way back down the hill, we get to an awesome bridge over the river. Each end has massive towers with high corridors as if we were entering a castle. Along the railings of the bridge there are areas that have cast iron rectangular notches in the stone. They sort of looked like giant staples. I'm not sure what they were for but on the ones that were loose people had put gold and silver locks, on top of locks, on top of locks. Making a sort of lock chain. Some of the locks had names and dates written or carved on them. I thought it was really interesting so I took pictures of all the lock clusters I found on the bride and there were quite a few.
After crossing the bridge we're intrigued by the massive castle like wall in front of us. The entire city seems to be very castle like. The ground were walking on is weathered smooth stones. We stop to think about just how long these walls and roads had been here and just how many people, horses and carriages have made their paths through these streets.
Theres a place at the top of the walk way that allows us to walk along the roof of the wall. We explore out on to the wall making out way to the corner. From here we have a great vantage point of the, sort of, valley part of the city. toledo has a sort of desolate feel to it. Very brown, tan and dry. A few snap shots and some more exploring of the wall and we make our way further into the city. We came across a museum and jump at the opportunity to see more history. A bonus is, its free!
Entering the museum, we're greeted with ancient statues, stone coffins and colorful stone wall, floor to ceiling, patterns. Some dating all the way back to 1 AD. Allison and I have a difficult time trying to grasp that concept of time. We find three statues, of what look like kings, each posed in different stances. Allison has the great idea of the three of us standing in front of them and posing as they appear. I put the self timer on, on my camera and set it on top of some ancient stone artifact. Yeah I know, I probably shouldn't have done that but there was no one around to take the picture for us so I had to improvise. The picture was defiantly the highlight of the day.
We make our way into the art portion of the museum. This part of the museum was infatuation an mesmerizing. Jesus is really big here in Spain. So pretty much all the paintings were biblically related and in some way, if not directly, related to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. 'm not the holiest when it comes to religion but these paintings were beyond beautiful. The detail, the color, the depiction. It was visual overload! I could see how one may even get the slightest bit emotional due to some of the graphic nature of the paintings.
Allison brought up a good point to me, that I was actually already thinking in my head at the time, about how outside this museum we have our own stipulated beliefs and opinions. But walking through this art gallery and seeing all of these biblical pieces, wether they be art or sculpture, just really makes you wonder about the legitimacy of it all. Not to say that the bible, or the crucifixion of Jesus Christ isn't legit. That would be disrespectful and arrogant to make such a statement. But for those who may lead their own beliefs out side of the bible, it puts much "awe" in ones imagination of how much truth may lye behind the history of our being.
After about 45 minuets of being biblically "mind fucked", we exit the museum in a sort of somber piece of mind, or at least I did. I can only assume that LeeAnn and Allison did as well. We continue our unknown path through the city making our way into the central market area. We stop in at a patio side restaurant for a beer and some tapas. Damn I love tapas! Damn I love Spain!
The decision is made that we are going to tapas hop while we make our way through the city. There are a bunch of really cool shops with Spanish swords and daggers. I really wanted to splurge and buy one, but then I thought how in the hell I was going to get a sword on to a plane these days, not to mention how I would explain myself to customs. SoI wave goodbye to the Spanish sword that was mine for the time the idea was in my head.
