Toledo and jet lag

Although I slept pretty well the first three nights, Tuesday night I had trouble.

During the day we had walked around a lot and gotten tons of sun, but I probably went to bed too early, around midnight, when I wasn’t sleepy. Whatever the reason I was up until almost four, browsing on my phone and watching an old episode of Doc Martin on YouTube.

Unfortunately the next morning I couldn’t sleep in since we had plans to go to Toledo for the day. I got up around 8, had a couple of cups of coffee, and was functional (though barely).

We are so close to the train station. Just a five minute walk. And the train was really nice. The ride is only about 30 minutes, but the train was like a really nice Amtrak. I really enjoyed just listening to music and staring out the window.

Overall Toledo was fun, although it was easy to get lost, the cobblestone streets were hilly and hard to walk on, and because we didn’t know where we were going half the time, we missed a whole bunch of sights. We did get to see the Toledo Cathedral, El Greco museum, and Sephardic museum (which was pretty boring since everything was in Spanish). I had wanted to see a synagogue but we didn’t have time and I was pretty exhausted.

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The meals we had were pretty good. I’m not picky and enjoyed well enough the duck and chicken sandwiches I got at the first place (they were just 3 euros each and so I imagined they were tiny, which they weren’t, but luckily I had a ziploc bag and was able to save the superfluous sandwich for later), as well as the “tostata” with brie at the second place.

I expcted the tostata to be like the one I had in Madrid: one medium sized baguette. But this was the equivalent of three pieces of bread soaked in Brava sauce with two giant hunks of brie. I ate all the bread, one and a half hunks of brie, and all the chips.

I also had a lemon Fanta, which after walking around in the hot sun for hours, was freaking delicious.

We got back to the train station early and had to time stop in yet another Chinese-run convenience store. (I forgot to mention that these are common all over Madrid, if not all of Spain, and are called chinos.) Despite the lemon Fanta, I still felt thirsty so I got a couple of nectarines. He got drinks and a chocolate bar, which made me feel even thirstier looking at it.

My overall impression of Toledo? Hot, dry, and dusty. In a lot of ways it reminded me of China, at least the area surrounding Beijing. We even saw a little lizard clinging to the wall of the train station, which reminded me of the lizards in Changping.

The train ride back was just as nice as the ride coming. Our seats were backwards but there were plenty of empty ones facing the right way so we switched. (I was afraid the conductor would yell at us, like he would have in Paris, but he didn’t.) We even each got a window seat.

Before heading home, we stopped in a Body Shop, and I got foot files and cream. My feet really needed it.

We got back around eight. This time I was glad for an early night in. I took a shower then took care of my feet. It felt great and they are much better today.

We also did laundry, took out the garbage, and watered the swapee’s plants. The dryer took forever. I was worried about using up a lot of electricity so I took most of my stuff out and hung it up. I had thought about using the clothesline outside, but it’s really high up. Like, I have to climb to almost the top of the ladder to reach it. I said fuck it and hung up my stuff around the apartment. YP was kind enough to find me some hangers.

Because it’s so arid here, almost everything is already dry.

I was able to sleep last night. I stayed up past one, between watching an old Doc Martin Christmas special and waiting for the dryer to be done. I woke up around 8 today. I could have slept more but I don’t want to have trouble sleeping again tonight, or at least lessen the possibility of it.

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