Hey Sandy, whatever happened to your son?

So crime fighters, where have I been? Barcelona, Paris, Dublin, Rome, Venice, and Florence. Where am I going? Portugal and a freaking bullfight! How much money do I have left? Just enough. What am I doing this summer? We’ll see. How many days to make all of this happen? 17. I am sorry that I totally sucked at writing this past while. Mid-March marked the switch of basic Spanish classes to Spanish Lit and Advanced Language. So after I started having my first real homework for the semester I had to make cutbacks and I am sorry that this blog was one thing that had to go. Good news is that my teacher loves me. After coming back from a vacation, we were supposed to have finished a book that I conveniently (and purposefully) left in Sevilla. I told her that I didn’t do it because it was vacation time and not homework time which got her laughing and saying “Me gusta tu sinceridad y que no mientes.” I know you caught the sincere part. Basically she said that she wants me…I am her favorite in the class so I get away with anything. I don’t know if it is my boyish good looks or how I do all of my homework in the 5 minutes of settling down for class, but whatever it is, she likes me in her class. Mind you, it doesn’t work every day, but I am not held to the same level as the others because I make her smile. Thank you to those who blessed me with a sense of humor and thanks mom for the good looks.
I’m not gonna lie guys, I have a day off and the last thing I want to do is write an essay of “what I did this semester in Spain” when I could be doing something productive like taking a siesta. Here is my basic outline of what has happened while in Sevilla followed by my travels:
Every Monday consists of dragging my butt to school. I won’t lie, the half hour walk is getting to me and I have started to take the bus sometimes. If I am late, there is a taxi stop close by and an unmentioned girl I love and I may split the 3€ fare once in awhile so that we can have those extra 20 minutes of sleep. I live for a few days of the week. One is Mondays because we have Oracion and Madigan Mondays. Oracion is not as awkward as the name. Basically oracion is Spanish for prayer. Take a wild guess what we do here. There are 10 guys in the program with about 6-8 of us showing up every week to pray for each other. Life at home (USA) has been super busy for each of us and guy time is much needed whenever provided. Madigan’s is the local Irish pub and every Monday 4 or 5 of us meet at Madigan’s at 11:00pm for a pint of Guiness. It is basically the prayer group except we drink and talk instead of pray. We go from perfect to pagan in the course of 5 hours. We keep it at a pint, we don’t believe in drinking in excess, don’t worry. Besides a ½ hour walk home at 1:00am alone would suck. Anyway, we just sit back, talk, laugh, and forget about women. Both of these are MUCH needed after our classes each day where the estrogen runs wild.
Tuesdays are Brady’s and my date night where we get Mexican or at least guacamole and help each other with lit class. Pretty much 3 hours of looking up every other word in the Spanish-English dictionary.
Wednesdays we have Encuentro which is basically youth group. It’s decent, needs some work. If they would actually make it organized it would be 10 times better, but hey, I don’t run the show.
Hookah Jueves (Thursdays, pronounced hu way vays) is where we hang out and smoke a hookah for an hour.
The weekends are what you guys really want to know about. Here is my travels.
Toledo:
I bought swords. I bought 4 swords for myself. Haha, yeah I went to Spain and all I got was a “juego de espadas” Pretty much a set of a samurai sword, a dagger, and a knife. Also I got another sword for some mommy/Mark art time.
Chiclana:
4 of us took a weekend and went to an all-inclusive resort. a.k.a. heaven
Barcelona:
2nd time there, this time we went to the Olympic stadium and a sweet fountain show. Sorry mom, could’ve saved $10,000 and gone to the Bellagio, but it is so much sweeter when you tell people you saw it in Spain.
Paris:
So this is where the fun was. We stayed in a 250 year old villa with a missionary family. Pretty much my favorite place we have stayed, it had real character. Oh yeah, we went to Paris too while we were there. Here is what I thought about what I saw. The Eiffel Tower seemed to be a 200 foot tall erecter set. I mean it was cool and big and all, but what’s all the hype about people? The Louvre was freaking sweet. I don’t care what people say about the Mona Lisa and how it is a lot smaller than you think. I’ve always heard size doesn’t matter and I am sticking to that. It was awesome to be in her presence. Brady and I stood outside the Moulin Rouge. Our friends went to a show there, but I thought that over $100 American to see topless ladies in sparkly dresses dance was a little steep. Montemarte itself was freaking amazing though. Brady and I ended up behind it in some artistic center and it was amazing. The Notre Dame was pretty cool, chilling in it during holy week was surreal when I thought about the fact that the church has been serving the community for hundreds of years.
Dublin:
Our hostel was hell, I don’t even want to get into it. Brady and I did one of those rip-off double-decker tours of Dublin and it was worth every penny, haha. I had a blast learning about the city. We saw the Guiness Storehouse where you learn how they make beer and had a hands on section that taught you the different ways that beer is good for you, go figure. Made a believer out of me. Heck anything that has a hands on game followed by a camera taking a picture of me is truth in my book. Finally we went to a castle which was sweet. I’ve been in a real castle, have you?
Rome:
Before I get started, gelato is ice cream but like 1000000000000000000000000 times better. We took a tour of the coliseum and Palentine hill and it was like a trip through time. Palentine hill is where all the emperors lived. We walked through the rest of the city pretty much. We had 3 days and saw TONS, just didn’t go in a lot. We also had to go to Vatican City. Anybody who goes to Rome and doesn’t wait half the day in line for the Holy City is messed up. We somehow only waited about 45 minutes, but when we got out, the line was as far as the eye could see and around the corner. Finally, we ate gelato (as we did in every Italian city.) There was something different about one city, I was sitting there and I turned around an looked behind me. There was Ben Stiller. Freaking sweet. If it is good enough for Benny Boy, it is good enough for me. Forgot to mention, it was just a picture of him with the owner, it wasn’t really him. I wish.
Venice:
Don’t ask, yes we did a gondola ride, and yes it was freaking sweet. My favorite city that I saw in all of Europe. If I had to live somewhere in Europe, it would be there. I’d love to drive a boat around all day. It was a confusing city, but I got the hang of it after awhile. San Marco square was sweet. If you have ever seen The Italian Job, the beginning scene has Charlize Theron’s dad calling her and he is in Venice. Yeah, I stood where he stood. Hell, I even went to the bathroom in San Marco square just in case he had. Cost me 1€, but you can’t risk these type of things.
Florence:
Let me just be frank with you, God must’ve forsaken Florence. It sucked. There were only museums and I am kinda burned out. It was boring, the hostel was bad, it was boring, and it was boring. We saw the statue of David and I may have illegally taken a picture of it. Don’t tell on me and I’ll share the photo soon. I ate the best gelato ever there. We got so bored that we went to the station and bought a ticket to Pisa and saw the tower. Yeah, that bored.

