Toledo & Madrid - A Low Point (10.15.07)

Though we intended to get up early this morning and even left the windows and shutters open to the busy Toledo street corner to wake us up, all it seemed to do was to give me a sore throat by the time that we woke up in the morning. We left the hotel at 11:30, put our luggage in the car, and headed down to Zocodover Square for breakfast. Seeing the tourist tram ´at the gate´ and just beginning to board, we make a dash for it and once it started were pleasantly surprised to discover that the 45-minute tour was bilingual. We had managed to cover a lot of the material on the major city landmarks during our various walking tours on our own, but the tour was useful in learning a little bit more about local legends and getting to see the city from across the Tagus River. I also learned that it is not pronounced Tow-lee-do as in the US, but rather Tow-Lay-Do. I will have to write the mayor a note to inform them of their mispronunciation. While I am at it, I will suggest speech therapy for the ever-present Spanish lisp. J
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I needed to thaw out after the tour (shopping for some fall clothes is definitely on the list for Bilbao) so we headed back to our favorite plaza restaurant for breakfast and some hot chocolate you could stand a spoon up in. We next stopped quickly by the internet to quickly check email, make tonight´s hotel reservation, and for me to work on the blog. This is where my patience with my father took a nosediev. After complaining that we were going to the internet in the first place, he proceeded to stand over me and impatiently criticize all my efforts and possibilities for a hotel. After two days of being hassled and harangued, told that the trip would be better without me, told hat he´d rather be in Georgia playing golf, blamed every time that he didn´t like the menu, service, prices, or location of a restaurant (which of course I had to find, since he grumbles that it isn´t his job to find the restaurant)...I hit a definite low with the whole trip and struggled with it during the ride back to Madrid and for the first few hours in our airport motel.
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Unfortunately, my self-esteem has hit a low right alongside my patience. I had hoped the trip would provide me a way to conquer some of my continuing issues with self-confidence and self-identity. My reaction to my father have slapped me across the face, reminding me of the unfortunately reality that, ´Wherever you go, there you are.´ My social anxiety has not changed thus far. My ever present doubts about what I should do with my life and whom I should spend it with (if anyone), have similarly not resolved. Furthermore, I have not managed to step outside my boundaries into the truly new experiences that I think may trigger some of the personal changes I crave. I am still communicating in English as a tourist, I am still eating my safe Western food with a civilized knive and fork, and I am largely in bed (in the same room as my parents), by midnight. The only thing different about my life here versus life at home is that it is somewhat more lonely and definitely more expensive.
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I recovered just enough to tell my mother that I wanted to go into Madrid for dinner, but that I was driving. I had had enough of my father blaming us every time he whizzed by an intersection or took a wrong turn. Plus, he makes me motion sick with his method of braking (slam....accelerate...slam...jerk...slam). I managed to get us into town along the Calle Alcará, and we wandered around a bit around the Gran Viá until settling on dinner at a local Chinese restaurant. It is such a vibrant city! Beautiful old buildings lit up, the streets full of pedestrians and the occasional musician. We ended up inadvertantly along a street with literally dozens of prostitutes of both genders, but rather than feeling unsafe, I just felt sorry for the kids who were leaning against buildings in their tight pants and high heels. We stopped by the Palacio Real for a few photos, and I had us back to the hotel by 11:00 pm with no yelling. I was so grateful, because if Dad had even once complained about what we were doing I would have deposited him on the side of the road and told him to take a taxi back to the hotel.
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This afternoon I began hoping for Saturday to come sooner, since that is the day that I head to Egypt by myself. Unfortunately, I am wise enough to know that Egypt is just one more place on the map in which I will still be me, but this time I will be completely alone. I am not sure what will happen during the next 5 weeks of the trip, but I can guarantee that as the trip changes from being externally-planned to internally-motivated, the blog entries will also likely change. If you, dear reader, aren´t interested in listening to my rambling arm-chair psychology, you better stick to the photos only from now on!

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Love and hugs to all my peeps from Spain.