Derek and Tim had meetings in the morning so I took off walking after packing up my stuff. When I returned we decided to have lunch at this really fancy restaurant that was really cheap, how did that one work? The food was excellent, fedeo noodles in a black sauce with bits of seafood and garlic, then a plate of beef stroganoff with potatoes and finally a pear in coffee sauce. In Spain for lunch, which is their big meal of the day, they serve a fixed price menú which consists of starter course, usually a salad or a plate of noodles, then the main meat or fish dish followed by a small desert. The drink and bread are also included which makes for a nice meal that is not overly expensive. Back at their studio, I helped them design some shelves and saw some boards. It was fun to work on stuff, the whole idea of fixing up furniture found in the dumpster and actually using it in a really sharp looking café was amazing. Time was running out for me in Barcelona and I went to the train station Sants to meet Miguel, the professor I would be working with. He was a cool guy, everyone I met in Barcelona seemed to know him and have good things to say about him, I could now agree. 45 minutes later, we were at the small college and I was shown my room that I had all to myself, some space finally. Tomorrow I will find out what exactly I am going to be doing and hopefully begin to do that.

Tim and Derek had decided to go to the beach and with a late start on the day, I decided to join them. We brought the fixings for a sandwich including tomatoes, which Catalans cut and rub on their bread instead of putting on slices. We found the beach after seeing a few more train stations then we had planned, but the beach was really nice. Not crowded, warm weather, but not hot, a great mix for an afternoon on the beach. You always find random things out about people and today I found out that Tim is a master juggler, just great at it. I asked if he would show me the basics and he agreed. It was tricky to get the concepts down, but I am glad I had the hand-eye coordination from baseball. After a while practicing, I was able to keep three balls going for almost a quarter of a minute. Maybe not an amazing feat, but I was a little bit proud. We caught the next train back to the city, cleaned up and made dinner. Well I just watched Chef Derek cook up a mean rice and tomato casserole while watching a couple episodes of Red Dwarf. Then it was bedtime.

Tim invited me to have coffee with him and I accepted, how cute, our first date. No but really, it was nice time to just get to chat with him before church. Church started as unpromptly as possible at 11. The vineyard church that he attends is also located under his apartment in the studio from which they base their missions to the neighborhood. I am impressed with the place that Agape owns and what Tim and Derek have going on there so far. The church was refreshing and very laid back. The couches and dim lights, small conversations and refreshments made it fell just like a coffee house. The congregation was small, about 15 in attendance, which is both a blessing and a curse. Each person seemed like family to the others and they quickly recognized that I was a newcomer, greeting me in a mix of English and Spanish. The music was great, songs with meaning and people sang from their heart, but the worship leader was a bit hard to follow for someone like me who did not know the songs. They took an interest in the people and were able to pray specifically for members. The teaching was pretty good assisted by a video that provoked an emotional reaction from everyone. After the message, we got in small groups and prayed for each other, another strong point of a small church. Then there was the animated announcements by a Brazilian man and people stayed and chatted for bit. We met back up with Derek at the apartment and the three of us went out for lunch and ate at one of the hundreds of Döner Kebab restaurants that they have in this predominantly Pakistani neighborhood. After lunch, we returned to the apartment. They had to get Obra Vista open and I soon joined them and did some reading and writing to fill my early evening. I called it an early night without supper but it was alright.

Today I woke, which is usually a good way to start the day, read my Bible, said goodbye to Bob and got ready for an adventure. I walked over to the old part to visit the museum of the history of the city and on the way saw a man who had spread a cloth out on the busy pedestrian street. He had three small boxes with a ball under one of them. As he moved them around, he had people bet on which box the ball was under. But, the bets started at 50 euros which is about $60. I watched as a couple of people got burned by his trickery and then watched as this keen lady constantly picked the correct box that the ball was under. Others became interested and when they stepped forward to play, she gave them advice and they won too, for a bit, until the stakes increased and her advice always seemed to fail them at the most opportune time for the casino man to make a killing on the unlucky sucker. I turned around for a second to look at another street mime and when I turned back, the two accomplices were grabbing the stuff and running off. Wow how tricky. They worked as a pair. I left the Rambla, found the museum without too much trouble and entered free thanks to my age. I began to read each panel’s description of the artifacts in a case as it weaved a story of the beginnings of the ancient city. According to the plaques, the first settlers arrived 8000 years ago, I do not know if I believe that but that is what it said. After the hunting and fishing settlers, a more civilized group began to inhabit and form a city in present day Barcelona. The íberos evolved culturally, economically and technically from the VI century until the II century B.C. At the peak of their civilization they lived in permanent square houses built with stones held together by mud and had formed a system of language and money. The Romans then conquered the area under the reign of Agusto including Barcelona which they called the colonia Iuria Augusta Faventia Paterna Barcino a decade before Christ. The city was a typical Roman city with baths aqueducts, burial grounds outside the city a forum for public discussion and administration and a temple, as the plaque put it, “for the worship of the emperor.” That surprised me, the worship of a man in a temple, but I guess many times we are not too far off from worshipping man. The ruins were magnificent and more so since they were directly below a city much different. The ability to excavate below the cathedral situated above and to turn the place into a museum after the building above had already been built. I was a bit rushed and only got to spend an hour in the museum because of their 2:00 closing time but I was able to see it all. More than the museum, the streets above and the people living there now struck me as the most interesting part of the day. This morning I prayed that God would teach me today, that I would be open to learn, aware of the small things and in tune with his voice. As I left the museum, I began to notice the street beggars, the stark contrast between the rich tourists and the poor beggars. I know that not every beggar is legitimate, in fact I have seen some scammers begging for money who later that day were dressed in designer cloths but today I saw a man who was not scamming people. I watched a burn victim hunched in a corner picking at his scars until they bled, shoving a spoonful of sloppy peas and some nasty meat into his mouth before putting a wad of paper on the trickling blood; my heart broke. Why am I so fortunate when others lay crumpled in the streets? How can a Christian minister to someone with whom they cannot relate? How easy is it not to care, to separate yourself from the suffering? I just walked for a bit, churning these thought in my head, with no resolve. I grabbed the metro and made it up towards the top of the map I have, I believe that is NW and got off to look for some more geocaches. I did not realize how hilly that part of town was and as I made the slow climb on the steep hill, I got within 200 meters of it when I realized there was a giant valley separating the two sides and I was on the wrong side. To make it worse, when I got to the road at the bottom of the valley, there was no way to get up to the other side. I contemplated giving up on that one, but after some persistence in walking, I found Parque Font Racó. The cache was not too difficult to find, just on a slippery slope. From there to the next cache was only 2-3 Km, but it took me 2-3 hours because of all the dead ends and windy streets, all the hills and parks with no exits. However, near sunset I found the second one for the day with the most beautiful view of the city. A precious panoramic over everything, amazing a park like this in the middle of a huge city. I took the metro back near home after I found it and as I was walking, I found myself in a crowd of people. Black cars with tinted windows rolled up one by one and a couple unloaded to clapping and photos. I had no idea what was going on but after asking, found out that they were famous people and royalty. After a half hour, I still did not recognize anyone so I started back towards home. About a half block away, I head sirens as a new black car pulled up escorted by police cars and motorcycles. I ran back grabbing my camera to snap a picture of what must have been someone important. By the time I got in range and the camera ready, I was only able to snap a few pictures of the king Juan Carlos, the queen, the prince and the princess. On the way home, I walked through a makeshift market, people who had spread out blankets with products on the ground. I wondered why the sellers looked so nervous and soon found out when the police arrived and the vendors all grabbed their sheets in a bunch and took off running. I was standing in the middle of the mass exodus of vendors and an entrance of slightly chubby officers. Clearly, no arrests were made. After a day of action, well probably more so from the walking, I was beat.

Again, I had a morning just to read the Bible, great way to start the day. I have never really read my Bible in the mornings, usually I find another free period during the day to do my reading but the last two days have been great to get the day started with the Lord. After that, I moved my belongings to Tim’s room so that Bob could stay in the room I was, but who is Bob you ask. Bob was a 60 something year old minister from England they had met on a bus ride a few weeks ago and offered him a place to stay and he took them up on their offer. Derek and I headed off to the Encants market to find some cups and teapots for their café. Encants was pretty sweet, a giant open-air flea market filled with goods waiting to be bartered for. We found some neat teacups and also two small teapots that worked perfectly then rode the metro back to the apartment. My memory cards were full and I needed to dump them onto a CD so I spent a lot longer than I had wanted to spend to accomplish my goal. I also got another good chance to talk with Beth while Derek and Tim were down stairs in the café. I joined them later on the opposite side of the counter. For a bit I felt awkward, I did not want to always be a nuisance by tagging along bothering them while they were trying to talk to others, but also I did not know anyone else. It ended up working well though. Jonas, a guy they knew, wanted to play a board game called Settlers of Catan, which gave me an excuse to talk to some people and something to do to not bother them. The game was interesting, sort of similar to Risk or Civilization. A turn based strategy game that kept us entertained for a few hours.

I woke this morning and for the first time in a while had no agenda. I read my Bible as slowly as I wanted and soaked up all that I could. It was a good time just to relax and read then write a bit on my blog. After that, I went searching for a geocache in Barcelona, actually a couple and I was determined to find as many as I could. I underestimated the hills that I would encounter as I wound my way up through beautiful gardens to a castle at the top of a cliff that looked over the whole city and the ocean. Hidden at the base of a stone wall was the Tupperware container I had been searching for and finally, my first find outside of the States. I was also able to drop the travel bug, a small trinket with a traceable serial number, which I have had in my possession for a few months. From there I walked a few miles through the site of the 1992 Olympics to the Barcelona Fútbol stadium for the second cache find of the day. The weather was looking gloomy and I was tired of the five hours of walking the city so I decided to stop and get some groceries at Cortes Ingles before heading home. I killed a few hours at the apartment reading and writing. Both computers were in use and I needed the internet for a bit so I headed out in search of a cyber. With a bit of luck I found a place that was also cheap and plugged away for an hour. On my way home I was searching for the apartment, should have paid more attention to the route that I came. As I walked down the sidewalk past a row of five or six girls on the semi-busy street, I realized quite quickly that they were ladies of the night when they started trying to talk to me and approach me. My pace quickened and with my head pointed straight forward I almost ran away from them. I was so surprised by the whole scene and really started to understand how lost this world is. Some thing so sacred, given as a gift by God for the context of marriage was just thrown away for a few euros. It almost brought me to tears. I found the road back to the apartment and made my way there rather quickly.

It was kind of a sad morning as my family got ready to drive to Madrid and I to stay in Barcelona. They packed the car a last time and through some tears said goodbye, it is hard to be away from family and a girlfriend for so long. Often the hurt is covered by the stimulus of new experiences but it catches up with you. Sometimes phone conversations are not enough to satisfy the yearning to be with that person. I walked a ways across town with my overly heavy backpack that was supposed to be overly comfortable but was overly painful on my shoulders. I called Tim, the guy that I was supposed to be staying with and met him at the studio. He is an employee of Campus Crusade, which is called Agape over in Europe because of the bad connotation with the word Crusade in Europe. This coffee shop looking building with a stage and I guess just that, a coffee shop. They have two missionaries over here from the states to get the place up and running and to give it direction. Derek and Tim, the two with whom I was going to be staying were the guys in charge of the place. Even though it was a mess when I first walked in since the sewer had overflown the days before, it was impressive and from the first moment I realized the opportunity a place like this could have, especially as an asset for the kingdom of heaven. I dropped my things off in the apartment and with no agenda decided to help them clean the place. I did some sweeping and mopping, repairing chairs found in the dumpster and preparing for the most important soccer match of the season. Fútbol Club Barcelona, the team around here, had already won the Spanish cup and now was playing for the European cup against the British team Arsenal. Derek and Tem had decided to open the place up for fans to come watch the game on a projector and serve beverages according to their slogan “Pide lo que quieres, Paga lo que puedas”, “Order what you want, Pay what you can.” But before everyone got there, I got to use Skype to call Beth for cheap and talk for a good hour since she has come back from school, there has not been a cheap way for us to talk and so for the last few weeks, we have had to deal with the 2 minute calls. It was great just to hear her voice again and see how she was doing, especially since it was our 2 year 11 month anniversary. The café run by donations was the seat for about 100 Barcelona fans and one oblivious American to witness this cities first victory of the European cup in over a decade. The place was nuts with emotion and excitement as the crowded room soon became steamy, enough so that the projector began to warn us that it was starting to overheat at a crucial point in the second half. Like a well oiled machine, people waved the hot air out of the door and way from the projector. Taking shifts as the projector protector, they managed to keep it cool, or at least cool enough. Barcelona finished as champions by one goal as the place erupted but I had no idea the amount of celebration that would continue. After a half hour, the place cleared out and Derek, Tim, two friends of theirs and I walked toward the Rambla where hundreds of thousands of people were gathering. Around the giant plaza, people were packed shoulder to shoulder and for a half mile up on all the streets radiating from the plaza people crowded in. Older children threw fireworks into small openings, others shot bottle rockets while still others had larger traditional fireworks sent way above the buildings. Others yet waved flares wildly above their heads or scaled teetering light posts to wave a Barcelona flag. The place was absolute madness, almost a riot. We walked though the crowds and they snapped photos, I am kicking myself that I did not bring a camera to capture it all. Two hours after the game had finished, we stared to head back and there were still parades of people marching toward the plaza for the celebration people that had been marching for almost two hours to get there. They told me that the celebrations would last 24 hours; one whole day to celebrate, it was crazy.

We decided that since we had not done extensive planning on what we wanted to see and had not yet figured out the public transportation, that we would take these double-decker tour buses run by the Barcelona city tourism. The busses had three two hour routes around the city stopping at all of the main attractions. Dad also woke this morning really sick and nobody knew why. With dad dragging, the bus really worked out better than having to walk everywhere in this enormous town. We saw a Guadí house, that is a capital “G” as in a proper noun, which was unique. Guadí was an architect from the end of the 19th, beginning of 20th century until he was killed by a trolley car. His architecture is so unique and reminds me of an old candle with mounds of rehardened wax in the process of dripping down the sides. I just had to stare, it was unlike anything else and that I guess is why he is famous. The next stop was Guadí‘s unfinished cathedral, La Sagrada Familia, The Holy Family. He designed the church and began construction during his life, but never finished it. Now, it is still in the works, but had progressed significantly from where he left off. The church again is unlike any cathedral I have ever seen. Most cathedrals are similar even between the different eras, they all maintain similar features. The differences between say Gothic and Baroque styles although huge, are tiny in comparison to oh say Neoclassicism and Guadí‘s work. I wish I could describe better the cathedral, but a few pictures defiantly are worth their thousand words in this case. Imagine the Pope, a candle maker, Dr. Suess and a hallucinogenic drug user all sitting at a table drawing blue prints then you probably have a good picture of what it looks like. The third stop was again a Guadí work; you would have thought we would have studied up on this guy before we came to Barcelona. Park Güell named after his patron was originally intended to be a neighborhood of houses built by Guadí, but ended up being one house and more of a whimsical park, I have no idea why. The park was cool and again came right out of a Dr. Sues book almost like the chicken and the egg controversy. I wonder who came first. Dad was fading fast and I was beginning to feel weak as well, so we made it back to the apartment and dad slept while we rode the other route of the bus tour. It was nice to see a ton of the city sitting on the top of a double-decker bus, but I was beginning to get sick and felt weaker and weaker as the time went on. Back at the apartment, I slept most of the evening away waking long enough to realize I wanted to sleep some more. The next thing I knew it was morning.

Breakfast was sweet, a buffet and the best part was all you could drink café con leche and at their usual price of one euro, we drank enough to buy 20 people a pencil and paper set at the eurostore. We made the hour and something drive up to Barcelona and equipped with our directions we pulled from google maps this morning, we drove right to the hotel. Our room this time was a small apartment, two bedrooms a bath, a locked kitchen and a small living room with the fifth bed. It was a great idea and fit our family perfectly. Settling in, we prepared our stuff and pickpocket-proofed ourselves to head our on the streets of Barcelona. There is a ton of theft here; it seems like almost everyone I talk to has been robbed in Barcelona. We walked the Rambla, a giant median with flower beds and bird stands lining both sides of the street and performers scattered throughout the stands. Some of the performers were interesting and you actually wanted to give them money like the older man who juggled a soccer ball with his feet, his head, his neck and in a manner of ease, he did tricks that were almost impossible. Then there were other sorry excuses for anything. I felt like they should pay me for having to watch them. At the end of the Rambla is a giant statue of Christopher Columbus dedicated to the founding of America. I bet sometimes they wished Ferdinand and Isabella never would have financed that voyage. From there we found the old part and the cathedral which was supposed to be amazing and it lived up to its name. Walking around the once roman city, I spotted a guy with a shirt that in big bold letters said IOWA. My extroverted sister made light of my discovery and approached the younger couple as to there place of residence. Wouldn’t you know it, they were from Davenport, a few miles from our house. They were hilarious and enjoyable to talk to and an hour later we were still laughing, but we all needed to keep moving. We searched for a tapas recommendation from Rick Steves that ended up being a bust, but did find the horchateria where they of course sell horchata, an almond milky drink typical of this region. I did not find it as wonderful as I had assumed it would be, refreshing yes, but a bit chalky. Now what trip would be complete without a bit of geocaching? I had found the coordinates to a cache located somewhere in the midst of all the thousands of people on the Rambla so Jon, Dana and Myself went looking. After a bit of pacing back a and forth while trying to inconspicuously look in the cracks of trees and inside bushes we found small box with red and white duct tape on it, but it was empty. Unsure if we had found it our not, we went back to the apartment to eat supper. Today I also made first contacts with the guy I will be staying with for a few days. As it turns out, I will not be able to go down to the Christian college where I will be spending my summer as soon as I thought; instead, I will have to stay in Barcelona because of some scheduling conflicts. It is fine and should work out now that I have made contact I am just curious to know who I will be living with for a week. Those are concerns for another day and tonight I must sleep.

Today was a special mass for the patron saint again in the plaza mayor. We watched from the TV in out hotel as we got ready to walk around in the town. We got to the plaza a bit after mass and tried to get into the cathedral to see the virgin, but there were thousands of people swarming around her and when we got a view all we could see were people from the back throwing articles of clothing toward the front so that people up front could run them against her feet before throwing them back. There expression of worship was a bit misguided and my heart went out to those who put faith in traditions instead of relations. We walked through some beautiful parks and ate some pastries that hit the spot before making our way down to the port where the Americans cup was being held. The Americas cup is a sailing race that I knew nothing about until today. The sailboats were huge with at least 18 crew members onboard, the teams did various races just offshore each day and were awarded points for their ranking in each race. Each base dock for each team had an exhibit about different racing concepts and they all proved very interesting at least to me since I knew nothing about sailing. We drove toward Tarragona along the coast and stopped at a small castle town almost hanging over the ocean and walked up the crooked streets toward it, but everyone was ready to push on so our time was limited. Once in Tarragona we began to search for hotels and ran into a bad stream of unfriendly receptionists. Almost every hotel that we tried in other towns, my father comes in with me. I translate for him and he makes the decisions, but since we had not yet parked the car, I went in with my sister and I guess college kids wearing tennis shoes, shorts and a t-shirt are not candidates to stay in any Tarragona hotel and it was not like these were the ultra-nice/expensive options either. One guy refused to look at me and when I asked if they could hold 5 people tonight he gruffly said no and continued shuffling some papers on his desk to which I replied “you do not have a three person room and a two person room free?” “Oh, well why didn’t you asked that in the first place” and rattled off two mumbled prices. Another lady informed me of the maximum price they could charge for a room. I asked what the minimum price they could charge would be and she just huffed and said they would charge the maximum even though it was the low season when they never charge the maximum; funny. We finally found a room and walked about the city. The big attraction here are the Roman ruins which contrasted with the modern buildings they bordered. The sun set and we did not get to see a whole lot of ruins but we did get to try some kebabs at a Middle Eastern restaurant which were excellent before retiring to our hotel.