So here I am. All done 3 pages later. Thanks for making me write the essay. I just never stop talking. I have some pictures online. Don’t hold them against me. Here is the link. I want to put up a good site of pics, but this site will do for now. There are a couple pictures that may offend you, and I apologize if you don’t like cussing, depression, or IBS (irritated bowel syndrome, ask my mom if you don’t know. By the way, ask her if it is irritated, irritative, or something else.) The picture that says “F#$@ the World” on the bottom is ironic just because the bridge is a bridge that overlooks the Notre Dame. I found it funny so I took a picture

http://apu.facebook.com/photos.php?id=56900123&l=08450

Prayer requests:
I will keep this short and simple.
17 days left. Pray I make it through it, haha. I have 2 tests and 2 finals that I need to take.
Summer stuff. Pray it all comes into order
Housing for next fall. As of this moment, my friends and I don’t have a house to live in, we didn’t do on campus living and kinda got screwed over a few times with apartments and housing.
Praise: it is almost over. No but seriously, I am burnt out, so I am thankful every day that is one day closer to driving, 99 cent burritos, my family and friends, red meat, and of course English.
Praise: I feel like I am doing well. It sounds weird, but it has been a struggle to be here a lot these past 4 months, but I feel alright right now. I don’t know if it is the fact that I am gone soon or that I bought swords in Toledo. Whatever it is, I am happy right now.

Este es en español, si quieres leerlo, usad www.babelfish.altavista.com. Estoy agradecido por vuestros oraciones y pensamientos. Lo siento que no he escrito mucho porque yo sé que muchas personas han leido mís pensamientos, viajes, y acontecimientos. Aunque estoy en Sevilla y estais en los estados unidos, vuestros corazones estan conmigo. Muchas gracias a todos y no puedo esperar a veros. If that didn’t work in babelfish, basically here is what I am saying:
This is in Spanish, if you want to read it use www.babelfish.altavista.com. I am thankful for your prayers and thoughts. I am sorry that I didn’t write a lot because I know that many people read my thoughts, travels, and events. Although I am in Sevilla and you all are in the USA. Your hearts are with me. Thank you so much for everything and I cannot wait to see all of you.
God Bless
Mark

