The next morning we ate a small breakfast downstairs, got ready, and then got back on the highway to head towards Toledo. Toledo is one of those hill towns. This one is famous for it's Moorish background (the Moors were used to living in the deserts so this area was normal), for it's exquisite carvings, for it's El Greco paintings, for it's sword-making (best swords were said to be from Toledo), and for it's windy streets. We had a good time maneuvering our way to a hotel.
The hotel we were originally looking for was a lost cause. We ended up going around the city to it's other side where we found the Hostel Cardinal , a 3 star place that was within the old city walls and that had parking just along the main road. When we walked in we were in awe with the garden (had lots of shrubbery and fountains and orange trees), in love with the outside (a person could walk along the old city wall from the hotel-this wall was serving as the hotel's outer edge for it's courtyard garden), and the interior. The man behind the desk spoke with us mostly in Spanish until I asked him if they had wireless internet (in spanish) and he gave me an answer that was too fast and too foreign for me to understand to which I nervously said, "What? Que?" At that point he realized we weren't spanish, we were English. He told me it was a prepaid card and that we could put it on the room. He also showed us the room. The walls were an orange color, the doors were thick and had a "plaid" overcoat (wooden beams going vertical and horizontal), the light was just right (cozy but bright enough to read from), the beds had good covers on them, the bathroom had pretty tiles and a big, wide bathtub, and it had a desk where I could set up camp (which is what I did). After we checked in and moved our things in I asked Ahmee what she'd planned on doing. She started talking about things to see and I said, "Nope. I have two study guides and two tests to take, I'm going to be busy working." I then got to go get the internet card.
I spazzed out when I got my email up and saw that I didn't have the study guides or the tests yet. I was angry and stressed beyond comparison and Ahmee and Poppy knew it in the way I sat and the way I typed (Ahmee fusses at me for pounding on the keyboard-particularly the delete button). I wrote two emails to Mr. Owens asking for the work, and I wrote an email to my Momma. It wasn't until after I'd sat there waiting for 15 minutes that I realized that they weren't even at work yet and wouldn't get the emails for a bit. I sighed and released all of my tension by talking to Ahmee and Poppy. Then we went and ate lunch in the restaurant next door.
Here we ate an incredible lunch and Ahmee and I spent 80% of the meal talking in Spanish. It felt great knowing that I could talk to Ahmee in Spanish and we could actually hold a conversation (and one that we were thoroughly enjoying-we kept laughing at different things). Poor Poppy had no idea what we were saying, he just knew we were having a really good time talking to each other. After he voiced the opinion that he was afraid we were making fun and that people within the restaurant were taking offense we toned down the conversation. We weren't as loud, we didn't break into Spanish as often, we ate our food (me with some difficulty because my stomach was going haywire again), and we talked to Poppy more (partly arguing how we weren't poking fun at all, in fact we probably sounded like three year olds).
After lunch we went back to the room where I hopped on the internet, grabbed my study guides, and "hit the ground running". I stayed in that room until about 5 o' clock that afternoon, working on my study guide.
At five we went into Toledo. We walked through the main gate, down the street (which had several interesting shops), up the hill where we had a wonderful view of the valley, through more gates that had arches that had an obvious middle-eastern influence, around the main square up and around and through backroads, all the way to the cathedral where we walked all the way around looking for the entrance. The exterior of the cathedral was... in poor condition. Those entrances that were barred off had wonderful carvings and stonework, but the ground was normally covered in pidgeon poop. To try and keep the birds away they set up nets on some of the more fragile entrances. It was sickening seeing dead pigeons trapped in the net. I stopped looking at these and relied on Ahmee and Poppy to tell me when we'd found the way in.
The one entrance we could pass into was partially hidden down an alley, but we found it (Ahmee and Poppy did). After paying to get in we walked down the ramp and into the section that was well done.
The walls around the alter were painted with white and the stones had a "liner" of gold trim and black. The piece behind the alter was a flurry of gold and color and lace trimming. The alter itself was blocked by a gate that I'm sure is meant to symbolize the gates of heaven. This gate was all done up in gold and was just... well, looked like that gate that you see in the movie All Dogs Go To Heaven (never did watch that movie much, it made me sad). Really everything in that cathedral was just well preserved. This cathedral had tons of magnificant paintings, had many side-chapels, had a super-ornate choir, and had multiple side-rooms of things. One side room to the back contained the churches "necessary" riches such as: golden crowns that seemed more ornate than Queen Elizabeth's (these were for the statues of Mary), pope staffs (at least 8-10 in one case), playground sets of a terrace (how this is associated with the church I have no idea), and other finery. In another side room there were the more famous paintings of saints.
The most impressive were done by El Greco. This man lived back in the day when fine detail was the key to a "good" painting. He used more gray and blues that other painters and his style of painting was more like the impressionists than other painters I've seen from that era. The people in the paintings were so pale that they seemed ill to me but other than that I thought that they were very well done. I was surprised that his paintings had been liked back in the day, it was different from what other people were painting. Obviously they liked them though, otherwise they wouldn't have passed the test of time.
Yet another room was a chapel where King Ferdinand and a woman (we don't think it's Queen Isabella, it didn't have her sign) were kneeling and praying to God (these were in opposite walls). While in this cathedral I slowly realized that for the past couple cathedrals I was really getting tired of how the church exploited their money by dolling up their buildings "in Gods name and in honor of God". If it's a virtue to be pious and is encouraged by these people to not be weighed down by worldly goods (because the gate into heaven is small and you can only take your faith) then why do they surround themselves with worldly riches and plunder? Not only that, add into it the fact that these churches took the money from other people, or in other words "Killed an Inca or a Mayan to snatch their gold" (this'd be Ahmee).
