Well hello there.  Sorry for not blogging in a while.  I assure you that my life has been as equally/more boring than your life and who wants to read about that?  However, now that the Spanish government has finally graced me with a paycheck I can afford to travel again!  Woo!! As our main objective is still to never spend a weekend in Arevalo, we found ourselves pulling out the old map of Spain to find a good place to visit on Saturday.  It seemed that Toledo would be close enough for a day trip and, after investigating the public transportation situation, it seemed pretty feasible.  So, Saturday morning we caught the 9am bus to Madrid, took the metro to another bus station, hopped on another bus and, voila, we were in Toledo 3 hours later.  My life=The Public Transportation Situation.

A little background about Toledo:  This city is old (shocker).  But seriously, it has been populated since The Bronze Age.  I don’t even know when that was but I’m going to assume it was a pretty long while ago.  There are ruins of an old Roman circus ring, a really old wall surrounding the city and lots of other cool old things.  It used to be the capital of Spain and it is famous because Christians, Jews and Muslims all lived there together in peace.  Toledo is a real life example of those co-exist bumper stickers (but way cooler).  So there is a cathedral, mosque and synagogue.  My favorite part about Toledo being so old is that the streets were formed before people realized city grids were a useful thing when building a city.  My Frommer´s guide book compares the streets of Toledo to the warren of a rabbit.  It is frustrating if you are trying to find something but pretty great if you are just trying to get lost and explore the little, less touristy streets of the city.

When I was in the 10th grade I took AP Art History with Gloria Jackson (the best class of my life) and one of my favorite paintings in the textbook was “Vista de Toledo” painted by El Greco circa 1600.  The painting is now located at The Met in New York (go figure) but I was so excited to actually be able to see my own vista de Toledo.  Surprisingly, the view has not really changed a whole lot since El Greco’s time.

"Vista de Toledo" by El Greco in 1600

Modern day Toledo..pretty similar, right??

Another shot of modern day Toledo

Other than the McDonald’s occupying a large portion of real estate in the main plaza, Toledo has remained relatively timeless.

Don’t you judge me.  Do you know how hard it is for a girl to get a fountain Coca-Cola in this country!?!?!

The main plaza (Plaza Zocodover)

When we first got to the city, we spent the first hour or two trying to find the tourism office and La Casa de El Greco.  Once we found the tourism office and got a map, we still couldn’t find El Greco’s house so we just gave up and enjoyed the things we discovered while looking for it.  There was a random car show in a plaza, lots of little shops with beautiful hand made gold jewelry, a lovely French Gothic cathedral and a cafe with sweeping views of the countryside.  Every city that we go to I beg Annie to let me ride the trolley.  I have a weird obsession with trolleys.  Our feet were super tired from walking on cobblestones all day so she finally relented and we took a trolley ride around the city.  I’m not sure which was best: the amazing views that we wouldn’t have seen otherwise or the overenthusiastic group of Asian tourists sitting beside us.  Both were pretty great.  Annie became a trolley believer after that awesome tour!

Another plaza with a random car show

The French Gothic cathedral. So pretty!

Pretty place for a picture.

In front of the best trolley ever! Two thumbs up!

Walking through the narrow side streets.

After the tour we got a coffee at the cafe overlooking the countryside and just generally pondered the greatness of our lives.  We were so busy pondering that we accidentally missed Spanish eating time.  There is a period of time between 2-4:30 for eating a huge lunch and if you miss that time then you are just out of luck.  We tried to find food around 6pm (silly Americanas) and the waiters at every restaurant looked at us like crazy people for trying to eat.  Apparently you are only allowed to drink things at that time.  Crestfallen but secretly excited, we made our way back to the plaza and got ourselves some good old McDonalds.  Never have I been so happy to see those golden arches.  McDonalds knows something that those restaurants do not...and that is the fact that people are hungry all the time--not just from the hours of 2-4 and 9-11.  Pretty sure that the beef in McDonalds hamburgers in Spain comes from grass fed cows (what a concept!) and they are actually pretty delicious.  After our shamefully American dinner, we decided to get some traditional Toledan desserts.  Mazapan shops are all over the city with pastries that literally look too good to eat.  Somehow we managed to eat them, though.

We finally found a museum with some El Greco paintings that was free to enter.  Holler!  The main attraction is La Asuncion which is considered one of his greatest masterpieces.  The rest of the museum was a hodgepodge collection of paintings and statues taken from monasteries around the country and was honestly pretty creepy.  My personal fave is still “Vista de Toledo” but seeing his other works was neat nonetheless.

