The following weekend was one of the few I'd decided I would stay in Toledo. Granted, this stay-at-home weekend came with a Friday day-trip sponsored by the Fund, but I'll count it as wanting to get to know my city better. We left from the Fund about 9:30 Friday morning to board a bus that would take us around the Ruta de Quixote, a collection of sites throughout Castilla La Mancha (the region of Spain from which Miguel de Cervantes' legendary knight Don Quixote hails.)
[Cue music from "Man of La Mancha"]
We would be accompanied by Miguel and José Luis, two of the program coordinators from the Fund who usually come with us on these trips. But this trip we had a special guest: Professor Rafael Fuentes Mollá, of Siglo XX and Cine fame. As a lit. professor, this guy knew a thing or two about Don Quixote and la Ruta. Unfortunately, as a lit. professor, he loves to hear himself talk, and thus would sit on the bus mic for half an hour explaining the rolling hills drove through as a powerful symbol for something or other. I'll be honest, I can't remember many of the names of the towns we stopped in, and those names I DO remember are just names (i.e. I can't place the names with the stops to which they pertain or the order in which we saw them) so I'm just going to pretend you all know which towns/landmarks I'm talking about and go with it, okay? Cool.
We started in a town with a plaza of some kind that apparently is representative of the kind of plaza that Don Quixote left at the beginning of his epic journey to fight evil and earn his knighthood. This stop essentially consisted of us listening (attentively, of course) to Prof. Fuentes lecture us for a few minutes on the significance of this plaza, followed by free time, during which Michael and I wandered aimlessly before ending up in the same café as everyone else on the trip. Not a great way to start the day, but hey, at least the coffee was good, right?
Our next stop was a similarly small town that seemed to be similarly devoid of people (I forgot to mention that this was Spanish Fathers' Day, so everyone was, presumably, wherever Spaniards go to honor their fathers). Professor Fuentes again stood in the middle of a plaza and explained to us its significance (I think this time it was the doorway that was similar to the one Quixote might've ridden through at the beginning of his journey...or something...) and we were again given free time. Thankfully, this town (indeed, this plaza) had a little more to offer than the last one. For one thing, there was an old wooden wagon (think covered but, well, without the cover) in the middle of the plaza. So what did we do, you ask? Damn right we took pictures of ourselves as horses. What would you do?
This town was also a lot more fun when I realized that basically everything building was whitewashed with a blue accent. The same seemed to go for the signs and pictures around the outsides of the buildings - mainly white, but with bits of blue. For those of you who have been reading attentively and/or looking at my pictures on Facebook from the semester, you know what comes next. For those of you who haven't (and you ought to be ashamed), I have two words for you: color accent. It's a setting on my camera that allows me to pick one color from the environment to highlight while everything else is rendered black and white. Thus began my Picasso-esque Blue period for the day. If I do say so myself, I think I got some pretty sweet pictures, like this one of one of the shops near the aforementioned plaza.
After wandering around the town's center for another ten minutes (and taking the obligatory pictures with all the Quixote/Sancho Panza statues and silhouettes) we loaded the bus up again and headed to what I think was the town of Consuegra. Here, we listened to Fuentes drone on about las molinas de viento (windmills) that were such a famous part of the Quixote epic. For those not familiar with the story, this old guy has basically been driven mad by spending all his time reading stories of brave and chivalrous knights of old and, despite his old age, goes out into the world to imitate them by fighting what he perceives as evil. These windmills represent one such evil (he sees one and thinks it's a giant, so he attacks it...doesn't work out so well). They may also represent a Middle Ages mind confronting the new technologies of the Renaissance, but I'm sure you don't want to hear about any of that. The point is, we took some pictures next to some really old windmills and everyone had a lovely time and no one was accidentally beheaded by one of the blades. I mean...what...?
Anyway, enough about Jason. It was time for lunch. I'm not sure how they found this place, but it kind of reminded me of a hotel dining room; ridiculously long tables with fresh white tablecloths and, of course, fantastic food. I may or may not have had some meat lasagna on a Friday during Lent. It's okay, though, I'm pretty sure I'm damned anyway. Oh well.
After lunch, we got back on the bus and drove another forty-five minutes to a castle that was apparently representative of Quixote's time (ya know, if fictional characters can have "times"). The tour, of course, was guided. If you're a good fan of this blog, you know how I feel about guided tours. That, combined with the fact that the caffeine had worn off, made me rather unhappy. But hey, got some pictures in a castle and we got back to Toledo by 6. Woohoo.
While at home, I spent most of my time updating everybody my pictures and finally blogging about the previous two weekends (hopefully you all enjoyed). But, alas, it got to around 11 and I got bored with this and went out. I met Karinna (of guerrilla photo war fame), Liz, Sarah, and Diana at the Fund where we decided we would try to find a cool bar outside the Casco. Yeah, I was rolling with four girls, what up?
We picked Santa Teresa, one of the neighborhoods just outside the city walls, to begin our search. This is also, conveniently, where Michael lives, so we got to meet him. Yay.
We first tried a new Australian-themed bar (Foster's, anyone?) where I had a bit of a scare. I set my jacket down next to a few others on a table in the corner, but a few minutes later, when I looked back, it was gone. This wouldn't have been an issue, except that my camera was in one of the pockets. Yeah, I wasn't happy. Good thing Karinna was there to speak Spanish to the bartender...