It´s freaking 75 degrees and I am sweating

So it has been way to long since I have written you all. For the figures, I have been here 48 days, I have 68 left, I have 36 days of school left, and I am traveling 33 days. Some overlap obviously. I am trying to post online a book of pictures that I am making of Spain so when I get it up, I will put the site up. The problem is that it is 28MB right now. For the record, in this blog I speak of Chris and Luke. Chris has become probably my closest guy friend here. He is from Indiana and goes to Taylor University with my roommate. Luke is from Northern California and goes to Westmont. In the Toledo section of the book with the pictures of the swords is a picture of us next to the Cruzcampo guy. I am on the left, then Chris, Cleat, and finally Luke.

I sat down a week ago to write and found myself writing the most depressing blog ever. Homesickness had hit and all I wanted to do was go home. I have been to 3 cities in the last 3 weeks. On the weekend of the 28th of February, Brady I and I had the opportunity of going to a city that I never had dreamt of seeing. My Senior year, I took Architectural design and had the opportunity to see many pictures of Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. Now 3 years later I have finally seen it. It was as amazing as I had thought. It was the best art museum that I have ever been to. Only 2 of the 3 floors were open. The museum has maybe 4 exhibits open at a time. I loved not feeling overwhelmed by the feeling that I had to run from exhibit to exhibit. One exhibit was even steel sculptures that you could walk through. My only problem: no pictures allowed. The second day was miserable because the city was a mile from border to border, so we did everything on Saturday. Sunday was a rainy day and we had to check out by noon, so we spent a lot of time walking around in the rain finding things such as children sliding down a slide that was made out of a man’s mouth, wavy grass, and the pond that was full of ducks and swans. It was stressful because it was cold and wet and we had nothing to do, but it was a nice day.

We traveled by train overnight again to Barcelona. This time was incredibly short, so short in fact that we are returning for 2 more days at the beginning of April with friends. We saw the Sagrada Familia, Park Güell, the Cathedral, and other basic tourist spots. The part I enjoyed most was the hotel though. This is going to sound weird, but our hotel room had a TV. We returned early the first night to just relax for a night and found 2 things: The Daily Show with John Stewart (The host of the Academy Awards this year) and crappy old movies. We proceeded to watch some stupid movie, Batman, and two Clint Eastwood movies. The break from Spanish was irreplaceable.

We took a weekend off the next weekend and just returned from 2 days in Toledo this last weekend. This was another dream city for me. Toledo is home to many paintings by Greco and something that I find more incredible: swords. On the way up, we stopped at a historic point of the Quijote Trail that had tons of windmills. Yes mom, I got pictures and I got a picture of Christie and I. It was also about 6 hours into the bus ride with another 1 ½ to go, so I was ready to get on the bus. I spent most of the weekend with the guys which was amazing to have guy time. We had free time right when we got there which was spent sword shopping. We then went to a few famous places including Santo Tomé to check out a famous Greco painting named The Burial of the Count of Orgaz. There was a 2 hour break spent shopping again and a quick stop at O’Briens Irish Pub before dinner with the professors. About half of us actually showed up and piled into a TelePizza (Pizza Hut) for a great meal. Immediately after dinner was going out and getting a drink with the professors at a local club. We arrived and every guy but my roommate immediately left because about a block away was another Irish Pub. This was when Luke pulled out his (tobacco) pipe. After a pint of Guiness, we all purchased another bottle to take back to the room. Luke, Chris, and I spent the remainder of the evening having a beer and smoking pipes. It was the first time in about 18 months that I had smoked a pipe, so it was a fun and nostalgic time. We woke up early the next day to check out the cathedral and had 3 hours of free time after that was obviously spent sword shopping. We actually bought this day though. I had a budget of 100€ because these would probably be the only real souvenirs that I brought back and swords were anywhere from 13€ to some that katanas that we saw that were 3000€. Just to give an idea though, every sword from movies such as Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean are made in Toledo. We finally bought our swords. I was a little sad because my bags don’t fit a lot of the really cool swords, so I had to buy smaller ones. Let’s admit it though guys, size does matter. I decided that I wanted a katana, so I found a juego de tres for 85€. (Set of 3.) I also found another that I fell in love with that was framed and rusted out because it was ages old for 70€, so I decided to use all I have learned on HGTV and found a cheap one that looked like it for another 15€. When I get home mom, you and I have an art project to do, sorry not paint. I didn’t take a picture of the other one though, so it will be an adventure. In the end, Chris also got a juego de dos that was a dagger and sword set that was a Toledan-made replica of Pedro the Cruel’s sword. I made it home and got out my bag and realized that my set of 3 is about an inch too long in the box. Crap. I have to wrap each of them up when I come home.