The usual morning routine commenced as we packed our things then moved them to the car. We checked out and made our way to a hiking trail that ran along the rocky peninsula that jutted out of the mainland. We walked for about an hour through the dry brush and arrived at the peak where we could look over the small gulf and watched some boats sail out of the harbor. Just standing out there felt amazing, at the peak you could look out and there was no more land. It dropped sharply to the sea a couple hundred feet away and alone on the point you could observe all the boats below. We made our way over to Valencia and planned just to park the car for a few hours while we toured the downtown and then to try to find a smaller city outside of town to spend the night. But when a bullfighting ticket scalper offered us great seats at even a more amazing price we let our fear that there had to be a catch be over ridden by the chance that they may be legitimate. So we scrambled to find accommodations for tonight. Everywhere we looked was booked solid and we were beginning to wonder what we had done, already with tickets in pocket, we finally found a nice location secured the room and went to retrieve our car from its current location so that we could drop off our luggage. But, wouldn’t you know it, once we got the car and drove back toward our hotel, there was some sort of demonstration and all the roads around our hotel were blocked off by police patrol and we would have to wait an hour until they would be free. Just ten minutes earlier they were open and when we returned the police had snuck in to block them off. The bull fight would already be underway by that point so per recommendation by a policeman, we found a new parking lot and got to the ring just in time to see the opening procession. It was very similar to the other two bullfights that I had seen but none the less interesting. This time however, I got to go down to where the horses entered to see the stalls and see them enter from the other side. It was also where the bulls exited when done with the fight. It was also where I got to touch a bullfighter as he was exiting through the gate and the crowd of fans. Do not worry; I washed my hand later that night. We unloaded our luggage after the bull fight had finished and got settled in before grabbing dinner at a small local restaurant in a back alley that served prawns and muscle fresh from the ocean a few miles away. We did not realize it before we entered the city, but it was the city’s festival in honor of their patron saint which meant that the plaza mayor was fenced in for a concert by the municipal band at 11 fireworks at midnight and then hundreds of dancers dressed in traditional costumes were going to take the stage after the fireworks. We watched the first two, but left before the dancers got all setup.

SHHHH, Gary Is Still Sleeping

It was nice to have a table set when I walked down the stairs but at the same time a strange dichotomy. Sara was serving us breakfast, but at the same time she was a friend. It felt like we were staying with family but an overly servantly member of the family who we paid money. We did another walk through the city in daylight but it was short lived in a city of this size. Back at the car, we said goodbye to our new friends and headed out to wind our way through the mountains. Gary, from the pensión, had told us about a cave that was worth a visit, so we stopped and took the tour. In the early 20th century this young man was hunting a rabbit when it disappeared into a hole. He stuck a weasel down the same hole and it too disappeared, now for some reason this was really strange to him, so he started digging and found a huge cavern, what a shock! His children inherited the land and eventually gave it over to the county to turn into a tourist attraction. After the cave we pressed on toward Denía where we were going to spend the night. The accommodations along the beach were slim despite the expansive beach so we decided to stay at or first Parador. Paradors are government run hotels usually in some sort of historic building or location but here it just seemed to be a nice waterfront hotel, that’s OK. The rooms were perfect with an amazing patio facing the sea. We decided to check out our first beach in Spain and grabbed our towels and headed down. The sun was hot, but the water was not and really quite salty as to be expected from a salt-water sea. The water droplets that usually accumulate on my goatee only bothered me now what they ensured a constant stream of salt into my mouth, but Jon and I played in the waves for an hour with almost nobody else in the water and very few on the beach. We gathered the family and went back to take showers. I do not really understand the beach phenomenon; I could not sit there for days in a row, an hour or so was plenty. We ate supper as the moon began to shine through the palm trees, how gorgeous.

SHHH, Gary Is Sleeping

For Breakfast we ate at one of the thousands of British establishments that catered to the town. The “English Breakfast” came in two sizes large and small and when three smalls and two larges arrived, we were surprised at the pile of beans alongside the eggs and salt pork. The beans were like baked beans, but in a watery tomato sauce. The owner/waiter was really friendly and we chatted a bit about his restaurant and the likes. At the hotel when we were rounding up our stuff, I caught a glimpse of a sign on the door that made me stop and ponder. The warning sign for what to do in case of a fire was printed in a couple languages, Almost-English being one of them. The horrible English translations published by the community of Valencia, and distributed to all the hotels said things like “If there is smoke on all fours”, “Protec yourself”, “If there smoke do not go out.” I wish I could proof read English translations, the sings and menus etc. You know that any English speaker could point out the mistakes in a second, I am not grammar expert and by no means speak or write perfect English, but it is better then most menus I have read. But hey, at least I give them credit for getting the translation pretty close, close enough that I understand it and if I were in a fire I would know what to do. We left the coast for the mountains where the going is slow, switchback central. We pulled up at a town called El Castell de Guadalest where a small tower sat atop a mountain peak and if you climbed enough stairs you could reach it. After a picnic of bread, monchego, chorizo and apples we started climbing. Half way up was a museum dedicated to the city, an old house of a wealthy family, it was interesting but not amazing. The redeeming factor was that it did have a beautiful view over the valley where the river ran. The top was worthwhile with the panoramic view it provided over the countryside. Descending the stairs we passed, but did not stop at, the miniature museum which had things such as the Bible written on a cross section of a hair and famous paintings painted on flies wings. I almost wanted to stop just to see for myself, but there will be plenty of times to see flies wings in the future. We had reservations for tonight at a small pensión run by two Brits and made our way the best we could through the narrow streets and past graffiti that said “go home tourists.” We finally arrived at the thriving village of 400 and to our agreeable hosts, Sara and Gary, who were both from England, had moved here to start this pensión. The ancient house that had been renovated was beautiful, clean and charming. There usual business is taking mountain bikers through all the trails they made and I guess Gary was a pretty big deal since he was on the front cover of a biking magazine and was asked to design the trail for the finals of an international competition. We sat and chatted with them for a while and then took off walking the block to the local restaurant. We were treated with wonderful food and finished with a dish of rum and raisin ice cream that was delectable. Returning back to Pensión Castelles we pulled up for the night.

If Three Strikes Equals An Out, Then The Bench Must Be Hot

We keep striking out on the monuments. We knew that the castle did not open until noon, but the monastery and cathedral were also closed which I guess is to be expected in a town where almost no tourist venture, but it was still a bit disappointing. We were all pumped to see one of the best small cities in Spain, Elche, according to Foders but upon arrival the city was huge and industrial and driving through the old part was lame. Just after leaving the town, we realized that it was indeed the wrong Elche so we changed bearings stopping for lunch in the park of a dry dusty uninteresting town then made for the correct Elche. This time when we entered the city we confirmed that it was the right one but were again disappointed. There was nothing there to do, the place was dirty and not the quaint village we were promised. Thanks Foders. Times were a little tense after striking out a bunch, so we decided to skip the bigger city of Alicante and head towards the smaller coast towns. It is interesting the change of language. We are starting to notice it now and I assume the closer we get to Barcelona, the thicker it will become. Now, a lot of the street signs are in two languages and about half the store signs and the monuments have some Catalan written on them. In this region of Spain they speak Catalan which is a mix of Spanish and French but is a completely unique language, not a dialect of either of its root languages. The day was not getting any longer as we drove the coast of the Mediterranean, so we pulled off at a smaller town named Benidorm. When we crested the small hill we found ourselves not in the small village we had thought we were entering, but in a bustling resort town and the weirdest part was everything was in English. The huge population of British tourist had sparked a market for British Pubs complete with British food and British waiters. Thanks to the low season for travel, we were able to stay just off the beach in a beautiful hotel, Delfin. The rooms were clean but what made it great were the balconies. We sat for a bit on the porch, got our bearings and made a plan of attack. We walked along the beach and then up among some shops the whole time amazed at the amount of British tourists and how the city catered to them. It did not feel much like we were in the rural Spain we had driven through, but more like a Gibraltar than I would have imagined. Being in coastal Spain, we had to try the Paella, a rice dish with saffron and loads of steamed fresh seafood. It was delicious and tasted very similar to what Jaime made for us a month or two ago. After super, we walked the couple miles along the beach back to our hotel just strolling along and taking it slow.

A Poppy Posy Makes Me Dozy

Driving across La Mancha was amazing, millions of blood red poppy patches dotting the scenery of burnt orange dirt where rows of olive trees were terraced at the foothills of the mountains. But soon, the terrain changed as we began to wind up into the mountains. The going was slow through the narrow paths and small mountain towns but it gave us a good idea of what rural Spain was like, something I have not been able to do until now. We stopped at a little town along a destinationless route but all the cathedrals and monuments seemed to be closed either because it was siesta or their day off or they just maintained fewer hours than more touristic places. In total we had four maps of the area but each was a bit different, the roads had different names, some showed roads that others did not, but through the mess, we navigated the backcountry and found out way to a waterfall. I decided to try out my new backpack that I was going to use instead of my suitcase. We loaded it up with bottles of water, other bags of food and anything that would add weight. The trail was not bad at all and took us about an hour to get up to the highest point which was just under a shear rock wall where trickling water ran all along its face accumulating in the upper pool and falling over smaller cliffs down toward the stream. We followed a different path down to our car and back to winding roads. We ended up in a town called Yeste with a helpful tourist station that advised us on the two hotels and two eateries in town, but also some of the surrounding area. We checked into a hotel, I love low season, then walked the small town and around the castle which was also closed. For supper we stopped at the local restaurant which was deceivingly large with the half-hidden sitting room. Although it smelled of strong cleaning products, the chubby waiter was overly friendly. We ordered, along with his help, an array of local dishes, deer in tomato sauce, a filet of fresh water smoked fish on top of toasted baguettes with a garlic mayonnaise and shredded carrots, another beef and gravy dish and an unusually flavorful vegetable scrambler. The crazy part was that none of us could place the vegetable in the vegetable scrambler, not even my mother the food expert. We asked the waiter who explained that when garlic shoots peak out of the ground. They cut them off and that was the mystery vegetable. It was wonderfully tasty, a hint of garlic flavor but not too strong, fried in olive oil with eggs and bits of ham. The streets were a little dark but looking out across the valley under the moonlight was beautiful as our route took us back to the hotel and a short while later to bed.

Not The Skinny Part Silly

We packed up all of out luggage and prepared to leave. The Lord is so good to have allowed me to get my extension. How amazing he takes care of his children and even through our doubts. We walked a bit in the park and met up with Toñi, the program director, so that we could thank here for all her help and so that my family could meet her. We then went to Juani´s house to say goodbye and after a big hug and dos besos, we were on our way. We headed toward Merida but not to stop and then veered east to cut across the La Mancha region which by the way is the home of Don Quixote where him and Sancho Panza Rode in their journeys. We pulled up in the smaller town of Villapeñas, which is the capitol of the wine region by the same name. The city was all right and the hotel very clean and presentable. The supper we had tonight was splendid. Alone in a medium sized restaurant, save those at the bar, we were waited on by a rather unfriendly waiter who served up delicious food. I had bulls tail, amazingly tasty. It is not really the skinny tail part but rather the couple inches of meat where the skinny tail connects to the back. Dana, steak, Dad, lamb, Mom, vegetables and Jon, Ham. We tried to paseo, but the weekday in the small tows was not the night to walk so we made a scenic return to our hotel.

It Yuste Be Cool

Jon and I stayed last night at my Spanish mother’s house, but Dana could not stay since she was having two French kids stay there as well. We put down a modest breakfast before meeting up to complete our family. We watched the procession of the Virgin back up to the mountain, which was cool, and my families first procession although the guys dressed in hoods were not in this one. It was great to have a car since we could explore some of the smaller cities and countryside and we did just that. In the north part of Extremadura, the state where I live, is a large national park and we decided to explore the region. Driving through groves of olive trees and oak trees, we drove around and around up a hill to a lookout point. Actually the same one that Jeremy and I had been with Juani and Jaime a few months ago. Again the astounding beauty of the rivers coming together made gorgeous view over the park. We descended the tower and then the mountain and headed in the direction of the monastery of Yuste but our road choice took forever and on the single lane for both directions, sort of paved, back roads we toured the countryside. We stopped for some cows in the road, watched a pastor with his grazing sheep, no Brian did not fly to Spain and catch us chewing on some weeds and overall just took in rural Spain. Once we made it to Yuste, we got in line and waited for the guided tour to begin. In addition to being a monastery, it was a palace where Charles V lived. He was king of Spain a couple of hundred years ago, but was of great influence. I was a bit disappointed with the place; my Spanish art history teacher made it sound a lot more spectacular than it really was. The palace was plain, the church was ok and the cloisters were sweet but closed to the exclusive use of the hundred something monks that currently reside there. From Yuste, we toured a few small towns along the way to Plasencia where we stopped for a while to walk around. We made it home around the middle of sunset, freshened up and took another paseo to get some tapas in the Plaza Mayor.

"Rice of the Light", Well not quite

I woke up as usual or I guess usual for the last three months but instead of Jeremy in the other bed, it was my brother. My sister was in the other room and we got all showered up and walked the four blocks over to our parents hostel. As a family we grabbed a pastry and a coffee before riding a ways out of town in the car. It is so weird have a car in town, all the streets seem so different. I never know which ones are one ways or which way to yield. We drove to a small town called Arroyo de la Luz where the main attraction was a retablo of paintings but not much more was happening there so we headed back toward town, stopped at the grocery store and took a picnic out near a castle. The castle was closed, but there was a wedding going on in a courtyard just a bit off of the castle. They must have been loaded, we could only see just a part of it, but it was nice. We had a planned to attend a local soccer game at 6:00 but found ourselves back in town at the shopping center at 6:15 when Jon remembered but it was too late. We decided to be like the Spaniards so we walked along the main street of storefront windows with thousands of others, just walking and talking and enjoying our little paseo. We pulled up five chairs around a table and tried some more typical extremeñan food before walking with the crowd back home.

Familes First Day

Well, it has been a wee while since I have written in my blog and a lot has happened. Slowly the number of friends still here has dwindled down and I keep waiting in lines to get my extension to stay in Spain. It has been way harder than I ever thought. The original plan was to meet them in Madrid which of course feel through with this whole extension paperwork, so they decided to come to Cáceres until everything is cleared. This morning I went searching for hotels for my parents, my siblings are going to stay with me here at Juani´s house. I finally found a place that is pretty close to here, nothing special, but a place to stay. I met them over near the Plaza de Torros; it was so good to get to see them again. We hugged and talked about what was new, the plane ride, etc. As we drove over to the hotel to drop off some luggage and then to Juani´s apartment where my family got to meet my host mother and see where I lived for the past three months. We then took a few hours to walk around the city stopping in the old part of town to see the historic sites and concluded the tour with some tapas so they could sample the local food. Tortilla Española, Jamón croquetas, etc. After the late lunch, we walked for a bit more through the shops by the Plaza Mayor. Jet lag was rearing its ugly head so we turned in for the night.

I went to the computer lab at school this morning to get some of my final paper written and write some e-mails. In the afternoon Jeremy and I took up our favorite past time, walking. We walked over to the old part of town were we went looking for a church that we had seen coming home from campus, but that we had never visited. There was also some modern street art festival going on and there were a couple of interesting modern sculptures around in the streets. After that we took a long walk to the Cortes Ingles outlet store which is way outside of town, Jeremy wanted a Real Madrid jersey for a present, so we walked. On the way was the cemetery that was really interesting. There were hardly any graves in the ground instead there where walls about 10 feet high with coffins in them. These walls made up the perimeter of the cemetery and on the inside, there were giant above ground tombs with doors where you could walk into the small sanctuary and see the 10 or 15 tombs in the wall. Then there were tons of sarcophagi that were neat because some had a sculpture of the person lying down on top of the tomb were they resided. We made it to the outlet store that was nothing super interesting and then back to our house where we spent the rest of the night with our mother and just hanging out.

Extension Trust

Today was the last day of classes, again the same sentiments are reverberating through the whole group, excitement to go home, but sadness to leave. It is an interesting dichotomy the excitement and sadness two completely different emotions coexisting together. The whole issue with the extension papers has been a mess, we have been going and waiting in line and then going to another office and then making appointments to talk with other people and it has been more work then I thought. Toñi has been doing a great job calling people and trying to figure out the best way to go about doing things. I found out that it is not possible to get a visa abroad as again I was under the misconception that I could, but that it is possible to file papers for an extension to stay in Spain. Now I just have to keep waiting until it is processed. I need some lessons on patience and just trusting in the Lord so what better time then with deportation and the thought of being an illegal alien looming over my head. But in seriousness, the Lord is sovereign in every situation and my only comfort has come from realizing that he takes care of his sheep. Faith like a mustard seed can move mountains then surely I can trust in his guidance enough to know that my simple problems are not beyond his capabilities. It is tough because this entire week I have had to wait, the immigration office is only open for a few hours in the morning and I have been waiting on Toñi to get in contact with some government officials to see what to do and the whole time I have time, but can not do anything. God, I will trust in you as my strength and my fortress. I will keep my eyes directed toward you knowing that if the flower of the field are dressed in unimaginable splendor then you will take care of me.

Illegal

Today I just plugged away on that art paper all day since it was a holiday here and school was closed. Also today, I confirmed what had been rumored this weekend, the legality of our stay in Spain was now in question. Before we came to Spain, we were told that we had 90 days as a student and then 90 days as a tourist which would have been fine for my studies here and then for my internship in Barcelona. Today, I realized that what I had previously been told was wrong; I only had 90 days to be here period. Start the panic. But everything in town was closed so I have to wait until tomorrow to do anything and talk with our program director over here, Toñi, tonight. In the early evening, Mike had a party for everyone in the program, sort of a last goodbye get together. We went over to his apartment complex which allowed us to use their rooftop terrace where we had tons of good food and sat around and talked. One of our professors actually showed up, the other ones were busy I guess. He was our history of Spain teacher, white haired and ancient, he was always in a teaching mode, constantly using eloquent words so that he could explain the meaning of them and whenever anyone made a comment he was able to relate it back to something from history. He was interesting to listen to and at least there were not tons of awkward pauses. I also got a chance to talk with Toñi and we set up a time to go to the immigration controls office to see what we could do about staying in Spain. It was sad to see everyone talking about leaving. In the short three months here I feel like I have gotten to know the people from my group really well and now all of a sudden everyone is going to be gone. I know I will see people back at Iowa State, but a lot of people are graduating or have one semester left and even those that are staying I will never see anywhere near the amount that I have seen them over here. But time keeps on ticking and it is how it is.

Your Face Looks Fat

Up until today I had been attending the church on Moctezuma, but today a bunch of us decided to check out the other church in town, Betsy’s, which was less contemporary then the one we had been going to, but not by a ton in the grand scheme of things. I really enjoyed the service that pushed two hours and the people were amazingly friendly to us. I almost wish I would have attended this church while I was here instead of the other one. I also really understand the things that my culture teacher has been saying. For instance, there was a lady sitting next to me and another approached her and told her that her face was looking gordito, a little bit fat. I could not really believe that would be the first thing that she would say; it is just a different culture. Our teacher kept mentioning that if someone sees you wearing an outfit that is ugly, they will tell you and let you know that you should probably go home and change. The music was great, tons of praise and worship songs that were not translations of English songs and the sermon was relevant and understandable. But what made me sad was the small amount of people there. I know that the country is overwhelmingly Catholic and that Evangelicals are few and far between, but I pray that from this small congregation, there would be a wave of change in the blind culture. After church I met Jenny who allowed me to borrow her computer to type up my second art history paper, this time on a modern realist who I like a lot better than the completely abstract artists that cleverly relate their works to contemporary issues instead of actually doing art. After working on it for a long while it was time to let the bed bugs have there supper.

