Adjustment Period

So I eventually did make it to Madrid, I promise. It took some serious navigating of the metro system after a 30 minute delay on the train to change the engine... but I did meet up later in the day with my ISA group, finally. After trekking through the afternoon heat with my 20 kilo bag and other appendages, I made it to the 5-star hotel where we stayed in Madrid on August 27th - "La Princessa." After a brief introductory meeting (in my group of 12 students), Fátima (the director) had organized a panoramic bus tour of the city for us. It was a pretty low key way to end the night.
Sunday we went to Valle de Los Caidos and El Escorial. It was hot, but the views were worth it. The former consisted of a Francan monument to himself (that he made the prisoners of the Spanish Civil War make to bury him), in a Romanesque Cathedral reminiscent of the Vatican. Fátima told us that in his egoistic mind he wanted to create the 4th major pilgrimage site -- too bad that didn't work out for him (ok, not really). But the actual monument is pretty impressive, and still guarded 24 hours a day to prevent vandolizing. We had a tour guide for Madrid, Gaetán, who met us at El Escorial -- a monastery dedicated to San Lorenzo, which includes the royal tombs -- for the 3 hour visit of the monastery, library, and school. It was pretty neat.
The following day we visited La Reina Sofia, an 18th Century hospital turned National Center of Art circa de 1960. Gaetán again showed us around to the main attractions: some Van Gogh, Dali, and Picasso (of course). We did get to see Picasso's "Guernica", which was amazing in both size and content. He painted it for the Spanish section in some French Expo in the late 1930s (just prior to WWII), drawing upon the horrors of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) for inspiration. Picasso said that the painting could only return to Spain when the country returned to democracy (a day he would never live to see), eventually in 1975 after Franco's death. That afternoon, Gaetán took us on a tour of El Palacio Real, that is no longer really "home" to Rey Juan Carlos II and his family, but they still use the structure for formal occassions. The palace itself was built from 981-1007 A.D. and had some quite impressive rooms (some with all the walls and ceilings decorated with porcelain). After our last day of sightseeing in Madrid, we took the bus to Toledo to stay the night (in yet another sweet hotel).
Our tour guide in Toledo, Rocio, met us outside the city walls and took us up a series of escalators to get into Toledo. She took us through the old Jewish Quarter, one of the 3 religions whose history was fused in Toledo -- including Christianity and Islam. Our first stop was San Juan de los Reyes, a monastery where Franciscan monks still live. It was built per the directions of los Reyes Católicos around 1492, as a sort of dedication to the Christian slaves liberated from Muslim control. She then took us to Santa Maria La Blanca, a synagogue from around the 12th Century -- oddly enough it has many Arab/Moorish characteristics, including the high arches, a lack of any animals or people in decoration, and only a single Star of David anywhere in the building. In 1411, it was later turned into a church, and even later served as some sort of fort during the war. It's one of two preserved synagogues in the city (out of 10) -- but is open only as a museum as there are not enough Jews in the city to keep it open as a functioning synagogue. Later, at La Iglesia de Santa Tome, we saw El Greco's famous painting "El Entierro del Señor de Orgaz", painted for an influential and rich man from outside Toledo. El Greco also included a self-portrait and a portrait of his son within the massive painting. We also went to La Catedral de Santa María in the Plaza de Ayuntamiento (sort of like the community's government center). This cathedral is the second largest in Spain, the outside of which is really amazing.
The next day, Wednesday, we stopped in Ávila on our way to Salamanca to check out the city's Murallas -- the oldest intact walls from the 11th Century. Other than that, there wasn't too much else about that city. We finally did make it later to Salamanca to meet up with our host families and "move-in." I think everyone in our group was a bit nervous, but the families were really friendly and quickly put any worries to rest.