España: Toledo

From Aug 29th to the 31st we were in Toledo, a beautiful city about an hour and a half outside of Madrid. We stayed at another really nice hotel with an awesome swimming pool (which was nice because it was really really hot!). On the way to Toledo the bus stopped at Valle de los Caidos (Valley of the Fallen), which is a giant memorial for Franco, the dictator that ruled Spain for about 30 years. Franco is buried inside this memorial, which consists of a giant cross and a cathedral. Our directors did not come inside the memorial because Franco's rule is a very sensitive subject, as he was a harsh dictator and killed many people. After the Spanish Civil War Franco took many people from the opposition party prisoner and forced them to build this memorial. The location of the memorial is very far up a mountain, and because of the horrible working conditions thousands of people died during the construction. As you can tell, this was a very morbid and kind of creepy place to see. Many of the statues in and around the memorial reminded me of the dementors from Harry Potter. To say the least, I didn't really like being inside this memorial...it's a very creepy place!

This photo is of Valle de los Caidos, Franco's memorial.

After spending about an hour at Valle de los Caidos the bus took us to El Escorial, an enormous building which was once a monastery and a Spanish royal palace. Our tour guide at El Escorial was really fascinating, he knew so much about history, it amazed me! Although he spoke extremely fast in Spanish, I was able to understand a lot of what he was saying. El Escorial houses the Pantheon of the Kings, a circular room with rows of marble cofins that contain the remains of kings and ruling queens of the Hapsburg and Bourban dynasties. The center of El Escorial is an enormous and very beautiful cathedral. This enormous palace and monastery was completed in 1584...so amazing that such an extravagant building was built so long ago! After touring El Escorial for a majority of the day, we finally arrived in Toledo. We had a free night the first night in Toledo, where a bunch of us went and explored the city. At dinner in Toledo I tried my first Tortilla Española and fell in love with it! It is very different from the tortillas we are used to, it is more like a potatoe and egg omelet. So yummy! (My host mom is going to teach me how to make it!). The next day we spent learning a lot of history through our walking tour of Toledo. On our last night in Toledo we had a meeting about our host families. Our directors spoke to us about cultural differences and what we should expect. The directors are really funny, especially Marisa. She had almost all of the students in tears with her animated comparisons of what life is like in Spain compared to the US. She told us that people in Spain are really straightforward and blunt, and that we shouldn’t take it seriously if our host mom says something we normally consider offensive. They also told us how we have to be very considerate of water and electrical usage. Water and electricity is really expensive here, which is why many señoras (host moms) will yell at American students for using too much. Not wasting water and electricity is a great thing to get used to anyway! On the 31^st we left Toledo for the five hour bus ride to Granada where we met our host families! More on Granada and my host family is coming soon!!

xoxo,

Elena (as my host family calls me!)