Toledo, Prado, and Dinner!

Day 5
0830 Local Time May 04, 2010 –0030 Local Time May 05, 2010

Eight o’clock in the morning came a little earlier than is generally acceptable for eight o’clock in the morning, but we got up and ready to head out with Alicia and her sister to Toledo at 10. After a complimentary breakfast of thick toast with cheese and multi-fruit juice on my part and toast with cold cuts and orange juice along with several failed coffee attempts on Papo’s part, we met with Alicia and her sister, Laura.

Alicia drove us into to Toledo (about an hour away) which was once the capital of Spain because it’s a fortified city on one side and on the other side is a river with huge hills. Toledo is also under some sort of UNICEF code that requires it to maintain its historical accuracy look. The streets are cobblestone and sometimes large enough to walk three small framed people across if you’re lucky but usually just around two people abreast. Now we know why they have really small cars. At one point we had to duck into a doorway to let a car pass because we couldn’t just stand up against the wall—somehow the car was getting through without breaking its side mirrors off (this is still a little bit of a mystery). Similarly, I think I know where I can go to catch a motorcyclist...a quick clothesline move and I’d be set (although this would most likely entail a broken arm at the very least).

Toledo also does this special metal work where they hammer in gold and silver into jewelry and all sorts of things. I’m 99.999% certain that if I ever brought Will to Toledo that I would never be able to convince him to leave. There were swords and full body armor galore in the shops and for the ornate-ness of the work the price might have even been fairly reasonable…too bad the euro is doing better than the dollar.

We went into a cathedral which, as Laura so astutely put it, was specifically constructed to make you feel small, the ceilings were very high and vaulted. On the outside were intricate reliefs and statues. I have lots of pictures—they will be on facebook soon enough…the internet connection isn’t always the best though so I might have to wait to steal all the bandwidth when I get home to upload them.

Around 2 o’clock, after seeing a cathedral, mosque, synagogue and El Greco’s house (among other things Toledo has to offer), we went to lunch in a place that Laura and Alicia had picked out and had cochinillo, which is baby pig, along with baby lamb, huevos rotos , which are eggs mixed with potatoes and chorizo, and an array of vegetables. Our waitress didn’t think that we could share this food because our table was too small, but we did manage.

After our “early” lunch, we hopped back into Alicia’s car in the parking garage (side note: parking in the USA is nothing compared to parking in Europe. There is basically no space whatsoever to spare in a Spanish parking garage and the curves and so on are extremely tight—like the people from the Italian job clearly didn’t learn to drive in Europe because that heist wouldn’t’ve been a problem at all as far as driving was concerned: nothing compared to parking in Europe). But anyway, we left the parking garage and Alicia and Laura dropped us off outside of El Prado.

The Prado, in case you haven’t heard of it, is a world famous art museum. I actually taught this past semester a unit on Spanish art, and inside I was able to see three of the painting that we really discussed in depth. But more on that in a second. As we walked from getting our tickets over to the entrance we came across a fellow who puts your name on old fashion bullfighting and flamenco posters which I picked up two of. These should be pretty neat to have in the classroom.

Anyway, in the Prado we first came across the many works of Goya, a court painter turned impressionist revolutionary. Of his paintings, I thought one of the ones I hadn’t seen was the most striking; it was one that was paired with the one we studied so in depth. This might be because I hadn’t picked it apart and so was able to enjoy it simply as a piece of work. Los Fusilamientos del 3 de mayo though was extremely large and very neat to see on account that I knew about the history behind it and exactly what was going on in all the areas of the painting.

Upstairs we came across Velasquez’s Las Meninas. This one in particular I think was the most worth seeing in person because I could actually see for real the “focusing” on the center and how as you move out from the center Velasquez made the painting less clear. I knew this was the case, but as far as I was concerned the center of the computer image didn’t look any more or less blurry than the sides.
But after walking for so long all day, we had some very tired dogs. My ankle hurt and Papo’s knee hurt from where he tripped off the side walk. Please note that it was not me who tripped but him.

We took in a gigante Coke Light at a local Burger King (that happens to be a very expensive Burger King…) and looked into the little shops next door. By that time, it was around 2015 and we needed to find the Metro to get to La Plaza de Castillas which is a very large metro station and plaza. We managed to get there and also to reunite with Alicia and Laura who took us to their home to have dinner with their mom.

For us, they cooked what could be considered “tapas de casa.” We had baby shrimps, octopus with potatoes, a variety of thin sliced meats including Iberian ham and chorizo, Manchego cheese, bread, empanadas with tuna, tortilla española which is potatoes and eggs sort of like an omelet. All of this was then followed by a very traditional and tasty dessert that is similar to vanilla pudding (but not entirely in texture) with cinnamon and breading/larger-and-softer-version-of-a-vanilla-wafer on top.

Durante la sobremesa, we found out that Laura and her husband actually live pretty close to us—or will be living close to us as soon as she gets her visa. Alicia brought out the pictures she had in an album of her trip with us and we laughed over them. It was really a nice evening.

Alicia and her mom then took us back in the car to Plaza de Castillo via a long road in the city and tour guided us as we went along, pointing out the different buildings we saw and what they were along with the fountain where the soccer team, Real Madrid, celebrates when they win a big match.
We made it back to the hotel just in time to go to sleep so that we could be ready for the next day—the train to Barcelona!

Current Location: Alcorcón, Spain.
Day 5: Over and Out.