Finde 2: drums in the park and Toledo

This is a long one so I divided it into to parts to make it easier to digest:

Part 1, Sunday, El Retiro

"There´s something in a Sunday that makes a body feel alone," croons Johnny Cash, and he´s right. Especially if your wandering around aimlessly in a city you´re just getting to know. And it´s that first cloudy, breezy day that let´s you know it´s definitely Fall. And everyone seems to be with someone else except you. And you just missed an appointment  to see an apartment that seemed really promising because you hit the snooze too many times.

So I rambled across town to what is at least for the time being my favorite café. It´s called Café Acuarela, and it has this great window that juts out into the street, so that you can people watch shamelessly with a pane of glass to protect you. And it´s just of Plaza de Chueca, "the gay plaza" to put it away I rather wouldn´t, so the people watching is good. Prostitutes with a wide range of gender identities, trendy young  couples of various orientations,  little old abuelas who have lived in the neighborhood since Franco kept these kind of vices in check but don´t bat an eyelash at the new neighbors. Journaled  a little. Read a little. Extremely loud and incredibly close which is phenomenal, and not exactly a pick me up, but kind of is because it makes you feel less lonely because everyone´s at least kinda lonely.

Then I rambled a little farther across town to el Retiro, "the Central Park of Madrid" to put it a way I rather wouldn´t put it.  And I´m midway through the gauntlet of dead white guys when I hear the unmistakable sound of a slap on a hand drum in the distance. Suddenly, my aimless wandering has an aim. I make towards the drum as best I can, indulging in the fantasy that it´s a group of Ghanians playing waka even though I know it´s not that likely. There are a lot of West African immigrants in Madrid, though. Finally I come across a lone drummer practicing with headphones. Slightly, disappointed I look for a bench at a safe enough distance that it´s not awkward, and I  hear another drum. I follow it to an artificial lake where I find another lone drummer banging away on a djembe-like drum, but I hear another drum and I follow that one. It´s more than one drum! I hear multiple parts fitting together in an intelligible pattern. Hand drums, rattles, stick drums. Following a call and response pattern! I dare to dream that it actually is West African, maybe even Ghanian. Finally, I come across a crowd behind a giant statue of a man in the fetal position. I climb up on top of a little wall-fence thing too see. They´re Colombians actually, but it´s really cool. The dancers are probably even better than the drumming. I watch awhile and leave satisfied. Go home, make some herbal tea, listen to some Johnny cash, write this and now I feel great.

Part 2, Saturday, Toledo

Okay, now rewind to Saturday, me and José go to Toledo and meet some of his friends. They´re married with kids, but  lot´s of fun. From the left that´s Manolo, a neighbor, Ismael, the co-worker who hooked me up with José, Manolo´s wife Cristina, me of course, Cristina and Manolo´s daughter Irene, and finally Ismael´s wife Ruth with their son Miguel.  I can´t say exactly why, but I really like Ruth a lot. She´s eager to make conversation and patient with my Spanish, but it´s more than that. In the background is the cathedral. Having one Spaniard to show you around is perfect,  but four is a little overwhelming. One of them would be explaining life under Franco, while one of them would be telling me how Queen Isabela sent Columbus to the new world (the one fact about Spanish history most Americans actually know), and someone else explained the difference between a Gothic and Roman cathedral, and someone else pointing out the view of the River Tajo. After a while I think they could tell I had had enough and they all chilled out a bit.

Toledo is magical, and therefore very toursity, but not so touristy that it ceases to be magical. The streets are even smaller than Calle del Codo. Sometimes the houses are built right out over the street forming a sort of archway called a cobertizo. Toledo was the capital until about 1600. It has a Jewish, Muslim, and Christian quarter each very noticeably different. While the Jews and Muslims kept the differences subtle, the Christians went out of the way to plaster huge crucifixes on every building just so it was clear. We´re talking life-sized with Jesus and the whole nine yards.

The irony of the layering of names in a town this old really struck me. One of the synagogues was renamed after the  Jews got kicked out: Sinagoga de Santa María la Blanca or Saint Mary the White´s Synagogue. Never thought I´d see that. Then another thousand years down the road the tourists brought another layer of culture: a vegetarian restaurant on Calle de la Tripería, roughly  Street Where We Sell the Innards of Animals. Yum.  This one-time vegetarian went ahead and tried the blood sausage. It´s not every day that you get to go back to the Middle Ages.