 Some apostles

El Greco's masterpiece.

Not too sure about this one, El Greco

With our bellies full and our legs aching from a great day of walking around, we headed back toward the bus station to start our 3 hour journey home.  We got back Arevalo a little after midnight and slept late on Sunday but it was worth it.  Toledo is an enchanting little city and I definitely recommend it to anyone who cares.

I have one more down weekend until I will be traveling my fanny off.  The last weekend in November I am going to Amsterdam.  The next weekend I will be going to Florence, Italy.  The weekend after that I am going to Geneva, Switzerland.  Then, Rob is coming to see me for 2 weeks.  Our first weekend we are going to northern Spain (Oviedo, Cangas de Onis and Arenas de Cabrales) and then for Christmas we are spending 5 days in Cordoba with day trips to Ronda, Sevilla and Granada.  After he leaves I am flying to Lisbon, Portugal to meet up with my girlfriends from America and then we are flying to Barcelona for New Year’s Eve. (AGHHH!!!)  I am sooo excited and you better be prepared for some epic blogging once I get back.

Eat some delicious Thanksgiving food for me.  But don’t tell me about it because I’ll get way too depressed.

Adios, y’all!

Cantabria, My True Love

This weekend I fell in love with the northern coast of Spain.  Nobody really ever mentions the northern coast, but it is the loveliest place I've ever been.  Imagine Appalachia in springtime on the coast of a beautiful sea.  But you won't have to imagine because I am about to show you all the pictures you ever wanted to see!  (Maybe more!)

There is a P.E. teacher at our school who is so friendly and has invited us on trips with her.  She said, "Hey I'm going to Santander this weekend...you guys want to ride with me?"  And we said, "YES!"  And ain't that the way it should be?!  So we hitched a ride with her and she dropped us off in the tiny village of Santillana del Mar.  The Spanish call this the town of the "tres mentiras" (three lies) because there is no saint there, it is not "llana" (flat) and it is not near the "mar" (sea).  Despite these lies, it is such a lovely town.  Farm animals grazing on the verdant countryside and quaint shops lining the 15th century cobblestone streets.  The people of this town like their cheese stinky and their cider STRONG!  Cabrales cheese is particular to this area of Spain and let me tell you, that is some stanky cheese.  It puts blue cheese to shame.  Annie and I saw everyone drinking the local cider called "sidra" made in this area and wondered why the waiters poured so little in the glass.  However, after we tried the sidra ourselves we had no more questions.  WHEW!  That stuff will put hair on your chest!  It is made from fermented apples and they can't get enough of it in Santillana del Mar.  Here are some pictures from our stay there.  I was actually depressed the whole time because it was so beautiful and I knew I could never ever capture the beauty on my camera to share with you all.  But I tried:

Didn't actually go inside the Torture Museum but it makes for a good picture!

Random beautiful courtyard.

A pretty church with the bones of a saint inside.  Who'da thunk it?

Typical charming buildings in Santillana.

Omg I'm going to puke it's SO CUTE!

I hate horses in America but I love this Spanish horse.

Cantabrian countryside.

Hate olives in America but these Spanish olives are so yummy! Can't beat the wine here either!

From Santillana del Mar we went to Santander which actually is on the sea.  It is a popular place for Spaniards to spend their summers and a lot of Brits come over on an overnight ferry to get their tan on.  Santander has a free bike rental system which is the best.  You put a deposit on your credit card to rent one but if you return it at the end of the day, it is free!!  So Annie and I cycled around the sidewalks of Santander and explored all of the lovely beaches.  It was a sunny day with hardly a cloud in the sky.  I seriously wish I could have hired a person to ride behind me blasting "Walking on Sunshine" on a boombox throughout my day.  It was perfect.  We hit the beaches and then stopped for a chorizo bocadillo.  After lunch we returned our bikes, got some ice cream and then went for a boat tour around the harbor.  Here are some pictures from our comically great day in Santander:

My free bicycle!

Love these little statue boys!  Also, they don't believe in guard rails in Santander.

There is another one of those statues on top of this huge sea rock.

Eating ice cream by the sea.  This is pure joy on my face.

Way too pretty to actually exist.

Just chilling on this beautiful sea rock.  No biggie.

Banannie!

MYSPACE PIC!

