Toledo and the Rock from the Future

Sunday, November 23












The train left at 10:50. I left my apartment in what I thought would have been plenty of time, about 50 minutes, but aparently I underestimated just how slow people are capable of walking on Sunday morning, because I had to sprint to catch the train. But I did catch it. And, wouldn't you know, about two minutes after I collapsed into my seat, panting, sure that I had just barely made it, four Spanish girls strolled into my car, laughing, like the train would have waited all day for them.

It had been four months since I had left the city, minus one bus ride to see Bob Dylan in concert, which I don't count because the venue was more crowded than Madrid. So before that train ride, the only Spanish landscape I had seen was that which I could see from Madrid and the view I saw from the plane.


Toledo

Manu, Danny, and I arrived at the Toledo train station at 11:30. We didn't have a map, but Manu had been there once while he was an erasmus student and remembered it-- kind of. Fortunately, it was pretty basic finding our way to the city. For one, it's built on a giant hill. Once in the city, things are a little more challenging. Aparently it was constructed in a way that would confuse invaders (us, in this case).


Two things really pop out at you when you arrive in Toledo. One, the breath-taking architecture. Two, the vast quantities of weaponry for sale displayed in just about every shop window. I saw one I liked, but I couldn't help but wonder how one would justify carrying a 16th century broad sword with an enormous spiked guard onto the metro. But I felt comfortable knowing that if I were challenged to a duel, I would have plenty of selection.


Unfortunately for us, very little is open in Toledo on Sunday, even though almost every other building is a church. Last time I checked most churches were open a few days of the week, Sunday being one of the more important of these days. But no. Even the gate to the cathedral was chained shut. One could have easily wedged through it, but a uniformed security guard lounged on the other side. I'm almost sure it was a ploy by the Catholic church to increase attendance. See, by not letting people in, those people would tell their friends and family, who would then become upset and band together and storm the church all at the same time-- with their recently purchased weaponry in hand. The church would know this was coming and open their doors while the mob was still out of sight, so that when they arrived they could pretend like it had been open all along and then have mass right then. It would be super crowded, and super emotional. Unfortunately I didn't get to see if this was the plan or not, because we had to move on to see the other sights, most of which were also churches who must have been planning the same thing.

We did enter into a museum at one point, which contained (surprise, surprise) mostly church items. I was instantly drawn into a large, open room with a wide atrium; my all time favorite architectural element in the world (balconies are neat, too). The room contained remnants of Roman and Pre-Roman cultures. It also contained a pillar from 3500 a.C., which of course stands for "after Christ". Here it is. This is what pillars look like in the future.




After eating a lovely lunch in the park by the river, we spent a good two hours at a cafe with incredibly slow service, and then headed back to the train. The light hit the city just right. It was the perfect reminder that things really do still exist outside of Madrid.

Not Going to Toledo

This weekend was specially reserved for getting out of town. It's been four months since I've left the city, and I think about the same for many of my friends. I didn't want to go anywhere to far, since I'm still bracing for the "holiday" season-- the season when I'm not paid. So we decided on Toledo and decided to take it easy on Friday night, which in retrospect really wasn't all that easy, but much easier than usual. This can be quite an effort. There are way too many people having fun in this city at any given time to go to bed too early. But going to Toledo was important.

So I stayed in, more or less, and the next day went to the train station about 20 minutes before our train was supposed to leave at 1:50. One person had to cancel because of work, another overslept. We were down to three. By the time I arrived, Manuel had already taken a number to stand in line. The Spanish like dispensing numbers to wait for things. It's kind of nice for letting you know how long you're going to wait. In our case, unfortunately, the number was pretty high, and our time that we could wait, low. We almost made it, but in the end we had to make a quick decision whether or not to wait for the next train or go another day. We chose to wait for the next train.

About one minute later, we decided that waiting was a terrible decision. We wouldn't get into Toledo until about 4:30, which would give us maybe an hour and a half of light. So we got to take another number and repeat the process, pay a fee for changing our ticket, and spend an extra 40 minutes in the breathtaking Atocha train station. Sometimes quick thinking is difficult.

So instead we went to Retiro. There's a big glass palace there which is always closed when I go on Sundays but was open that day. The sign said there was an exhibition by an Italian artist inside. It's a glass palace, so I could see inside, but I didn't see anything being exhibited. Still, people were walking at museum speed, so there must have been something.


Plus, there was a sign. No one had there shoes off, but apparently if I wanted to take my shoes off and walk through the "water area" the option was on the table. Madrid isn't cold compared to places that actually get cold, but it gets cold enough that walking through water barefoot didn't sound that great, either. From here it was clear that the exhibition was actually the water zone itself, which had little indentations cut into each block of floor, in a way that if you looked at them all it kind of looked like a rippling surface of water. I think if I had a glass palace I might dedicate it to a slightly higher purpose than this, but I think I missed out on the full experience by keeping my shoes on.

Just a note, we did actually make it to Toledo the next day. More on that soon.

