Toledo!

Alright, I'm still in the café with Mary, but I'm writing this now because I have wifi. But I have to go home to dinner soon. It's really exciting to go home to dinner wondering what fun surprise our mamá has cooked up for us. The other night we had grilled ham and cheese sandwiches, which both Mary and I really liked. Neither of us really like ham, but it wasn't so cured and smokey tasting and we both hope we'll eat them again soon :P

This is Toledo. It's really beautiful. (And historically very defensible. River on three sides and mountain on the other)

This is our tour guide for all of Madrid, Pablo.

 Also an example of mudéjar architecture (because it's moorish architecture for Christian purposes), something that we learned very very well with Pablo. Pablo knows a lot a lot about Spain and will go down in infamy with our group for his tours.

This is an interesting legend--that some soldier fell in love with the statue of Elvira, but when he went to kiss her, the fist on the statue of her husband fell off and hit the soldier on the head. . .

 This was taken outside a synagogue in Toledo. Toledo is a really good example of convivencia, the concept of Jews, Christians, and Muslims living together without killing each other all the time. Toledo was home to many Jews after the Diaspora.

Pictures of our grupo so you can see who I'm talking about. Left to Right: Andy, JJ, Dr. Hiltpold, Tyler, Sammy, Nick, Savannah, Daniella, and Sam. There's more, but not in this picture.

Interestingly this lady was sitting outside the synagogue--admitting people I guess? But she was wearing pink high heels and reading a Danielle Steele novel. It seemed incongruous with the synagogue to me.

Inside the synagogue.

The Cathedral. This doesn't even begin capture it. I didn't take pictures inside, but it was also very grand and majestic.  I am rather blown away by how huge it was and how much work must have gone into it.

 Probably my favorite part of Toledo.

Part of the river that surrounds the city.

I don't know if you can tell how big it is, but I overheard one of the guys saying "Do you think it would be a good idea to go down that on our bellies?" -_- Boys. Anyway. I must go to dinner!