Toledo

       We started the week off with some incredible group activities!  Tuesday we all dressed up a little and went and saw Carmen, which is a French Opera, that they have turned into a Flamenco!  Very cool costumes and absolutely incredible dancing!  It was very impressive and we all enjoyed it exquisetly!  On Wednesday, my friends and I went to La Biblioteca Nacional, which is the biggest library in Spain.  Right now they had an exibition with the original cuaderno (notebook) of Leonardo Davinci! And we got to see that and alot of his notes and drawings and learned a lot about his life!  He painted and wrote at the same time!  Supposedly the art side of your brain is completely separate from the writing one or something so he could do it!  He also wrote backwards and upside down! Bizar and incredible!  After we visited the library, we met up with our program at the    Nuevo Apolo theater and saw “La Ratonera.”  An English play called "Mousetrap."  It was absolutely fantastic and very entertaining!  It is a murder mystery and was acted out very well. 

Just read it and you will smile like I did! :)

Biblioteca Nacional De España

Eating a Napolitano, basically a sweet crosant filled with chocolate!

Me, Andrea, Katie W, Katie F, Julia, Dottie, Brittany, Michael

                We went to Toledo on Friday.  The city is well known for it´s cathedral, and for all of the metal work shops in the city, especially for swords.  When we got there we took a bus tour around the outside of the city.  Toledo was built pretty much on an island in the river.  The city is surrounded on three sides by the river, and it is elevated, so it really looks like a city on a hill, and you can´t get to it except at the entrance.  Very cool.

This picture is to the right of the previous picture

                The city is older and less modern, many of the streets are and arms width apart!  All of the major streets were covered with telas (cloth tarps) that were attached to the walls of the buildings to provide shade for those in the streets.  This is only done annually for Christmas, Easter, and Corpus Cristi which is latin for Body of Christ.  Corpus Cristi happens every first to second week of June and they were preparing for that and had many banners and other decorations also that were for that commemoration.  During the trip we did not see the commemoration but next week we will and I will talk about it.

               

                 First, in city we went straight to the cathedral.  One thing that sets this cathedral apart from others is a stone scene behind the Altar Mayor, or the alter nearest the principal representation of Christ at the front of the chapel, and were the preist perform the ceremonies.  Behind this, there was an incredible scene carved out of stone and plated with gold, that was lit up by a whole in the ceiling that was cut out after construction because the artist wanted his work to be lit up by natural lighting.  It is pretty impressive.  Also all of the wood carvings for the coro (choral area, and were the priests sit) was all mahogony wood! There was a lot of famous artwork in the cathedral as well.  I didn´t recognize any of them cause I am not an art or history buff, but it was very intersting.   

The hole cut out to let natural light in

Sorry that the lamp is in the way, but it is incredible!

                We went to another small chapel and saw the orignial “Greco.”  Again, didn´t mean too much to me because of my lack of interest, but nonetheless a learning experience.  Then we were free to explore the city for a few hours.  We went to a sword shop and looked at all of the swords, daggers and knifes that this man had made.  Also got to see so many other handmade metal crafts.  Esmaltes, which are enameled pieces i believe in english are so cool!  So many done by hand and are just so beautiful!  Plates with gold etchings of pretty much any kind of scene, earings, bracelets, necklaces, rings, cups, bowls, figurines etc.  Very impressive.  We also found a real leather shop and i got a real nice new belt of darker brown leather.  Some of the girls got some really nice purses made of real leather. 

Skinny streets! Some cars actually drove on some of these! They are nuts!

                It was just a day trip, but it was very fun and awesome to learn and experience Toledo!