Toledo, a picnic, and a day wandering Madrid

On Wednesday we went to Toledo. It was beautiful, but started off rocky. My friend's guide book told us that we were supposed to go to one station, but we were supposed to go to another, and all this hecticness was made worse because I was still not feeling healthy. We finally get to Toledo which is cool because it's a little bit of Arab like Morocco mixed in with a whole lot of Spanish. We first went to the museum, and saw a bunch of El Greco which is beautiful, but a little too much religion for me. You can only take so much Jesus on the Cross. We then go to the Jewish museum which is pretty, the Synagogue is a very nice old building with a lot of Jewish artifacts. My favorite was the Jewish wedding costume that really reminded me of Moroccan clothes and realized that it was clothing from North Africa... so was it really "Jewish" or was it just the Jews assimilating with the North African culture around them? After we wrote in the book of the museum in as many languages as possible we left and had our picnic of cheese, bread, fruit, cookies, and a bottle of wine. It was so amazing... two dollar brie, one dollar wine, and it was all so good. After that we saw Alcazar (which was unfortunately closed to go in because of construction) and a beautiful look down to the river. I love mountain towns, they give such amazing views and a workout. We came home, took a siesta, and had a quick dinner.
The last day my friends went off early, and I decided to take my time and walk around the city alone. I pretty much managed to see the entirety of the central area, starting with the National Library (with its exhibit on Malaria) the Archaeological museum (which was a little disappointing, it's pretty small), and I tried to see the History museum but that was closed. I went down to a flea market, which was cool, but similar to any flea market (I like souks better, they are less antiquey and more real). It was interesting how as you got away from the touristy central, things were less nice, there was more grafitti and Spanish families. I felt like I got to see more of "real Spain." After another siesta, I went first to the Botanical Gardens (which was boring at this time of year, the park was a hundred times better) and then to the Prado again, and saw their exhibition on the pre-Raphelites... I really really like Edward Burne-Jones. He might not be the most complicated, but he's the type of art that is pretty and you'd like to have around your house. I also saw Jan Brueghel the Elder allegories of the senses which I thought were really cool.
That night I met up with my friend and went to another Kebab place (I love Kebab) and we met this really nice guy from Iraq who we compared Arabics with. He was talking to his Tunisian and Lebanese friends, and it was really cool listening to them and half understanding, but hearing the differences in dialects. I very much enjoyed Spain to visit. It has tons of art--I feel like Italy gets too much credit for being the place to study Art History, Madrid has tons of stuff. I also very much loved the park, I realize that that is one of the problems with Atlanta, there are no real public parks that you can walk to. Even Boston doesn't have cafes that you just hang out in in the sun. Maybe its not parks I miss, but plazas. Morocco does have all these outdoor places to eat, but unfortunately, too often they are men's havens and it's strange for women to be there. I also realize that no architecture is going to impress me quite as much as that of Prague. All of the buildings in Madrid were beautiful, but they didn't catch my attention as much as that of Prague, after a while they were just one nice building after another. It was also strange returning to a place I visited when I was younger, I knew I visited some places, but didn't know if the memories all really happened...