¡Toledo!

Exciting news...I just figured out today how to put this website in English! Yes!

On to more exciting news for you...Toledo! A group from MSU and from Boca Raton, FL went to Toledo this past Saturday. It drizzled/misted on and off all day while we were there and was a little chilly, but I was thankful for it because usually Toledo is about 40 degrees...Celcius! Which means it´s in the 90´s in the afternoons, so we were glad for the cold front! Toledo is a beautiful city. We discovered, through our wonderful tour guide, Jema (who couldn´t stand the kids from Boca--it was hilarious. She kept making fun of them in Spanish and they never understood her...I don´t blame her-they were all hung over and really really rude...) that Catholicism was first founded ( in Spain) in Toledo. They have a beautiful cathedral and we visited an old hospital which was really neat, and got to see tons of tile and ceramic art dating back to 1024! I took pictures, don´t worry. It is so neat to see all this historic stuff-it´s so much older than anything in America!

Toledo was later invaded by the Moorish (Muslim) people and also had a Jewish phase, so the architecture there is incredible-it´s a huge mix of everything! Renaissance, Arabic, Christian-era...so cool! I needed my architecture buddies there to help me out! The Moorish architecture is really easy to distinguish because it´s all arcs-looks very Arabian/Aladdin-ish!

Toledo is probably most well known for it´s midevil feel and for it´s steel. Jema said that if you´re a matador, Toledo is the place to get your swords, among other things. They also have this really pretty damascene art, which are these plates that are inlaid with gold and silver in geometric designs-absolutely gorgeous, and all handmade. (well, at least the expensive stuff is!)
All in all, it was a good day in Toledo. We got home after about a 3-3.5 hour bus ride and went out to this Turkish place and had...PIZZA! It was SO good!

Today in culture class we learned about the ¨fiestas¨of Spain...they have 12 national days of fiestas and 2 local-can you believe that?! And they have a holiday for each of them! They are very elaborate and a lot of them have Catholic undercurrents.

On Sunday, we decided to try and find the ¨Rastro¨, or giant outdoor, flea market type thing. And, like always, we decided to walk. Little did we know that it was about 4 miles away. After walking for about an hour, we decided to give up and return home. We were wet, cold (it was raining), and extremely happy to see that Sofía wasn´t home because that meant hot showers for us!

Another Spanish tradition, which I´ve been meaning to tell you about, it the way that they greet each other. I´m sure you´ve seen people joke around and kiss both cheeks of the other person when they greet each other...well, they actually still do that here! To see someone shake hands is an automatic ¨foreigner¨sign. They also don´t believe in ¨personal space¨- they always stand very close to each other!

And on a personal note, I finally got my clothes washed! Sofía has been fighting me, telling me that I was going to have to pay her, even though laundry was included in my tuition. Finally she did it, but in Spain they rarely have clothes dryers, so my clothes got ¨washed¨in the machine and then ¨washed¨two more times by the rain...but their washers aren´t very good here-I definitely handwashed quite a few things with me in the shower this morning!

I hope you all are doing great-there are so many things I want to tell you and show you! We´re about to go plan our trip to Granada, so that should be exciting! Can´t wait to see you all!