Back in the USA 3

And danced to hippie music, and felt okay.

Segovia

Then up to the old Roman, medieval city of Segovia.  The aqueducts were amazing, and Anna Clair was so impressed she became an old, medieval Segovian woman.

Roman Spain

It's kind of hard to believe that this much of one empire (the Roman) still stands in another (the Spanish), but the video below attests to the grandeur:

..and its Montes

Bianca is studying the 18th-century history of the rural region in Castilla-La Mancha known as the Montes de Toledo. They are, quite literally, Toledo's Hills since the city of Toledo owned the land and the people who worked it.  The peasants tended livestock and turned its milk into the best cheese on the planet (hence queso manchego), they grew olives from crooked bushes, turned skinny, tall tree trunks into coal, and cut and dried tangled herbs like rosemary, which dots the landscape with its fragrant light purple blooms. Where else would you see

a sign in the street that says "Bull Crossing"? (And how much more Spanish can you get?). It's a rough road to roam, a road both ridiculed and revered by Cervantes. We were in love at first sight.

Toledo!

It was a long weekend. And when Spanish people take "long" weekends, they mean long (hello, worker-centered-government, anyone?) If a holiday falls on a Thursday, you get a four-day weekend. We took maximum advantage of ours, first with a two-day trip to the tremendous city, and former capital of Castilla and Aragon, Toledo. We stayed in the most fabulous hotel, an old cigarral (a kind of hacienda), overlooking the Imperial City.


Then, on to the sites, including the famous synagogues, the beautiful El Tránsito and Santa María la Blanca (obviously renamed after the expulsion), and the amazing Cathedral, finished after two centuries of work in that fateful year 1492. (More photos and video below.)

More Toledo

Cathedrals, synagogues, and a video below of things more profane (Bubby, please don't watch this!)...

More good things about Spain

Carousels sprinkled randomly in the city...

And the "Fiesta de la primavera" (Spring Fest), which is a costume day at school. I was Cenicientas, also known as Cinderella. Turns out the princess costume was popular among the female 2-3-year old set in Colegio Estilo.

Going grocery shopping is perhaps the most intimate way to get to know a place. The general topic of the cost and availability of consumables we think we need, and learning how to cook with the ones we actually can get and afford, probably dominates 75 percent of our domestic patter."God, I can't believe how good this 2 euro wine is!  I thought manchego would be cheaper. Why doesn't anyone eat fruit???"  This shouldn't be the case since the report on what's cheap and what's not hasn't changed much in the last several hundred years, as witnessed by an article on eighteenth-century rural area to the south of Madrid, above. Translation: wine and olive oil are cheap; fruit is for rich people.

Palaces and Major Plazas

Anna Clair hasn't been inside yet, but the Royal Palace (a Bourbon, enlightened creation of special interest to Bianca right now) holds great promise. Kings and queens are fine. But princesses live within palaces, right? Or only castles?   We'll soon find out...

Anyway, in the old days, princesses definitely lived on the Plaza Mayor in Madrid, in apartments no different than where Anna Clair lives. But on the "major" plaza, churros and chocolate can be found in abundance, and it is this that makes the apartments truly "royal."

Andando por Madrid/Cruising around Madrid

Close by is the Plaza de España, where a giant statue of El Quijote and his amiguito, Sancho Panza (whom we resemble after the many tapas y cañas we've consumed), reside. Anna Clair was surprisingly interested, and we truly know that it sounds like insane yuppie parental bragging to tell you that she is riveted by the installments that we (poorly) recite from El Ingenioso Hidalgo de la Mancha (where she is soon to visit.) (PS: please don't tell her Dulcinea is *not* really a princess.)

Then on to the palace of a real king and queen, and to their old apartments during the Hapsburg era. Did you know that Anna Clair too is a princess and also lives in an apartment? Oh, and also that churros and chocolate caliente are AWESOME?

Nuestro barrio/Our 'hood

We live in a neighborhood named after el Pintor Rosales (the painter Rosales), near a huge park with... really... a temple imported from ancient Egypt. Oh, and a lot of kid's playgrounds.

For more on Rosales, visit Wikipedia, of course. (Are there any other trustworthy sites on the internets?)

For more of our fabulous life, see Barry above.

On the Road Again

An overnight flight. Anna Clair was great, reading her favorite "book," as always.  Bianca, on the other hand, was a nervous flyer, as always.