As we walked out of the Prado we happend to run right into a wedding. Right outside the Museo del Prado isn't a bad place to get hitched. A few of us were seriously thinking about crashing but decided that the whole language barrier would bust us pretty quickly.
Back in Toledo I meet up with some local Spaniards to have some tapas and check out some of their favorite bars in the city. Nightlife in Spain is pretty unique. Not only do people go out really late - I'm talking like sometimes as late as 12/1 at the bars... on a busy night nobody goes to the clubs until at least 1 or 2. But all of these times differ on depending on the night... yeah it gets complicated. I will spare you of all the details of Toledo's nightlife but I will say that I am growing to love the long chats over tapas and beer. In one of my first classes this term my teacher was talking generally about life in Spain. She posed the following question to the class: What do Spaniards love to do the most? The responses from the class were the stereotypical answers that most people think of when they think of Spain: dance, travel, drink, take siestas... and the list goes on. With each response the professor would just shake her head. Clearly she had only one response in mind. After a minute or so of guessing she finally revealed the answer that we had failed to come up with: spaniards love to talk. At first I was a little thrown off by the answer.
But I can say that the more I think about it this statement, the more it resonates with me. It is not rare for late afternoon coffee date to turn in to having some beers and tapas at another bar and then dinner. They great you with a kiss on each cheek and will sit/walk/stand and talk for hours. A place where talking and hanging out often comes before sleep. This is my kind of country. Now here's for the big challenge: be able to have more interesting conversations in the native tongue.
Off to S
AdÃos.
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