TOLAYTHO

SOOOO another week in the books and Sarah, Theresa, and I decided to take a trip to Tolaytho (Toldeo). My art history of Madrid teacher pronounces it really cool. The day started with a metro ride to the train station. We had given ourselves plenty of time just in case.

We got to the train station and went towards the ticket machines. We were all ready to go until none of our credit cards were accepted… whoops. Luckily Sarah was thinking on her toes and we headed towards the actual ticket counter and were able to get three seats next to each other on the train we wanted with no problem.

The nice thing about Toledo is that its super close! It was only about a half hour away from Madrid so it was a nice speedy trip.

Now I really had no plans or idea what we were going to do. I was just ready for adventure and ready to wonder and learn all about Toldeo.

I guess when we got there, Sarah and Theresa were ready to have a more planned out day. However, they forgot the magical book which told us all about what to do in Toldeo. So we had a map that the train station gave us and that was it J

Adventure time. So we stared at a really poor map for a while and tried to figure out where to go. We knew the two things that we definitely wanted to do was see the Cathedral and see El Greco’s painting of the Burial of Lord Orgaz. Other then that we did not know what to expect. So we decided to basically just start walking and hope for the best. We soon realized that the train station was basically on the outskirts and that after walking for a little ways we would be in the heart of Toldeo so we had made the right decision.

We first go to this giant arch and bridge that led us in to Toledo. Toledo is pretty sweet because it is has a river that surrounds it and then there are mountains outside of the river. It makes for some pretty cool views and scenery.

So we made our way across the bridge and then found this little tower. There was a small door that was open so my curiosity was being tapped. Theresa had already headed up so I decided I wanted to see what it was all about too. It was a super tight stairway and then I got to a certain spot and there were guys working there speaking Spanish and it definitely didn’t feel like I was supposed to be there, but I continued up. Finally got to the top of this tower and found Theresa. It was pretty sweet and was definitely higher than I had originally thought. We enjoyed the view for a bit and then headed back down. When we got back down we looked at where to go. The options were up, up, or up…. So we went up.

 

Toledo is very hilly and full of cobble stone streets. So we had a fun time walking/hiking are way around Toledo. After checking the maps a few times we finally made our way to the Cathedral.

The Cathedral was unreal. So massive. So Beautiful. So much art. So much decoration. That Golden altarpiece tho? Incredible. I think we spent 2-3 hours just walking around.

Probably the scariest moment was when we went to a tomb room and I started to lean against a lamp and it started to move and I saw myself going face first into a tomb… Yikes that would have been bad haha. Luckily I was able to stop myself.

They also had this room just for all the gold gifts they had collected over the years. Unreal. It was quite the place. Probably could have stayed longer to just admire all the beauty of the place, but my feet were getting tired and my stomach was starting to get rumble.

We found a nice place for a nice lunch. I think the best part about it was just getting to sit after the crazy hills of Toledo and meandering the Cathedral. I went with a delicious pizza and a water (SO DEHYDRATED). Much need refuel. Funny part of this stop was that the bathrooms were weird and not that well labeled so I almost had Sarah convinced to go into the guys bathroom where there were only urinals, but she figured it out at the last second. Dang it. :p

We continued on our journey in search of EL GRECO. I’m kind of an art noob so I didn’t really know what was happening, but when I saw the painting of the burial of Lord Orgaz I was blown away. El Greco was a genius. Super beautiful painting with a depiction of the earthly world and the heavenly world. The lighting of it was super interesting as well. So much dark violet color in contrast with bright colors. Super unique. So we admired that for a while and then were on our way. We had knocked off the two things on our list and still had a good chunk of the day to spend in Toldeo. The tickets we had bought to return to Madrid weren’t until 8 or 9. So we went in search of a park so that we could relax for a while and play some cards. Well we never really found a grassy field to sprawl out in, but we did find this cool look out point that had a beautiful view of the rushing river and the majestic mountains. We then found this wall/bench to sit on and we proceed to play uno for quite sometime. After a good rest we started up on are journey again, basically just wondering taking in Toledo. Toldeo makes and sells a lot of swords. Toledo is a very interesting historical town because it served as the Islam capital when Islam was in control of Spain, but the Catholics reclaimed it in 1085 so you can find influence from both cultures, but a lot with the Catholic knights as you can find swords and statues everywhereeee. I even picked up a sword at one of those stores… knights must have had superb upper body strength. Would have been tough to swing around with accuracy and power.

