Mayoral Toledo

Last night, for the first time on the trip, we could not get access to the Internet. The hotel's router was down and the pay-as-you-go sign-in screen was a frustrating and unassailable barrier.

We spent this morning at the Toledo Cathedral, considered one of the most beautiful cathedrals in Europe. Chris went before dawn to photograph and I made the 30-minute hike from the hotel about 10 am. The ...

... view of La Mancha. But as we walk around for a 20 minutes, we realize we walked around in circles and quickly get bored. Our newest goal is to go take ***** at the nearest McDonald´s, which takes about 30 minutes and we are bored again. So we decided to stalk every nasty creature in the city and photograph them. By creature I obviously mean cats and dogs. So as soon as that got boring, we left town, did one ...

... t help but agree.

We also saw lots of overweight naked women painted by Reubens. The ladies appeared Reubenesque, I guess. Nick was sorry that he had not brought some yellow stickies, to improve the general level of modesty.

There were Old Masters by the roomful - and there were really no crowds. We hit it exactly right, as we had the Louvre. No line ups at places that are supposed to be choked.

So now ...

Hey everyone, just wanted to let you know how everything is going. Last weekend me and 7 other students rented a couple cars and took a road trip! ROAD TRIP! haha, i know. We headed for Toledo, about a four hour drive north just south of Madrid. lets just say that taking a drive through spain is beautiful! i couldn´t believe it! that and it´s the first time that ive seen actually greenery for a couple months! We had such a ...

... I got was 2 pieces of bread with cheese in the middle, just regular cheese, not grilled. The first thing I thought was "I could have made that in five seconds." But, I figured out that bocadillo meant sandwich (basically) from that. The cheese was very dry. I asked for some salsa and the waiter(in Spanish) asked if I wanted it spicy. I said I didn't care, but he basically insisted on knowing so I said ...

... we weren't sure. Lots of cops out and about to keep the peace and coordinate traffic. Checked out a bunch of knife shops, for souvenirs for Marc, who is an expert on cuchillos. ;) Every single tourist-souvenir shop sells them, along with crazy swords, shields, replica pistols, and various ninja gear. He finally settled on getting some good quality stuff from a real knife ...

Johana, her mother and I took the 30 minute AVE train from Madrid-Atocha to Toledo (an UNESCO World Heritage site about 100 kilometers south of Madrid) in order to sample some marzipan. Both Johana and her mother had visited a few times before, but it was my first time. We spent the whole day strolling around the beautiful and touristy city ...

... konnte ich dann noch mit Maria in ein grosses Einkaufszentrum ausserhalb der Stadt einkaufen gehen. Ich wurde ziemlich blöd angeschaut, als ich zwei verschiedene Früchte in dieselbe Plastiktüte legen wollte. Das geht doch nicht! Ist viel zu kompliziert für die Kassiererin. Es hat auch niemand eine Einkaufstasche dabei, für etwas gibt's ja Plastiktüten an der Kasse, welche sich auch für die Entsorgung des vielen Mülls eignen. Welcher natürlich nicht getrennt wird. Aber das liegt ...

... of the previous day, I laughed a lot!! On Monday I met with the family, and worked out the job details for the summer. Tuesday sadly turned out to be the end of the line for Spain in the World Cup, as they got beat by France. It was fun watching it with some very passionate Spaniards though!! Thursday Alex returned from San Sebastien where she had hoped to spend the week surfing ...

... headed out to the giant mall on the edge of town. Once past that mecca the traffic thinned out and we were able to zip along at a more agreeable speed. My obsession with avoiding tollways meant that we found ourselves almost alone on a road that wound ever higher into the mountains. So high did we get that we found ourselves gazing out on mountain peaks capped with snow. Towards the top of the Pyrenees we were enveloped in clouds and had to slow to a ...