Children: Lie to Get a Few Euros

I woke up a bit on the late side this morning, but hey, it was a four-day weekend and I was going to enjoy my sleep. Actually I managed to set my alarm wrong and when I woke up in the morning, I thought that I must have more time to sleep since my alarm had not gone off, but after a few times using this reasoning, I decided to check out just how much time I really had. And, upon checking, I realized I had negative 3 hours until my alarm went off. Like I said, Oh well. Our two Spanish nieces spent the night at our house last night and so they were running around when I woke up. Marina the youngest, four years old, was so cute. She is tiny and has really curly hair that is crazy and she would run into the room and stare at me for a moment and run back out. I tried to talk with her on occasions, but it was tough to understand her mumbled Spanish in between giggles. The older one, Corrina was 8 but a lot more mature. She sat and asked questions about how my studying was going and how my tests were going to be. She also helped interpret what Marina was saying as I half studied and half played around with the children. The afternoon passed this way until 4:30 when Jeremy and I met up with Sarah, Lan, Maya and Mike to go to the bullfight. We ended up a bit early, but had no problem killing a bit of time walking and talking. Once into the arena we found our seats in the sun. At a bullfight since it is open to the outside, they sell tickets at different price brackets according to whether you are on the sun side, sol, or the shade side, sombra. We being cheap chose the sol that ended up being a bit hot and had to fight the sun to get good pictures, but it was 10 euros cheaper. The fight began with some music played from the balconies of the arena and all the participants marched out of a door and around the ring in a precise order. I am glad that I attended the bullfighting class a few weeks ago and even though I do not know everything about them nor am I an aficionado, it still helped me to have an idea of what was happening. It was also pleasant to have a guy behind us that helped explain a few things that occurred and Mike asked him a bunch of questions that really helped us understand the afternoon. It is really surprising that in the chaos there is so much order and purpose. Everything is structured and every little thing has purpose. There is so much that we missed or did not understand just because we were unfamiliar with the sport. There are six bulls, torros, who were going to fight three bullfighters, matadors. A procession of all the matadors and assistants marched out in an ordered fashion and around the ring exiting to applause. As the music climaxed, the first bull came out of its pen and ran to the middle of the empty circle. The movement of the cape of one of the matador’s assistants drew the attention of the bull and he charged the perimeter of the ring as the assistant stepped behind a chest high wooden fence a few feet from the wall of the ring. The bull slide to a halt inches from the wall, turned at the sound of another assistant and then charged in his direction as the assistant mimicked the other. This continued for a minute with an occasional brave assistant presenting himself to the charging bull and letting the bull brush off his leg as it charged through the cape, the dance had begun. Each time the bull charged the rippling cape, the matador was in control. The bull was directed straight through or in a semi-circle around the assistant or in whichever direction and whichever manner he wanted. I was amazed at the fluidity and gracefulness of the assistant. The music sounded again and it was time for the next round. Two horses clad in armor that covered there legs and a giant rigid blanket hung down almost to the ground on both sides of the horse from its front leg to the back. The rider had an eight-foot lance with a sharp point and maneuvered the horse to just outside the perimeter of the outside chalked circle. The assistants directed the bull toward the horse and once it realized its objective, the bull charged the horse aiming to broadside it. Now here is were I was amazed, actually really amazed. I never thought that the horse really got hit, maybe a rarity or if the rider messed up, but each bull charged the horse and rammed its legs and swung its head into the padded belly of the blindfolded horse over and over again for almost 30 seconds as the rider tried to fight it off with the lance. I was so impressed at the composure of the horse, a 1000 something pound charging muscle smashing into precarious feeble legs and the horse did not flinch when hit. It stood its ground and even when the bull knocked out one leg, the others remained strong. However, at the end of the round, when the assistants drew the bull’s attention, the horses trotted off like nothing had happened and all was fine except maybe the bull. The next round was where the assistants planted spikes in the bull’s front shoulders to weaken him. The assistants would stand twenty or so feet away with the spikes raised above his head pointed toward the bull and the two would run almost simultaneously at each other and just before colliding head on, the assistant would jump to the side as he stuck the spikes into the bull’s shoulders. Another one or two would follow depending on the strength of the bull at that moment. The pasodoble, a traditional song, signaled the end of that round and the matador appeared in the ring. The matador in complete gracefulness strolled over to present himself to the bull almost as if asking permission for this dance and it began. Even more beautiful than the assistants in the first round the matador controlled the bull and with skillful accuracy, allowed the horns to come within inches of his body. The two danced around the ring the whole time intensity increasing and somewhere in the midst of the cruelty of the bleeding bull, a majestic beauty was unmistakable. It is hard to explain as you watch a dying bull in frustration swing its head toward a cloth waved in front of him how it could be bearable to witness, but the connection between the dancers was evident and it did not take too much imagination to see something splendid. The matador then traded his large cape out for a significantly smaller one this time red and once again walked towards the bull. Some of the fighters would just walk close to the face of the bull, others would kneel down within a foot of its face, while others would reach there hand out and hold the horn of the bull or pet its nose. Incredible how close they would be to a bull that seconds later, would charge at them ready to gore. The matador proceeded to do similar feats with the small cape as he did with the larger one except this cape had a sword hidden behind it. Pass after pass he directed the bull, amused the crowd and showed off his moves until he decided that it was time to end the dance. After asking the president of the ring who was seated in a press box near the top of the stadium if he could kill the bull, the sword was removed from behind the cloth and the two stood face to face. The matador brought the long thin sword over his head with one arm as he aimed it toward the bull and bent his knees slightly. The crowd hushed and when there was silence, the two rushed towards each other and the matador attempted to stick the sword through the shoulder blades of the bull and through its heart. If the attempted failed and he hit one of the shoulder blades he had to try again, each time accruing more shame. Once the sword was in place it was only a minute until the end. Some assistants surrounded the bull and made him turn his head from side to side so that the sword could open up the heart more. Finally, the bull’s front legs gave out followed shortly by its hind legs. A third assistant stepped right up to the bulls face and ended any life left by a quick cut of the spinal cord. The crowd cheered for the matador and his assistants and if they did well, waved white handkerchiefs in the air. Everyone looked up at the president’s box to see which color handkerchief he would wave signaling his judgment of the matador and his award: nothing, one ear, two ears, two ears and a tail. The more pieces of the bull that the matador was presented, the better the job he did. If the matador was awarded something then he would make a slow walk around the perimeter of the ring with his assistants as the crowd cheered. People threw down there hats or coats in sign of there appreciation as the assistants threw them back or bunches of flowers which the matador carried under his arm out of the ring. End of bull number one. A very similar progression occurred for the other five bulls with the matadors taking turns. When it was all finished all I could do was sit in awe at the incredibly unique spectacle I had just witnessed. We left the building about three hours after we entered and all went our separate ways to eat a bit of supper before we went to get a spot to watch the parade. Today is the festival of San Jorge, the patron saint of the town, so they had a parade through the city that ended in the Plaza Mayor with a reenactment of the Moors and the Christians fighting and the burning of a well constructed dragon. We, along with thousands of others, all tried to get a view of the spectacles, but it was difficult. It was interesting, especially the fire breathing midget and the whole procession. After the wooden dragon was sufficiently burned, set ablaze by San Jorge riding in on a white horse with a burning lance, there was a competition to find the rooster with 300 euros inside of it. We searched the old part of the city where it was hidden, dodged little kids and parents all with the same goal. At one point, a little boy told us that it was a golden egg and not a chicken so we kept our eyes out for the golden egg. When I was straining to stand tall enough to look in between the base of these two pillars in front of a church, I thought I saw a bird. I grabbed Sarah’s light and shined it in and realized that the bird did not move. So next, I took my camera and flashed the thing from about six inches and yet it did not move so we thought that it maybe a stuffed bird with the golden egg hidden underneath it. Nevertheless, we soon found out when we ran into our Spanish brother and Spanish niece who had found the 2D felt rooster that our hypothesis about the golden egg was wrong; tricky little kids lying to us to give himself a better chance. They found it in a small tree where we had searched earlier, but instead of looking in the tree, we looked underneath it in the roots for the golden egg; we were so close to getting that 300 euros. We left discouraged and met up with some others who had stayed in the Plaza Mayor to watch the fireworks. The night did not last too much longer after we walked around for a bit and discovered a scenic route home.

Photos and New Posts

Well I know I have not posted in a bit, but I still have everything written down on paper since I havent had a computer for a few weeks. I will try to get that posted from paper to computer soon. I also put up some new pictures which you can check out at

http://iastate.facebook.com/photos.php?id=16900837&l=4bed5


Until later,
Alex

3 Virgens: Mary, Jesus & I

Yesterday was a day of homework. I have a paper due the first part of next week so I just wanted to get it done; it seems to be taking forever. It is great that I was able to visit the cathedral in Santiago so that when I finished the finer points of the paper they were easier. I also made a huge mistake when I thought that the tomb of Santiago was in the crypt instead of under the altar where it actually is. Good thing I realized that before I turned in my paper. Today, I met up with Lindsey and Rohinni to go over to watch an Easter Sunday procession. It was neat, similar to the ones that I have seen earlier this week, but still interesting. In this one, there were two different processions that had different routes from different churches. They met together in the Plaza Mayor before going back to their respective churches. One was Jesus Christ and the other his mother. There were thousands of people in the Plaza that made it really awesome to watch and just be around that excitement.

Closed Friday

Today is Good Friday so nothing is open, but I had a bunch of hours to kill. I walked around some of the parks and walked to Cortes Ingles, a huge department store, but they were closed just like the museums that I finally found except for the military museum that was interesting. I liked the descriptions of the different crests that Spain has had thorough the ages, the symbols that each one portrays. In the afternoon, I found a guy playing a guitar on the street and sat on a bench to enjoy his concert as people threw him a bit of money as they passed. In the evening, I grabbed my luggage and walked out to the bus stop to catch my bus back home.

Fear Factor: Climbing 200 steps

Today I got prepared for the grand tour of A Coruña. Grabbed my backpack of food, homework and travel guides and headed for the first stop, El Castillo de San Antón, Castle of Saint Anton, that was used as a military fort to protect the harbor but now the home to an archeological museum with only a few things to see. But, the view from the top was beautiful and I was able to take a few panoramic photos. The town of A Coruña is a large T shaped peninsula with the foot of the T connecting to the main land and harbors in its armpits. I took a long walk along the coast that formed the horizontal part of the T to get over to a sculpture garden and some parks where I was able to finish reading Bodas de Sangre, a play by a famous playwright of the twentieth century, Federico García Lorca, and eat some lunch in the park. I then, despite my fear of heights, thought that it would be a good idea to climb the Torre de Hércules, Tower of Hercules, which is the oldest functioning roman light house in the world. A century or so ago it underwent renovation where they put a new wall all around the torre. I know that a fear of heights is pretty stupid, the tower is not going to fall, I am not going to get sucked out of the tiny windows covered by bars and glass but yet my whole body trembles when I try to walk up the steps. It is a bit embarrassing even in front of complete strangers when little kids are running by and a line has formed behind me as I take each step as if I were sneaking up to my bedroom after being out too late in high school and did not want the creaking to wake my parents. But, I told myself I would do it and I had the whole afternoon to make the ascent and finally after some time, I did. It was an awesome view of the ocean and how powerful and vast it really is. Descending the tower was a lot easier and although it was not really a feat, I was proud. I checked out the aquarium next and saw some interesting fish, but it was not the best aquarium I had ever seen, but worth the time. In the evening, I decided that my jelly sandwiches were getting old and wanted to try a tapa that ended up being really tasty. I retired to the room to do some reading for a while and then to sleep.

I Don’t Speak Freaky-Deaky Dutch

Today I headed to A Coruña in Gallego and La Coruña in Castilian Spanish. Here in Galicia they speak Gallego, which is not a dialect of Spanish, but rather a separate hybrid of Castilian Spanish and Portuguese. It is impossible for me to understand and for the South Americans I traveled with yesterday. They said that they could catch parts or words, but that most of it was gibberish. Although most people here speak Gallego between each other, they always speak Castilian Spanish to me, which I understand. I have heard though that the people over in Cataluña on the east side near France who speak Catalan a French-Spanish hybrid will not speak Castilian Spanish to foreigners even thought they know and understand it perfectly. It is that arrogance that is evident in their politics as every day on the news there is more news about how the Catalunians want to separate and form their own country. It was only and hour bus ride and a half hour walk to my hostel, which was surprisingly disappointing. I was hoping for something like the one in Santiago and especially since I was traveling alone, it would be awesome to meet some people, but that was not the case here. The hostel was ancient enough to be disgusting but not enough to be historic or of any interest. The owners were really nice but the accommodations were a bit shady, a single bed in a small room with out decoration, windows or any thing except a dresser with balls of dust adorning the top. To finish it all off, it cost 5 euros more than the spectacular place in Santiago. But it was a place to stay and for that, I can not complain too much. I stopped by the tourism office to get information about A Coruña and had the revelation that travel books are only useful for deciding an itinerary of cities or for really small villages, but that any of the major cities I have visited, has given me guides to the city a ton better than any of the guide book. With my information in hand, I found a super market to stock up before they all closed for Easter weekend and stopped by a cyber café which was full and telephone which was ridiculously expensive so I searched for another. As I walked the streets, I headed for Monte de San Pedro, Mount of Saint Peter that was supposed to have a beautiful view of the sunset. Little did I realize the distance when the edge of the map had an arrow that pointed to the mount or when people kept asking if I was walking there when they gave me directions. I walked and walked and asked for directions all along the way and got pretty close, but was exhausted and the sun was setting really fast, so I decided to sit among some rocks and watch the waves explode as they crashed into the rocks. There was also a 30-meter spire made of painted glass and came to a sharp peak that was illuminated beautifully from the inside. I spoke with an old woman who told me a few stories about life and what I should do tomorrow. She also mentioned that I should be careful around the rocks that every year they have a few people who die sitting on them when a big wave comes and sucks them in as they crash against the rocks. We parted as I took off for the long walk home. I finally arrived around midnight read my homework, a play for my literature class, but tiredness set in and I could not get through it.

Drinking Killer Grass

I woke up to see off Jeremy and Rebecca who were headed to England in order to visit their mutual friend from Campus Crusade. I did a bit of tidying up and started to think about what I was going to do when Federico from Chile and a girl named Chile from Argentina come in and asked if I wanted to take day trip to the east coast with them. I grabbed my backpack and we were off to the bus that took us to Noia where we had 10 minutes to catch a connecting rural bus, of course enough time to run a couple of blocks to a grocery store and buy lunch meat, vegetables, bread and everything for a meal. Surprisingly, it took exactly 10 minutes round trip. As we road through the rural fishing villages, it reminded me of North Dakota except with fish and seafood instead of soybeans and sugar beets, boats in the place of combines, water crashing over the rocks not wind rustling through crops. Despite all that, the rural feel was unmistakable and the people if they did not speak Gallego would be exactly the same as North Dakotans, maybe a little darker and a few more black hairs. We arrived at our town that was actually just a restaurant and a handful of houses, but we were headed toward the shore and the town did not matter. Here set adjacent to the ocean was a pre-roman celtic village with circular foundations of houses and buildings that were not super impressive, but the location was what was outstanding. Bold blue ocean for miles with a sea green border separating it from the clean white beach. As far as was possible to see, there were patches of jagged rocks that day after day the ocean hammered upon. We stopped in one of the Celtic houses to eat lunch and amongst the wind made sandwiches. After lunch, we made our way across groves of rocks like some mountain goats to the beach where we stopped and spent some time just relaxing on the beach. The water was freezing yet a few dared to brave the cold including Federico but I was content just sitting on the sand. I really was enjoying my time with the South Americans. It was so interesting to get to know people from around the world. Federico from Chile spoke English perfectly, but Chile spoke only Spanish with a heavy Argentinean accent. We drank some yerba mate, a typical South American drink like tea, but very bitter and in a small palm sized gourd with a metal straw that had a filter on it to keep the shredded yerba in the gourd and allowed the hot water to pass. But the return bus was going to arrive, so we headed back to the two lane highway to wait for it. At the highway, the South Americans decided it would be a good idea to hitchhike, Chile had experience hitchhiking Argentina, so we decided to try here. As our luck would have it, 20 minutes went by with no one stopping to give us a ride so we got on the bus and rode it back. In Santiago I killed some time walking around looking at some shops, watching people, grabbed a bite to eat, local smooth cheese and some bread before retiring to the hostel for conversation and sleep.

And He Shall Be Called Santiago

We woke up a bit on the late side, 10 A.M., but nothing opens until this time anyways. Sometimes it is wonderful to take a little time to relax and enjoy the moment, Carpe Diem, but at other times, I feel anxious if I am not sight seeing or constantly moving. The big thing on the agenda for today was the cathedral. After writing my art history paper on the cathedral, I wanted to spend a good amount of time to see the things that I had spent so many hours reading and writing about. Entering through the Puerta de las Platerías, we walked the naves looking at all the capillas, small chapels, which surrounded the retablo, main altar. I was surprised at how overwhelming the retablo really was, all carved from wood and painted with gold foil; it depicted hundreds of biblical stories. We waked under the altar and got to see the tomb of Saint James or at least what was supposed to be his tomb. Many scholars now question the legitimacy of the story and question how his remains would have been transported that far from where he died. Then we waked out to the front of the church, the home of the Pórtico de la Gloria, and impressive sculpted archway. Maestro Mateo had a important parting the creation of the church, he built the stone coro, choir, which was later taken apart and replaced by a wood one which again later was destroyed and that is why they currently do not have a coro in the center of the main nave as so many Spanish cathedrals do. He also built the crypt under the Pórtico and the main facade constructed to conserve the Pórtico de la Gloria from the elements. The three arches that comprise the Pórtico stand at the front of the church are decorated with hundreds of statues and thousands of symbols; the whole work is integrated in such a manner that really emphasizes its beauty. One of the most interesting things was the queue to kiss Maestro Mateo’s forehead, a pilgrim tradition to gain wisdom from the architect. People stepped forward and put there fingers in between the roots of the tree of Jesse on the central pillar, five finger holes now worn down and then bowed down to kiss the statue of Maestro Mateo that protruded out of the pillar just below the finger holes. After the cathedral, we checked out a convent, but it was closed, as were most things on Mondays, the day all tourist attractions are closed. Nevertheless, there was another cathedral and museum with and absolutely stunning sillaria, the place where choir would sit on the inside of a coro. The sillaria was open to one side so the sound projected to the congregation with the center part an empty floor for the director to stand. Around the three sides that encircled the director were two tiers with one row of carved chairs on each tier. The chairs were not small, more like the size of a lazy boy but carved out of wood and each chair was connected to its neighbor with fantastic raised scenes separating the chairs. Thousands of hours must have been spent to carve all that detail into that sillaria. Finally, we returned to the parts of the cathedral of Saint James that cost money to enter and were closed during siesta. The claustro, courtyard, was impressive, but not overly outstanding and the Pazo de Xelmírez, Palace of Gelmírez, was a bit plain and not really worth the time. The museums of the cathedral were pretty impressive, filled with art from the church that had been switched out over the years as well as artifacts found during excavations of the area. I think that if I was going to be an artist, I would make modern art first; it just seems easier with less rules or skill. After that, architecture, literature, sculpture, paintings, pottery and jewelry and finally tapestries or at least that is the order in which I enjoy art over here. We were all getting tired as we explored the giant park, so we decided to grab some food at the grocery store on our way back to the hostel. After we made dinner of stemmed vegetables and little shrimp, we found ourselves in some more conversation that continued through the night into the wee hours of the morning.

