After the Jewish quarter the girls were begging for us to take them home, but we had to get some groceries first. So we trudged across town again to the grocery store we had seen earlier. On our way out, as we were loading our food into our backpacks, our friend from the morning, who had taken us to the breakfast place, called out to us. “Massachussetts!” he called. We chatted for a minute. His wife had sent him to get some fruit. In the first picture he’s writing down the name of the plaza where he lived.

We tried to walk back the way we came, to go by an art shop that Molly had seen in the morning (in the plaza where we met our friend, Antonio), but we got totally lost, and found ourselves on the edge of town, down the wrong hill. That was OK, because we got these cool pictures of the city gates.

After lots of pain we found Plaza Capuchinas, Antonio’s plaza, where the art shop was. We were so excited that I took a picture.

Then we stopped at a wood worker’s shop in front of Antonio’s house, and talked to him for a minute. While we were doing that Antonio called from his window, “Massachussetts.” He went and got his wife, and they invited us into their patio. Their door is the one on the left. The door on the right is a convent. Antonio’s wife, Paqui, was really great. She was reluctant to let me take her picture because she wasn’t done up.

We were having such fun that we went shopping together in the art store, and bought a painting. The guy in the store is Javier Garrigoz Moreno (www.fotolog.com/garrigoz), and we got a great painting by him. Our first piece of art.

Then Antonio showed me the swords he used to make for a living. One of the swords he’s leaning on in the picture is one they used to make for the US Marines. The other is one they used to make for the US Army. He loves swords, and gave me a miniature one.

Antonio Sanchez and Francisca (Paqui) Gracia live at 6 Plaza de las Capuchinas, Toledo.