Grace here, second year Pre-Medical/Biology study,
and I’ll be talking about my time in Toledo, Spain. I’m here in Spain because I
have a Spanish minor, and I’m working on the whole fluency thing. Thing is, I
didn’t speak Spanish as well as I thought I did, and I didn’t even think I was
very fluent. The first month or so was definitely a struggle. It’s a lot better
now. I have the conversational Spanish up to par, and I can handle ordering in
restaurants and shopping without having to ask for English.
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| Sunset in Toledo |
The coolest thing about studying in a medieval city
is all the architecture. The winding streets, cobblestones, and bricks give the
city a feeling of timelessness. Air conditioning is not a common feature in
Spain, so the medieval buildings do a lot to help with keeping a comfortable
temperature. It’s going to be weird to go back to using Fahrenheit after months
of using Celsius!
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| Architecture |
Fun fact about Toledo for all you Tolkien nerds like
me: this is the city where they made all the swords for the Lord of the Rings
movies. And boy are they proud of it. It seems like every tourist area has at
least 3 shops dedicated in part to Lord of the Rings memorabilia. Not to
mention, there are swords for sale everywhere, something I wasn’t expecting but
found very cool.
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| Lord of the Rings |
All in all, it’s been a good few months, and I can’t
wait to come back to the States and tell my stories (and boy, are there a lot
of them).
Grace Hutko
UCLM
Toledo, Spain