A Leg For Every Country

The first rain we ran into was this morning as we walked to the bus station, but it was not all that bad. It is surprising because Galicia is a ton more humid and rains all the time compared to Extremadura where they are in a constant drought. Making our way from the Santiago bus station to our hostel was a bit slow as we did not quite take the most direct route, but we were greeted by a friendly 20 something year old guy who owned the hostel with is sister. The place was great, really clean with a furnished kitchen and large living room. There were two bathrooms for about 30 people which was a minus, but not all that bad either. The rooms were modest, white walls with wood floors and bunk beds, but they were clean. The most impressive part about it was the people. From the moment we got there we began to meet tons of people from every age and country. It was just like the hostel experience everyone always talks about, but that I have not experienced yet. Staying with us was a 45-year-old Australian named Robert who quit his computer programming job and decided to travel the world for a few months. Then there was a student from Germany who spent his free time hitchhiking. A few years ago, he just decided to hitchhike the 15km to the university every morning and after a couple of years of doing that, he decided to go farther. Last year he made a huge loop from Germany to the Czech Republic and up to Norway and back and now on this trip he flew to Madrid for 30 euros and then hitchhiked to Lisbon and up to Santiago and his plan was to stay her a few days and make the 2000km journey back home in four days. There was also a 28 year old smoking doctor from Chile named Federico who was practicing general medicine in Chile and then decided to become an anesthesiologist in France and is making his way there with a backpack to live for five years. A super interesting guy who is extremely nice and funny speaks perfect English, Spanish and French. He was often times hanging out with an art teacher of the same age from Argentina. She is extremely eclectic person traveling Europe to learn more about art and to see the museums. Talking with these people you really begin to notice the accents. In Argentina they have the most unusual way of pronouncing “y”’s. For example the work “yo” meaning “I” is pronounced like it looks but in Argentina it is pronounced like the word “show” in English. Or “alla” in Spanish the “ll” is pronounced like a “y” so it would be like “a-ya” but in Argentina it is pronounced like “a-sha”; very interesting. There were also people from Australia, Taiwan, Scotland, Canada and Spain. I can not say it enough, but this has been the best hostel by far that I have stayed in. We then took, off walking the city, getting oriented to the things that were going on and where everything was located as we made our way over to an Easter procession. Here in Spain Easter processions are huge and especially in the south in towns like Seville where there are processions every day with hundreds of people marching. Here in the north, they are not know for them at all, so it was a pleasant surprise to hear that there were procession here. The people that marched in the procession are dressed rather uniquely and I guess the best way to describe it is like a Ku Klux Klan outfit but green or yellow and shiny. They all carried instruments either a bugle or a drum and behind the mass of marching KKK members was a giant sculpted scene carried on the shoulders of other walkers. The priests and other important officials followed with large silver staves and the rest of the people followed them as soon as the procession passed. They walked to the beat of the drums in an unified step step rock-step pattern through the streets while the people waved olive leaves. After the procession, we took a quick look at the cathedral and its impressive facades, how amazing the architecture that goes into a building like that, the thousands of hours to make it that impressive. But we decided to save the majority of the cathedral for tomorrow. Walking the streets, we were constantly bombarded with offers to try some typical Galician products in order to entice us to buy some more, but we decided to make the best of these free offers and like a child in Sam´s Club on samples day, we made a meal of the samples from a couple streets worth of vendors and all for 0 euros. After lunch, we continued to walk the streets just taking in all in, stopping a long the way at anything that seemed interesting: a photo exhibit, random plazas and gardens, a few stores, some museums, just taking it all in. During the early evening we engaged in conversation with a room full of interesting people. It is amazing how in a setting like that with people from 8 or so different countries that we can all share together in a conversation. At any given time there were conversations in English, Spanish, Swedish, German and those that did not know three languages were helped by those that did and everyone translated to others so that conversation was still maintained even with the circumstances. For a late supper, the owner of the hostel took us to a local restaurant to sample some local food and for 2.50 euros each, we tasted pulpo, octopus, calamar, squid and a type of spicy meat which I can not remember the name but it was wonderful. We spent the rest of the night in conversation and had a complete blast enjoying company from around the world.

Set Sail For The Open Cies

When we woke this morning we did not realize how close our connections really would be. We did not know when the buses ran nor exactly where the ferry port was located, but we would soon find ourselves in some tight squeezes. Arriving at the bus station in Pontevedra, we waited around a bit before the first bus would take us to Vigo. In Vigo, we asked at the information counter where the ferry station was located and he told us that it was quite a distance for the bus station that we were currently at but if we hurried we could catch a city bus that would take us close and just after frantically searching around, we boarded and the doors closed. We questioned some passengers as to where we should get off and they excitedly explained to us the quickest way to the ferry. It seems to be a common theme and Jeremy and Rebecca both agree that the people up here are incredibly friendly, almost ecstatic to help. We asked a waitress yesterday at a café that we did not even buy something at where the nearest supermarket was and she ran out into the street with us and pointed out the way and reiterated it so we were sure. Over and over we have met really friendly people here and I am completely impressed. Jogging from the bus stop to the ferry we arrived just in time and a minute after boarding, it pulled out of the harbor. Almost to Isla Cies, we found out how much of a treat we were in for. It was breathtaking, white beaches with crystal blue and green water set against a mountain full of pines. We had eight hours to enjoy the island and we were determined to see all we could see. We hiked to the second highest peak on the island looking over the boulders to amazing views of every part of the island and we just sat and admired for a while. We descended the peak and walked through some fields of ferns to the shore and sat on the rocks and had some lunch. After another hour of climbing on the rocks, we walked back toward the dock to check out the other island which was connected to the first by a long sandbar which we crossed barefoot while the waves licked our feet. On the other island we followed a windy path up to a light house and again just had to sit and take it all in. It was so amazing to just admire Gods glory and how beautiful his creation is. I just wish my words could describe the views from this mountain but they fail, even the pictures can not quite capture the experience of today. As we headed back to Pontevedra all I could think about was how my descriptions in words and pictures were not at all adequate to express the experience. Sometimes the beauty is so overwhelming you feel like you can not take it in any more, you almost have to close your eyes to keep from having a sensory overload.

I Heart Shrimp Cornbread

Pulled into Pontevedra right about on time and went searching for the city and our hostel. Despite our best efforts, we could not find our hostel that we had booked by phone anywhere on the map and an hour and a half later when the tourism office opened we found out why; it was two kilometers outside the city, technically in Pontevedra, but on the outskirts. We asked for a recommendation on other places to stay and were pointed to Hostal Mexico. They had space for us for two nights which was only supposed to be one and a night camping on our Isla Ons but the ferry did not run until Thursday of this week which again is technically Semana Santa but when the parks services woman told me they were open during Semana Santa, I guess I assumed ALL Semana Santa. It ended up working fine and we found out about another island we could visit. Checking into our room, we found an average bedroom, average furniture, hey it was cheap, but the rooms had extraordinary bathrooms. The sink was all made of clear glass; a glass bowl for the basin wedged into a hole in the glass counter top which allowed part of the bowl to protrude through. This all was mounted on a shiny silver aluminum stand. But the most impressive item of the bathroom was the shower complete with a radio, foot massager, sweet overhead nozzle and detachable nozzle as well, all at a bargain price. We almost could not believe that this sweet shower was in our room and even asked if we had to pay for water, we were sure that there was some catch, but to our amazement it was all free. We started the tour of the town by following a walking path outlined in a map that we received from the tourism office and got to see some really beautiful buildings as we read about the history of the town. I have really been enjoying finding out about the history of the places we visit which I find odd since I have never been super interested in history, but this trip it has been really interesting. We then took a long detour which led us to a park where we ate our lunches from home and then to a small island which hardly was an island since it just had a tiny stream that separated it on all sides from the main land but it had great trails to enjoy. We stumbled upon a weird set of metal arches that led to a giant sculpture of a brain that stood a bit above my hip. The cerebrum was surrounded by another metal wire cage with a door to enter, the whole spectacle was odd and creepy so we headed back grabbing some groceries on the way home. At that time since we did not get much sleep on our bus ride, we all took a nap before our exploration of the city continued. Walking around we searched for some tapas, especially some seafood ones since it is so common here. We found an awesome dark tavern decorated with fish and fishing objects with and amazingly friendly owner who laughed and joked with us for a couple hours. We tried the enpanadas, a typical dish which is like a calzone but instead of wheat crust, it is corn bread and the filling is a seafood medley. In addition, there was a plate of langostas in oil, vinegar, raw onions and lots of spices. The langosta are like a shrimp-lobster cross, bigger than but similar shape to shrimp but with a lobster taste. The dictionary translates them as lobster, but they are bit different then the lobster I am accustomed to. It was delicious along with some bread and a glass of ribiera, white wine famous in this region taken from a large wooden barrel. After the enjoyable time there we made it back to the old part and saw the monuments and cathedrals by night, beautiful. But our night would not last too long for we had an adventure tomorrow.

Justification For Sleep

I came home from the cyber because after going and working on the lab computers at school, they all decided to quit functioning and the whole system went down again, not an unusual occurrence. Jeremy and I grabbed a quick supper of eggs, pan-fried chicken and a bit of a rice casserole. We met up with Rebecca and made our way to the bus station. The bus departed at 10:40 P.M. and was scheduled to arrive a bit after 9 A.M. The ride was somehow not as terrible as I thought it was going to be, floating in and out of consciousness with 30 minute naps and celebrating if an hour had passed. I secured the back two driver side seats which gave me a little bit of room to stretch out. At each stop I pretended I was asleep so that I would be less of a target for a seat partner and my plan worked as the bus filled my extra seat was empty. Maybe it was a little bit selfish to expect that my comfort of having two seats was more important than someone else who would get two seats and even my extreme desire to be able to sleep just a little was not a very good justification, but it is what happened.

Cheap Tent

Time to buy supplies for this weekend, we got a four person tent for 20 euros, I wonder how ghetto it will be, matches, sleeping bags for 12 euros and some food. We are ready.

Juste Do It

We woke to the annoying alarm clock on my cell phone and took a quick shower, crammed a few pieces of jellied toast and a café con leche (1 part strong coffee, 3 parts whole milk) down. We loaded up Jaime’s car and headed down the road. Our host mother, her boyfriend, Jeremy and I were off on this magical adventure. Our first stop was in the Parque de Monfragüe, a national wild life reserve that had tons of typical vegetation from the Extremadura region, the state where I live. We climbed a few hundred steps to get up to a lookout point that appeared like a castle and had the most beautiful view over miles of forest and winding rivers that met at the base of the large hill where were located. We descended and found a turnout in the road where we could watch the vultures nesting just across the way. Down the road, a few minutes by car, we stopped at a tiny city inside the park that had a handful of museums, but they were mostly aimed for a younger audience. Continuing on, we found another miniature park with three tables by a stream and pulled off to eat our lunch. First course heated over a propane torch was baby cow stomachs cut into strips and cow cheeks in a salty, garlicky, tomato sauce. The sauce was amazing but the cheeks a bit too Crisco feeling for my taste and the intestines were a bit to ultra-chewy and had an awkward texture. It was the first food that I really had a hard time getting down and ended up telling her that I just could not eat it. Even the morcila, blood sausage, the torcino, slab of pig fat smeared on bread and all the other mystery food that I was not accustomed to I could at least eat, but today was failure. The next course was tortilla española which I absolutely love and my mother promised to teach me how to make. We ate it with some slices of cured ham, half consisting of fat and some pieces of bread. Jaime had brought a small water bottle full of wine that his neighbor in the country made. It was decent, very fruity and very sweet, but interesting for, as Jaime put it, grapes in a barrel. We packed up the food after the third course of fruit and loaded the car ready to continue exploring, but Juani and Jaime were not to continue without the afternoon siesta. On a roll matt and lawn chairs, we passed an hour and a half. Back in the car, we made our way to the monastery of Juste stopping at a beautiful stream that rolled over gigantic boulders 15 feet across. The monastery was supposed to be amazing, we had learned about in our Spanish history class and I was pumped to see it, but when we arrived, they were closed. Jaime said there hours are pretty flexible and they often close if they are going to have something going on inside. I was a bit disappointed, but what can you do I guess. So, we substituted the monastery of Juste with a visit to the Cemeteria de Los Alemanes, Cemetery of the Germans where they buried all the Germans that fought in Spanish wars and fell in Spanish soil. It was worth the stop, but nothing to jump for joy about. Then we piled into the car to travel the road to make our way back home to go bed.

Noboy Wins

More of the same paper, at least tonight I saw the Real Madrid vs. Barcelona soccer match. These two teams are a huge rivalry so the game was hyped up and the crowds were going wild most of the game. It ended in a tie which was a bit of a let down, but that is how they do it in this league, no shootouts. Tomorrow off on an excursion with the host family but tonight going to bed was the only thing on my agenda.

No Love For The Santiago Paper

Nothing new, but today was a day of homework. I worked for most of the day on my Santiago de Compostela paper. It will actually be interesting since I will be able to visit the Cathedral during Semana Santa when I go up to Galicia. For that, I am excited, but not for the paper which is going extremely slow. Reading books in Spanish, translating, and trying to figure out what all happened to write in Spanish is taking forever, but what can you do.

¿Who Needs a Route to Run a Race?

We woke this morning ready, ready to run, but we did not know that we really would be running. Today was the day of Jonni y Kara’s half-marathon. It was actually a pretty good idea they had to do this, all their training was done in Europe and they planned their long runs for the weekends where they could run in Paris, Seville, Granada and cities they visited. As always with a group, we were running late so Jonni, Kara, and Jeremy took off for the race start while the other three of us finished getting ready. We the headed down to catch the tram to Belén to see the race start, but after missing the tram by a few seconds, we waited the 7 minutes until the next tram arrived. As we waited, we met a couple traveling in Spain and Portugal for a bit with their newborn child. They both grew up in the States, but after they got married they moved to Germany and he now works for the World Cup which will be held in Germany this year, so they wanted to get away before the mayhem set in. Forty-five minutes later standing in a group of anxious people we realized the tram was not coming, later we found out that part of the race route coincided with the tram route and the tram we barley missed was the last. The best we could do at this point was get to the middle of the race and later to the finish line, but we had no idea where the middle was. Following the exodus of people from the tram station, we found a good boulevard to watch the race. From our boulevard, we first saw the Africans whose incredible running is really something to see. However, after almost an hour we still had not seen our friends and the runners were winnowing and the walkers augmenting. Nevertheless, we knew that they were faster than the walkers were and by our rough calculations of their speed, they should have passed at least 30 or 40 minutes ago. We were about ready to leave, wondering if we had missed them, when in the distance, Lindsey spotted them blowing by the walkers. As they ran by they yelled something abut missing the start which we later found out happened because the check-in personnel told them the start for the 5km run, not the half-marathon they were supposed to run. When they found this out and that they needed to be across the river to start the race and run across the only bridge for miles, they were out of luck. They made a beeline for the bridge that was a couple of kilometers into the half-marathon, but by the time they made it to the bridge off ramp, they were at the back of the pack. Now it was our race to get to the finish line before they did, except we had the assistance of the metro and fresh legs. Pushing off the drunken man who was grabbing our arms and yelling slurred phrases at everyone who passed, we entered the metro. In the brief moment before the doors shut and the metro whizzed off, I wondered why this man was at this point in his life and why I had so easily brushed off his cries. I grabbed the pole to keep from being launched backward. The metro screeched to a halt and the stream of people burst out of its doors and dispersed across the plaza. We pushed through the crowd and jumped a fence running towards the finished and the hundreds of deadlocked people that all had the same goal, see the finish, began to clap and cheer at our ingenuity, as we soon became the head of the pack. For a split second, we felt part of the race, but reality soon brought us back to the world. At the finish, we vied for a spot on the fence and I reverted to my childhood climbing skills and perched on branch that hung slightly over the road. It was a while before they came and in retrospect, maybe our sprints toward the finish were unwarranted, but the applause was nice. They finished the race right behind the 90 something year old Arab with a white beard down to his chest and two fellow runners holding up his frail body as he stumbled the home stretch, but he finished and so did our friends despite all the circumstances. After showering at the hotel and a modest lunch, they decided to rest a bit and Jeremy, Rebecca and I went searching for one of the Geocaches hidden in the town. I was 0 for 3 on the European circuit and today I would add two more losses to the record. Although we failed to find any of the caches, we did get to see tons of beautiful parts of the city and talk with a man from central Africa who was convinced that Jeremy had to be a world-class basketball player because of his height. We met up with the others got our stuff and waked to the train station headed back to Cáceres. Pulling into town after a restless night of short naps, in the wee hours of Monday morning we found our beds quite comforting.

Tourist Trap #1: Salty Cod and Overpriced Water

Up in time for a late breakfast, but we had to go hunting for it. Walking the streets of Lisbon, we found a decent sized grocery store per recommendation of the receptionist at our hostel. Brunch consisted first of fresh baked rolls with slices of cheese and jelly on them and then second a couple of oranges. All energized we made our way to the castle to get a wonderful view of the city. After entering the inner part of the ancient walls, a pleasant mix of shrubbery, foliage, sculptures and fountains greeted us as we made our way up towards the actual castle. We crossed the moat and followed the sound of a flute until we encountered a man, in later conversation we learned that he was from New York, playing some tunes while dressed in an old fashion looking outfit. He stood with the tambourine attached to his right knee stomping out the rhythm while playing the melody on his recorder while his cat slept on a blanket covered in change just to his side. We made our way up the narrow steps without railings to the top of the castle walls and then again up another flight to mount the towers that rested on each corner and half way in between each corner of the castle. The view over the city was magnificent and just being able to stand in the same place where hundreds of years ago someone defended their city. Looking over the old juxtaposed to the new really blew me away as if it should bring about some profound thought, but none came to mind, only awe. We descended the stairs and the streets that lead up to the castle making comments about how the postcards always get cheaper the farther away from the attraction that you get as we made our way down to tram number 15 which would take us to the outskirts of the city to barrio Belem along side the river. Exiting the tram a station to early, we promptly jumped back on board and rode it for another few minutes to where we wanted to be, near the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos (Portuguese), Monastery of Geronimo. We took a look inside the cathedral and admired the tombs that were housed there, the cathedrals are beginning to all look the same, but something about them never ceases to blow my mind. We then, after a few minutes of debate, decided to visit the part where we had to pay, the claustro, until the following day since people were getting hungry and consequently cranky. Traveling in groups this size, even though only six people, is always so hard to manage. There are six people all with different, for the most part, objectives that they want to accomplished for the weekend. For me, I want to see all the sights that there are to see, to run from one thing to the next and defiantly spend my time enjoying that sight, but do just that, spend my time enjoying the sights. There are others in our group, however, that prefer just to relax, stop by a coffee shop or a café and hang out. See a few things, but not push the issue and just spend the time in fellowship. Sometimes this difference in objectives frustrates me, but every time it gives me another chance to practice patience and respect for others wishes. Helps me to realize that relaxing a little bit and experience a bit of carpe diem is really not that horrible. After eating our lunch in wonderful city park, four of us started off towards the tower of Belem but the other two, Jonni and Kara, headed back to the hostel to rest for their race tomorrow. The tower of Belem is supposed to be the most famous tower in Portugal, I do not know if that says much, but it used to be used as a military tower to guard the entrance to the country and now serves as a moneymaker for the state. It was worth the euro and a half to tour the place and climb the hundreds of winding stairs that served both directions, to snap some beautiful pictures over the bay and of the sailboats that were passing our direction. Leaving the place just a few moments before close we started to walk back toward the tram station making a detour at another giant monument stretching its self out over the waters. This couple hundred-foot high stone rectangle flanked by a series of 50-foot tall people depicting a symbolic scene of the Portuguese explorer Henry the navigator who discovered the cape of southern Africa. Upon reading the plaques near the monument, we discovered that it was a gift given to the Portuguese by some South African Union as a thanks and act of friendship for discovering their country. The next two hours were very uneventful, back on tram 15 so that we could walk a bit to our hostel to sit and discuss the plans for the rest of the evening. In the discussion by a vote of “I don’t care”, “I don’t care”, “I don’t care”, “I don’t care”, “I don’t care”, “Let’s go to a fado”, we decided to go to the fado. Now a fado is similar to the flamenco tradition found in Spain, but less drive and excitement and more sadness and pain. We were seated at a small table very close to the stage, or what would have been the stage, in the quaint restaurant and pondered what to order as the songs began to play. It seems like the older the singer gets, the more emotional the songs become. Maybe it was their voice that just could not sing as strongly as it once could or maybe the wrinkles in their face and hands that made them seem weathered, but for whatever reason, the songs grabbed each heart in the room and stole the breath from each mouths. When my food arrived, I began the task ensuring that my throat would not be punctured by one of the plethora of bones hidden in my extremely salty cod. Cod, or bacalao (Castilian) is a very traditional food here on the Iberian Peninsula but to in order to keep the fish, they pack it and dry it with salt. Because it was so typical of this region, I decided that I could not let myself leave without experiencing a mouthful of salt for myself. The cod was actually prepared very well and had an excellent flavor, but was a bit on the salty side for my taste and at a hefty price of 1 euro for a small bottle of water, oh how I miss free water, it put me between a rock and a hard place. It was then back to the hostel for a good nights rest.

