Wanderlust

The first thing I noticed about Spain was the color. Looking down from the plane, the ground looked red, sandy, dry. Compared to the two days I spent in rainy, green Ireland, the change in landscape was extreme for me. Not unwelcome, but very opposite to what I'd come from. Landing off the plane, it was the heat. It feels like being inside an oven- the heat pulls the oxygen from my lungs, and it feels like I can't breathe. Like when it's so cold outside that you can feel the air inside your lungs, but here, the air is so warm that you can't feel it at all. It reminds me of Nevada, and the time I spent in Las Vegas. I thought I would have a harder time than I've had so far. Everything is in Spanish, that's true, but there is enough English intermixed that I can figure things out easily enough. Especially at Barajas, the main airport of Madrid. I imagine a lot of tourists come through there, so English was still common to see and hear. But even in Toledo, everything is translated- menus, sidewalk signs, even some of the vendors have picked up a few words. I bought a few trinkets for my family and the cashier told me, 'I like your tattoos'. (I haven't seen many people here with tattoos, and none at all with as many visible ones as I have.) Toledo: pulling into the train station, the first thing you see is the history here. The train station looks ancient. The walls around the city, hundreds of hundreds of years old. The cathedral and the Alcazar, two highest points of the city. The streets are cobblestone, winding, barely wide enough for a car to get through, with names completely different from those seen in America. Not a numbered street or an avenue to be found. More hills than San Francisco, it seems. And again, the heat. No wonder they adhere to siestas here, because walking the streets after 2 pm feels like a deathtrap. Going from the pharmacy or Plaza Zocodover (like 0.5 miles away from my dormitory) and back means coming back drenched in sweat and exhausted simply because the heat sucks all the energy from you. But I do it anyway. I came to Spain to walk, to explore, to find my way. Not to sit in my nicely air-conditioned dorm room on the internet all afternoon every afternoon (only sometimes.) We had a small tour of our college here, which has two buildings that used to be monasteries/convents/churches/etc. We were told that these buildings were used during the time of the Spanish Inquisition, during the time of Napoleon, that some of the doors here are originals that have been maintained for nearly 1,000 years. It's mind-boggling to be in the center of so much history. Toledo used to be the capital of Spain. So much of the city seems largely unchanged. Stores are built on top of and around the ruins of Roman baths- have put in glass floors so that people can come in and see the ruins just below the clothes for sale. Here, they build around history- they didn't knock it all down to build newer, shinier, better things. Here, it feels like there is much more of an appreciation for their history, more pride of their country and heritage. Sometimes in America I feel like we don't even know what our history is. We don't take care of our landmarks. We have national pride, but it isn't the same as it is here. Our pride is more of an 'our country is a great country' type of thing but we can't explain why. We just know that on 4th of July, we wear our red-white-and-blue and watch fireworks, drink beer and cook out with our families, and have a day off from work. We celebrate the day but not the reason the day is special to American history. Maybe it's the same way in other parts of Spain. But in Toledo, how can you ignore history when it's written all over the walls you walk by each day?