Good night, Sevilla

Well it's Sunday again...

I'm at Manolo's parents' house with Juan because Manolo and Rossy are in Israel for a church conference. It's nice because it's more centrally located, but I haven't really availed myself of this desirable proximity to the old part of town to walk around (due largely to my underconfidence in my conversational Spanish). Poco a poco.

I was talking with Juan today and he told me that people here in Andalucía talk faster than those in northern Spain. It made me feel a little better that even to other Spaniards these people seem to talk fast. Speaking of being a Spaniar, Manolo told me the other day that if I just didn't talk, people would assume that I'm Spanish. This was demonstrated later when someone asked if I was his cousin. It was quite gratifying to me. It's because of my dark hair and eyes and the fact that I don't wear American brand names emblazoned across my chest.

Winter in España is pretty mild. I don't think I've yet seen a low below 45 F. The high is usually around 60 F which is pretty warm if you're fresh from Kansas, but the houses here do not have heat. Chances are if you're indoors in Kansas, you're warmer than I am. On a good note, I've been doing tons of push-ups and sit-ups to warm up. I still haven't run. Maybe tomorrow....

Last martes (Tuesday) we went to Sevilla at night to look around at some of the sights. We walked past the University of Sevilla which was really old and beautiful. We didn't get to the Plaza de España, which is where something to do with Queen Amidala from Guerra de los Galaxios (Star Wars) was filmed. At least I think that's what they were saying. We walked into the center of the city and got to see the cathedral which is the largest Gothic building in the world  and the third-largest church in Europe (after St. Paul's in London and St. Peter's in Rome - incidentally, by January 23rd I will have seen all three!). We didn't get to go in but hopefully sometime in February I'll be able to go back during the day. Seriously, this building is huge.

 It incorporates some elements of Arab architecture from the mosque that stood there previously (because of the Moors), specifically the Giralda Tower, which is enormous.

Giralda Tower, left

My Frommer's guide (gracias, mamá y papá) says "The Catedral de Sevilla was designed by builders with a stated goal - 'that those who come after us will take us for madmen.'" This is also where DNA-verified remains of Christopher Columbus are interred (Ferdinand and Isabella actually welcomed Columbus back from his voyage at the Alcázar in Sevilla, the oldest royal residence still in use. Needless to say, the history nerd within me was going crazy. And yes, I had read all this before I went.

Sorry for the history lesson. Other than that, it was a pretty quiet week. Juan introduced me to an amazing streaming sight that has How I Met Your Mother available on it and as such I have been able to catch up finally! The best thing I've eaten this week was prepared by Manolo's mom, Maria - beef tips in a puré of home-grown tomatoes with pepper, garlic and olive oil, served hot. Amazing! The olives are still blowing my mind.

Thanks for reading and for your prayers. Please continue to pray for me as I head to Rome on Thursday to meet up with the Turkey, Greece and Rome trip. Hasta luego!

Food and Jesus

I feel like all I write about is food but it really is awesome. Here's a picture of what I was talking about in the first post.

Crazy, huh? Kind of makes me want to just eat one like a drumstick, sans the fat, of course.

This one is of a traditional Andalucian breakfast food, I don't think it has a specific name. Bread (lightly toasted) with olive oil, a meat paste sort of thing, tomato sauce (like salsa but without chunks or anything else), and sea salt. It's sooooo good! The coffee is delicious - really strong.

I would like to take this opportunity to talk to you about olives. I thought I hated olives, but it turns out that I was wrong and I love them. The Saboridos pick and preserve their own olives at home and, let me tell you, they are nothing like the olives we have in the states. I like food.

Yesterday we went into Sevilla, about 20 minutes away. Being in Europe is awesome because there are so many interesting old buildings, like the small castle by the highway on the way into Sevilla. While we were there we had an apparently massive electrical storm. Being from Kansas, I was not overly impressed, but it was still awesome to watch. We went to a couple of malls because the first couple days after Tres Reyes Magos are kind of like Black Friday here, lots of sales. I got a phone! Here they're called movìles. It took forever but I believe it will be worth it. One of the stores we went to was called Eroski. Polish? I would have possibly thought so but no, apparently it's Basque. They're an separatist group (and somehow an ethnic demographic I think) who like to set off a bomb every so often to get some point or other across. Here, rather than explain it here, allow me to let the good folk of wikipedia.org do a much better and exhaustive job. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_people. All that to say, Spain is really diverse and interesting.

