Sometimes it sucks being a history teacher

Madrid was all fun and games.

"Welcome to Spain! Would you like to celebrate the World Cup we just won? Wonderful! It's our first in the 80 years, and we are absolutely freaking out about it. We will blow vuvuzelas until your ears bleed and the sun will melt your face off. After you've had your fill of being crushed by hundreds of thousands of our people, please enjoy our amazing nightlife - have a beer! Have some tapas! Do you like octopus? Excellent - we can prepare it 274 different ways. Here's the best damn pastry you've ever tasted in your life. Here, eat it in this unbelievably vibrant square that is filled with people well past midnight on a weekday. Coffee? Tea? Sunsets? Sunrises? Fresh squeezed orange juice? Chorizo sandwiches? Just say the word, and it will all be yours."

I really, really loved Madrid. It put me in the mindset of viewing Spain as a modern, cosmopolitan city. The public green spaces were huge - we spent hours wandering around the Parque National, and didn't even see half of it. The museums were unbelievable - we were in the Prado for half a day, and were completely overwhelmed by the sheer number of masterpieces it contained. (No less an authority than Rick Steves claims it has the best collection of paintings in all of Europe.) Madrid was 21st century Spain at its finest.

Toledo, however, is a different story.

When Jeff and I were traveling together in South America in 2003, he got to the point where he refused to go into cathedrals with us. The history of Spanish involvement in the region overwhelmed him whenever he was in a Catholic house of worship to the point that he felt physically revolted by the imagery. To be completely honest, it was not a point of view that I could fully understand as a 23-year-old.

However, I now know where he was coming from.

Toledo is an amazing place - don't get me wrong. From the moment we arrived yesterday, I've walked around with my jaw hanging open in astonishment. It is like stepping back in time to the 17th century: the wall around the city, the immaculately preserved buildings, the cathedral (oh my god the cathedral - I never thought I would see a church that would match what I saw in Britain, but Toledo qualifies), the sleepy atmosphere, the swords in every shop window. But I got to a point today where the history and its implications finally got to me.

It started slowly - seeing the implements where they hung heretics on the walls of a church. The advertisements for the "Implements of Torture" exhibit at one of the museums here. The extravagance of the cathedral - as mind blowing as it was, I couldn't shake thoughts of where the money came from the Spain used to build the place. Sometimes it sucks being a history teacher - you can't just look at some of the most amazing religious imagery you've ever seen without thinking of enslaved Incas in Bolivian silver mines.

What finally got me, though, was when were in the Sinagoga del Transito - the synagogue in Toledo that has been turned into the museum for Spanish Jewish history. Struggling my way through a Spanish description of the 100 years of torture and murder the Jews underwent during the Inquisition (between 1391 and 1492, 1/3 killed, 1/3 forced to convert, and 1/3 moved), I found myself looking at a map showing where they fled to. Unbidden, I thought, "Those poor bastards who ended up in Alemania had no idea what their descendants were in for an even worse time of it." And that is when I had to get out of there. The crushing weight of a thousand years of Jewish persecution finally got to me.

Again, this isn't to say I don't love being here. Toledo is fantastic. However, you're going to get some of the bad with the good on this blog. Welcome to Iberrhea :)