Here is a quick update with a few more photos from Toledo. We summed it up pretty good in the previous post about what we did, but here are a few photos from the ride around the city. The train station in town is very impressive. All of its windows are stained glass and much of the inside is decorated with detailed colorful tiles and woodwork. We are currently in Granada and the last photo of this post is from the train ride from Madrid to Granada. Time provided I will be posting a blog update about Granada in the next day or two.

An update on the health of the family. Steve and Jon are both getting better with antibiotics. The girls in the family think that they might be catching it too but only time will tell. Right now we are all trying to get lots of sleep in between sights.

On Saturday we went to the San Isidro festival in Madrid. San Isidro is the city’s patron saint so they have special activities and most of the city shuts down for the day. We went to the park and walked around with thousands of other people, taking in the sights of the vendors and people in traditional costumes. It was similar to a fair. There were many different stalls with traditional foods as well. It reminded us of Czech days in Wilbur, NE, but much bigger.

Then that night we walked up to the Gran Via (a large street with lots of retail shopping and businesses, kind of like Michigan Avenue). That night it was a celebration of its 100 years. We lucked in to being in exactly the right place to watch a ten minute long light show that was projected on the large Telefonica building. It detailed the history of the Gran Via and the Telefonica building. Jon got video of the entire thing and will post it here when we get back home.

Toledo
Jon came to Toledo in high school as part of a short foreign exchange program during spring break in 2006. He stayed with the Canto family while he was in the city and we had plans to meet them once again for a night of Tapas. However, Steve has been sick most of the trip and had been getting worse. It is not possible to find a clinic here and you must go to the hospital if you want medical care on the weekends. Julia and her family met Steve and Jon at the hospital. Julia acted as translator for the doctors, who did not speak any English. He has a massive infection, and they even called in an ear specialist. Julia says they called him “pobrecito” and said he must have been in quite a lot of pain. They gave him a prescription for pain killers and antibiotics. The night with the Cantos was able to continue as planned, and we hope they are able to come to Nebraska some day. They were invaluable at the hospital and treated us to wonderful local tapas, wine, and great company.

This morning Jon woke up feeling sick as well. However, when we went to the pharmacy they were willing to give us as many antibiotics as we wanted. The price for them was also extremely low; the pharmacist said that many people from the United States come and ask for 15, 20 boxes so they can stock up.
We went to the Cathedral and Toledo and also took a little tourist train ride around the city to get better views of the surrounding countryside. It has all been very beautiful.

Photo & Video update 31.5 GB 1200 Files

This post was ghost written by Christine