Literally Rohan

Madrid was pretty, but it was also big, busy, and somewhat scary.  Toledo is gorgeous.

Be mindful, this post will have lots of pictures.

Ok, so we woke up too late and rushed through breakfast.  We took a bus through the boring, boring countryside of Spain (which is brown and flat.  I assume Kansas looks something like it) until we came upon some more hills.  These were taller than the ones in Madrid, and at the top of the tallest one, you could see some buildings.

The driver took us to the top of the adjacent hill, where we could see this view.  

This is Toledo.

In the center, there is an absolutely beautiful cathedral.  It has a name, but I can't remember it.  On the far right, sorta cut off, there is the old castle of the Spanish monarchs, from when Toledo was the capitol.  Why isn't it still?  Well...

Toledo is surrounded on three sides by a river.  It doesn't have room to spread, and a capitol needs room.  So they moved from Toledo to Madrid in about... the 1800's?  Anyway.

We picked up the single most hyperactive tour-guide ever (even more so than the last one) and he just zipped from place to place, while we followed.

It must be a trend in Spain to build your cities onto the sides of cliffs.  Toledo is even more vertical than Madrid... but for some reason, it didn't bother me as much.  One other thing to note is that there are no major roads in Toledo.  It is almost exclusively footpaths.  Instead of a subway, there is a parking deck where you can leave your car, and you go up to the surface where you walk.  Yes, there are some cars up there, but very, very few.

This is the hall outside of the main... room,
where I wasn't allowed to take pictures.

We followed Mario (that was his name) to an old synagogue, built back when the Arabs occupied Spain.  It is now a church, I think.  But anyway, it's beautiful.

There was also a lovely garden courtyard thing, where they had orange trees.  Orange trees!  I took a picture of one, but the glare was bad so it didn't work right.

But here it is anyway...


Ok.
 Then we walked across the street to the even older synagogue (we were in the Jewish Quarter) which has been converted into a museum type thing.  It had nice arches.

It had apparently also been built by the Arabs, but the style was Arabian as opposed to the gothic style of the church.

I learned a lot about Spaniards today.  One, they have a totally different view of personal space.  They talk with their hands, and if your having a conversation, its perfectly ok to touch the other person.  For example, the nice lady who is our guide likes to stroke our hair.  It's weird to Americans, but its normal for Spaniards.  Another thing is that Spaniards seem to be, across the board, very racist.  They just are, it's their culture

And my irritating roommates don't seem to understand that.  So, when the lady left us to lunch, they wouldn't stop laughing at how racist and rude the Spanish are.  It bugs me, ok, how American these people are!!!

After that, we walked to the cathedral.  It was on the other side of the city, but it was a surprisingly short walk.  And we got this absolutely stunning view.

Look at this.  LOOK AT THIS.

When I went into the cathedral, my jaw dropped.  I had never been in one before.  I am not at all Catholic, but this cathedral makes me rethink my distaste for the religion.

Again, most of the time, I wasn't allowed to take pictures.  But.  Around behind the gold-plated altar, there was a newer installment from the Baroque era.  (The cathedral is pre-baroque).

I could have cried.  A lot.  If I had had time to properly enjoy the cathedral, I would have.  But Hyperactive Mario zoomed us right through.

When we were done ooing and ahing at the pretty gold cathedral, we went to the main square to fend for ourselves at lunch.

We stumbled over to a quaint little café (if I hear the word "cute" one more time, I swear, I will kill some poor Spaniard.  Spain is not cute.  Pretty, yes.  Sexy, possibly.  Not cute.)  and we ate some food.  I ordered some cheese and toast, which was good, but I would have liked something else to balance out the overwhelmingly cheesy taste.

The other people can't read menus, and didn't see the line at the bottom that said "Weekends: add 2 dollars", so they ordered something 12€.  Which is a little pricey.

So the total was staggering.  Not for me, though!  I can read a menu.  It was even in English!  They have no excuse.  Not only that, they had the nerve to complain about the Americanized food they ordered.  Saying the steak was too fatty or the pasta too sweet.  I hate rich private school kids.  I want to get to Seville so I can ditch them.  I just wish that we had more time to stay in Toledo, so I could wander and fall even more in love with the city.

As for why this post is titled "Literally Rohan."  It looks just like the city of Rohan from Lord of the Rings, with the castle at the top of the hill and houses lining the slope down.  Just a bit more modernized.  But I can guess where the designers of Rohan got their inspiration... this place is unique and I'm never leaving.

Now I'm sitting in the fancy pants hotel room while my roommates moan about how they left their stuff in the safe.  Because they didn't think to check to see if they'd left anything.  Meanwhile, the boys are down enjoying the pool.  I would be down, but I wanted to write my post.  And now that this is written, I might go down.  These girls aren't going to swim, so I don't want to be the awkward lone person in the pool.  Eh, my problem, not yours.  See you tomorrow at Siesta time!