Toledo: the sharp-objects capital of the world

I don't think two days could contrast any more drastically. Our program took an excursion this weekend to visit some other cities to learn more about the history of Spain. My Saturday in Toledo was such a great time, while Sunday in Segovia was about as wonderful as shoving my face in a vat of boiling manure for 24 hours.

We left Salamanca on Saturday at 7:30 in the morning, with Toledo as our first destination. After a three and a half hour bus ride, we arrived to the wonderful Cathedral de Toledo. Apparently in Spain, you can't take photos of anything that is worth taking photos of. So being the daughter of a photographer, I decided to live on the edge and take lots of illegal photos inside the ancient cathedral. Like this one:

And this one is also an amazing catch...you have no idea how hard it is to sneak taking good pictures without a flash-- 99% of them become quite blurry on account of having to quickly shove my camera back in my pocket when the guards began running at me with their mace.

And this photo sums up the weather of Toledo-- beautiful, sunny, warm, although a little windy:

Little known fact: Toledo is apparently the Sharp-Objects Capital of the World!!! They are known for making things like scissors, kitchen knives, butcher knives, letter openers, pocket knives, medieval swords, Lord of the Ring movie swords. Really...anything sharp. Let me expose the truth:

And those four photos of sharp objects are only a tiny fraction of the lethal items available for sale on the streets of Toledo. Hello danger.

After visiting the cathedral, we also visited another church, a synagogue, and a mosque (which in Spanish is pronounced "mosquito". Trust me, the jokes lasted all afternoon.) We stayed at a really nice hotel in the middle of Segovia, where we spent the rest of the night. Some students wanted to go out to bars in the area, but the majority of us spent the evening in with each other at the hotel. We were required to dress up to go to dinner at the buffet inside the hotel-- and let me just say, we would have NEVER dressed up to go to such an average hotel buffet restaurant in the States. I mean really. We were told to wear dresses, and the guys to wear ties. However when we got to the restaurant, we felt like we were dressed to go to prom, but decided to stop for some double cheeseburgers at McDonald's on the way. SO out of place and overdressed. But regardless, it was fun for us to get dressed up and feel like we had somewhere to go.

So all in all, Toledo was a wonderful city, with wonderful sharp objects, and a sub-par hotel buffet in a beautiful four-star hotel. It was great for all of us to stay together in the hotel, get to spend more time with the group as a whole, and see other parts of the country. The plan was to leave Toledo in the morning and take the bus to Segovia, another prominent city two hours away. However, little did we know, the weather was going to be anything but cooperative.