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5/23/2003 – 6/1/2003 Jason Victor Day 7 - 5/29/2003 - Holy Toledo! We headed out this morning for a day trip to Toledo, the capital of Spain … until the early 1500’s anyway. We ate breakfast at the train station because we were running early. Then we decided to kill some time in a café and drink some coffee. Five minutes before our train was scheduled to arrive, I asked Hilary, “What time is it?” And we both jumped up and ran to our platform. We made it with 3 minutes to spare because the train was late! Phew! We were lucky to get seats for this one hour train ride because there were no stops! Some people stood the whole way! The seats were comfortable, but the train was really bumpy, and we were moving backwards, so we both got a little queasy.
Then, we visited an old Synagogue. We were confused when we saw an altarpiece with pictures of Jesus on it. As it turns out, it was converted to a Catholic church in the 1500’s. There was a Muslim influence I the Synagogue, as well (shells and 8 point stars). They didn’t let us take pictures in the temple, though. After that, we stopped at a church to see a painting by Greco. It was pretty good! Very life-like. The rest of the church seemed pale in comparison to the cathedrals we’ve already seen on this trip, though.
After lunch, we headed to the cathedral in Toledo. It was a big Gothic structure. We sat for a few minutes to take it all in (and to take some pictures which didn't come out very good). There were intricately carved statues and there was even some rare, purple marble, too! After the cathedral, we started walking back to the train station. Walking turned into running as we were getting later and later. We finally found the footbridge leading back to the train station. The problem wasn’t distance. We could SEE the train station, but we didn’t account for changes in elevation! We had to walk down switch-back roads to get to our destination. It was so hot today and we felt like we were going to pass out! I said that we could pass out on the train once we got there! =) We made it with only a five minute window. We saw a few others JUST miss the train. The next train is in 2 hours, so we felt for them. It could have been us if we made one more wrong turn, or decided to walk instead of run to the station. On the train, I’m waiting and listening to an argument between a young Spanish man and an English (or French) young woman about sexism in the world. They really were into a heated debate! The guy made me want to scream because he had arguments like, “If women are so good in the workplace, then how come mostly men are in the workplace?” After we got back to Madrid, we took it easy. We went window shopping in that pedestrian mall by our hotel we saw earlier by our hotel. We didn’t buy anything because it all looked like stores we have at home. They had an H & M, a shoe place, and a place to buy shirts. After walking around for a bit, we were approached by a woman who was collecting money for the handicapped. We weren’t too sure if it was legitimate, though. There were a lot of beggars on that walkway. It’s sad, really. =( After the mall, we went to the nice place we went to yesterday for tappas, (Zahare Café) and had seafood paella for 2. It was pretty good! They had whole prawns in it (heads and all)! We also ordered a pitcher of San Gria to split and we finished it! I must have had six glasses and Hilary had four! We were both pretty dizzy after that! Then, we went upstairs to the internet café to write home! =) Dave and Saj were online again, so we were chatting with them for a bit. After that we headed across the street to our hotel and went to bed. We had an early travel day ahead of us the next day.
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