My camera recovered, the girls wanted some tapas. It was midnight, so we figured most places would be closed. Luckily we found one, but when we ordered our beers, no tapas followed. Thankfully, we were with a few girls who knew their way around the block and flirted until we got a fantastic plate of tapas. Yay for girls.
Then, of course, we ended up at O'Brien's, but with a twist...turned out a few of the girls had never played that glorious game known as Kings (a.k.a. King's Cup, Waterfall, Circle of Death, etc.). Naturally, we took it upon ourselves to teach them how to play, and much merriment was had by all. Then it came time for me to learn a new game called Presidents and Assholes. If you haven't played it, learn; it's fun. But not fun enough to keep us entertained much past 2 a.m. With that, we bid Emilio or usual farewell and headed home.
Saturday was pretty uneventful for me. I spent the day (after I woke up well past noon, of course) putzing around my house doing things that I honestly can't remember, so I just won't report anything. That night I was ready to go out to botellon when a perfect storm of things happened that prevented it. First, I'd temporarily forgotten how to get to the botellon park. Second, I didn't know when everyone was going, so if I did find it there was a chance I might be sipping on a 40 all alone. Third, I had very little money on my phone, so I couldn't get to anyone to figure any of this out. There were a few intermediate steps involving going to O'Brien's to meet Michael and some of the Puerto Ricans and them not being there, so eventually I grabbed a can of Pringles, a Coke, and a chocolate bar and spent the night in my room watching Miracle (great flick).
Sunday, unfortunately, was dedicated almost entirely to work as I had an essay and a presentation due the following week. Poems were read, English translations were Googled, DVDs were ripped, etc. etc. ad nauseum.
Oh, I forgot to mention why ELSE this week would be an important one. For those of you for whom this blog is the only update you have to my daily life, I decided recently that I would run for President of the Notre Dame Glee Club. This is interesting in and of itself because, as far as I know, no one has ever run for this position from abroad. Previously, it was impossible to do so (one of the requirements is that you be present for Grills, a kind of town-hall type meeting in which all of the candidates are "grilled" by the other members of Club), but with the advent of Skype it looked like I might have a shot. Luckily, the Constitution is silent on a lot of this, so it was up to the current Executive Cabinet to decide my fate, and after a vote they allowed me to run. This meant preparing for Grills on Tuesday as well as getting a bribe together for our Campaign Party the following Friday. All from over 4,000 miles away. Yeah, fun. Fortunately, my good friend Murph stepped up to help me out and we were in business.
The first obstacle was the fact that Tuesday would, of course, be the one night of the year when I couldn't guarantee being at my computer at 11 p.m. local time to Skype in for the presidential portion of Grills; Michael and I are in a Spanish theatre class that would be watching a play in Madrid that night and weren't sure when we would be back. Made for a nice heart attack on the ride home, lemme tell ya. Thankfully, though, I made it back with plenty of time and endured the somewhat painful but always enjoyable ritual of Grills.
From there, I set to work planning my bribe. I'll explain: the weekend before the election, the candidates put on a Campaign Party at which they attempt to "bribe" people to vote for them using all kinds of goodies. Some people bring pizza, one guy last year did Bagel Bites...good times all around. I decided to go with sangria, the traditional Spanish wine (with sparkling grape juice for the young 'uns, of course), served by Erin and Angie, two fantastic volunteers who were apparently very convincing to a few of the guys (though that may've been the sangria talking). I also got Murph to bring his computer along so that I could Skype in. Now, this doesn't seem like much, but with the party starting around 10 and going until around 2 a.m., I would have to be online until about 7 a.m. local time. Guess I gotta thank my lucky stars for being nocturnal, huh? All in all, it was a great time, but by the end of it I was ready to crawl into bed and pass out.
As tired as I was, Saturday and Sunday were pretty uneventful; basically everyone had left for their Spring Break trips around Europe, so I was left to hang around Toledo until Tuesday, when I would leave for London. I basically did small stuff; got my haircut (finally), picked up AVE tickets to Sevilla for when my mom comes in early April, etc. etc. And so, here I am, on the cusp of what promises to be a fantastic trip.
I'll start off tomorrow evening in London where I'll, among other things, meet up with TJ and find out the (hopefully favorable) election results. From there...who knows? I do know at some point I want to hit St. Paul's Cathedral to check off the world's second largest Christian church from my list, and I also would be pretty disappointed if I didn't see the London production of Les Miserables, thought not as disappointed as Mac would be, I imagine.
Then, at noon Thursday, TJ and I will fly to Berlin, where we will spend two days (and our only night in a hostel) before traveling to Munich and finally Frankfurt for Easter. Yeah, it's gonna be epic. Plus it'll give me a lot to blog about, which is great for you guys, right? It's okay, just nod your heads. It'll all be over soon.
Right, that's pretty much it. I suppose I should also mention that yesterday, almost exactly one month after starting, I have completely caught myself up on ever heretofore aired episode of How I Met Your Mother. I know, I have no life. But damn it, NPH rules.
That's all for now, folks. See you on the other side of Lent!
Nos vemos,
Griff
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