Toledo

I had only heard good things from people about Toledo, but to get there required taking a train to Madrid and then a high-speed AVE train to Toledo. We were originally going to make a separate weekend out of Toledo, but it didn't make sense to take the train to Madrid twice, so we decided to add a day onto our trip to Madrid last weekend. And it was well worth it!
As with most of our trips, they can't be simple. We took the train to Madrid on Thursday afternoon and then another one to Toledo. When we got the directions from the lady at the train station in Santander, she made it seem as though you went up the stairs from the first train (Madrid-Chamartin) and the high-speed station (Puerta de Atocha) was right there. She didn't mention that the two train stations were actually 7 kilometers apart. Once realizing this, we were told that since we had a train ticket, we didn't have to pay for a metro ticket (how you got between the two stations). So we found our way to the metro trains upstairs. We got on two trains and then immediately got off of them because we weren't sure they were the right one. After getting on a third one, we realized that all three of them would have taken us to Atocha. Of course, it was rush hour and the metro was really slow, so our hour in between trains was passing too quickly. About halfway through the trip, Tarah and I looked at each other and realized that even though the metro was supposed to be free, we were going to need a ticket to get off of the metro....then the panic set in. We had 10 minutes to not only get to our next train, but also figure out how to get past the sliding doors that needed a ticket in order to open. We got off the train and actually found it quite easy. We just slipped through the doors right behind people that put a ticket in. (When talking to our professor about this after the fact, he told us that it was fine and people ride the metro for free all the time. Didn't keep us from freaking out most of Thursday evening, though). After running through the Atocha station, we found our train and got on about 30 seconds before they closed the doors.
Once in Toledo, we found our way into the walled city and only had to ask for directions twice to find our hostel.

A view of the Tagus River that runs by Toledo.

You can see one side of the wall near the trees.

On Friday, we set out early to make the most of our one day in the city. We walked around and took a lot of pictures from near the wall. The old buildings and medieval wall are stunning. We visited the Alcazar, which they have turned into a history museum.

The Castle of San Servando that you can see from the Alcazar. 

We then went in search of lunch, but it was too early for lunch (only about 12:30), so we spent time in the shops looking at the Damasque jewelry, swords, and ceramic tiles, all made in Toledo. We tried typical Toledo food for lunch-deer meat for me and an assortment of sauces for Tarah, then found our way to the El Greco Museum. At the museum, we were able to see some El Greco paintings, but found that a lot of his work was actually in the Cathedral, so we went there next. Unfortunately, we didn't have much time left, so we only got to spend about an hour in the Cathedral, but the paintings were stunning! It was fine because we learned that there were even more of his paintings in El Prado, a giant art museum in Madrid.

One of El Greco's most famous paintings in the Cathedral depicting Jesus in red. 

A Relaxed Weekend?

