The Man from la Marcha

It's been a long day...and the legs don't want to work anymore, but I made it through and had a good time (for the most part) and survived to write about it.

"So I got that going for me...which is nice."
-Caddyshack

First off, I woke up early to take down my laundry that was hanging up cause the dryers in the hostels...um...are sub par. Not wanting to wake anyone else up, I obscured my personal light with my pillow. After about a minute I started to wonder what the smell was because I knew that there wasn't a toaster in the building...only to realize the small holes that where being burnt into my pillow case by the light. Yup, I almost burnt the place down. When things like that happen within the first hour you're awake, you know your in for a tough day.

The plan was for the whole group to meet at the train station and go to Toledo today. I, being a self-assured world traveler, made my way to the train station on my own, taking a short cut I had figured out. When I got there, nothing looked familiar, and I didn't see any of the group...at which point I realized that my
ingenious self had figured out a shortcut to the wrong rail station...and that I was missing my train to Toledo.

It's happened many times before and will happen many times to come, but today, I was kicked in the butt by arrogance.

Making my way to the phone, I called up the group leader, Charlie, and told him about my screw up. Understandingly, he told me that I had a return ticket waiting for me with the group and to make my own way to Toledo. Which was nice of him.

Getting to the correct train station, I started through the process of trying to get a ticket...having been spoiled by how nicely, and quickly, (and Englishly) they had treated me in Barcelona, the Madrid ticket-buying experience was a little more terse. After waiting for an hour...I finally got my train ticket, only to realize that the train was leaving in five minutes and I didn't know where the departures left from. I found it though, and got on with a whole minute to spare, and felt all the troubles of missing trains, running around Madrid from station to station, and lines for tickets melt away...I was on my way to Toledo: Moorish Medieval city of Spain - and home to...


Don Quixote




Sorry...but the two guys on the left look like they're in the Wu-Tang Clan...I think it's RZA and Inspecta Deck. Mom and dad: I know you don't understand that joke, but trust me, it's funny.





All the streets were like this.





After all of it, I can assure you, my legs are ready to fall off...and I wasn't to happy about things for that hour in the Train station...but all in all, it was a pretty good day.