En español, por favor

HEY!

I'm in Toledo, and things are going well. The first day of "school" was a headache, as first days usually are. But I am surprised at how well I am adjusting. It probably helps that I have been in travel mode for three weeks and feel capable of dealing with all sorts of different circumstances. (Budapest--perhaps you taught me well.)
This is cake.

Toledo has storybook quality. Sometimes it feels like we're on a movie set because the streets are so narrow and cobbled and the old building walls are so high. You never know what is around the next corner or beyond the city walls. Pretty and quaint.

The Spanish way of life is growing on me quickly...on everyone, I think. We like staying up late and being lazy in the afternoons, knowing we have nothing to do but be for a while. I've also managed to spot a few really friendly people, so that I have a decent group friends to eat with and walk around with. This might be my greatest accomplishment yet.

Also this: our second night in Toledo we had a big welcome dinner thang, with tapas and mingling and all that crap. Towards the end, a band of youngish guys came in full traditional Spanish garb to execute some lively Spanish music, with small guitars and tambourines and dancing. And they were cute and they made jokes and they made us volunteer to be serenaded and blah blah blah. And all the girls swooned and all the boys watched very carefully. As the band was leaving, they invited anyone who wanted to come to the bar down the road. Great beginning.

So we went; me and the few girls I knew. The Spanish guys were endlessly patient with our ums and silences and confused nods, slowing down if we didn't understand. And it turned out that they were pretty suave and gentlemanly, and a lot of other good stereotypes. Then a smaller group of us went out with them again the next night, to a terraza where they was played trashy american pop and there was a beautiful aerial view. It was comfortable and pleasant and we even felt like we were learning something. Late, they drove us home, with techno music filling up their little tin cars, and we all went up to bed. Happy.

I think we got lucky...and I think it will not always be this easy to meet people. I mean, crap--during the first five days we were in the flipping Lizzie McGuire Movie. What the hell happened?