Yesterday I took a day trip with my school to the city of Toledo. It is the hometown of the painted El Greco, and is filled with relics of a time when Christians, Jews and Muslims lived together peacefully. We visited a mosque, a sinagogue and a cathedral. Many of the buildings had names that came from more than one of the religions, and many had been used for more than one religion over the tears. In fact, the cathedral was built around a mosque, whose original walls are still standing inside the cathedral. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of inside the cathedral b/c I couldn't figure out how to turn the flash off on my new camera. But it was absolutely the most ornate, beautiful, monstrous building I have ever seen. It has 17 different chapels, all for a different type of religious service, including the only Mozarabe chapel in the world. I may have to try to find some pictures somewhere, b/c there is no way I could ever describe this building. The same goes for the inside of the other buildings. But I did take a lot of pictures outside in the city though, so check out the link on the left to see them.
The teacher of my grammar class is from Toledo, so she went with us and showed us around, which is really cool. I'm sure I got a lot more out of the trip from going with a local, rather than by myself with a guidebook. This teacher is hilarious. She pointed out to us that "la solucion es femenina, pero el problema es masculino." In class she is really funny too. The classes are so different from what I am used to. The teachers really like to get to know the students and just have fun in class. Classes center around group discussions, and my culture class is really interesting b/c she always asks us to compare things in Spain to our home countries. Most of the students are American, but there are also students in my class from Thailand, Japan, Great Britain, Italy and Holland, so I am learning a lot about other countries too.
***EDIT***
Here is a link to some pictures of the Cathedral
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Cathedral_of_Toledo
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1 comment:
it sounds like you're having sooo much fun! i'm jealous :)
p.s. you are going to paris? booooo. double boo for going with your boyfriend. you're turning into one of 'those' people. haha
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