I realized today that I have no idea what day of week it is, how many weeks we are on the road already, where is the top or bottom and what is going on, anyway. You may disagree all you like, but to me it is a sign of a good vacation. If by the time we get home I don’t remember who I am, mission accomplished.
A sweet Toledian story: at the spot where a magnificent stone bridge ties together the banks of the river Tajo, there once upon a time another bridge had been commissioned to a craftsman, who eventually built it of wood. Closer to the end of the construction the engineer realized that his bridge isn’t calculated correctly and is going to collapse, if not at once upon opening, then short after the traffic over the bridge has commenced. So he mourns over his soon-to-be-history career as the master bridgemaker, the poor devil. His wife, naturally, notices that he leaves his helping of mashed beans (or whatever it was) untouched, is generally unapproachable and sad, very very sad. Naturally, he confides in her after a short while and the loving woman does what she feels will help: under the cover of hot and dark Spanish night, she takes a rather big torch and lights up the banks of Tajo by means of burning of the ill-constructed bridge up to heavens and leaping away shouting happily “fire, fire!” So, the bridge is ruined by the seemingly natural disaster, reputations are saved, workplaces kept and so are the heads on their owners’ shoulders, happy end. I really wonder to what extent Lidia is prepared to go in learning IT if the worst comes to worst and she has to save my reputation from being done in by some badly coded C# class.
The story is told to us by Fernando, our Servas host and volunteer city guide. It is one of those Servas experiences when initial awkwardness of the first handshake is paid off completely, at least from our angle. Fernando was born in Toledo and without his guidance we would never have seen the city in one day the way we did. He is around 78 years of age by my calculations, but if he did complain of anything, it was of us walking too slowly.
Accompanied by his stories about almost each stone in the pavement, we explored the labyrinth of the narrow streets (what a cliche!) of this city, where Jewish, Arab and Christian worlds met, shook dust off each other’s hats, got acquainted, learned to live together, like or hate each other and eventually kicked each other out. We were very happy to look at what remained, with all the blood washed off by centuries (ah, finally, something poetic out of me).