I was too cold on the boat tour to take pictures so I will just leave that to your imagination.  The next day we went to Comillas which is a little village on the sea.  The way the mountains jut into the sea is spectacular.  Google image this town because my camera died before I could take pictures of the coastline.  Antoni Gaudi (a super famous Spanish modernista architect) built a super whimsical house in this town.  It is called "El Capricho" and we took a tour.  After our tour of his house we went to an old cemetery that overlooks the sea.  The view is breathtaking and I want to know what a girl's gotta do to get buried in an awesome place like that.  After touring the cemetery (kind of weird, right?) we went to a cafe that overlooks the beach and got "rabas".  Rabas, delicious fried calamari, is a common dish in this area of the country.  Here are some pictures from Comillas that I was able to get before my camera died:

The sun was directly in the background, but this is "El Capricho" built by Gaudi in the late 1800s.

Hanging out with good old Gaudi.

This is the cemetery with the beaaauuutiful views in the background.

So, that concludes my weekend in Cantabria.  I miss Appalachia this time of year the most but Cantabria filled that void a tiny bit.  You all need to go to these places immediately.  It is a thing you need to put on your bucket list.  Maybe you can skip the eating of the stinky cheese.  But the rest is a must!  Not sure where my next trip will take me but I'll be sure to fill you in on all the lovely details.

Adios, y'all!

Day Trip to Segovia

Hello again so soon!

I have finally started doing some traveling so I have pictures to show you!  Today we took a day trip to Segovia.  When I found out I would be working in Castilla y Leon and not the south of Spain I was kind of bummed--but now I wouldn't change it for the world.  Castilla y Leon is where Spain began and if you envision Spain in your head then you are envisioning my region.  Basically every town is a world heritage site and there are so many beautiful little ancient towns with centuries of history behind them!  Today we made a day trip to one of those little towns called Segovia.

Situated about an hour north of Madrid, Segovia was once a military and religious powerhouse in Spain.  The city's power waned in 1520 after the Castilian revolt against the crown failed. (Geeze, that's old!)  The main tourist attractions now are the ancient Roman aqueduct, the cathedral and the old fortress.  From Arevalo, Segovia is about an hour and a half by bus.  Unfortunately, the only bus that goes there leaves at 7:15am on Saturdays.  What a pity!  But, being the determined tourists that we are, we woke up bright and early to be on that bus!  When we boarded the bus we were the only people on it so my first thought was, "Yay I can fall back asleep!"  Little did I know the driver had quite the penchant for blasting American Top 40 hits before the sun rose.  Dios mio!

We arrived in Segovia around 9am and promptly searched for the nearest place serving coffee!  Afterward, we wandered around the town and stumbled upon the extremely impressive Roman aqueducts!

Built 2,100 years ago, the aqueduct remained Segovia's main water source until the 19th century!

I'm bringing the sorority girl pose to Spain! It is about time they knew!

The sidekicks!

This is Ben our British friend we discovered is also teaching in our town!

Next on the Frommer's list of things to do in Segovia was to see the Catedral.  It is pretty hard to miss and quite impressive.  Now, this is the first European cathedral I have ever been to and I was pretty overwhelmed.  When I first walked in I experienced a range of emotions.  Initially I almost started crying because it was so beautiful and then I was promptly TERRIFIED!  The gigantic organ was playing the most intense dirge I've ever heard and combined with the huge scale of graphic crucifixion scenes, it was pretty scary.  I suddenly understood the power that Catholicism had over Europe back in the day...I would have been too scared to not be Catholic if I were them!  Here are some pictures from the beautifully scary cathedral!

How beautiful!

Ahhhhhhhh!

That is one trippy triptych!

There were several other churches that I took pictures of just because they are so stinkin' ancient and I felt like they deserved a spot on my blog for the sheer fact that they still exist.

This Iglesia de San Millan dates back to the 11th-13th century!

This Iglesia de San Andres dates back to the 12th century!

Finally, the last tourist spot we hit was the Alcazar.  This was the old military fortress of Segovia.  The original 13th century fortress burned down in 1862 (I'd say it had a pretty good run).  The burning of the old fortress gave the crown a good excuse to rebuild a more idealized structure of what people envision a medieval fortress to look like.  I have to admit, they convinced me!

Certainly looks like a medieval fortress to me!

Just take a look at that beautiful Spanish countryside!

This is a mural of what invading armies must have seen upon approaching Segovia.  Pretty cool!

All those pictures were taken within a 4 hour time period and we were back on a bus to Arevalo by 1pm!  A successful day trip, I'd say.  The south of Spain can keep its touristy beaches.  I'll keep my castles where the Knights of the Templar held initiation rites...no big deal. (JK that is SO cool!)  We were back in time to eat a big old Spanish lunch.  I got gazpacho and Spanish tortilla.  Yummo!

I'll keep postin' if you keep readin'!  Adios!