Many Tour Guides

Friday night I met up with some friends from the group to browse more shops and get dinner inside the casco. I bought a brown cardigan from a popular store here called Zara. It’s very warm and I actually wore it twice this weekend and when I was just sitting around the house.

More or less everyone from the group had been at the school on Friday to use the Internet, therefore we all met at McDonald’s for dinner. McDonald’s is seriously so much better here than it is in the states!! After dinner and a bit more shopping, we went this café called Naca Naca (which we have gone back three or four times now). It’s in Zocodover so it’s pretty central and has the best, thickest hot chocolate I’ve ever had.

Saturday morning I woke up bright and early to meet at the bottom of the escalators at 9 a.m. for our excursion to Madrid. Though it was freezing outside and I was tired from a long week, I was really excited to head back to Madrid.

Once in Madrid we took a quick pit-stop at a café for tea and a snack, then the group headed to the Prado art museum. Our tour guide lead us around the museum and focused on five or six paintings. I don’t normally like older art, as it sometimes all looks the same to me, but these paintings were absolutely amazing! Especially because most of them weren’t even painted with paints but with other materials like egg whites. I hope one weekend we can take an extended trip to Madrid and I can spend more time in the Prado.

We were given about an hour and a half for lunch. I ate at a restaurant called Zahara with Liz, Adrienne, Jaclyn, Jasmine, Kerry and Kate. I had an amazing hamburger and a coke! My family only drinks water in the house (which is a good thing) so it was nice to have a coke.

After lunch we met with another tour guide in Plaza Mayor. The plaza was full of street performers and musicians so that kept us occupied while we waited for our tour to begin. Our guide gave us some history lessons at the Plaza Mayor and many more as we moved on to more plazas and statues and we eventually made it to the Palacio Real (Royal Palace). The cathedral situated in front of the Palace was amazing. It was completed about 15 years ago after being built for 100 years. It was pretty contemporary and had amazing art work on the ceilings. The Palace was huge and amazing as well, with 2,800 rooms I think our guide said.

The cathedral next to the Palace.

After our guided tour we took another coffee break before the bus picked us up at 6 p.m. Almost everyone fell asleep on the hour drive back to Toledo. However, we weren’t down for the count! Once home, I got ready, checked my e-mails and got ready for tapas. I met Liz, Halle and Jess for tapas at this bar called Picasso. Though the calamari was not breaded like I’m used to and the bruschetta had toppings like goat cheese, sardines and salmon, it was delicious! After dinner we headed back into the casco to meet up with the rest of our friends. It was an “early” night when I came home at 3 a.m. but I was pretty exhausted from our day in Madrid.

Sunday was dedicated to homework, sleep and lunch with Halle at an American restaurant called Rock & Ribs. I talked to my family on the phone and met up with friends at Naca Naca after dinner. This morning I had my first Cultura y Civilizacion class. The first hour was devoted to asking everyone in class what they were doing in a certain year (any year between 2002 and 2008) and what they looked like in that year. We then discussed a brief time line of Spanish history and were given a simple but fun homework assignment. After class I hung out at the café for a few minutes before returning home and passing out. I was so tired! Marisa made a really delicious stew for lunch and then I had to leave again and meet up with the group for a ruta (tour) of Toledo.

Our ruta was about two hours long. Our tour guide showed us various parts of the city and gave us the history or legends of each place. We visited ancient churches, walked down to the river and I took a lot of amazing pictures. Though it was cold as always I got to see some amazing things today.

Now I’m in another café at the school about to finish up some homework. I plan to head back home around 9 p.m. for dinner. Overall it was a great weekend and I look forward to what my second full week in Toledo will have in store. Until next time, adios!!