Salemanca. That is where my whole school was going on Saturday. All day. 100% chance of rain. Famous for a couple historical sites and their abundance of discotecas. I imagined classmates scurrying around in soggy groups from place to place to escape the rain. We were basically over it as soon as we heard about it, so Andrew made other plans last minute while I was in class. Friday after school, we hurried home and quickly packed what we would need for a weekend in one backpack; two shirts each, one book each, one extra pair of pants, socks, toothbrushes, two apples, one plum, 9 cherries, the two sandwiches Visi made for us just before we left, and we strapped our big jackets to the back of the backpack. After a quick, but LARGE lunch, we excitedly went to the estacion de autobuses, and hitched a bus ride to Madrid.
We were late to get to the little shop, "Alquila motos," so were ran to the metro, then ran through the city, asking hurried directions when we could. Finally we found it, and we entered into the little basement full of many motorcycles and two tough looking guys. Walter pulled out our motorcycle for the next two days; a silver Honda with a place to pack our backpack and comfortable seats. We were really excited and the men helping us were very nice, but it was already almost 9pm, and we needed to get on our way. We had one night booked in a hotel in Andrew's favorite Spanish town TOledo, which was one and a half hours away. We told them where we were going that night, and the day after we were going wherever there wasn't rain. Walter looked up the weather online for us, and the little map of Spain that popped up was covered in little glowing rainclouds, except one spot, Valencia on the Medeterrainian coast, five hours from Toledo. We decided to decide our plans later, because we needed to get on our way. The tank was empty, and we didn't know where any gas stations were, so Walter said we could follow him to one. 
After we filled up, he told us to follow him and we would go our separate ways once we were on our correct road. We tried our best to keep up with his, but Andrew was still trying to get used to the moto, as well as they crazy streets of Madrid. At our first red light, Waltar looked over at Andrew's bare hands and exclaimed, "NO TIENES GUANTES!?" Andrew shook his head. Walter immediately took the gloves off his OWN hands and pushed them into Andrew's hands. We were so thankful for all his kindness! Finally we came to the street where we need to part ways and WAltar sped off towards Andalucia, and we took the tunnel towards Toledo. I couldn't help but to low him a kiss as he left becuase he was so great. Is was just past nine and we sped down the road with the last remaining 20 mineutes of orange light in the air. Once is got dark, it got pretty cold especially with the wind gushing by you on the moto. We made one quick stop at REPSOL gas station and I put on every piece of clothing I brought; three shirts, one sweater and my jacket.
About an hour after our stop we arrived in Toledo and drove around up and down
(WAY up and WAY down) the narrow and wet cobble-stone roads. I couldn't believe how narrow they were, I felt that is I streatched my arms out on either side I could touch them. The city is ancient and beautfil, and we found our hotel easily by the impressive Catedral. 
Our hotel was a dream come true, so clean and nice, and we even had a small wooden balcony from which you could see the Catedral tower. Our room looked like a little hobbit room with small carved desk and chair, and little round wooden door. We walked the wet streets and stopped by to have a glass of wine from a quite little place called, "Entre Vasos." 
It was the best wine I had ever had and for only two Euros. We were so tired afterwards, so we went straight to bed and fell asleep before our heads hit the pillow.
The next day, we paid six Euro each to visit the world famous Catedral which was constructed in 1222, and obviously at the height of Catholic power and prosperity. It was the most elaborate place I have ever visited, every minute detail attended to with the utmost care, superfluous attention paid to each small attribute.
We spent about an hour in there because there was so much to see, but after a while I started getting annoyed and was ready to leave. I was sick of seeing Jesus hang on intricate golden crosses, embedded with jewels, and have the faces of ordinary men exalted on the walls of a church just asking to be worshipped. It made me sad to see the troves of tourists from around the world learning that Christianity was about things that don't matter. I wanted to tell them, 'Jesus hung on a WOODEN cross, no jewels, and he doesn't want money to be wasted on this kind of crap when it could actually be used for his will in HELPING PEOPLE!' 
So we left, me feeling irritated. Sometimes I feel the "Saints" made the same mistake as Lucifer.<---Look at this guy
We toured the amazing city, bought a couple souvenirs, and decided to be on our way before it started raining again.
But just as we loaded up our stuff, it began to sprinkle. The lady at the front desk was so worried about us and made us jackets out of trash bags and scissors, she was so kind and had always treated us like family. By the time we got on our moto, it had begun to rain pretty hard, and though we didn't know where we were going, but we just wanted to leave. The first fifteen minutes on the moto are always the worst. 
You feel like you have been on there for 3 hours, but after that your body adjusts the extreme conditions of wind, cold, posture, noise and a few other things. Thirty minutes outside Toledo it stopped raining and the rain began to stream off our helmets and our clothes began to flap dry in the wind, which felt great. Somehow my rain jack started coming apart bit by bit and flying off into the wind behind.
Pretty soon it was all gone, it was quite odd, and we thought it might be due to the intense winds. Birds couldn't even fly straight. After an hour, we stopped at a field and ate the food we had smuggled from the European Breakfast buffet. 
( One shared sandwich, an apple, a pack of crackers and a piece of cheese). 
WE didn't really know where to go, so we decided to attempt Valencia, but decided to stop if we saw someplace better on the way, know that five hours on one moto would be very difficult in many ways....well, i am going to have to get back to you about what was in our fate, but its really exciting, so check back soon as to where we ended up!
xoxo
No comments:
Post a Comment