Holy Toledo!

Yesterday, I went on a group excursion to Toledo, Spain with other students participating in Cursos Internacionales. There was a pretty sizable group of U of M students there as well, so I got to spend more time with some of my good friends. Many people from Michigan ended up going to Pamplona for Running of the Bulls, but I'm glad I stayed behind with some of my friends because I would not have gotten any sleep this weekend if I had gone to Pamplona. I'm excited to see pictures of everyone else's experiences.

Toledo was a pretty long bus ride away, about 3.5 hours. I wasn't really expecting that, but the trip was well worth it. When we entered Toledo, we drove through really narrow streets on the sides of cliffs and over beautiful, arched bridges. It was seriously something out of a fairy tale or a movie. There was a huge, gorgeous river below us, and the town on the other side of the river. I think this river is the largest in Spain?! It was designed to keep invaders out long ago.

But really, how cool is that? When we got to Toledo, we walked around a bit and got to see a synagogue with a lot of Jewish artwork. Signs of Jewish life in Spain! I got really excited. We saw a lot of cathedrals. They are all so intricate and incredibly beautiful. We also spent some time walking around the streets. Toledo is a lot more similar to Salamanca than Madrid is to Salamanca, but the streets in Toledo are much more narrow and there are a lot more little, quaint stores. Salamanca is more like Ann Arbor and Toledo is more like Traverse City if I had to compare to cities in Michigan. In Toledo, they had a lot of stores that sold cute little pill boxes. I really wanted to get one, but they were kind of expensive! One store was trying to make some kind of deal with me, but they were just being sneaky about it! 

I spent some time walking and shopping around Toledo. There were a lot of super cute stores. We found this itty bitty boutique with adorable clothes! This older woman was working there; I think she was really trying to sell us some stuff! I tried on this floral print romper, but I didn't really want to buy it.

We also saw some wedding happening in Toledo. That would be such an incredible place to get married. The churches there are so beautiful, but imagine how much something like that could cost! It was interesting to see what some of the wedding guests were wearing. Some dresses were a little over the top. Most of the women had their hair done really nicely.

When we left Toledo, everyone was so exhausted. We had to meet at 7AM to leave, so by the time we left at 6:30, everyone was so out of it. I got home in time for dinner, but I was completely exhausted when I arrived home. Overall, I'm really happy I got to visit Toledo. It was really a great city and so beautiful. I had never seen anything like it before!