That is about all that has been going on lately, but as always I need prayer:
Prayer: My grades. My last test was kinda a low-blow because it was full of things not studied. Most of my mistakes were stupid ones I guess, but I still don’t totally understand. I have a C in the class and I want B’s. Prayer for understanding as a continue to study and patience because it is getting harder and more study time for a guy who is Spanished out.
Praise: I talked with the Spanish department at APU and all I need to get my minor now is 2 classes once I get home. In essence, my minor is only 20 units. It is supposed to be 28. Because I tested into intermediate, I don’t have to take SPAN 101 and 102. It is a total load off.
Prayer: Scheduling is this month at APU, so prayer that I get classes I need to get into. I am trying to take all of my classes with Adam like I have the last 2 semesters, we do well with each other and would like to continue to do this.
Prayer: To keep out of depression and keep the positive attitude I have right now.
Praise: The guys are great and I got guy time. I feel refreshed.
Prayer: Half of the time I am here from this point on, I am traveling. Prayer that I have safety and discernment. We are doing 2 large trips and one small that take up 21 days of April. Ticket buying has been a headache. Prayer also for good prices. The other 12 days of travel are within Spain and Portugal, so those won’t be hard. Just prayer that I remember that I am here to study also.

Tengo Mierda Debajo de Mis Zapatos

So it has been awhile since I wrote. Somewhere between Denver, CO and Sevilla, Spain, the casing on my wireless card was cracked and an antenna connection was severed. Scott can figure that one out, cause I have no clue how the heck I did that. Oh, and a screw was missing. The guy at the Apple store was really nice to me, he lived in Ireland for a couple years, so he had great English, he just knew nothing about Macs. I went in twice and both times amazed him with something. He didn’t even know that there is a new fullscreen iPod coming out in March…I guess I am a nerd for knowing that, but still. I wish I could tell you the wonders of everything that I have done, but going to Madigan’s and having the same 4 meal rotation isn’t very exciting. Oh, here is some excitement: I have my first final on February 20th!!!! Our class overall is doing horribly. I have one of the top grades, and it is about an 85%. It is understandable though, because we are given 500 vocab words on Monday and expected to know them all Wednesday. She only chooses 10 though, so it is kinda unfair. I figured out that usually 8 are from A-M, so I study those words most. This means a good half hour of reading them twice and praying that they are cognates of English. (For example, valle is valley, visita is visit. Cognate means that it sounds like.) We are all struggling with a Professor who doesn’t speak English and doesn’t understand why we don’t get some things very quickly, like the 3 basic past tenses.
I have been playing guitar on the praise team, which has been a blast. I LOVE playing guitar and leading worship. I miss it so much when I don’t get to, so this has been amazing. It is kinda just thrown together, but it is still fun.
If you were wondering what “Tengo mierda debajo de mis zapatos” means, it is saying “I have “crap” underneath my shoe. I have quickly discovered that Asturias, my street, is the local dumping ground. Quite literally. Every day there is at least one more pile of dog doo between my house and the end of the block. This means that every morning as I exit my house that I have to walk through a minefield of poop to get to Brady’s place. This usually results in at least one connection followed by a curse under my breath and finding the closest curb or puddle to get it off in. These are the times that I thank God it rains so much. I was going to put up a picture of a usual sight, but I’ll describe it instead. I figured it would be better for you as well as myself. I often walk down the street carefully watching where not to step and notice HUGE piles with a perfect shoeprint smack dab in the middle. I figure that since it is my own half of the time that it is okay to get a good laugh.