 

We stopped at a little coffee shop to get a little treat and basically just wait for our train. I got this delicious frozen lemonade drink while Sarah and Theresa got more chocolate and churros. We played yahtzee on Sarah’s phone which has become a go to in times of not knowing what to do/ being too tired to do anything else. So we relaxed there for a bit and enjoyed our treats.

On the way out of town we found a picture of the burial of lord Orgaz where you could put your own face in the pictures. So of course we couldn’t pass that up haha.

Overall, very tiresome and awesome trip to Toledo with two awesome friends.

Some other highlights of the week was the Mass of the Holy Spirit on Thursday. Really great service and nice start to the school year. President Pastello of SLU was even there so that was pretty cool. Of course he reached out his hand to Sarah to introduce himself to her…. Only Sarah Nash. So awesome.

More basketball was played in the evenings.

More Sangria. More cards.

Thoughts about the MCAT and scheduling classes crept into my mind

Classes going well.

Figuring out a place for service while here in Madrid.

And yeah basically just enjoying life J

Possibly the Weirdest eating experience of my life

Weekend. It was finally here. The four day weeks here are pretty snazzy. Really makes it seem like the week flies by. Friday, John and I slept in big time. We were still having a problem with the jet lag, so we were falling asleep pretty late most nights. I’m pretty sure that first week I struggled to fall asleep before 4am. So Friday was definitely a relief to sleep in past noon, although I don’t know if that really helped the jet lag… Anyway we woke up with the intention to go pay basketball with SLU Madrid. The school has intramural basketball on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays and since we both have class during the times of Tuesday and Thursday, we really wanted to go Friday.

So we strolled over to SLU probably around 1:30 and got there around 2pm. We got there and there were a few guys hanging out so we chatted for a bit and then headed over to the gym.  The gym was a little way away so that meant Erik got to go on his first metro ride woohooo!!!!! After a small struggle of figuring out how to work the ticket machine, I was able to make it in. Everyone who went abroad before always raved about the metro system being fantastic and now I know why. It really is quite great. Very clean. Very organized. Very timely. Big fan of the Metro. Feel like a seasoned pro now haha. Anyway, we went a whopping one stop over and got off to head to the gym.

It was a pretty sweet deal. Had a whole gym to ourselves to play basketball. What more could you want?!? For those that don’t know, my ankle has been giving me issues ever since Easter time. I’ve been in and out of a walking boot, I have gone to physical therapy, had X-rays, had an MRI, and I have seen my podiatrist so may times. I have gone from thinking I was okay, to thinking I have a torn tendon, to who knows what. Before I left though, the doctor said that I had tendonitis in my ankle and that nothing was torn. Basically meaning, your ankle is going to hurt and swell up if you work it to hard. Great… So he gave me a brace and basically said good luck.

But I was in Madrid. I had my brace. I wanted to play basketball. And that I did. Three great hours worth. We started with three on three and then the guy who coordinates intramurals, Cesar, who is the man just so you know, had some friends that we got to play full court 5 on 5. It was a blast. Had so much fun. Was so exhausted and tired though. That was the most physical activity I had done since mid Spring basically. Ridiculous. Felt good to be running around again.

One sweaty metro ride and one amazing shower later, we were back at our place resting happy in our beds.

Soon after the ladies called saying to come meet them for dinner. So  we got ready and headed out towards sol to go meet them.

WOW. Sol was freaking hopping. So many freaking people and things going on. Mickey Mouse was even there. We met up with them and started walking.

My dreams came true and I got to see the “el oso y el Madroño” or the bear and the strawberry tree. It is the symbol of Madrid! SO many bear connections. LETS GO!!

Of course I had to get a picture. 

We weaved are way through the streets of sol. I was super turned around, so thank goodness for friends with phones that know directions.

Now here begins the infamous tail of this restaurant. Sarah and Theresa had spent the day in sol walking around and had spotted a restaurant with very cheap sangria so we attempted to find this restaurant again. And oh boy did we…

 

This place was called Taberna Pompeyana. I don’t think my blog post will do it justice. I think the best way I can describe it was a Greek, satanic, sex dungeon, death filled. torture chamber. There was graphic pictures of people participating in sexual activities. There was torture devices hanging in on the ceiling. The further into the back of the restaurant you looked, the darker and darker it got until you couldn’t see. Felt like a black hole. And sitting next to us was a lovely progression of pictures of a man growing older losing his hair through the years while also losing the function of his male genitalia… yup that happened.