Post Free Hat Day

So the only problem with Free Hat Day, as Saturday came to be known, is that at some point it had to end, and that a new day full of possibly painful reminders would have to begin. I woke up relatively early, especially considering that someone had closed the ultra-thick-blocks-absolutely-every-shred-of-light blinds in my room. Fortunately, my head felt fine. However, my right foot pulsated with dull pain, and I considered the possibility that as a punishment for the ridiculous treatment I had given my body the days before that I had developed arthritis over-night.

There wasn't long to reflect. My friend from class to become an English teacher (TEFL), Beatriz, had decided that she felt like preparing lunch for me and my friend Danny. I had slept until the absolute last possible second, after which I would become inappropriately late, which in Spain I think is about 45 minutes or more (30 is more or less on time). Bea lives in the north-eastern Madrid, and going to her apartment is a good reminder of exactly how big Madrid really is. It's big.

I arrived at the Mar de Cristal metro stop promptly 30 minutes late.

Bea had prepared all sorts of things to eat, much of which she doesn't actually like to eat. In fact, Bea may be one of the most particular eaters I've ever met in my entire life. If it's green or crunchy you can count it out. Tomatoes are okay just so long as they have been pureed to the point that there is absolutely no chunky residue. Lettuce? Please. So what do you eat when you're with someone who hates vegetables? Not vegetables. There were some olives on the table, but these I knew were meant for me, as they are green and therefore automatically unacceptable.

It was more or less a lunch of tapas, except we also learned how to make a Spanish Omelet, which was simple enough even with my brain's then limited capacity for complex thought. Here's the recipe more or less:

Potatoes cut into small cubes
Eggs
About a half gallon of olive oil

Heat up a pan full of olive oil. The more oil, the more Spanish your omelet will be. Cook the potatoes, then put them in a pan with mixed-up eggs and cook it for a bit. When it's looking about 3 quarters of the way done, you have to do a little 'flip'. This is the only hard part, as it is absolutely essential to retain the shape of the pan in your flip. Bea used a plate-- first, she put the plate over the pan, then she flipped the pan over, then she slipped the omelet back into the pan. Incredible.



And exactly what I needed. Not only was Free Hat Day the last weekend Manuel has to really enjoy Madrid, it was also the birthday of one of my roommates, Teresa (pronounced a little bit like Delehsa). She came to live with us about a month ago, and like Bea she loves to make food. To celebrate her birthday we had a party in the apartment with a few friends and all of the roommates. We had just enough seats.

I chickened out at about 5am.

The Weirdest Pizza Ever

Manu

Today is Manuel's last real weekend in Madrid. So of course, Manuel being Manuel, we have to go out and get super mega crazy. Mega is Manu's favorite English word, which he most often uses to describe his level of drunkenness (which ranges from not drunk at all to mega drunk).

So to start the day, Manu wanted to go out to an Irish pub to have a Bloody Mary. We walked about a block to the local pub, but unfortunately they didn't have any. So we had to have some Guinness. Two beers and a glass of whiskey later, we left with a sack of free clothing and the barkeeper's blessing. Time: 3:00 pm.

Next stop: kebab. Manu ordered a normal kebab, I ordered the "Pizza with meat". They looked exactly the same, except mine was named pizza and thus was quite superior.

I wonder where we are now? Funny you should ask, I'm listening to Danny and Manuel discuss how their suits look, because their getting dressed up for Manu's last day so as to give the best impression possible.

Christmas Already

In Spain, there is no Thanksgiving day buffer zone to delay the onset of Christmas. Talk of it began about two weeks ago, at the beginning of November, and the talking has steadily increased since then. I guess that's not too different from the States, but at least I can feel confident to see few lights before the end of the Thanksgiving holiday. Here, not so. Lights are already lit up. A few buildings are putting lights up, but the majority of the displays lighting up so far have been left up from last year. I asked a friend why the city never took them down, to which she replied, "What, all that trouble when you have to put them up again next year? What for?" Ah... Madrid.

Tonight my late classes were cancelled, so I took the free time to shop for a Madrid coat (for me, much lighter than an actual coat), fingernail clippers, and chipotle sauce. Two of the items, the fingernail clippers and the sauce, required that I enter into El Corte Ingles, the mega-huge shopping center that has everything and usually occupies two sides of the street. Fortunately, so far the Holiday shopping crowd is utterly indistinguishable from the normal shopping crowd, which is still so massive and full of tilters (the awkward, unpredictable walkers) that usually about 20 minutes is enough to make me enjoy the relative solace of the metro. While I find it incredible that El Corte Ingles could possibly hold anymore people, I hear that in December it gets much busier. If only I could say I won't go in. It's impossible. It has everything.

And to think I thought it was only in America that ultra capitalism was driving back the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. How false. It's even crazier when you consider that most Spaniards don't exchange gifts on the 25th but wait until Kings Day on the 6th of January.
At least I don't have to be disappointed about missing out on Christmas shopping madness. And it must be madness, because I had only three things to buy tonight, but upon entering El corte I forgot one of them, and now I have a jar of Russian pickles and no fingernail clippers.