First Impressions Of The Original Gangster

Well we all, Lindsey, Jonni, Kara, Rebecca, Jeremy and myself meet up at the train station a 3 A.M. to board the train that would take us to Lisbon, Portugal to pass the weekend. The train ride took about 5-hours which was not horrible, but it just is not that comfortable to sit in those train seats and try to sleep. Some days it makes me wish I was a bit shorter, I can only imagine what Jeremy had to be feeling as he was knocking knees with the person in front of him. When we did get to Lisbon, we started the search for our hostel. This time we booked ahead at a place called hostel Brasil-Africa, interesting name, but I guess they speak Portuguese in both of these places which makes the name of the place a little less awkward. The hostel was really nice, the friendly women/maid/receptionist greeted us when the bell rang and was very kind to us. She was a meek person that spoke broken English and I guess from our conversations, German, Spanish and of course Portuguese. It is amazing that the maid of a small hostel with less than a dozen rooms spoke 4 languages. It really brought to my attention the importance of learning languages that people here in Europe seem to have. We had arrived a bit early to get into our respective rooms so we consumed a bit of our lunch as a mid morning snack while our rooms were being prepared. After we got settled in, most people wanted to take a nap, but for Lindsey and me, we could not hardly let ourselves take a nap when there were miles and kilometers of streets, monuments, sights and the like that were begging to be discovered. So, off we went to see what the city had to offer. We walked for a few hours just looking at different statues in Lisbon, there are tons of statues and monuments located in the center of all the roundabouts scattered along the wide medians separating the roads called paseos. Each one a memorial to some battle, to some famous person, to some famous time in history, but the most interesting monument that we saw today was a giant spire dedicated to a doctor of the early 1900´s. We were not sure exactly what he did, I want to check it out, but there were hundreds of marble plaques about 2 feet by a foot and 3 inches think that had carved on them Obligado Dr. Sousa Martins thanking the doctor for curing them. But, there were so many of these plaques all piled in a haphazardly manner around the base of the statue that it was a bit eerie, not sure why he had such an impact on people that were living when he himself was not. In addition to the plaques, there were tons of living flowers adorning one side of the base with lots of real burning candles at their feet similar to the ones found in the Catholic cathedrals here, but not the fake ones that light when a nickel is inserted. We then took off looking for a cache hidden in Lisbon but did not have the best of luck finding it. The GPS unit said that we were within 100 feet at one point, but we could not get any closer than that despite our best efforts. While trying, we accidentally entered a private area and the security guard promptly notified us that we were trespassing and needed to leave. We then while continuing the search ran into our Madrid friends as they were walking the streets exploring. Rachael and Dan, the Madrid friends, were studying in Madrid, hence the name, but are originally from the States. We meet them on our train ride to Lisbon and had a quick conversation and then today after we ran into them, we walked around the city, for a bit, together just looking. We, by accident, encountered a sweet tower built out of steel in the middle of the city. Reading about it later I found out that it was in the similar style and built around the same time as the Eiffel tower. The tower was not much more then a giant elevator that rose up the roof level and then stairs that traversed multiple layers of steel platforms with waist high railings to look out over the city. It was a splendid view of the area that included parts of the Barrio Alto, High Neighborhood. Next on the agenda for them, head across the Rio Tejo (Portuguese), Río Tajo (Castilian), Tajo River (English) to get to a giant monument of Christ with his arms outstretched a couple hundred feet off the river facing the city of Lisbon. The monument, built after one of the world wars, not sure which, was a thanks to God for keeping them out of the war. I guess before the war kicked off, someone or a group of someones made a pact with God that if He would keep them out of the war, then they would honor him in some manner. Because of their lack of involvement in the war, they built this monument of thanks. I guess it was a pretty big deal and children all over the country ran from door to door to collect money to fund the project, and women would donate their jewelry for the same cause. Lindsey and I decided not to take the ferry across the river with them; we only had an hour to be back at the hostel to rendezvous with the others. We bid farewell and they headed on the ferry while we wound our way through the street. By this point, it was about time for me to register for classes for the following semester; what luck that the time when I have to register happens to fall on a day when I am two countries removed. We stopped by a cyber café to use the computers and I did the best that I could to get into the classes that I wanted, but out of the 5 that I wanted, I only could get into 3, so I guess I will have to play the waiting game until there are more seats available for me. It was also interesting that all of the classes that I am going to take next semester are in separate departments. A class in the Computer Engineering department, one in English, one in Spanish, one in Electrical Engineering and one in Exercise Sport Science; weird how that worked out. We then, as a whole group, decided to follow suit on the itinerary of our friends from Madrid and we walked to the ferry station to get to the other side of the river. While waiting for our ferry a guy about our age decided that we wanted to have a conversation about rappers with him and proceeded in English to tell us that he could rap in three languages. So, we asked him to prove his claims and he crooned a rap in broken English about how he was going to ride the ferry across the river cuss word here cuss word there with his six American friends cuss word, cuss word. His rhymes failed to rhyme and there were more ¨uhgn, uhgn, yeah, yeah, ughn¨´s than lyrics, but hey he did a better job than I could rap in Portuguese. He then reverted to his mother tongue and gave us a new rendition of the song, which well outdid the first, but still not the Phat beats and Icy lyrics of the Original Gangster. Once we disembarked from the ferry, we began searching for a bus that would take us to the statue of Christ, a few miles. We thought that a 50-cent bus ride would get us there in time for sunset, but, as circumstances had it, we could not find, even after questioning some local, the bus that would take us where we wanted to go. So we decided to just make the trek by foot and half way through the journey, we realized that it was going to take longer then we had first anticipated. This was not a huge problem since we were not on a schedule, but as the sun was setting, out of the woodwork came more and more creepy people. In a unanimous minus Jeremy and Rebecca decision we trekked back to the ferry, snapping a few pictures of the statue from afar with the zoom maxed out. Back to a beautiful plaza, we finished the sandwiches that we had packed and passed the time watching people and pondering why a mangy looking man was walking five off-white dogs of assorted size and character was walking around the plaza. At first from a distance, we wondered if he was walking them as a service for some people, but as soon as they came closer, we realized that their dirty coats, one with bright blue coloring smeared over one side of it´s face, ruined any thought of them being housedogs. The dogs ran around in a pack together and searched out the people of the plaza for something to eat; stopping by a car and in an almost ritualistic order urinated one after another on the same tire a second after smelling its predecessor’s markings. After the plaza, our bodies signaled that it was time to hit the hay, not too hard though in case the needle was on the surface, at an early bedtime of 11:30.

Praise The Lord O My Soul, Praise The Lord

I found out today what I am going to be doing this summer. Now let me flashback. Before I came here to Spain to study abroad, I checked on the possibility of working in some short-term missions capacity during the summer. Throughout all my checking, the doors remained closed and I have to say I was a bit frustrated. Just before I was ready to leave, I found out about an opportunity to serve in Spain and began the process. Things moved slower than I had expected, but I guess the Lord likes to use these times to show the importance of the virtue of patience. Over the past week, I still had not found out exactly what I was going to be doing in the summer and began to doubt that I was going to be able to serve. I believed the lies that I was not good enough to serve, that I was not ready to serve and began to consider my other options for the summer. I e-mailed the director of the Spanish study abroad programs at Iowa State and asked about the possibility of continuing my studies in Spain through the summer and he replied that everything would work out and that the program dates for the summer abroad in Alicante, Spain would fit with in 2 days of my time constraints here in Spain. The classes that were offered would be able to fit into what I needed for my secondary Spanish major for engineering students and I began to think that maybe this was the way that I should go. However, as the Lord would have it, the next day after receiving an e-mail back from the Iowa State director, I received another e-mail saying that it would be possible to serve the Lord in Barcelona for the summer. Praise the Lord and thank you God for teaching me a thing about patience. When I gave up on the chance, He showed himself faithful. ¨Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.¨ Proverbs 3:5-6 Needless to say, I accepted the opportunity to go to Barcelona for the summer and now just need to sort out the details.

Weedwacker Modpeds

Well it was time to work on my Spanish literature paper today in which I described how jealousy was a detriment to a relation in particular the relations found in Miguel Cervantes novel El Celoso Extremeño. Not the most interesting thesis, nor the most profound, but it worked as a topic. After that, as I was walking home from the bus stop, I encountered a bunch of our group going to Telepizza and they convinced me to come along for the ride or I guess walk. Telepizza is the Spanish equivalent to Dominos, or Pizza Hut or Papa Johns in the United States. The Telepizza deliverymen drive small mopeds that look like plain dirt bikes used by children or like taking a two-stroke weedwacker engine or I guess to be politically correct, gasoline powered edge trimmer engines, and mounting it onto a rusted huffy. The pizza there was pretty tasty, I tried one piece and a bite of another kind but did not want to spoil my supper and just enjoyed the fellowship with friends.

Dances With Bulls

After a couple normal classes, I had an extended abnormal class. For Spanish 401, a class that some other Iowa State students are taking, they were going to have a special 3-hour session at night dedicated to learning all about the history and culture and everything else involved with bullfights and so I decided to attend in order to learn about the bullfights that have really held my curiosity lately. At first, we learned about the history and development of the sport. In the early periods, it was a sport for the nobles to stab a bull while mounted on horseback and how later it transitioned into a ritual celebrated by all of Spain. We then learned about how the modern bullfight is conducted and I was amazed at the amount of order that exists during the fight. EVERY thing is planned out, the bulls are chosen in a specific manner, the bull fighter dresses himself in the Exact same way every single time that he puts his uniform on, the order that they march out before a match is ordered by importance and age and a couple other factors, the moves that are executed in the match are determined before hand and in a specific way; Everything has order. It was crazy. The teacher was trying to get us to guess how much the uniform that the bullfighter wears would cost to buy. We were throwing out some figures like a couple hundred euros and someone got bold and yelled a thousand euros and still the professor raised his hand repeatedly toward the ceiling with an open palm which continued through a flurry of numbers even when a smart aleck threw out 10,000 euros and about then the professor told us the truth. One uniform for a bullfighter costs between 12,000 and 25,000 euros, which at the current exchange rate of 1.28 dollars to a euro is well over $20,000. Can you imagine putting on something that could buy 40 1990 pink Mercury Sables that moo, or 20,000 frosties. Incredible, and to think that at the end of a fight the uniform has bulls blood all over it. It was also interesting when he described the terminology of the uniform that looks like a white suit accented with vibrant colors and patterns embroidered onto the basic design. The pants, white again, are tied just below the knees and then another bold color of socks is worn in a similar fashion to baseball player but instead of cleats they were a slipper looking shoe that is really close to what girls today are wearing. The bullfighters do not like it when you call their uniform a traje, suit, they prefer the name vestido, dress, which is a term to describe just that, a dress for women, because to them and aficionados, the bullfight is not a fight at all. It is a dance between the bull and the bullfighter and in the dance the bull is the man and the fighter the woman and for this reason they are called vestidos, dresses. Nevertheless, even though they prefer to call their uniforms by feminine names, the bullfighters are not feminine at all. Looking at pictures and seeing video of the proximity at which they are to a bull that has horns and will gouge the first thing that it can when it is charging; the bullfighters are nothing but brave souls. After learning about the bulls in the fields and how they are raised, we got a chance to practice our bull fighting skills. The professor brought in a muleta, a small red cloth stretched over a stick, a capote, the red cape, espada, the bullfighters sword, and we got to use them, after his instruction, on the bull, another classmate of ours. It was really interesting the different types of moves and how the body is positioned during them, almost like a dance in the way that it is executed. Each move has a name and a purpose and is supposed to be carried out perfectly in order to serve its purpose and for the next hour, we practiced enticing our classmates to charge the moving cloth with a sword hidden in the folds.

Title to Come Soon

On the agenda for today was some more El Greco art that was located in the Casa de El Greco which was not actually his house rather an old house turned into a museum for his art. We toured the museum which was interesting, but not awe inspiring but at least on Sundays in Toledo the museums are free and there was not the pressure of having to pay to see everything. We then made our way over to the Jewish part of town. It is interesting to note that at one time three major religious groups coexisted in Toledo at the same time. There were Christians, Jews and Muslims that all had their respective neighborhoods, but all lived in very close proximity to each other and had there respective places of worship. In the Jewish part, we checked out a synagogue that was apprehended by the Christians and used as a cathedral when all religions except Catholicism were expelled from Spain and only recently given back to the Jews to turn into a museum of the history of the Jewish culture in Toledo. The synagogue was alright, not quite the same amount of decoration that was prevalent in the cathedrals, but they made use of tons more wood than I have seen in other buildings, maybe the longevity of wood is the reason why there are not more wooden decorations that exist now. The decoration was also a bit more classy and a bit less gaudy in my opinion than some that I have seen in the cathedrals. It was worth the visit to see the inside and worth the time to read the descriptions that were posted around the place, very interesting. Jeremy and I ate our second sandwich on a park bench just outside of the synagogue that had a spectacular view across the river and then did what we do best, walked around. We ended up meeting up with the rest of the group later on and all headed over to a new attraction of the city, the GIANT escalator that was, in fact, outdoors. Built into the side of a large hill on which the city was built there was a series of 6 escalators that carried the passengers up and down the hill. It was pretty sweet, but by the second time riding, the fun level had dropped off a bit. It was functional alright, but reminded me of such attractions as the Eiffel Tower, the Saint Louis Arch, The Statue of Liberty and who could forget the Skywalk in downtown Davenport all of which, save the Skywalk, draw thousands of visitors each day just to take a picture next to the monument. We all at this time were getting quite hungry and craving some pizza that did not have crab, tuna and mayonnaise on it so we headed to the world famous Italian pizza restaurant. I guess I can not really back up the world famous claim, but they at least had some framed awards from the ¨International Pizza Competition¨, who knows how legit that one is. I could not finish my part of the pizza and decided to wrap it up in a napkin and put it into my backpack because they are not all that fond of doggy bags here in Spain, so I had to take matters into my own hands. Then from pizza we were off to the bus station to go back to Talavera to catch the bus to Cáceres. We almost thought we were going to have to spend the night in Talavera when a bus from the company that we were riding pulled up at exactly the time we were scheduled to go for not more than a second and drove off. We, at first, thought that we had missed the bus, but after being patient for 30 minutes our bus finally arrived and we were pleasantly surprised to find that some of the Michigan students were on the same bus returning from Las Fallas in Valencia.

111 Divided By 6 Only Equals 16.83 With Bad Math

Well 6 A.M. We caught the bus at the station and rode it to Talavera in order to get up to Toledo. This trip I got a chance to travel with some other people in our group than I normally do, it was the six of us, Rohini, Alisha, Maya, Sarah, Jeremy and I. We bought our ticket at the station and again on the rode to Toledo. When we arrived we began our search for the hostel and soon found out that the one where we had made reservations did not in fact have a place for us and we were off to find another. We walked around the city and looked for a sign with one star on it, yes the fewer the stars the cheaper the place, and ended up finding a nice place that was decently priced, 16€ a night, a bit cheaper than the €18,5 that it was supposed to be but the guy at the front desk did the math wrong when he quoted us the price and we accepted the rooms at this price and so they charged us the cheaper price, very nice. Once we got ourselves settled we ate a lunch of sandwiches on the balcony of our room and then headed off to the first museum. It is sometimes a bit frustrating organizing a group of 6 people to all go at the same time and usually the entire train moves a bit slow, but we made it to the Museo Santa Cruz an old palace type building that had a bunch of art work and museumish things. It was interesting, the view of the green open courtyard from the second balcony was breath taking and we got a chance to see some El Greco art. Toledo is known as the home of El Greco and he is a pretty big deal around these parts. I was not the biggest fan of his art, sometimes I felt like his people in his paintings were misshapen, they appeared to me like oversized, over musculized Germans who you did not want to make angry. None the less it was very interesting to be standing next to some very famous art like the ¨Assumption of the Virgin¨ or ¨The Immaculate Conception¨ After walking all around the different galleries, some were art, others focused on history of the modern renditions of Don Quixote and still others on pieces of pottery and such from ancient times, we made our way to the information station to get the opening and closing times of the places we wanted to visit. After talking to the lady we discovered that our next stop on the map, the Alcázar was closed for renovations, quite sad. We then took to walking the streets of the city and just looking at everything, observing the differences and how interesting each street was. There was such a contrast between ancient monuments and buildings along side brand new steel and glass monsters. As we walked, without a destination, we decided that when we came to a spot where we needed to choose between roads, we would pick the one that looked like it had the most character, basically the one that was the shadiest and not in the sense of sun or lack of sun but in the sense of which one would most likely lead to a mugging. Walking the streets we came to a clearing and saw a small mountain just to the right of our view and almost unanimously decided that we should climb it, only one problem, there was a 40 foot, approximately 12.19200 meter, wide river that stood between us and our goal just smirking at our misfortune. We knew there were a couple of bridges that would get us across the river, but we were not sure which way would lead us there the fastest and we picked the slower of the two options albeit that was not our initial desire. But all was not lost in our ambitions because our path lead us straight down to a beautiful trail that hugged the river and gave us a precious chance to see some vegetation and nature in this area, something I have seen very little of since I have been in Spain. We walked and enjoyed the scenery asking a fisherman for directions to the nearest bridge and the ¨Just around the bend¨ turned into ¨Just around about twenty bends,¨ but no one really minded the scenic route. When we finally got to the bridge, it was starting to get dark and the rain clouds were moving in. Four of us decided to make the trek back to the hostel to avoid the weather, but the other two, Jeremy and Sarah, headed for the original goal, to conquer the mountain, and they succeeded although not in escaping the inevitable downpour. After waiting some of the rain out in our hostel, we convened with the mountain climbers and let them get dry before heading to show off our American side and have an ice cream at the McDonalds in town. It is really interesting how nice the place looked, not quite the same greasy run down joint with a creepy fun center that I am so accustomed to, but more like a real restaurant with framed pictures on the walls and it was actually clean. We then stopped by a local restaurant after a bit of exploring to check out the tapas that were recommended to us by our guide book. It was a success thanks to the help of the ¨Let´s Go¨ book. The tapas were quite tasty and we had an enjoyable time sitting and talking that continued back to the hostel for a bit before we headed to bed.