I've said before that I like the architecture of the space, but I find it utterly disturbing to find the gild and the over-abundance of wealth because it shows a system that I disagree with (snatch the money from conquered lands, snatch it from the people, surround ourselves with it, and then preach to the people how to be good and how to live). Make sense to you?
As we walked around the cathedral I noticed a huge group of people. When we got closer I realized it was a huge school group of guys. When we were looking around at the painting of El Greco, I asked Ahmee if it was common all over Europe to have segregated schools (separation of sexes in this instance). She said that that happened everywhere. In the U.S. it might not happen very often, but for a looooong time universities were made solely for men, women weren't allowed in (this I already knew) and that's why schools like Agnes Scott popped up, to educate the women. Ahmee said that the benefit of having separate schools for the sexes was that it kept people from being distracted (guys act stupid around girls and show off and girls don't do the whole submissiveness crap or fake stupidity to get attention).
When we got outside I wanted to continue the conversation. I told Ahmee that I thought that segregated schools weren't going to solve the problem, in fact it created one. Even if those kids who're in separate schools meet up at dances and social events or after school, it's not going to prepare them properly. If they're kept separated all of their academic lives so as to "help them focus" on their work, what are they going to do when they get into work? It's not like work places are segregated, you have to learn how to talk and work with the opposite sex and work around societies silly pretexts (like how girls need to be submissive or stupid-NOT). Ahmee said that that was definitely true, that they wouldn't be separate in the work place. She and I then talked about that pretext that society has about how guys need to be macho and strong while girls need to be, well, submissive.
It might sound like a feminist conversation, but really it just displayed one of my flaws in getting a guy (Iain and I talked about this too), that I'm intimidating. With regards to questions, I don't hesitate to ask them when in the classroom, and I'm not afraid to give my answers (even when going over something like poetry). Why? Well in the classes where I do know the work well I enjoy explaining how I came to a certain conclusion (do this in math and science and I really like it when I can help someone else "get it") while other times I do it to check and see if I'm right or if I'm on the right track. I know that sometimes people are just shy and don't want to put themselves out there, but then I also know that there are some really intelligent girls in school who don't speak up or ask questions and who actually have deliberately taken on an uneducated look.
Some people might not answer questions because they don't care about school, because they're nervous about speaking up, OR because they don't want to be too smart. During the conversation Ahmee talked about how guys get intimidated by girls who answer questions, by girls who're too smart, because they feel like they've got to be on top. Guys need to be taller than the girl, guys need to be smarter than the girl, and guys need to be stronger than the girl is basically what I got out of it. Guys and girls have the same mental capacity except for in one area (I'm not sure about this one area-mathematic equations I think is what it was). Biologically, guys do tend to be stronger, and the whole taller thing is something that movies and hollywood pushes out. It's the masculine thing, something that I've never been very good at understanding.
While talking to Ahmee I realized one of my flaws with society. I'm smart. People either feel inferior or they feel like it's competition, two things that normally don't lead to relationships. Unfortunately when I'm in school I tune in on the work. When I'm not working I'll talk to a few people that I feel comfortable being goofy with, but beyond that I don't really share too much. So pretty much my classmates see a frigid brainiac who is an oddball. No wonder people were surprised when they saw me perform for showchoir. In the classroom I'm not much of a spotlight person.
We walked through the streets of Toledo (me with the map and leading because Ahmee and Poppy were arguing tons about which direction to go and I asked if I could lead). All we had to do was follow the main road that was directly in front of the church. It was easy enough to tell which way to go without the map. All the shops were open this way, and all the people were walking here. It was the well-paved road that tourists were supposed to follow. We followed it (never turning) and gazed into the shop windows as we worked our way back to the main square where we went back down the way we came to the main gate and back to the hotel.
Once in the room I got back to work and completed my study guide. The study guide was finished, but I looked pretty disreputable for dinner. I had 30 minutes to get ready so I put on my black pants (which I was surprised to find had gotten tighter) my shiny, blue shirt, earrings (which weren't gold and I knew my ears were going to kill me for it, but they were so pretty), and I put on a bit of mascara and lip gloss. Ahmee put on her white shirt, her black pants, her red lipstick, her eyeliner (I offered to do it for her since she was almost doing it blind but she didn't need it), her mascara, and something else but I can't remember it. She and I walked arm-in-arm down to the restaurant (me trying to look like I walked in heels all the time, I don't know if I succeeded or not) to wait for Poppy who was doing his finishing touches. When he came down he was wearing his blue sweater and his lapeled shirt with his khakis.
We all looked pretty spiffy sitting there, talking in Spanish and English, and sipping our drinks (me water). Course Ahmee laughed when I showed her the tiny belly I'd acquired (which was being accentuated due to my tight pants pushing a bit of the fat up) and how I was quite proud of it. I've got a pretty strong metabolism, and when I'm in school I'm dancing in show choir 2-3 times a week (varying hours). I've been eating more than normal and I haven't been dancing (which really is an incredible thing to do), so I shouldn't have been surprised to gain a bit of weight. Made me delighted though, which is a surprising effect for anyone.
Moving beyond my stomach, we had an excellent meal and talked plenty in the restaurant. It was a nice break from the work I'd been doing for hours.
Once back to the room I jumped on the computer and finished a test. I realized that if I got up early in the morning then I'd be able to complete the study guide and the test for the next chapter and get those in before Mr. Owens got to school. I decided I'd do that instead of staying up till the awful hours of the night (and completely ruining my grade by working in a daze).
I washed my face, changed into my loose pj's (over-sized tee-shirts and pj bottoms rock), and then went and typed to people before going to bed.
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