And we stayed throughout the whole dinner haha. I think the whole place freaked everybody out and people were ready to get out of there. I found certain humor to the whole situation. The fact Theresa and Sarah completely missed all the weirdness and eeriness of the place the first time around and were solely focused on the sangria price I find hysterical. And plus when was I ever going to be in such a weird restaurant ever again. I was probably laughing the whole dinner.

Sangria was SUPER good. This was my first actual sangria so that was exciting. It was my first time eating out in Madrid so I was a little hesitant to order anything too exotic in fear of an upset stomach so I played safe and got a barbacoa pizza with jalapenos on it. SUPER YUMMY.

Another funny order was when Theresa was trying to order a salad with tomatos on it… or so she thought. The waiter came back with a plate of 3-4 tomatoes cut into wedges… hahaha no lettuce. Just tomato.

We finally had enough and went to go redeem ourselves by getting some of the coveted churros and chocolate. We found the most authentic spot called Chocolateria. DANGGGGGGGG SOOOOOO GOOODDDDD. I’m not a huge desert guy, but wow that was good. Just hot melted chocolate in a cup. Life doesn’t get much better.

Solid finish to a solid day.

Saturday brought more awesomeness. John and I had signed up for one of the day trips that SLU offers early on in the year. The trip was to a Monasterio de Piedra and also involved some hiking around water falls. It sounded awesome. I was excited. We woke up early and made our way to SLU to go meet the bus. We had a long two and a half hour bus ride which was spent sleeping by some. I spent most of my time staring out the window at the landscape of Spain, still not truly believing I was really here.

We finally arrived at this really cool place. The last part of the drive was pretty sweet. We kind of wound are way up this mountain and looked out at giant lakes and small towns. Really unique looking landscape.

John and I were excited to go hiking and check this place out. We were eager to just get going and head out on our own. What we didn’t realize was that our guide was going to give a guided tour of the Monastery first and wouldn’t give us our tickets to the rest of the park until he was finished. This made some people restless and impatient, but I was just happy to be there. I though the monastery was pretty sweet. The people there basically had this whole underground wine production going on that was really cool to hear about and just the scale of the whole building was crazy to take in.

But yeah, I definitely think the nature aspect of the hike was the highlight of the trip for me. WATERFALLS. So many beautiful waterfalls. Probably the largest I have ever seen with my own eyes. We even got to take our shoes off and go play around in one. Not sure if we were supposed to do that… but we did anyway J

The whole hike was just beautiful. Lush greens and rushing water. Felt like heaven. I just kept saying wow to myself over and over again. Another cool part was this giant cave where the opening was the water fall and when you walked through it opened up into this deep cave. That was so cool. Got to play in some caves. No fear just walked right in. One with nature. And then the finish of the hike we walked around this large body of water and rock. Very pretty as well. Quite the experience. I was wiped tho. As soon as I got home I hit the bed and was out.

Next up Sunday.

I headed out for church with Sarah and Theresa. We checked out this Spanish church and the whole mass was in Spanish… I was sort of lost, but definitely felt God’s presence which is the whole point of going to church. Taking time out of your day to just be solely with God. We then grabbed our Bible and headed to the park so that we could read the readings in English. We also grabbed some pastries from a local baker. Yummy Croissant. Then we decided to go check out this market. I was able to find a cool Madrid shirt and I think Sarah found some cool shades. We then walked over to the park that Sarah and Theresa had found the day before to check out this amazing view of Madrid and temple that given to Spain by the Egyptians as a gift. I then spent the rest of the day taking it easy working on some homework until it was time for the BEARS GAME.

First game of the season baby. I was so excited. The first drive looked amazing. Cutler was on fire. But then the defense also allowed a touchdown right away so I was quickly brought back down to reality. The rest of the game was rough with lots of stupid mistakes and the sad part was the bears found a way to lose to the bills at home. Completely inexcusable. HUGE let down. Sad Bear. But that was it.

First weekend in the books.