Piggy-back rides

Today started early—a little too early if you ask me. Alex M. and I stayed up until about 3am chatting because our siesta yesterday was a little too long. We talked about what we wanted in the future and where we wanted our lives to go. Talking about these kinds of things really shows a person where he or she stands in the long run of life. We awoke at 6:30am with a cup of hot green tea and some Nutella on mini-muffins. It was a quiet morning for the boys and I as we readied ourselves. We didn’t say too much as we sipped on our tea. Afterward, we grabbed our sack lunches of bocadillos (sub sandwiches), bananas, and a surprise sandwich we later found out was a chocolate Nutella sandwich, and headed toward the bus. We all sat close by and slept for a little bit on the way to Toledo. The ride was about two hours and we stopped off at a little shop that we stopped by last year that reminded me immensely of the little western shop that the characters in Zombieland destroy halfway through the movie to blow off some steam. I didn’t buy anything because I finally ran out of money and haven’t made my way to an ATM to get anymore yet. I’ve been trying to spend as little money as possible here.

So, arriving at Toledo this morning around 9:30 we received a very thorough tour of Toledo and while hearing about it for the second time in my life, I got to hear all about the troubles of Rebecca Borchert, a cute blonde who banged her knee into a metal pole in Madrid this past weekend and thinks she fractured it. She told me how it was difficult for her to walk around and how she felt as if she was being neglected by not receiving an MRI for her knee. I felt for her and so I listened and just gave her as much encouragement as possible while listening to our little lady guide. I decided that our guide today looked like an older version of Lady Gaga so it made it quite interesting to imagine her dancing and walking around in oddly shaped sunglasses singing about equality and sex. We visited the Cathedral of Toledo, The Synagogue of Toledo, and went to see the painting from El Greco known as El entierro del señor de orgaz. It was such a historical day. The Cathedral of Toledo took over 200 years to build and was started in the 1200s. The Synagogue was also an interesting trip because it was such a mix of culture and life that you might not be able to tell it apart from a mosque, synagogue, or church. Finally, when the tour ended, we lunched in a plaza en la sombra (in the shade).

Throughout lunch Rebecca went on to tell many more people about her experience in Madrid and how she thought that the doctors in Spain didn’t know what they were talking about. The boys and I, who have deemed ourselves as Los tres toros (The three bulls), accompanied our disabled friend to a farmacía to find a knee brace. She explained her situation very well and the pharmacist fitted her with a knee brace and we went on our merry way. Los tres toros traveled through Toledo, chatting and laughing, looking at the espaldas de Toledo (swords of Toledo), and the other souvenirs. Toledo is known for it’s swords and in fact, the sword in the movie Lord of the Rings came from Toledo, Spain. When we returned the plaza it was nearing time to leave, so we left and instead of having Rebecca walk back, I had her get on my back and I walked her down quite a few flights of stairs in a piggy back fashion. It was fun because she just kept talking to me but in a quiet manner so as to not deafen me. She’s a light little thing with a lot of personality and spunk. When we crossed of the bridge of Toledo, I snapped a few photos of my friends and they of me and we got on the bus and left the historical city. Rebecca sat in back with the boys and I and we all crashed pretty hard on the way home. Arriving in Segovia, we had decided to meet up right after we were dropped off so that we could plan our short little trip this weekend to Barcelona. Instead of spending 4 days in the Catalonian city, we will instead just spend two full days there. Rebecca, breaking down finally to the professors in one last plea, went to the hospital and was accompanied by the gentleman, Alex Miller, while the rest of us—six in total, walked all the way up to the plaza mayor to access the internet and make reservations for the weekend. We were shooed away by an old señora who supposedly owned the apartments where we were sitting at (which is also the front to our school) and told us that it looked unattractive that we were all there, so we went to go sit down on a bench far away from the centro, making it nearly impossible to access the pinche Internet. Once arriving the benches, a particularly cynical comment came from our friend, Savanna Cox, who said, “Don’t worry, she’ll die soon anyway.” I think we all lost it at that point and thoroughly pissed the old woman off as she probably could assume that we were laughing at her. To be honest, I was going to say the exact same thing, but didn’t think anyone would have laughed at the comment. Instead, we all just lost it. After calming down, we made reservations for the eight of us to have a hostel in Barcelona not five minutes from the beach. However, getting the train tickets, which will be over night, proved to be impossible via the Internet. At the same time all this was happening, Mom was trying to call me via Skype and I felt bad that I had to keep blowing her off so as to form and make the reservations. Eventually, we just said enough was enough and decided to try to make our reservations tomorrow. (Wednesday).

Returning home, we were greeted to three old card-playing women who told us that dinner would be in ten minutes. As well, they informed us that we could buy our train tickets from Madrid to Barcelona and back at the train station in Segovia and this proved to be a huge relief.

1 Corinthians 10:13 always reminds me that no matter what I go through, I’ll always be able to handle it because God will provide a way to stand up underneath it. Sometimes I forget these things, but I’m always reminded eventually.

After dinner we spent an hour working on writing papers and then started watching a 5 hour long movie called The Tenth Kingdom. Now Alex M. and I are blogging, sharing music, and readying for bed. Tomorrow is the big game of Spain against Germany. It’s going to be an amazing game no matter who wins and so deciding to show my support, I’ll be purchasing a Spain shirt at the supermercado just a few stores down from our house and wearing the Spanish flag tomorrow night to Oso Blanco where we will watch the game.

¡Buenas Noches!