Instead we get some delicious Ben & Jerry's ice cream. At home I normally don't eat sweets. But here in Europe, all reservations are out the window and I'm over indulging my pallet with food! Continuing our walk through the streets we find the cathedral. You have to pay to get in to this cathedral so we go in the free side which allows us about a 40x40 area to walk around in and only see whats allowed by the restricted fences. This thing is huge. the organ pipes, the ceilings. It was colossal and the thought that there ware even bigger cathedrals in Europe, than this one, is mind boggling. There is no picture taking allowed inside the cathedral so I set my camera to video and push record, let it rest around my neck and nonchalantly point the lens where I want it to capture. I hear the words, "NO PHOTO PLEASE" yelled in a broken Spanish accent. In a mild panic I turn around to find one of the security yelling at a woman who clearly cannot read a picture of a camera with a circle around it and a cross through it that is plainly displayed at the door as you enter the cathedral! Some people ;)
Given our limited viewing space, our time in the cathedral is short. We're off to find another bar for some tapas. We find a really cool brewery with great patatas ali-oli, some seafood stuff and some corn salsa. We sit on the patio and people watch for about 20 or so minuets. Our plan of winging it is going pretty well. We leave our spot to continue on with our adventure. We walk in to a courtyard area where it looks to be in front of the church. It also looks like they are setting up for some kind of concert. This proves evident when they do a sound test with some music booming through the courtyard. I set my camera to record and hand it to Allison so she can capture me bustin a move in the courtyard. I couldn't resist!!
After busting a Michael Jackson we continue on passing more shops and patio bars. We find another church that has a Spanish wedding being let out. We stop to watch and photograph this unique sight. There are about eight soldiers, lined up four on each side, standing outside the front doors with their swords all crossing each others. The bride and groom walk out and they look to be the poster children of such an occasion. The groom is in this awesome military uniform, different from all the others. While the others were grey, his was a dark blue, possibly black, decked out with pen-dons signifying his rank and is hat was big, like a captains, lined with gold lace. The bride couldn't have been more text book beautiful. Her brown Spanish hair in a bun and her strapless white dress that fit every detail of her body. They were both celebrated with the throwing of rice in their faces.
I felt pretty creeperish just standing there taking photos of their wedding from a distance. Even though I wasn't the only tourist doing this. There was a HUGE group of Asians next to me taking photos as if it were the royal wedding or some shit. I tuck away my massive telephoto lens and remove myself from the bush I was hiding in.......JUST KIDDING! Who ever they were though, they were rich and well known to the area. Anyway, we leave the wedding so that we don't add any more spoilage to their special moment. We walk down aways and realize we need to start getting back to the train station. Then we realize we don't really know where we are. We resource our map trying to navigate our location and end up having to ask a Spanish guy next to us to point out our location on the map. We have walked quite a distance. We start to make our way back while getting ourselves lost in the streets of Toledo and of course what decides to makes its appearance right then and there? A stomach ache. God I love my digestive system.
At this pint I'm focusing on breathing and doing what ever I can to calm my stomach down, like unbutton the top button of my pants, while the girls take the lead on navigating. Finally, after numerous lefts and rights through, what seemed like every narrow street in Toledo, we get on the correct path back to the train station. At this point I'm pushing prairie dog status. A term I learned from the Aussies is "Brad Pitt". For example, "I need to take a Brad Pitt!" By definition it is the act of deification. How Brad Pitt and dropping a deuce have any relations to one another, I don't know! But its the best description I have to use without grossing the reader our, so I'll take it. I'm also running faster than Brad Pitt aged.....or didn't age, in the curious case of Benjamin Button.
We get to the train station and hop in line to get on the train. Boarding the train, I tell the girls I'll see them at the seats. I've got a Barbra Walters type interview to knock out in the banjos! '
The interview was great success. I make my way back to the seats. The girls ask me how Brad Pitt was and I said he adopted another child. We slept on the train ride home, which only seemed like a second. We take the metro back to Kristin's house. Allison and LeeAnn grab their bags and head into the city to find their hostel and get settled in. I get ready at the house, do some work on the computer and head into down town to meet the girls at their hostel.
Their staying at the Hostel Ivor, near Sol. I'm a little late but they see me from their balcony and come down stairs. We pretty much walk the streets, drinking 40's until were buzzed so we don't have to spend that much money in any bars. Basically we get drunk in the streets and call it a night. The only thing exciting was trying to communicate with two club promoters and listen to them talk about their bar their promoting!
No comments:
Post a Comment