Homework

Well it is Friday and time for homework. This weekend I will be heading to Toledo, up near Madrid for the weekend which should be a great time, pending the weather situation. We originally had planned to go Friday morning, but then decided earlier this week to push it back until Saturday morning. I worked on homework all day to try and catch up so that I could get some sleep for the 6 A.M. bus tomorrow. The homework here is not horrible; it is just a lot of writing, a five page paper on architecture or another analyzing a story, etc. Which again is not horrible, it is just hard to get to a computer to be able to write the compositions. The computer labs closes at 2, usually the same time my classes end and then I need to get back home on a 20 minute bus ride for lunch and then if I want to use the computers back on the bus, back to the university and back to the computer lab. You get the point, but at least I get to travel this weekend and should not complain about my situation when I get a chance like this to study in another country; how amazing!

If Luther Sang Texan Hymns, Catholics Wouldn't Have Been Mad

Went to class right on-time, I had originally planned to make it there a bit early to work on the computers in the lab, but in a last minute decision coaxed by fatigue I shut the alarm off and slept those hours away. After class we came back and heated up some soup that our host mother had made for us as she was in Madrid and then watched the Luther movie with Jonni and Rebecca which had two intermissions. The first was when Jeremy and I went to the bus station to buy tickets to Toledo for next weekend. It was also helpful and I am glad I asked, because I found out that there is a direct bus that leaves Caceres and drives up into Galicia. This is awesome because before now I thought the only way to get into the region was to go through Madrid, a big hassle. It also changed up my Semana Santa plans and made the idea of going to Leon a bit out of the question since it was no longer on the route to Galicia since I did not have to go through the capitol. The second intermission was when we all decided to stop the movie until a later date and go to the Coro Tejano, Texas Choir, which is a group of people that sing country western hymns in Spanish and were going to be performing at one of the cathedrals here. We thought it sounded like a good idea to go this afternoon, but the more we considered it, finishing the Luther movie just was going to be a better time. The movie really made me think as it told the story of how Martin Luther broke away from the Catholic Church. I kept thinking about the implications of his actions, how the Catholic Church responded and through my thinking did not come to any marvelous conclusions, I guess that is why I am not a philosopher or anything great; instead, just a normal guy.

The Batteries Need Some Recharging

So not much went on today, I slept until 12:30 which seems like that would be sleeping in, but when you go to bed around 10:00 A.M. that is not all that long. I took my shower and grabbed a cup of coffee and chatted for a long while with our mother’s boyfriend, Jaime, who was spending the weekend here before they headed to Madrid on Monday to change to batteries in his pacemaker. The rest of the day I operated with a couple of my pistons missing and managed to get a bit of homework done before heading to an early bed.

Dancing with the Latinos

Today was a very uninteresting day in my room. I was working on some homework, reading the Bible and trying to make some plans for Semana Santa. Now not that any of these three were boring in and of their selves, except for the homework where I had to write about the reasons why there has been a degeneration in the discipline structure of Spanish families, but that together as a whole, it was a bit long. The Bible was great, I started reading through Hebrews today and just took my time to soak in the Word, to give myself a chance to meditate on the Scripture and it was great. Then for my Semana Santa, the week before Easter, plans, since we get the week off from school, I decided to go to Galicia and began figuring out what cities. I borrowed a book from Sara which had tons of sweet travel information about Spain and decided that I wanted to make a 10 day loop from here through Leon, to A Coruna, to Santiago de Compostela, to Pontevedra and back. I just need to get the internet and find out the train schedules. I also read about some sweet islands real close to the western coast of Spain that are accessible by ferry and are almost deserted, they have a handful of bars and nothing else, but it is possible to explore the island and the foliage and camp along the beach. I am really tempted to make a detour to the island, but I do not know how seriously. After a long day of tedious activities, Jeremy and Rebecca arrived at our house and we sat around and talked to our mother for a bit as she was cleaning the windows and showing Jeremy a thing or two about how to tango. To bad I was not able to grab the camera fast enough. We asked our mother if we could eat an early supper because we were going to have a second go at watching the movie at Rohini’s house. We actually did not change the plans and sat around in her house which was really nice and watched a chick flick, Dirty Dancing, sucks to be the minority, two against four. After that the plan was to meet up with some others at a discoteca, but for me I was going to bed. Jeremy and I walked home and he changed to go out and I for bed, but then came the irresistible peer pressure and I gave in on the condition that I would head back in an hour or so. 9 hours later I finally made it home. So you see here in Spain the nightlife is unlike anything I have ever seen, which is not much of a statement since I know practically nothing about the nightlife anywhere in the world, in fact I can count the number of bars I have been to on one hand. So here, people really enjoy the nightlife not even exclusively university students, but everyone. The culture is already shifted back a few hours from the United States, things do not get started until later, the whole place closes down and takes a siesta, nap, from 2-5 and then they stay up much later. Everyone goes to the bars to have a glass of wine or a glass of beer after work and in the weekend evenings, but the bars are a lot less like the bars in the United States. They are much more like small European restaurants that have a counter where they serve food and beer. This schedule is especially exaggerated for the students who do not even start going to a bar until around 11, when the bars close around 2, they go to the discotecas which stay open until 4:30 at that time by a local law, they shut down until 6 and then reopen and continue to stay open until 4:30 the following night. Now, most of the students and a lot more adults then I would have thought stay out all night on a regular basis, so I decided that when in Caceres, do as the Cacerenos do and I spent my first all-nighter dancing. So after the first discoteca we walked over to a restaurant that stays open to cater to the crowds of people that have an hour or so to kill before the discotecas open again and so we ate a sandwich and talked for a bit before heading to a place called Latinos which does not live up completely to it’s namesake. For the next 3 and a half hours we were packed in like sardines as our hearing was slowly stripped and we became one step closer to being deaf before we started to climb down the other side of the hill. It was a really enjoyable time. I have not done a ton of fast dancing in my life although I thoroughly enjoy swing dancing and some of the other ballroom dances, but as far as making up my own moves, own steps I have tended to avoid as much as possible. But, I decided that I should try my best and enjoy the night, forget what the Spaniards think and use a clique Nike phrase, “Just Do It”. When we left Latinos, the crowd had almost all dispersed, the sun had defiantly rose and we stumbled slowly home, not because of alcohol, I only drank one beer the entire night and most of the group only had some coke (the drink not the drug), arriving a bit after 10 A.M. and found our way to the bed.

Viva the Land of the Hoochy: Iowa

Jeremy and I were just hanging out and running some errands with Rebecca before we met up with Emiline, a girl from Iowa State who just arrived and is doing her student teaching over here, to show her some of the city which ended up only being a bit of the new part and trip to the grocery store. Nothing really interesting happened on our trek across the new part of the city except that I found out there is a small Morman church, 5 members, which Emiline attends. It made me think about when I was explaining to my Spanish mother that I might be working with a missions organization over here in Spain during the summer months, and she thought that I was part of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, which is odd because she knows that we are going to the Evangelical church here, or at least I hope she knows. Maybe my communication skills are really lacking. We stopped back at our house to grab some supper before meeting up with the rest of the group which tonight included Kara’s family (3 sisters, 2 parents and a grandmother) to go to Rohini’s house for a bit. Plans changed after we walked 30 minutes to Rohini’s house and had to instead head to the Parador, the hotel where Kara’s family was staying. We meet them and they were really nice and after some small talk we were off to a Latin bar which was a bit on the slow side and then later to a discoteca, the second time I have been to one. I am always amazed at how few people actually dance, the only difference between the discotecas and every other place in town is the volume of the music and their hours of operation. It is also funny; I was expecting it to be a lot dirtier of a place, more hoochy or ghetto fabulous dancing, but the dancing at a high school dance in Bettendorf is a bit more scandalous then here, so weird. (Sorry Jon, now you are going to be getting asked a bunch more questions from mom.) Granted there are a few ultra-creepy young and old men that prowl around the place and once in a while there will be the nasty permanent or temporary couple trying to lick each others esophagi but really most people are just standing in circles of trust talking and possibly swaying maybe from the alcohol or maybe from the music. We hung out for a bit and tried to speak Spanish to our friends Luis and Noelea, a Spanish couple we met a while ago, but the music was really dampening any attempts. After a bit it was off to bed.

Vanguardian Fabulas

Today was a pretty normal day of classes, except that I had a test. It really was not all that bad; I only had doubts on a few of the questions. The test was over Spanish literature, so we learn things about the different eras of literature, how to classify them, who the main authors of each age were and why the literature evolved as it did. The test was 11 questions in an hour and was all short answer. Describe Vanguardia, Write a short poem in the form of a Fabula and describe all the parts that make it fit this form, etc. It really was not bad, just had to use the time wisely. After the test we headed back to our house to eat a bit of lunch before playing some soccer. It is funny how being exposed to different things influences you. Before this trip I was never very interested in soccer, it was alright, but never something I really wanted to play or watch a ton. But here where there is such a craze for soccer, where people live and breath soccer, where the city almost shuts down when there is and important game so everyone can go to a bar and watch, it has really spurred my interest. Last night we watched a match between Real Madrid, who is a pretty hot team around here, and Arsenal from England. I guess it was a pretty important match because the last time they squared off, Arsenal won in Madrid and this time Real Madrid was trying to regain their dignity. The game was really intense, never a slow moment. I enjoyed the tons of physical contact throughout the game, not with Jeremy, but there was always someone getting knocked over and it was great. The game ended up in a tie which meant that Arsenal, since they had won the first game of the series, won the series. So Jeremy and I headed down to the cement soccer field which is only a few blocks from our house to try and imitate last night’s game. The court looks more like an indoor field, pretty small comparatively, but with concrete instead of turf. We kicked the ball around and took turns being goalie, we ran up and down the court just messing around and enjoying ourselves. It is funny that I am actually improving, not that I doubt that if you practice something you improve, but it is awesome to be getting a little bit better, but still in comparison, a pretty horrible player. We also watched a group of 4 Spaniards playing basketball right next to where we were playing soccer, what irony. It was like a fish taking a stroll in the park while a bird swam across the river. We were both out of our element and could not help laughing and even contemplated switching sports with them, I am so much more comfortable with a basketball in my hands then a soccer ball under my feet. After we finished we showered up and headed to Bible study. It was a good time again; I always enjoy the fellowship of the Christians here. We continued our study of Acts and I found it really amazing and interesting how Herod died. I know I have read it before, but I did not remember that he was eaten by worms because he did not give glory to God. I really wonder how exactly he died. The Bible says that he was eaten by worms and died which really seems to imply that he was eaten by the worms first and then because of being eaten by worms, he did. But that begs the questions, where did the worms come from. Someone was talking in our Bible study and mentioned that they learned that being eaten by worms was a disgraceful thing especially for that time. How interesting the contrast that because Herod was so proud and thought that he was an equal to God, that he died in a manner that was extremely disgraceful.

The Windblown Harlot

Another early morning to head to the bus. Today we were off to Salamanca, a beautiful city and home to one of the oldest universities in the world, the second oldest I believe. The day was a bit overcast and drizzly when we left and totally overcast and storming when we arrived. It was a funny sight as we ran the few blocks to the cathedral to see broken umbrellas abandoned on the sides of the streets. The wind was blowing like crazy and most of our group found themselves quickly being initiated into the broken umbrella gang, but we persisted and made it to the cathedral. Once inside it was nice, at least dry, the cathedral in Salamanca is actually two cathedrals, the old and the new. The old one could not hold the people as Salamanca grew and so they added on a new cathedral, but as they were building the new one, they ran short of money and for this reason to this day, there are relatively few decorations and gold adornments. The ceilings however are some of the largest in Spain rivaling the height of the cathedral in Seville. It was interesting to find out that every Sunday they still have a mass in Latin which is pretty sweet. It is also a bit interesting the arrangement of the different parts of the cathedral in different countries. The best example and actually almost my only example is the placement of the curo, no idea the English translation, but it is the part of the cathedral that in Spain is located right in the center of the church but in other countries is located at the back. Now let me explain. Most cathedrals are shaped like a giant cross if you look from overhead or if you could see the blueprints you would be able to see the overall design was in the shape of a cross. The retablo, the giant wall of gold and the altar that is directly below the wall, is located at the head of the cross, recessed in the top part of the cross. Then between the retablo and the curo in the direction of the foot of the cross are pews. In most of the cathedrals the curo is located at the foot of the cross so to maximize the space for pews, but in Spain it is located in the center of the lower part of the cross which cuts off space for pews. Now you can imagine if you are looking at a blueprint the curo will fill about 60% of the width of the lower leg of the cross and be positioned directly in middle of the lower leg. It is also pretty tall, somewhere around 50 feet, and about 80 feet long and 50 feet wide, so it obviously obstructs a giant part of the cathedral. It is closed on three sides and only open to the head of the cross, the part that faces the retablo. On the inside there are seats for the choir, carved into the wood of the inside of this rectangle shaped curo, a book stand for the director and above it all usually a giant pipe organ. The perimeter of the three outer sides has small altars and such where they could conduct mini masses instead of using the giant altar at the retablo. Now I can not remember exactly why they decided on this orientation in Spain, but I think it was to allow them to conduct smaller mass services in the part between the foot of the cross and the smaller outer wall of the curo, but I am not exactly sure. After checking out the cathedral, we stepped out in the rain to see the famous astronaut. Again another explanation is needed, I wish I had a better one as I do not know exactly if it was planned or just a joke, but there is an astronaut carved into the sculptures of the main facade of the cathedral, it is actually a pretty neat sight to see it along with the other classic figures. It was put there by a stone mason who was reconstructing part of the sculptures that adorn every bit of the wall. There is also, very close to it, a small dragon or devilish looking creature that has an ice cream cone in its hands. Quite amusing. We then dodged puddles and waves of windblown rain until we arrived at the Universidad de Salamanca. It was an awesome old building and as we toured the classrooms that were preserved, I could not help but think about how different things were back then. For example, we stepped into a class room with wooded benches and our tour guide explained how class was conducted in those days. All classes were taught in Latin and none of the classrooms had heating systems, so the poorest and least noble students were required to come in before class and sit in the front row to warm up the seats for the noble students, they then, once class started, had to sit in the last row. Priority seating was giving in order of nobility, but funny how in the front were the desired seats, at Iowa State students would tell you different. There was also a whorehouse connected to the university for the students to utilize as a form of entertainment. I can almost imagine a conversation between two students something along the lines of ¨Hey Pablo, what are you up to today?¨ ¨Well not much, these classes are stressing me out, I got a ton of homework but I just need to relax for a bit before I do all my homework. I think after I get finished with theology, I am going to head over to the brothel and get a bit of afternoon delight.¨ Except that the dialogue was probably not in English. All and all it was a very interesting experience to see all the different class rooms and how they operated. We then took a walk to the Plaza Mayor to check it out and were given a few hours to explore the city on our own. Jeremy and I explored for a bit and ended up a bit lost in a barrio, neighborhood, that gave off an aura of rage and bloodlust. There were tons of graffiti on the abandon walls bashing the conservative party, the PP which means Partido Popular, and we decided that it would be best not to yell a phrase such as ¨Zapatero a tus zapatos¨ or something that might incite a hate crime so we met up with everyone else. The weather was still pretty bad and there was a chance for some snow or hail along the way so the program director decided to head back home. The bus ride was alright, we did hit a bit of sleet, but only for a few kilometers. Well it was a windy day and time for bed.

Chinese Homeruns Over the Backstop

Saturday morning and it´s time to go
One day these could be the days but who could have known
Loading in the back of a ...
Here is where the song in my head differs from the actual events of the day. It was a Saturday but we were not heading over to play Mud Football nor where we hanging out with Kimi and her now famous friends. We ate a wonderful breakfast in the hotel with tons of food and I was very content. We walked around the city for a bit and decided to stop and try some tapas, but blast it was too early in the morning to be having them so we walked around the different stores and Arabic vendors which were virtually the same, see one, see them all. We then met up again with the group and loaded the bus not the pickup truck and drove up to the Alhambra to tour. For the next couple hours we walked all around the place enjoying the beautifully persevered architecture. It is pretty amazing that for a couple hundred years, the Alhambra was abandoned and various robbers, gypsies and homeless people inhabited the place. It is almost a miracle that it is in the condition that it is today. The carvings on the walls, their intricacy and quantity, are absolutely astounding. It really is an amazing thing to get to see. The gardens and patios with the shrubs and fountains are also quite spectacular and really bring a neat dynamic characteristic to the whole place. There is an interesting contrast between the different styles of architecture. The Alhambra was originally built for defensive purposes, but later became a place of residence for the Muslim kings. The city was conquered by the King Ferdinand and Queen Isabel, the Catholic Monarchs, in 1492 and was the last city to fall into the hands of the Catholics during their wars with the Muslims. Later, Carlos V began to construct a palace in the same area as the Alhambra and redo some other parts of the Alhambra. This makes for a very interesting contrast between the styles and also the different symbols like the Catholic crests that bear the symbols of Castilla, Leon and other important providences of that time in contrast to the vinery and vegetation decorations of the Muslims, the Koran forbid them to display symbols in their art and acrhitecture. However, there are a few symbols that can be found in the original parts of the place. There is a set of hands above one of the entrances to the fortress; I do not remember what it symbolizes or why it was allowed, but something along the lines of a sign of the protection for the castle, etc. There is also a really interesting legend that is told about the conquering of Granada. When the last Muslim king, Boabdil, was leaving the city that had been conquered he looked back and began to cry and his mother turned to him and said ¨Llora como mujer aquello que no supiste defender como hombre.¨ Which translates to English as ¨Cry like a woman over that which you could not defend like a man.¨ Pretty much a huge diss and really insulted his masculinity, since especially in that time to cry for a man was seen as a weak thing. I found that story really interesting but for most of the day I could not get the phrase right and kept saying it to myself and asking people until I finally figured it out. We left the Alhambra and got on the bus to head to Cordoba. The bus ride was fine, except I had to go number 1 really bad and did not get a chance to do so for a couple hours. We got to Cordoba and checked into our hotel which was actually an albergue which was run by the government, I believe. It was interesting, tons of punky gang looking kids of all ages who were hanging around, but thee rooms were decnt, very plain, by decent, beds a shower and a toilet, but it was all clean. The doors were all painted with weird trippy almost graffiti looking paintings but it was a place to stay. We went down to meet for supper and to our surprise, they had a cafeteria. So we went into the school looking cafeteria and were served by very kind ladies in hairnets. We procedded to sit down with a crowd of rough looking Spaniards and ate our mystery meat balls, soup and bread. We checked out a tourism book for Spain and found out that the place used to be an old mental asylum before being turning into a hotel, defiantly a weird place, but not really bad at all, just different. We then went with the son of our program director, who lives in Cordoba, to a jazz cafe to hang out for a bit, but the rainy drizzle put a damper on things and most people called it an early night.