Jesus


We had church today. I really had no idea what to expect but I was interested to see how church is practiced here in Spain. I was really surprised to sing the song "Come, Now is the Time to Worship" in Spanish ("Ven"). We also sang a lot of praise and worship songs in Spanish with which I was unfamiliar but I understood really well. We ended up singing the chorus of "How Great Thou Art" in Spanish too. That, for me, was one of the most awesome moments I've experienced since I've been in Spain. I was singing in English and everyone else was singing in Spanish of course and I was impressed again with how absolutely amazing God is and what an incredible thing it is to be a part of the Church globally. Here we were singing in different languages, from different cultures and yet we were (and are) completely and intimately known by the object of our worship. I felt so connected to the whole church around the globe, like a family. It was really cool. (sometimes modern English frustrates me because it feels as if I'm missing around a hundred adjectives and am therefore unable to adequately express myself)

The songs we sang highlighted an interesting cultural difference for me. In Spanish there are 5 verb forms (6 in the Castellano we speak here) and one of them, the nosotros form, is like "we" in English. All the songs we sang were in this form. There's a much more corporate focus with the worship here, I feel. So many songs we sing in English are from the first person and, for me, when I sing them I many times feel like I'm just repeating someone else's sentiment and therefore the sincerity is diminished. Now I'm just saying this is my experience, I'm not trying to indict the American church. I just feel that there is a different focus here. I like it.

One more thing - I was just realizing that exactly one year ago today I was just finishing my first day in England. I had NO IDEA that on the corresponding day of the next year I would be sitting here in Spain. God is incredible and I cannot wait to see where I will be on January 9, 2012.

Well, that's all for now folks, it's almost 1:30AM here and I'm trying this new "get up at a reasonable hour before 11 AM" thing. Thanks for reading!

I Can't Get Away from Spongebob

There he is....

I had just started working on my Spanish journal this morning when I heard a multitude of voices outside. My window, I'm convinced, has no sound-deadening properties whatsoever; if anything, it amplifies them. I looked outside and to my chagrin was greeted by this insipid buck-toothed smile (no, it was not my own reflection, thank you). It just reinforces for me how prevalent American culture is throughout the world. I heard Avril Lavigne in the super the other day. All the movies on TV are American movies with Spanish dubbing. It is just slightly disappointing. 

In other news - the food here is delicious. Did I mention that? 

My body doesn't seem to want to establish a normal sleeping pattern. Since we eat around 11 or, at the earliest 10, I'm not used to going to bed one hour after I've eaten. So the past few nights I've been up til 3 or so. This may be partially due to the fact that I don't have an alarm clock as yet and still haven't been able to run because it's been raining. If anyone sees Seth Case, please remind him to run. We're going to run the OKC marathon in May!

Houses here are small and expensive. Manolo was telling me that a house similar in size to the one we live in costs in the neighborhood of 200,000 USD. Parking is a huge issue in Spain at the moment. Cars line almost every street and if you drive you end up having to walk a long way anyway just to get where you want to go. 

 Check my facebook for more pictures!

Hello, Andalucia

After overcoming my moral oppositions to this whole concept, I've decided to create a blog to update all the important people in my life (you) while I'm in Spain.


I'm in Spain.


I still can't really believe it..... well, except for when I look out my window at either Arahal or the hills of Andalucia. All the work, planning, and saving finally have payed off and I'm here. A dream come true.

The flights were fun. Nothing really extraordinary happened except that I sat next to two retired ladies who kept mispronouncing "Dubai." Everything went smoothly until I got my luggage at Madrid. In previous entrances to England and re-entries into the US I had been given a customs card to give to the agents. I was not this time and as I approached that "Nothing to declare"/"Declare" decision I was a little apprehensive. I went to ask someone who looked official but he spoke no English and waved me through this exit to my right. Then I was in Spain. For about the first 15 minutes or so, I wondered whether I was in the country legally and mentally lamented every green card joke I'd ever made.

After a long search and an unnecessary detour to terminal 4 (which could have been avoided had the person giving me directions been clear) I made it onto the bus that would take me to the train station, Atocha. I had a nice talk with an Italian girl named Nicoletta. She spoke no English and I don't speak Italian but we were able to communicate quite well through Spanish. I finally got off the bus at Atocha and found the ticket office after about 10 minutes of looking. Long story shorter, after 3 flights totalling about 12 hours and a 2.5 hour train ride from Madrid to Sevilla, I made it to Arahal. It was a great comfort knowing that people were praying for me.

This place is awesome! I'm staying with Manolo and Rossy and their one-year-old son, Manolo. Manolo Sr. is the pastor of a small church in here in Arahal. I've only been here for a day but I've already begun to settle into the routine. Breakfast is pan y pan dulce (bread and sweet bread). Lunch is between 2 and 4 PM and dinner is usually around 9 or 10PM. The food is delicious! We eat a lot of puerca (pork); in the supermarket today there was literally a wall with smoked pig's legs hanging from it. (I would guess probably 70 to 100) To buy one you simply ask the attendant to give you a sample and after you have selected the one you want, she slivers off super-thin slices until the desired amount is reached. As you might expect, this takes a long time.

Arahal itself has about 5,000 more people than McPherson in about 2/3 the space. There are several beautiful churches. The streets are tiny. It is exactly what I imagined a European town to be like.

I guess my sleep schedule hasn't caught up quite as well as I thought it had - it's almost 3 AM here. Tomorrow I want to find a route to run. Thanks for reading!

P.S. I apologize for the random, slightly ADD writing style which is particularly evident in the last few sentences. If you were ever to read my journal you would discover that it is, unfortunately, the rule and not the exception.