My Last Week

I can’t believe it is already my last week here in Spain! I’m stressing about all the work I need to get done to finish up my classes because I would much rather be enjoying the city and Spain. I can tell it is going to be a good week though. Today I decided to do a little shopping before I left because there are state mandated “rebajas”, or sales, in all the clothing stores in Spain during the month of July but I have been holding out because the Spaniards told me they get even better towards the end of July. Well sure enough I went shopping today and found this very euro chic leather jacket for 20 euros! But, when I went to pay for it the lady said (in Spanish) 9.99. When I looked confused and said what she looked at me like a dumb American for not knowing my Spanish numbers and pointed to the screen on the cash register that said it. I decided not to inform her that I in fact knew how to say numbers in Spanish but that she was ringing me up wrong and gave her a 10 and got out of there. But moral of the story, I got a really cool leather jacket for 10 euros (about 14 dollars). Then after my classes today I decided I should go and look at the Cathedral of Toledo. I have been there for mass, but they don’t let you look around after because it costs 7 euros to enter if you want to look around. It is a huge cathedral which the people of Toledo will tell you is the best in Spain and maybe in Europe, so I finally shelled out the 7 euros to have a look around today. Well when I got there there was a table of impromptu tour guides set up and they asked me if I wanted a free tour. I said yes and there happened to be no other Spanish speakers who wanted tours so I got a private tour. The cathedral was really amazing and I’m so glad I went. It really is the most impressive cathedral I have seen in Spain so far and it is more like a museum than a cathedral. It is filled with paintings by famous artists that even I have heard of like el Greco, Goya, Velázquez and Rafeal. The tour was really helpful because the guide explained all the different architecture to me and who constructed what portion and important stuff like that. My favorite part though was in the end when my tour guide told me that my Spanish was very good and that I spoke “casi perfectamente” (almost perfectly). Granted I was talking to him about easy things like where I was from and what I was studying and he was probably just flattering me but still it’s nice to hear after struggling for five weeks! Anyways I’m hoping the rest of my week is as good as today was! I head of to Sevilla and Cadiz on Thursday after my last day of work and I’m really excited.