Good, Good, Good, Good Gyrations

I woke this morning a bit early and showered and grabbed my stuff to be at the bus by 8:20 to begin the long bus ride. I do not know exactly how long it took, but they seem to like to stop every 2 hours to take a break usually for 20-30 minutes which is a bit on the long side, but hey we got there and it all worked out fine. When we arrived in Granada, we made the short 3 block walk to our hotel, Hotel Anacapri, which after entering and looking at it I believe it is the same one that I stayed in before with my family when we came over to Spain. Mom or Dad can you verify this? The hotel was really nice, they were remodeling the entire upstairs so there were some electrical cords hanging down, etc. but it was a very nice place. I stayed with Jeremy and Matt and after a few minutes of getting settled we headed down stairs to meet up with everyone else. We then went to a small cathedral called La Capilla Real de Granada which was pretty sweet. A smaller sized church in comparison to the giant cathedrals in other parts it had the tombs of two famous figures in Spanish history, el Rey Fernando y la Reina Isabel, and I believe there son and his wife, Philip and Joanna. I can not remember the exact history of what happened, but long story short, someone wanted a bigger cathedral and began to build one near where this smaller one stood. There is also a small museum attached to La Capilla Real de Granada which, despite its size, is very impressive. Inside are a bunch of famous paintings and tapestries from ancient times that are really interesting to see, especially after we covered some of them in my art history class. The two most important paintings we saw were the "Agony in the Garden" by Botticelli and "Christ, the Man of Sorrows" by Perugino. After we finished there we headed out to the larger cathedral which again was very impressive. I can not seem to get enough of them, every time that I walk into one it almost takes my breath away. The huge ceilings, the giant retablos of gold (I do not know the English word), the huge organs and beautiful paintings and sculptures that adorn the walls are absolutely amazing. My only question every time I see these cathedrals is at whose expense were they built? We then headed to supper, it was included in the program cost and was a very nice meal, alot better than I was expecting it to be. We were first treated with a puree, then a salad with the same dressing that the entire country eats, salt and oil, which is very tasty. Then a plate of broiled chicken and bread and ending with a type of pudding very common over here. It is almost like a creamy vanilla pudding, but without the vanilla flavor and instead has awesome orange and lemon flavors, but they are very very delicate and the whole thing is garnished with some cinnamon. We watched our mom make it once and she boiled zest of lemon and orange with the pudding to give it the flavor, a great dessert. After supper we headed to the hotel to regroup and change before we went to a flamenco show. It was great, we got to first walk with our tour guide to a barrio where you could look over the Alhambra de Granada at night while it was completely lit. We then made our way to the flamenco show which was in a cave in the side of the mountain, but did not look as cave like as I was expecting. There was a single row of chairs that lined the wall of the white washed walls of the cave, the stage was more of a concrete isle of about 20 feet long and 5 feet wide that was defined by the knees of the spectators. The show was pretty good, a bit longer than the one we saw in Seville, but also a bit different. This one had a ton more tap dancing and a bit less dancing with the body. In all I prefer the Seville show, it just seemed to climax to an intensity that captivated the whole room no one could break their stare. It was an intense hour to witness. The show tonight lacked a bit of the intensity, but it made up for it however in overall enjoyment and quantity. At the end of the show one of the dancers started pulling people out of there chairs to dance along to a few seconds of the song. I tried everything in my power to not be picked, but in the end she grabbed my hand and pulled me out onto the stage. I decided to make the best of it and did my best flamenco impression as I twirled my hands in the air and shook my hips, following the gyrations with a bit of sloppy tap dancing all the while pulling the cuffs of my pants up a bit in an imitation of the performers. I then sat down to a round of laughter and applause and a couple of ¨Alex you are my hero¨´s. To my surprise some of the quicker fingered people in our group caught a part of my performance on their cameras and after the show the video was passed around a circle of laughing Americans. It was actually a good time especially when our program director began to make jokes that the gitanos, the gypsies, wanted me to come dance with them permanently. It was almost 1:30 and we needed to head home to bed.

The Burro That Puffed the Puro

So far this week has been pretty normal. It is so weird to describe life as normal when I stop and think that I am living in Spain. But even normal is so interesting to just observe and learn. So many things to pick up that I hope it does not become monotonous, but I do not think it will come to that. Today when after finishing class I worked in the computer labs on campus. Sometimes it is a bit frustrating, I am not used to waiting in a line to use the computers which, just like the entire country, are closed from 2 to 4 or 5. Not horrible, just sometimes an inconvenience. I tried to update my blog and have been meaning to put more pictures on it, but never seem to have enough time in here to finish the homework, e-mails and blog all before my time runs out. But after class and after lunch I got a chance to play some soccer. Weird since back home I really was not much of a soccer player, but I have found it surprisingly fun save for the times when a Spaniard wants to join in. So I got schooled by a 10 year old a bit of an ego burster, but I guess thats life. After wallowing in my self pity, we headed home to change before going to Betsy´s house for supper. I was a bit apprehensive to go there since I knew there were going to be a ton of people going and not that I did not want to go, it is just that I felt like we were overstaying or overusing our welcome. But after buying some edible offerings to help her out, we decided to go anyways; I was glad that I went. It is really awesome to be able to spend some time with Spanish students. I especially enjoy learning colloquial phrases. For example ¨¡choca esos cinco!¨ which is Spanish for ¨give me a high five¨ or something like ¨Put er there partner¨ but literally it means ¨crash these five.¨ Or other similar phases that we have in English have semi-literal counterparts, ¨como sardines en lata¨ which is ¨like sardines in a can.¨ There are also tons of times when a slight slip of the tongue produces extremely different results. The word ¨burro¨ which is a ¨donkey¨ is very similar to the word ¨puro¨ which refers to a joint of marijuana. I also found out that the adjective ¨verde¨ which means ¨green¨ has other meanings. For a while people where referring to me as the ¨verde hombre¨ which is the ¨green man¨ because of a fascination I had with the little green stick figure that tells people when they can cross the street, but tonight I found out that a ¨viejo verde¨ is a ¨dirty old man¨ and as an adjective can mean just that ¨dirty¨ in a sexual connotation. Oh the things that you never knew.

My Mom Says I am a Cache

This Sunday morning we again got a chance to sit at a coffee shop for a bit and enjoy the atmosphere of the morning crowd. After that we walked for a couple hours around the city, through some gardens it was a great morning to walk around. I tried looking for a cache(www.geocaching.com) in Sevilla, but ended up in frustration. It is alright, there will be other times to try again. It was kind of funny explaining to people how the game worked, but they at least seemed interested. I hope that later on when I get a chance, I can find some others. We then grabbed some food at the grocery store and headed for the bus station and back home. On the bus and tonight, I finished my homework for Monday and called it a night.

When in Sevilla do as Jonny Cash did.

We woke up this morning ready to get started seeing things and after a quick 2 hour stop at a coffee shop where we had devotions and drank some coffee and ate some of our bread and jelly, we headed to the cathedral to get in line. We arrived about 10:45 and waited for it to open around 11:00 and after clearing the entrance I was taken back by the size and beauty of the inside. The ceilings must have been more than a hundred feet tall and the windows all stained glass. There were hundreds of painting and sculptures that covered the walls and the retablo was a marvelous display of intricate golden figures that set the stage for the altar. I stopped a few times to eavesdrop on some of the tour guides that were leading groups of retired Spaniards around the spacious church and overheard a really interesting story about a rather large paining (20 some feet tall). I guess way back when, the janitor of the church one night cut out the main figure of the painting and stole it. For the longest time, no one knew what happened to the cut out piece and most people chalked it up as a loss. But during this time a man bought a painting that he liked in an antique shop in New York and unknown to him it was the missing piece that had been stolen many years before, but unaware, he put the oddly shaped painting in his house. Finally, I am not sure how, they figured out that the missing piece was in America in the home of just some antique collector and it was returned to its current place back in the original painting. Very interesting and I was proud that I understood all that in Spanish, or at least I think that is what the tour guide said. We also got to climb the torre de oro, tower of gold, which was pretty sweet and another cool story, this time from my art history class here at the university. There used to be a Arabic palace on the spot where the cathedral now stands and once the Christians conquered Seville they destroyed almost the entire thing except the tower, torre de oro which they left. They then built the entire cathedral around the tower but it is interesting to look and see the differences in styles between the two parts of what is now the cathedral. A side note, I also read that each year they spend 3 million euros in repairing and preserving the cathedral which to me seemed like a ton, but with the admission prices they, in a year, should easily be able to cover that cost. After the cathedral we stopped back at our hostal and grabbed some food and headed off to the Alcazar. Again, beautiful. I really enjoyed the gardens and the fountains, it was just amazing to see what they were able to do with the bushes and the shapes and forms they could create. I took a ton of pictures and then we headed back again to our hostal to get ready for the night. A short nap later we arose and changed cloths for the flamenco show which was a very very sweet experience. We found a place that was a bit less touristy then most of the shows in town. It was not quite the old man in the bar sitting in a dimly lit corner, but it was still very impressive. It was in a cultural center and had very limited seating. There was a tiny 5 foot by 5 foot stage raised about 8 inches off the ground where they danced and two wooden chairs to the side where the singer and guitarist sat. We had seats about 4 feet from the stage and it was wonderful. It first started a bit on the dry or rehearsed side, but after a few minutes they really got into in and the result was a captivating performance. After the show we went to grab some dinner and ended up eating some tasty tapas with a bit of wine. Although a bit on the pricey side, it made for a very pleasant supper. We then meet up with some friends of Jonni and Kara for a movie, the Johnny Cash one. But when we exited the theater we were greeted by millions of drops of water falling from the sky, it put a bit of a damper on the rest of the night and made our 30 minute walk to the hostal a bit of a challenge dodging between overhangs, but it was useless and we all ended up completely drenched. So off to bed.

El Torro que Mató el Matador

Well we headed off to Seville this weekend for our first weekend excursion in Spain outside of Cáceres with only part of the group, a bit of a specific first but none the less a first. We, Kara, Johanna, Lan, Rebecca, Lindsey, Jeremy and myself, boarded the bus at about 9 in the morning and headed on the 4 hour ride to our final destination. I tried to hold back my tiredness and keep focused on the classic Spanish literature, or more often the dictionary, but sleep was begging me for attention and I dedicated about half the trip to a nice snuggle with sleep. We arrived and made the trek to our hostal, which in retrospect is not a supper long journey, only about 30 minutes walking, but trying to carry the luggage got to be a drag. Jeremy and I packed in the same suitcase which was actually a duffle bag and strap on that stupid thing dug right into my shoulder, but I made the trek with the our luggage and we were greeted at our hostal by an impatient women who kept reminding us that her hot dog, perrito, was getting cold. We checked into our rooms which were actually very comfortable, Jeremy and I shared a matrimonial bed, I know the name is a bit awkward, but that is what the size of the bed is called. The other girls split two other rooms across and down the hallway. The room was covered from the floor to everything but the ceiling with tile, there was a nice view of a courtyard from our window and we had no toilet, only a shower, separated from the room by a curtain, and a small sink. It is interesting to note that one of the girl’s rooms was almost identical to ours except they had a bidet, Lucky. The only bathroom on our floor was down the hallway which proved not to be too much of an inconvenience except when the person before you was a stinker. After getting situated to the hotel we decided to walk around the city and ended up walking to the museo de torros, the bull fighting museum and got to learn some of the history of bull fighting. Just for the record, I really want to go to a bull fight. We were able to see the ring and some stuffed heads of the mother bull whose child killed a famous matador, bull fighter. We then took a stroll back to our hostal and bought food at the grocery store for our supper tonight, breakfast and lunch tomorrow. We also stopped by and purchased tickets for a flamenco show the following evening, I really can not wait, it should be amazing. The dinner on the roof-top terrace was very nice, although I was imagining a better view of the city when they mentioned that there was a terrace, but the walls of all the buildings surrounding the hostal were the next best thing, at least we could see the sky if we looked straight up from some parts of the terrace. That night we called it an early night but I decided that I was not to tired and wanted to walk around a bit, so I headed off on my own to see what I could find. I ended up getting a bit lost in all the backwards little streets in that town, but eventually found my way back to a landmark and was able to return to my temporary abode safely and I was off to bed.

The Tuna, Ketchup and Mayo Ménage À Trois

Today is el día de san valentine or Valentines day in the States. The holiday is really not as big over here as it is back home. I hardly saw anything in the store fronts that tipped someone off to the importance of this day for couples from the United States, a few small ads here or there that mentioned it, but not the same big display that is so traditional back home. The other day I searched for a Valentines day card but could not find any, in fact they had almost no greeting cards at all, slim pickings. I was really surprised, I think Hallmark needs to get working on their Spanish division. I received an awesome card from Elizabeth along with some chocolates via my roomate Jeremy and to top the night off a special pizza made by our host mother, but this was not just any pizza (Queue the mysterious music). For the past 4 meals we have had the same basic substance in every meal. We are not sure why this has become a theme in the past two days, up until this point, every meal was something completely new and original, but none the less we have eaten some form of tuna mixed with ketchup and mayo for the last few meals. Now before I continue I want to preface my statements and say that I think our host mother is an excellent cook, I really do enjoy the things that she makes, it is just these mysterious two days that make me wonder. The first meal was balls of the tuna-ketchup-mayo substance with halves of hard-boiled eggs and a glob of mayo on top. Meal two, the same substance this time on bread. Meal three, the same thing again, made fresh each meal, rolled in thin pastry dough and deep fat fried. Meal four, Pizza Surprise. The pizza started with a crust, actually really tasty, covered with a generous layer of the tuna-ketchup-mayo substance, it was then topped with slices of hotdogs followed by slices of cheese. Then after baking she applied whole olives and chunks of crab. Quite an interesting concoction, but surprisingly not horrible tasting. We will have to see if this continues, maybe it is the new staple food for the Spanish.

I Let the E-bomb Slip

It was killing us, there were two basketball/soccer courts so near to our house, but neither Jeremy nor myself had a basketball, so we went shopping. We ended up finding a pretty nice ball for 12€ at a local sports shop and went down to the courts to test it out. The overly bouncy ball was a bit tough to get through the overly stiff steel rims, but it was a great time. We ended up getting in a three on three game with some Spaniards which was a blast, I just kept catching myself using English phrases. ¨Drop down¨, ¨Foul¨, ¨Stay on your man¨, ¨Switch¨, ¨Pick¨, ¨Nice shoot¨, ¨Short¨, ¨Long¨, ¨What is the score¨. Every time one slipped out I had to laugh, no one knew what I was saying but still they kept slipping out. We showered and did some homework and ended up at Lindsey’s house to talk about our possible trip to Seville. As of now it looks like a pretty good chance, things are falling into place. We just need to see if there are rooms available at the hotel and if we can get tickets to get there. Hopefully it should be a fun filled flamenco weekend.

Hey, English People!

This morning we went to church which was again a great experience. They had a guest speaker who was a member of the church, a lady from Latin-American. She defiantly had a voice on her and a ton of emotion, I do not know if I have ever seen that much emotion from a person before and the scariest part was that she loved to interact with the congregation which is pretty small to begin with which presented problems when she phrased questions to you and you were not quite sure what she was asking. But it was great, there was so much passion in the worship, the Holy Spirit was at work in that place. After church we headed home for lunch and then out to the streets to walk around. It is funny how out of place we are, two tall pale skinned bearded guys walking around. Today we only got two comments from a block away a group of kids yelled in English ¨Hey, english people¨ and a small girl told her father in Spanish that she just say a really really tall person as we were walking by her. It is interesting to be the one that is out of place, or a bit different than everyone around you.

The Headless Statues of Merida

Today we took an excursion to Merida, a beautiful city full of ancient Roman ruins. We went as part of our study abroad program and traveled in a stylish tour bus. After the semi-short bus ride, we were dropped off near the ancient Roman theater. I remembered being here once before when we stopped through town with my family in high school, but that time we did not actually go in and see the ruins, only from a distance. The theatre and the amphitheatre were beautiful. Well preserved you really felt like you were back in time. It was also nice that our Art History teacher had covered all the different parts of the theatre and amphitheatre this week. We got to see the Temple of Diana and the ruins of the Forum and made our way to the Alcazar which was pretty neat, especially the view of the bridges and city from on top of the wall. We broke for lunch and got a chance to hang out a bit and then rendezvoused at the museum were we finished the day-trip. The museum was alright, I had a bit of trouble following everything the tour-guide said in Spanish and the statues started to all look similar after seeing a hundred of them, but it was a great experience to see the art from that period. When we got back to our house we were exhausted and Jeremy and I took a nap starting at 7:30 and intended to get up and go out with everyone later on. At 10:00 we got a couple of calls that informed us of the nights activities and we decided to sleep just a few more minutes before fixing dinner and heading out. When I woke again and looked at my cell phone it read 8:30. In my groggy state of reasoning I realized I had a few more hours until I needed to eat dinner and go out, but was not very tired so I decided to get up. After a few moments, I came to my senses and realized that it was 8:30 in the morning and we had slept through the night in our clothes on top of our blankets, it was a bit to late to go out, most people were home about an hour our two before and the hard-core were just making it home.

Fiesta en la Casa

Well our host mother left for the weekend to go to her boyfriends house about a 100 km away in the town of Don Benito. So it was fiesta time. She left a bunch of food for us to eat over the weekend and Saturday we will be gone in Merida the whole day so it will not be a big problem. But we decided to have a few people over to our house and just hang out. Sometimes its tough to find a place in town that is on the quite side of things and usually the places that are more quiet to hang out are the places that older more sophisticated people frequent and hence they become quite expensive even to buy a tapa or a piece of bread not to mention drinks. It was actually a very good time just to relax and talk with people, we laughed alot and had some more serious conversation and all in all just had a good time except for the 6€ liter of rum that tasted like rubbing alcohol mixed with top soil and cat urine. The cheese and crackers and fruit that everyone chipped in on was tasty and the night was a success.

¿Que pasa tios?

Tonight a couple of us went to Betsy´s house, the lady from the church that works with the college ministry. She was originally from the States, but moved to Spain 5 years again with World Team. She has been super nice and helpful to us over here and every Thursday she has over all the college students to her house which sounds impressive, but there are only a handful of college aged Christians that even exist in the entire university, a number countable on a hand. We had soup at her house and talked for a bit, it was such an enjoyable experience to just be able to interact with other Spaniards. I also had a bit of fun trying to learn to roll my r´s which is about impossible for me despite tons of practice. Our teacher told us that when little children are not able to roll their r´s the doctor cuts a small tendon on the bottom side of their tongue to allow them to roll the r´s. I also made a horrible mispronunciation of words and said ¨cajón¨ instead of ¨cojín¨. So when I was trying to refer to a pillow, cojín, I actually call it a ball-sack, cajón. Needless to say they were quite confused and wondered why I wanted them to pass me a single male genital. I also learned some new greetings similar to our ¨Whats up dog¨ and ¨Whats up dude¨, I do not know exactly the connotation of the phrases, i.e saying dog in a greeting in the United States is a bit on the cheesy-ghetto side, but I still find them interesting. the phrases are ¨¿Que pasa tio?¨ or ¨¿Que pasa tia?¨ which is literally ¨Hows it going uncle/aunt?¨ and ¨¿Que pasa tronco?¨ which is ¨Hows it going tree trunk?¨ I am quite satisfied with my new phrases.

Who can psych-out God?

