Adventures in Life

Today we were up early to catch the high speed train to Toledo. We arrived at the train station and took a bus to the Plaza de Zocodover. Public executions were once held here and individuals were burned to death until the townspeople complained. Then it was moved to the edge of town. We headed out to the Santa Cruz Museum. It is currently free since they are not "officially" open. They are remodeling. The collection was small but nice. They house 15 El Greco's. There is also a tile museum that compares tiles across the different regions of Spain. The cathedral was large. The treasury has a glass sculpture from Toledo, Ohio (sister city). Thanks to Rick Steves' guidebook we found a sword shop that is family owned. I asked them if they were currently making swords. The guy took us in the back and showed us the guy making them. The final thing that we did in Toledo was take a city tour. The city walls seem well preserved.
We are watching CNN and I they are talking about the snow in Chicago (with 2 hour airport delays). It is in the 60's here. I guess I will be back to the snow soon enough.
Back to our trip...when we came back to Madrid we went to the Plaza de España. There is a statue of Don Quixote, Sancho Panza, and Cervantes in the plaza. I last read Don Quixote several years ago in Spanish class in Spanish. I am really tempted to pick up the English version and read it on the plane ride home. From what I remember I enjoyed the book. The Temple Debod was next on our list. It is an actual Egyptian Temple that was brought to Spain piece by piece. It is a gift from the Egyptian government to Spain for their assistance in saving several monuments when the Nile rose above the Aswan Dam. They were closed when we arrived, so we went to El Corte Inglés and had lunch. Then we went back to the Temple. It was a lot of fun walking through the temple. I really enjoyed all of the hieroglyphics. I have always wanted to go to Egypt...I have been to a temple so I guess that puts me one step closer. J Dinner tonight was at a buffet that reminded me of Sweet Tomatoes. We had churros con chocolate for dessert. I don't think that I will be having them again, but I wanted to try them. We walked around the city for a little bit and now we are back at the hotel room watching CNN. The big news is that the New York Philharmonic played a concert in Pyongyang, North Korea. The story comes on about every five minutes.