another week in España :)

attention: Polémical Leyde Cine; con ¨fallos¨para los actores y salas

apparently the movie theater people are on strike. yep. on strike. it happened just yesterday and unfortunately we found out about 3 hrs too late.

last night a group of my friends and I decided we wanted to experience going to the movies in Spain and so headed to al cine, pero when we arrived it felt like a complete ghost town. The cine is located in a plaza a good solid 45 min. walk from our little apartment. Bettina and I left in plenty of time to get there...so we thought. however we went to the wrong plaza. and so quickly caught a taxi to take us to the right one because it was about 3 min till the movie started and we didn´t want to miss anything! as we ran into the building we realized it was completely empty. we ran upstairs, ran around all the ticket booths and found no one. then we saw our group of friends who had the news. the movie people are on strike. seriously? ¿por qué? no se, pero estaba muy triste.

but we instead stumbled into our favorite flamenco bar. every night free flamenco dancing. you can´t beat that. :) and its nestled in the middle of the windy streets behind the catedral. you honestly would not just happen upon this place. you have to be going there to get there. and my teacher explained to me it is because this place used to serve as a secret meeting room for the politicians. it´s basically underground, or so it feels like it is, and there are three different rooms. the first one is live music and just chill sort of atmoshere. the next is the flamenco room/bar which has a singer and dancer every night. the last room is a beautiful outdoor patio. its great.

soooo this week has been so jammed packed! i wish i had time to write more often and with more detail and i wish i could post pictures (but i don´t know how..)

lets see last wednesday night I experienced my first Raggae Discoteca :) yep. believe me it was incredible and it was only 5€ ahhhmazing! complete with a live Raggae band with trumpets, saxaphones, drums, a few guitars, and amazing singers with the best dreadlocks i´ve ever seen.

sidenote: one day mom i want dreads. in that i mean if i come home with dreads, don´t be surprised. just throwing that out there ;)

so we danced. i mean not really--more like swayed and tossed your head back and forth with the music (picture the 70s) . i LOVED it. everyone was just so chill and free and we just all moved any which way you wanted!

thursday night Bettina and I went out for ice cream.

WARNING: if you come to España you will get addicted to helado. (helado=ice cream) its everywhere. on every street corner. in every restaurant. and its sooo good. you crave it all the time. the hot weather adds to the addiction. and the extremely strange eating schedule really adds to the addiction. we eat breakfast at 8:30ish and we have pan(bread) with butter and jelly. then we eat lunch at 2:30. yep that is roughly 6 hrs, enough to make you feel like your stomach starts to eat yourself. then we eat dinner around 9:30. roughly 7 hrs in between the meals.

therefore you can see where ice cream comes into play. however, helado is muy cara. (very expensive) but dont worry we have found a way around that. McDonald´s cones are .90€ :) who would have thought i would get addicted to micky d´s ice cream while in spain. but believe me, you come and you will understand....hopefully all the walking is working the helado off...

Friday night a group of my friends returned to our little hippy area i talked about in a previous post. it is a huge open plaza surrounded with a few bars and discotecas. and all the people there are mostly in their 20s and are estudiantes. which i like a whole lot. first of all going places where there are old men. creepy old men--is not fun. so this place is a nice change. and it is an atmosphere that spurs on conversation. we all just sit on the ground in little groups and talk. well most people drink a whole lot. entirely way to much. but non-the-less it breeds good convos.

i started talking to one guy who was sitting beside me. he is american but we decided to speak only in spanish because i like doing that and it helps me. of course he is completely fluent and just helped me out a lot when i made mistakes. the conversation turned to eating and he said he couldn´t eat certain foods mixed together: i.e. dairy products and meat. which turned the convo to religion. he is jewish...

a lot of times i honestly don´t enjoy going to these places that surround myself with alcohol and just sitting around and doing nothing. i would much rather stay home and read. (yes i am a nerd). however, i am just trying to deal with the fact that i am here and this is a part of their culture. and even more than that this is the chance i get to get to know people, to reach out to people and attempt to start a friendship with those on the trip with me. but like this specific time i had a chance to share my love for Jesus with someone. i had a chance to just be real and open. i don´t really know what i´m trying to say...but it was a good night and very eyeopening for me. the Lord continues to teach me so very much about Him and myself and how we are different from each other...how he wants me to change. how he is encourages me more and more to give hand more of myself over to Him.

if there is one thing i have shared more about and learned more about concerning my relationship wtih God is that he is WITH me. i have spent a lot of alone time this trip. throughout the day i am by myself quite a lot. i go walking around el centro, or around the little shops and neighborhoods, or go study in Starbucks (which Spainairds look at you as if you are insane when you study in a cafe...they should come to college station...ha) but i feel close to Him. just vocalizing lots of my thoughts and questions to him. just talking to him. this past semester i read a lot in genesis, and contemplated a lot about Adam. the one thing that i found most interesting is that he spent a lot, a lot of alone time with God. from that i take that God wants to be with us. wants me to want to be with Him. not just simply know that he exists but experience him.

¨For what we need to know, of course, is not just that God exists, not just that beyond the steely brightness of the stars there is a cosmic intelligence of some kind that keeps the whole show going, but that there is a God right here in the thick of our day-by-day lives who may not be writing messages about himself in the stars but in one way or another is trying to get messages through our blindness as we move around down here knee-deep in the fragrant muck and misery and marvel of the world. It is not objective proof of God´s existence that we want but the experience of God´s presence. That is the miracle we are really after, and that is also, I think, the miracle that we really do get.¨ (fredrick buechner)

i agree. that is the miracle we get. that is the miracle that i have gotten. the overwhleming experience of living WITH God. experiencing life with Him.

Saturday we travled to Jerez and Cadiz. uggg wish i could show you pics...i will post them sometime i promise!

Saturday night we arrived back in Sevilla and i spent the night with Blaire. laying on her bed her hotel room just talking. about everything. mostly Jesus. mostly what we are going through that we don´t really have anyone else to talk with about...or at least anyone who knows me like blaire does. it was so good to see her. i Praise God for doing that for me. for letting us be together throughout the trip every now and then. it has been so refreshing.

Sunday Bettina and I got up and went to the Gypsie Market :) it was fabulous! definitely jammed packed with people. you could barely walk through the streets around all the tables. it took us about 2 hrs to see everything there. i bought two CDs for 1€ each! yep i´m a bargain shopper and they are 2 of the bands i have been wanting to listen to! and they had the best and biggest fruit i have ever seen. we bought two gigantic apples. decided to save them for the next day and we woke up with our room smelling like granny smith! mmmmm soo good.

i have to eat some lunch.

much much love.