Toledo, why are you so cold? -- and more.

Last Friday I went to Toledo on a group trip with the University. It seemed like it was going to be a great trip but that was before we got there and discovered the mini blizzard that was covering Toledo that day. We were taking to a viewing point to get a panoramic view of the city but we could barely see the city through the snow. The bus took us down to a plaza in the city and by the time we got down there the weather had improved, but only slightly. We visited a cathedral in they city and some other site but I couldn't really tell you the names because we didn't spend much time there. We came back early due to the weather so I don't have much to say about the trip but you can see my pictures HERE.

Tonight I am going to watch the International Football Friendly (basically an exhibition between two countries) between Spain and England. I'm hoping to go down to a bar and watch the game with some friends and maybe some Spaniards too, we'll see. This weekend I don't have any plans yet but I think I might go visit Madrid some more.

--Jamie

***********************************UPDATED****************************************

Toledo revsited album

I revisited Toledo last weekend and it was 100x better than the weekend before. The weather was gorgeous which in turn made the city fantastic. We took a high speed train from Madrid, which took about 30 min for a 55 mile trip (= average speed of 100mph) so that was a cool experience. I hope to take a high speed train somewhere else before I leave just to experience long distance traveling on a train like that. Once we got to Toledo, we climbed up the hill that the city was on and happened to stumble into a FREE musem of artifacts from the period of 1808 to 1814 ( I think that's the right time period). The musem had paintings from the time, royal dishes, navegation tools, and so much more. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take any pictures so if you want to know more about it just ask me.

After the musem, we went and had lunch at a pizza place (except the pizza here isn't close to what it is at home, so I got some pasta). Then, we explored the city some more and took picture of the Alcazar, the highest building in Toledo. It was once a royal palace for many different people but now it is being converted into a military musem. We found a nice panoramic view of the mountains, so we decided to soak in the sun for a while. That was a nice change from the cloudy weather we have had since the beginning of the semster.

Next up, we visited a small church that housed a very famous painting by the painter "El Greco". You can read up on him at Wikipedia. We saw this painting, El entierro del conde de Orgaz (the burial of the count of Orgaz). It was quite an amazing painting and I can't even imagine how much work it took to create it. He even painted himself, his son, and Cervantes into the painting. I guess he wanted to have a little fun while he was making the thing.

Overall, this trip was much better than my last trip and I would recomend a visit to anyone.

That's all for now
-Jamie