Yes I did just spend a paragraph on dung, but there was another thing that kinda stunk…Brady’s and my Valentine’s day celebration. Really it was only the first part that stunk, the last part was AMAZING. We were supposed to meet up at 6:00 to head to dinner. At 6:00, I found myself just getting back from rushing around to put together her Valentine’s day gift. I had already bought her the dress for the night, but the other day she had hinted that she liked a Puma bag in the window. She needed a messenger bag for her computer and books, so I figured that I’d check the price. It was 23.95, so I figured I may as well. I had also found a bulk candy place that sold me a box of kit-kats. I had gone to the grocery store for crackers and sour candy. The bag was full of her favorite foods when I went to get the flowers. Here is where my day got rough: the florist was closed. So I went next door and bough strawberries. I figured she could eat her flowers and she hadn’t had strawberries yet out here. I rushed home to get cleaned up when she called. The electricity had been out at her place and she had no clue what to do. Long story short, we ended up getting a cab to the school for her to dry her hair and such. Oh I wish the story were over here. We walked to Gino’s, an amazing Italian restaurant that is pretty cheap too, but dressy. Too bad I hadn’t thought ahead and realized that it didn’t open until 8:00. Spanish dinner is from 9:00-11:00 or so. This means that 8:00 or midnight are the earliest and latest somebody would eat. Eating at 6:45 would’ve been like eating at 3:45 in the states. Crazy, huh? So we went to Telepizza, the local Pizzeria that is open all the time. It was quiet and perfect. We were the only ones there and sat down. Just before our pizza arrived, 20 niños arrived for a birthday party. Needless to say there was tons of screaming and yelling and running by our table. Mom was just talking to another mom and letting them do whatever, so we ate fast and left. We needed a cab because we were headed to Cirque de Soleil, but we waited for a good 5-10 minutes for one to even come by. We knew we found a winner when he was listening to an Elvis Presley CD when we got in. This is when the night turned around. We got to Cirque on time and gave the driver a tip and 2 extra Fantas for being freaking sweet. Cirque was AMAZING!!!! It was definitely the best spent time in Spain so far. I wish I could describe it, but words would torture it. If Cirque ever comes to anywhere I live, I will find a way to afford it and go. Overall it was a great night. The first hour or 2 was rough, but the rest was amazing. Best Valentine’s day ever. Ironic thing: last year on Valentine’s Day, I was single and had barely even spoken to Brady in the past, but we were together on the way home from a trip back to Denver. We spent last year on Valentine’s day away from home also. Even more ironic was that she was my best friend’s Valentine. My oh my how times have changed for the better.
Sorry again that I haven’t updated everybody lately, but this is it for now. I want to find a better way to post pictures for people because doing them on here does not give them justice. If I find a way, I’ll let you know. This week has my first final and my first travel plans. This brings me to prayer requests.
My first final: First thing Monday morning. The weekend has consisted of me studying a good 6-8 hours. I wish that I could get an A. I really do. I just want prayer for focus and memory.
My first travel: Brady and I are headed to Madrid, Bilbao, and Barcelona by train. This will be my first time out and about without a Spanish speaking person and it will be my first train ride. Prayer that we live through the weekend, but that we have fun also would be appreciated.
Safety: I don’t totally understand it, but the Palestinians are getting pissed as you all probably know, and Sevilla used to be a Moorish city. I guess there has been rumors of a reconquering (sp?) of Sevilla sometime. Just prayer that all could settle down about that and the supposed bird flu. Just to let you guys know, it hasn’t hit Spain yet. There have been no cases, but the embassy is saying that it is almost guaranteed to hit when the birds migrate north in the spring.

