Yesterday it was still determined to rain, but we decided
to brave it anyways and visit El Rastro, which is the largest flea market in Europe. We went, it started monsoon-like raining, so we left. I was wearing flip flops, which, being wet, were making very loud squeaking noises. Some French women came up behind us as we were walking back to the pension and started making fun of me and imitating the noise my shoes were making. As if that weren´t bad enough, I suddenly slipped on the wet granite sidewalk, and my flip flop broke beyond repair. Talk about wardrobe malfunction! We were in the middle of the government district with no shoe stores in sight, so I tried shuffling along, which did not work out so well. Finally we just tied a plastic bag around my foot and marched off down the streets. The other pedestrians looked at me somewhat askance, but I made it back to the pension, which was all that mattered.The rest of yesterday was spent touring the art museums, which are free on Sunday. We saw the Guernica by Picasso, Las Meninas by Velasquez, and lots of other very famous and pretty paintings. We also experiences the frenzy surrounding a Real Madrid game, which involved women in their 50s emerging out of moving car windows to shake their Real Madrid scarves and scream cheers. When the team won, the celebrations were at least as crazy as when I was in Boston and the Red Sox won the World Series.
Today we were chewed out by the pension owner for doing our laundry in the sink in our room, which is apparently forbidden (whoops). We spent the rest of the day touring Toledo, which was very sunny and hot and charmingly medieval. Tomorrow we´re off for Salamanca. Hopefully we´ll get some pictures up soon, but we´ll have to see how things work. It´s a little tricky over here. Until next time!