After two busy weekends of traveling to Barcelona and then Granada and Sevilla, Jesse, Tarah, and I wanted to do something a bit less stressful for the weekend. Or at least, we planned on it being less stressful. My padres had told me that I should really go to San Sebastian, a town similar to Santander about three hours from Santander. It is known for its beaches and hiking. After touring a lot of really old places, a bit of outdoors time sounded great. We bought our bus tickets and booked a hostel that was in a park outside the city, but that we could take a bus to.
On Friday evening, we found ourselves at the San Sebastian bus station. Since it was kind of late and in the interest of saving a little money, we went in search of a grocery store to buy sandwich stuff for dinner and breakfast food for the morning, especially since our hostel wasn't near anything. After buying food, we walked to the bus stop. While on the bus, we had to check several times (and eventually ask the bus driver) if we were going in the right direction. The stops listed in the bus were in Spanish, but the ones listed on the hostel's directions and at the stops themselves were in Basque, which is nothing like Spanish (lots of k's and x's), and difficult to understand. We finally made it to our stop, much later than we had anticipated.
We got off the bus at the entrance to the park. As we were trying to figure out where we were going, large flashes of lightning illuminated the sky. The directions said to go to the left, but there were two left paths in the park. We asked two different people where the hostel was, but both said "No un hostel aquí"-meaning that there wasn't a hostel in the park. But we were sure there was. We chose to take the path up the hill in hopes there would be a sign somewhere. We got to the top of the hill and there were three forks...all to the left of the current path. By this time, it was raining quite a bit. We didn't have any idea where to go from there, so we pulled out the directions again. We chose a path and kept walking. Then it started to pour and hail and essentially flash flood. We abandoned our walk and ran back down the hill to a pavilion near the bus stop. The wind and rain were quite something! We tried calling the hostel and asking for the phone number of a taxi, but they only gave us 7 of a 9 digit phone number...not quite what we needed. We tried flagging down a taxi, but they were all full. We were able to get the number off the side of a cab, but when we tried calling, the operator was impatient that we couldn't give them an exact location (the bus stop wasn't good enough, apparently). Once the storm let up, we tried walking in the park again and saw another man. As a last ditch effort, I asked if he knew if there was a hostel anywhere. Lucky for us, Mikel did know! He had been birdwatching (in a storm...go figure) and would show us how to get there on the map. Once he showed us the path, it was dark and there were no lights or signs; we were not confident we could find it on our own. We asked him to try calling a cab for us since he could speak more easily. Unfortunately, they hung up on him, too. He was very nice and asked "¿Quieres un compañero?"And so he was. Our companion for a very, very long walk around the outside of the park to the hostel. All weekend, we referred to him as Mikel the Angel because we didn't think we would have found the hostel without him.
After our tiring Friday night, we had much more success on Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday, we got directions from our hostel to places that we could hike. We walked down to the beach and then from there found our way up a small mountain (very large hill)-Mount Ulia. We had walked for a really long time on a road (we thought there would be trails) and were about to turn around when there was a parking lot. We walked toward it and found that it was the entrance to the park we had been looking for all along. We first stopped at the benches near the top. We were so high up that we could see the fog floating at head height across the open field. Then we continued on the dirt trails toward the cliffs that looked out over the ocean. It was beautiful and well worth the hike! Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera, but Tarah had hers, so she has a lot of good photos.
After our hike, we found a gelato shop-it was well-earned! Hit the spot! We walked toward the center of town and made our way back to the grocery store. At breakfast, we realized that the hostel had quite a large array of pots and pans and cooking space, so we were going to take the opportunity and cook ourselves dinner since we all like to cook. We made ourselves a feast both Saturday night and Sunday morning. Saturday was ravioli and chicken with spinach, tomatoes, onions, and peppers, and salad (with no mayonnaise--a favorite of Spaniards) and cookies, of course. On Sunday, we had French toast (no maple syrup to be found, unfortunately), scrambled eggs, bacon, orange juice, and lots of fruit. So, so, so delicious!

Preparing our feast. 

Hiking toward the ocean. 

After checking out of our hotel, we went to Playa de la Concha, which is a pretty large beach in San Sebastian and one of the more famous ones in northern Spain.
Even though the weekend started out a little rough, it was a great adventure and very nice to have a relaxed schedule. A good break from all of the touring we had been doing.

Side note: The Monday that I got back (June 23) was El Día de San Juan-a big deal in Spain. There are large bonfires on the beaches and a lot of people jump over them (my padres specifically told me not to before I went down to the beach). It was really neat to see one of the fiestas while in Spain. I'm not sure if I'm going to make it to Pamplona for the Running of the Bulls, so this might have to suffice.

Second side note: I may have already written about how after the first weekend when I ate seafood paella and squid in Comillas that I told my padres that I really liked seafood. Well, as a result, I have eaten some very interesting things. Anchoas (anchovies), fish with bones that are big enough to crunch, but small enough that you can't pick them up, and tonight...baby eel. All through dinner, I thought it was worms or something of the sort, but I figured if the two-year-old granddaughter was sitting at the table with me and eating them, I could stomach them too. They didn't taste like much, but they had a very interesting texture. I don't think I'd choose to eat them on my own, but I can add it to the list of interesting foods I've eaten here.