We had Bible study again today which never fails to be an enriching and edifying time. The cafe that we normally frequent was packed and so we searched the city for another one that was on the quiet side that had tables big enough and sold pastries. We were out of luck the places we looked, so the next best option was a lunch cafe that was pushing closing time. They sold only meals and beer and so we had a wonderful study over a glass of Palaner, which was pretty tasty. We again were in Acts and talked about sharing. It is so amazing to me how the early church shared everything. They did not consider their things as theirs but rather as the communities. It is also amazing to see themes carried on through the Bible. In Chapter 5 Gamaliel has amazing advice, ¨I tell you, do not take any action against these men. Leave them alone! If what they have planned and done is of human origin, it will disappear, but if it comes from God, you cannot possibly defeat them.¨ and then a similar thing when Stephen was being persecuted, it says ¨But the Spirit gave Stephen such wisdom that when he spoke, they could not refute him.¨ What is man that he can even think he can pull a fast one on God? Who are we to try to run the show? Tonight I also wrote a bit about Aristotle for my Introduction to Literature class. I really enjoy the class, the teacher is amazing at keeping the interest and posing all sorts of interesting and thought-provoking questions. They make me think, outside of class about the answers and this is a literature class, something that traditionally is not really my favorite subject. Jeremy and I also took a trip to the bus and train station to check on prices, they are both comparable and seem like a decent deal. About 30€ round-trip to travel about 3-4 hours.

Another day of class

Today we ate paella for lunch which was pretty tasty if you can get past all the uncleaned seafood. Our host mother’s boyfriend stayed the weekend and cooked it for us as their lunch is traditionally their larger meal of the day. The paella which is a pretty typical Spanish dish had rice with a salty sauce on it, similar to an uncle bens rice and whose color, a golden yellow, is not actually from a spice, but rather just an extra powder added to give color. On top of the bed of rice were an assortment of creatures freshly pulled from the sea and euthanized moments before buying them. Their seafood is hardly prepared and left mostly to the eater to get to the meat. There were muscles in the shell, fish chunks, shrimp with heads, crawfish looking guys with beady eyes and legs that all needed to be ripped off. It was actually a very tasty dish, just took a bit of work to get to your food. Jeremy and I walked the city a bit more tonight and realized how much we enjoyed our friend, the Verde Hombre (Green Man) as we call him. The Verde Hombre is the little green guy that poses on the street post in mid stride and commands all the pedestrians to cross the street. What a great friend, who else commands that sort of respect from the travellers, who else has that much influence over when people can walk, only the Verde Hombre.

It is weird how not getting a grade for a class affects you. It is a struggle, the grades we get in the classes over here, do not actually count into our overall GPA at Iowa State, but they do show up on the transcript. I have been trying to slack off more, and have been doing pretty well, but I often feel like I am failing someone or something. I feel as if a poor job on an assignment is a direct reflection of who I am. For example, I am taking Spanish 314 which is an introduction to Spanish texts and styles before the 1700´s and surprisingly the teacher has made it interesting. I often find my self pondering the questions he poses in class for more then just long enough to answer them and find myself spending too much time working on the stories we have to write. In class he picks a few people to read the stories written the night before out loud and I feel as though I must be prepared, must show him that I am a good student, must show the others that I can do well, that somehow I actually can speak a bit of Spanish, Probably an issue with pride, something I need to work on. I want to be able to do things without seeking approval from my teachers, my grades, my peers. God, give me humility. Let me seek only to glorify you, only to make you proud. Keep my focus not on things of this world for what has a man gained if he possesses the world and yet has lost his soul?

Charisma

Well the first Sunday here that we found a worship service to attend. It was great. A bit more on the charismatic side of things, but you know what, they were praising God and it was wonderful. From the moment we got there a fashionable 10 minutes late till the end of the service 2 hours later it never seemed to lack the intensity of true worship. I was joyfully surprised at the amount of prayer that went on during the service, in between songs, for the offering, in between transitions, a time for people in the congregation to pray, almost relentlessly they prayed and not weak prayers, but powerful prayers from the heart. The worship music was amazing, not the greatest instrumentalists, but they played from their heart, everyone clapped and put everything they had into the songs. It was great to see some familiar tunes, but in a different language and really interesting to see the different words they used to describe things. The sermon was a bit difficult to understand, very energetic and very quick paced, but I understood it more or less. The people were also very friendly and we talked for a bit after the service. We will be going back.

A Giant Hill Experience

I woke this morning with the realization that today was going to be a mountain top experience. Well maybe not a full fledged mountain, but at least a giant hill experience. We ate a modest breakfest and conned some fruit out of our mother after her coaxing then headed for the paneria, which is a fancy-Spanish name for the bread store. We bought two long rock-hard weapons called baguettes and headed to meet up with the others. Our mission was simple, conquer the mountain in any fashion possible and have a picnic on the top. Our planning was impeccable, everyone bring a pair of shoes and some food of your choice to share, meet at Lindsey´s and we would find a way to defeat the mountain. The trek wasn´t actually that bad, not quite as grandiose as you may think, but an awesome trip none the less. We took a nice walk up the road that lead to the top and to the sculpture and church of the patron saint of the mountain, (This is where I am supposed to put her name, but for the life of me can not remember it). It was beautiful, the view over the entire city and the fields that surrounded Cáceres. There were tons of rocks with scattered patches of grass that we could climb around on and make small treks down one side of the rocks and back up in a different spot. There were also a bunch of amazing houses that were the habitual abodes to either really wealthy families or really lucky ones. We ate our picnic of sandwiches, ¨pan de pueblo¨ bread, similar to our sub sandwich bread but alot harder of a crust, filled with a ¨tortilla¨, a fluffy egg in this case with chunks of potatoes. Also, fruit, Fanta, pastries and ¨Digestables¨ which are a type of wafer cracker high in fiber, no sugar and are actually pretty tasty. We also toured the church that crested the mountain which had a beatuiful ¨retabla¨, the name for the altar and all the gold and decorations that fill the front wall of the sanctuary, my Spanish art history class has actually taught me something. Descending the mountain was a bit of a ¨pena¨, literally Pain, just because the anticipation of getting to the top and exploring was over, but there will be more adventures. Tonight we meet up with some Spanish friends of Jonny and Kara´s which was a very enjoyable experience. There is a really neat jazz-bar that is pretty quite and cozy, the perfect spot for just relaxing, talking and enjoying a ¨batido¨, a type of milky milkshake. We hung out with them for a couple of hours and spoke all Spanish, they were trying to learn English and we Spanish so we practiced talking about all types of things: ¨paso del zebra¨ literally ¨pass the zebra¨ but an expression use to describe walking across a cros-walk. ¨zapatero a tus zapatos¨ literally shoemaker to your shoes or and expression that means a person should ¨stick to the things they are good at¨, ¨not mingle in others business¨, ¨shoemaker stick with making shoes¨, but has extra added signifigance now that there president is named Zapatero and many people are frustrated with some of his decisions on the war and siding with some of the separatists in the ¨Comunidades autónomos¨, states, of the Basque region and in the east next to France in Cataluña. We again retired early so we could attend the church service early Sunday morning, 11:30.

The Epic Duel of University Publications

Fridays are free day, well they are at least free of classes. It gives us the oppurtunity to do some traveling, but today it was a great oppurtunity to do some homework. Jeremy and I woke up and decided to get as much of our homework done today so that we would have a bunch of free time on the weekend. After reading the schools newspaper and comparing it to the Iowa State Daily, We worked on our compositions and then some readings about the different eras in Spainish history. I would not say that it was a fun time, but that it atleast was a usefull time. Then later after supper, around 11:30, we joined up with the others over at Lindsey´s apartment to watch a movie, but ended up just hanging out and talking while the movie played in the background, heading home at a reasonably early Spanish hour of 2:30 (before most of the discos even get started) all the while scheming about how we were going to climb the mountain the following day.

A Glass of Living Water a Day Keeps the Devil Away

Today was a normal day of classes which is just a bit hard to keep pushing yourself to concentrate on each word and not let your mind wander or else be really lost in the conversation. But it was good. We also meet for Bible study which was great. The fellowship is awesome and it is really nice to be able to talk and discuss without having to feel rushed. We discussed the first part of Acts and struggled through some tough topics. I found Acts 3 to be intriguing, especially the part about the beggar and Paul. Paul when he saw the beggar explicitly told him that he was not there to give him money, but that he could offer something better. ¨I have no money at all, but I give you what I have¨ My Spanish version says ¨No tengo plata ni oro, pero lo que tengo te doy¨ which translates as ¨I do not have silver nor gold, but that which I have I give to you.¨ I have seen a ton of beggars over here and observed how people treat them. Some merely offer money to the beggars to get them away, some curse or yell at them in a display of monetary power, but who takes the time to sit and ask about the condition of their soul? Will I ever take the time to seek the condition of anyone´s soul? Will I ever share a glass of living water or bread with a thirsty and famished soul? Hopefully.

Clases Hoy

Today was the first day of classes. It is nice that they have reserved two rooms for us, one that we have class in, and one that is always free for us to do homework, etc. I am glad that they are not spread out all over campus, it makes things just a bit easier. They are also trying something new, for the first time on this program, we are sharing some classes with students from Michigan State. Which normally is not a problem, except that they have been here for 2 and a half weeks already, so it was a bit odd starting in the middle of a class and trying to catch up, but I do not think that it will be horrible. We had a bit of homework, mostly reading and writing essays in response to the writting, again not terrible, just some work to do. It should be a lot easier than Iowa State, but still work none the less. It was also a day for getting school supplies, so Jeremy and I went to the papeleria, the paper store, to buy what we needed. In Spanish any noun can be suffixed with -eria to indicate that it is a shop, so the bread shop is the ¨paneria¨ where the root ¨pan¨ means bread, you get the point. The school supplies were again a bit different, it seems like everything is similar but just a bit different. There was no lined notebook paper, but instead only gridded paper similar to our engineering paper which is somewhat larger than our paper, but is the standard size here. Their folders are more like our filing boxes, they are about 3 or 4 inche wide plastic accordian style folders that have multiple dividers for subjects. Everyone carries them around, but I hardly see any three ring binders, besides the paper I bought was already 4 ring punched, alot less likely to rip compared to our 3 ring punched. Who ever decided three holes was good enough to hold your paper and not rip throughout a semester, I guess I am just a bit bitter about 3 hole punched paper.

A Sunday without the Son, at first

It was a bit depressing that we were unable to find the Church this morning, not ¨a¨ church, but ¨the¨ church, actually the only protestant church that we know about in town. Before coming here I did a bit of research on the internet and found out that there was a Evangelical church started or co-started by some missionaries, but I was unable to find the address before I came nor when I was here. There is a small group of Christians on this trip which really makes it awesome, I was really scared that there would not be any Christian fellowship this semester, but it looks like there will be a ton. We are going to be having a Bible study throughout the semester, and today was our first time. We meet in a small cafe, cafe Marbelle which is a really nice little cafe with pastries and coffee and a beautiful atmosphere. Jeremy, Rebecca, Kara, Jonny and I talked about what we wanted to study and finally decided to go through Acts together; I think I am really going to enjoy this study, everyone is so genuine and I feel like Acts has many paralles to things going on over here. It was also a day to get ready for school, I needed some school supplies but forgot to realize that all the stores were closed Sundays after 2, they would have to wait. Tomorrow is the first day of classes.

A Nice Stroll

We, Jeremy and I, woke up this morning ready for an adventure and decided that we would walk the city until we were tired, 10 miles later we were ready for a break. We walked all over the old part of the city which is absolutely breath-taking, the old buildings and towers, walls and cathedrals are amazing. We checked out a couple parks and some other old buildings and abandoned ones and really enjoyed the exploration of the city. There is a base of a small mountain that touches the east part of the city that we considered climbing, well it is more of walking up paths, but we decided to leave it for another day. We then got a call saying that some Spanish students were going to take us out and not quite knowing where we were going, we agreed. We headed first to a small bar with 5 Spanish students and 5 of us Americans, it was an interesting hole in the wall where they served whole bottles of alcohol and 2 liters of soda. A Spanish girl ordered per our order either a cup of wine mixed with lemon Fanta or a cup of wine mixed with Coke, yes the pop not the illegal substance. The wine was served from a carton which I saw in the grocery store dirt cheap, 1 liter for 50 cents. After drinking the cup of wine and soda we talked for a couple hours and met a Spanish couple who were amazingly nice. After that we followed the Spaniards like lemmings as they headed to Versus, a discoteca. It was another interesting place, but I was really surprised that for a discoteca, there was relatively little dancing. A few people dancing all nasty, but for the most part lots of circles of people. We stayed there for a while and had a decent time, although I do not think I will make this a regular stop while I am here in town. All the people a bit intoxicated dancing together made me feel uncomfortable and I could not stop feeling a deep pain in my heart for the lost people of this city.

Near the old part

Ciudad Antigua

El primer fin de semana

Today we woke to no water, yes no water. I went into the shower and got undressed and when I turned the water on, nothing. After speaking with my host mother here, we realized that a pipe had burst in the garage of the apartment complex and water was shut off to all the apartments, but it was not a big problem, by the early evening the water was working. After showering out of a bucket of water from the pump down the block, Jeremy and I met up with the rest of the group to walk around part of the city. We walked to Eroski, which is a grocery store similar to Hy-Vee back home. After that we split from the group and walked around the city for a couple hours just observing the people and the stores. I it wonderful that everything is so close, the whole city is connected and even though you might have to walk for an hour to get from one side to the other, you can see so many things walking, there are things going on all over, never a dull street. We ate a lunch of bean soup at our house which was actually pretty good, it was almost all beans though, and accompanied with our soup was bread, which is a staple, pretty much at every meal, well at least in our house. Then after during the siesta, when everyone is supposed to take a nap, we walked some more. I can not seem to get in to the habit of taking a nap during the day, some people love it, but for me, no me gusta the nap. But it is hard to not since Everything closes between 2-5. We checked out the phone situation and tried to figure out the number for my cell phone that I bought from a student who studied here last semester. We also found, with a bit of help, the Big Green Phone. A small store that has four phones where you can call around the world. For me to call the United States, it costs about 10 cents per minute, which is about the best I can find so far since we do not have a land line in our apartment. After a bit more walking we stopped by the public library, which was pretty sad. A huge beautiful building that had only a couple hundred books, but it was interesting to read Windows 95 manuals in Spanish none the less. Another night.

El Primer Dia

The first day. We woke to a breakfast of ¨pan de leche¨ with butter and jelly, a type of bread that is pretty moist and reminds me of lady fingers, and a glass of Cafe con leche, coffe and milk. Now the milk is an odd thing, an overpasturized product that is stored in square cardboard-plastic cartons. And since they took Louis Pasteur ultra literally, they store there milk in a cupboard until they are ready to use it and then once it is opened, it is usually put in the fridge. It is just a bit awkward to see such a thing, but hey thats the culture. After breakfast Jeremy, my roomate and I went for a walk around the city and checked out the old part of Caceres which is so beautiful. Old castles and churches that beg to have their pictures taken. We walked and walked for hours around the city and finally ended, or so we thought, our night at the cyber cafe to check our e-mails. As we were walking home about twenty-five minutes from the cyber, we realized, well I realized that I did not have my wallet. We sprinted back to the cafe to luckily find it where I had taken it out to check my cyber account information. (Mom and Dad, do not worry, this was is not a common theme for me over here, I AM a responsible person.) Then later tonight we went to ¨Down¨ where some of the Spanish students told us to check out. It was so interesting that we left around 1 A.M. and there were 2 other people there, they said that people do not start coming until 2 and it gets packed at 3, yes 3 in the morning and people hang out until 7 or 8, just a different lifestyle, but for us we called it an early night.

The Kitchen (notice the Pig)


Our small table, fits four uncomfortably


The Bedroom, 2 mini beds

Heading out of Madrid

Well this morning I almost missed the bus to Cáceres, well not quite, but I set my alarm to go off hours before we were all going to head to the airport to meet the rest of the people flying in from the States to catch a bus to Cáceres, but I forgot that in Spain they use a 24hr time system so when I set my alarm it was not for the right time, and when I awoke in the morning on my own and realized that I had 5 minutes to get ready and be down in the lobby to meet everyone else, I was in a bit of a panic. But it worked out and I got to the airport fine. It was in the airport where we meet everyone else from the trip and the director of the program Toñi as well as two student who were going to be helping us out. The bus ride to Cáceres was not too bad, a couple hours is all, but everyone was talking about their fears of living in a different country. We stopped for a bite to eat along the way before arriving at our destination around 8 p.m. We meet our Spanish family and after ¨Dos Besos¨ headed to our 3 month habitual abode where after a quick meal and some broken conversation proceeded to an early bed.

Voy a Madrid

Well I got to Madrid safely it was a bit of a flight, but it all worked out well. After seeing my sister at her school, Olivet Nazarene, which by the way was a pretty neat campus, actually larger than I thought, we went up to the Chicago airport. It was a tough to leave my family somehow different then going back Iowa State, but es bien. It was funny, when I was on the flight from Chicago to Frankfurt we started to experience some turbulence, the pilot came on the speakers and yelled Something in German which automatically sounds threatening soley because it is in German which was then promptly repeated in English ¨Everyone get back to your seats.¨ It made me think, probably one of the top ten things that you do not want to hear when on an airplane. Right up there with ¨Does anyone know how to fly a plane?¨ or ¨We seem to have forgot to fix that hole in the hull.¨ But it was fine, after 10 minutes of turbulence all was fine. It seems like all the problems are elevated when you do not speak the language and you are traveling alone. Once I got to the Frankfurt airport, I encountered construction, not usually a problem, but I can not read German. Thank goodness for a long layover because it took a while to actually find my gate, but alas I was off to Madrid. I arrived in Madrid perfectly on schedule and got my luggage promptly. The plan was to wait for another girl from Iowa State who was flying in an hour and a half later and we would go the hostal to meet the others. But her flight got delayed and she figured I was not at the meeting point and went thostelhostal while I sat for 4 hours in the airport. I finally made the 2 euro call to my friends cell phone and got directions to the hostal via metro. It was on this metro ride that I saw a girl get robbed. As I was switching lines on the subway, a girl was entering another car and as she was entering a guy had his hand in her purse stealing her stuff, but as I was trying to utter a word, the doors on the metro closed and off it went. Sorry lady. I arrived at the hostal and all was good, we went out for tapas, mushrooms with bacon and olive oil. It was exquisite. A few hours of walking Madrid and then it was time for bed.

Almost Ready

Well I am almost ready to leave. Got all my bags packed, well actually bag packed. I decided to go light and just use one 24" suitcase that still meets the 50 pound weight limit, by 4 pounds I might add. It is also my last chance to see my girlfriend Elizabeth up here at the University of Iowa before heading out to Olivet Nazarene to visit my sister before heading to Chicago to fly out on Monday. Interesting that I got a blog, I never thought I would be using one of these things, not that the technology is weird (I enjoy it), but that the idea of having my life out there and again not that I think I will be stalked or murdered by some crazy stalking murdering person, but more that I will be letting others into my thoughts, ohhhhhhh in my thoughts. I am not a psychologist nothing close so I will try not to sound like I am analyzing things but you get the point. I also am working hard to get the support letters finished and addressed. See this summer I will be working with a few different missionaries in Spain, God has really blessed me with this oppurtunity. I started the process of trying to find a chance to serve the Spainards about 4 months ago, but all the doors kept closing; nothing was working out. So I gave up on the idea, chalked it up as foolish. But then 3 weeks ago I was contaced by a man that worked for CAM International and as we talked the idea of working as a missionary became more of a reality and then he informed me that I would be able to use this oppurtunity as an internship which is amazing since I need an internship in a foreign country, specifically a spaish speaking country, to meet my requirements for graduating with a degree in Spanish. Soon afterward, I got this "Internship" approved by Iowa State and have been working with CAM to finalize things. Amazing how God is soverign and how he works. It is just crazy his timing, the majority of the plans have been made the week before I leave. Maybe we should not be so quick to give up, maybe just a bit of faith really can move mountains. God, give me faith.

Alex