Toledo

Intercambiador ACART Residency Journal 2

in ,

On Sundays in Spain, many shops are closed.  There is, however, a giant market that is held every Sunday called the Rastro.  It spans many city blocks, with tents selling various types of clothing, books, movies, magazines, antiques, jewelry, and more.  Various bars and bakeries in the Rastro stay open as well to cater to the crowd.  I told Fari we had to go there my first Sunday (which was my seventh day in Madrid), since she hadn't even heard of it.  We went to the La Latina metro stop on Line 5 of the metro, and entered the Rastro.  Fari thought she would want to shop for different things than I did, so we set up a time to meet back at the metro stop and then parted ways.  Since I knew I would come back perhaps every Sunday or at least several more, I mostly just browsed and took stock of what was offered in multiple places and what was more unique.  By the time we met back up, I'd only purchased a small antique Spanish tile - I spent six euro on it.  Fari had purchased a few things, though, including a decorative Indian sheet, a pair of pants, and a loose housedress.  I had gotten to our meeting place slightly before her and had time to check my phone for any vegetarian-friendly places nearby, so for lunch we went to a small place called Pura Vida.  I really liked it - they give you a free tapas plate of vegetarian paella with a drink order and we also split a trio of salads with bread.  

The following day was when Intercambiador ACART held our artist presentations, wherein interested members of the public can come listen to us talk about our artistic practices.  Fari and I were joined by a South American artist named Tamara who has a studio space in the newly opened studio we visited a few days previously.

After another day in the studio (I'd spent a fair amount of time there already in the previous days), Fari and I took a day trip to Toledo.  I've been there before back in 2007, but it was great to see it again.  We spent most of the time there taking in the huge cathedral (with artwork by a number of great artists including El Greco), eating lunch, and just wandering and shopping around the streets between the cathedral and the downtown square.  Fari and I ate and shopped independently, mostly because she was starving and left the cathedral earlier than I wanted to so she could get food.  I ate at a vegetarian restaurant called Madre Tierra which I had googled, and had a very experimental salad with a frozen goat cheese that basically tasted like normal ice cream.  It was interesting and I am glad for the experience but I wouldn't reorder it!  We did manage to quickly poke around the monastery right toward the end, though, and there was some sort of honoring of recent doctoral candidates happening which was quite neat.  Neither Fari nor I are great with directions, though, and we also had to locate and catch a bus back to the train station, so we headed back.  In the end, we didn't get lost and we caught our bus right away, so we got to the train station way too early - a little less than two hours early!  But our feet were sore, most of the tourist attractions and even some of the shops start to close around when we left anyway, and it's better to be early than miss your train!