I hope that all goes well in the US. I see Bush on the news a lot lately and I don’t know why and they show brutality of US forces every day. I don’t know the words that they say, but Spain sees a sad view of the world on the news. It tears my heart up to see people just watch it. I thought it was a surprise to see my first boob on TV until they showed 1000s of dead bodies and mangled people on the news. There is no tact in the news, but it has shown me how harsh this world can be. I know it is not all negative, but I am becoming more aware of the negative and understanding that there is a world outside of the APU and Highlands Ranch bubbles.

For Now...

My computer´s in the shop, but here is the address to send stuff to me at.

Mark Seifert
Semester in Spain
Paseo de Cristina 1-3
Entreplaneta A-B
41001 Seville
SPAIN

Good afternoon from the land where mullets are somehow still in style

Well the party is over…my first weekend here was kind of crumpled by the fact that we had our first word list. I went to my first day of school expecting just an orientation of the class and who the teacher was…I was wrong. We spent the first half hour doing that, but the next 2 ½ hours were her rambling off in Spanish with 2 kids in the class understanding her. One was Christie. At the end, she told us to have a wonderful weekend, but exercise 3 in the white book, pages 12-13 (about 10 minutes of work) in the red book, and the words on pages 175-177 were due on Monday. The words were “very easy” to learn is what I picked up in my amazing Spanish. I went home to find that I had 269 words to memorize and be able to use in a sentence by Monday morning. Sunday found me frantically learning how to say artichoke and self-supplying in Spanish and trying to find out what berenjena meant in English because I don’t even know what an Aubergine is. (Funny thing, neither does my Microsoft Word, that should make the word illegal.)
Friday morning I woke up to my first rain that left me soaked for school. I thought the worst was over, but that night we had to walk a half hour to a pizza party. I am super glad that I did because I got to hang out with my professor and one of the heads of Semester in Spain. We did random seating. My heart dropped when I saw her sit down right in front of me, but I fell in love with her when she said her favorite movie right now is Wedding Crashers and that she went to a Sox game while she was in America her only time there.
Saturday was a lazy day with an attempt of studying with Christie and Sarah. Instead we figured out where we want to travel this semester and attempted to plan out a preliminary plan to present to other friends. At night I went out with the same kids as Thursday night to another bar. Some schools represented here have a rule against drinking even if they aren’t in class with the school, so I can’t post pictures of them yet because they are drinking pictures. By drinking I mean that we each have one drink and they are in the picture. We have found 2 hookah bars in town and I have been 3 times since I got here. I know that it is bad, but it is so social and each time I have gone I have met another student in the program. So I figure it’s kinda good, right….?
Sunday was study day. This meant that we woke up at 9:30 for breakfast, then took a siesta until about 11:45. Kinda defeats the purpose of even waking up, but Berta is forced to serve us breakfast, so we have to force ourselves to get up. By noon I had finished the bookwork and I took an amazing shower. I forgot soap at home, so I got this sweet adidas shower stuff that I can use on my body and hair. This means I have to bring less stuff.
I have posted pictures of my crib. For the bathroom, what I want you to notice is that it is a room that is no bigger than 5’x5’. I cannot stretch an arm completely out in the shower and we finally figured out how to adjust the head so that it doesn’t shoot right into the wall. My room was messy that day, I try and keep it clean because it is so small and the door directly to the left of it is the front door.
Prayer requests: I have been struggling in a world that I can’t communicate. It is really hard for me to be here right now. I want to get to know people at school, but we’re only allowed to speak in Spanish, so I mainly keep quiet. I have decided my devotional time, so I need to keep to it. On Monday-Friday I will be reading the Bible and doing at least 100 pushups and 200 sit-ups. So just keeping to that schedule for myself and possibly adding to it as it goes. Finally for Christie and I because we both have different groups of friends (as usual) so we spend some time together when we can, but we haven’t had private time yet either and that is getting hard.

I made it to Spain, but don't know what the hell anybody is saying...

I figured it was time to restart the old blog that I hadn’t touched since May. This time, I need to start it off as typically as I can by saying “hola from Spain.” As you can tell, my Spanish is real rusty. My flight out was pretty much like chillin in hell for 20 hours.

Let me tell you about my trip. If you don’t want to hear me complain, skip to paragraph 3. The flight to Chicago was late, then Christie and I ran to our gate because we didn’t know if our bags had checked through to Seville. Running to our gate consisted of running from 5C to 3L (or something to that extent as long as you know I ran a mile with a 50lb. backpack of clothes and books on me.) Christie was more freaked out that we were missing the game than her bags maybe missing, so we had to find a place with the game on. After stopping at a few on the way, we found that the FoxSports sports bar was right next to our gate. We watched the first half in the bar over a lovely meal of overpriced McDonalds served by a lady who only knew how to say “what do you want” and “more coke?” in English. We got our seats, we were in 25A and C with somebody between us for 8 hours. When we got on the plane, we found out that there is no such thing as 25B, so we sat next to each other, but I didn’t sleep any, so Christie pretty much laid on both seats while I watched a mix of some movie in Spanish to Red Eye on my iPod (for the 2nd time that day) to some Gwyneth Paltrow movie that I had never heard of. We arrived in Madrid an hour late, so we had only enough time to get to our gate and relax for 10 minutes. The flight to Seville was a little less than an hour of Christie sleeping next to me while I played solitare on the tray. This was when I discovered my first love of Europe, a beer is the price of a Coke. Of course on the plane, this was 3 euros so I decided to skip because that was more expensive than a pint. On arrival, our luggage came in and I met my roommate.
A guy who was a lot like Travis Hendrix (Matt Gilmore for the APU folks) walked up to me and made his first impression. “I hope we get an old lady who knows how to cook and knows how to cook a lot.” Alex turned out to be a real cool guy that I spent the bus ride to our place trying to find Berta Godoy Gonzalez with. Every old lady had to meet our standards to be Berta. She had to be old, wrinkly, not fashion concerned, and short. This was real simple logic: old and wrinkly ladies know how to cook, anybody worried about fashion is spending too much time not worrying about cooking, and everybody in Spain is short, so hopefully we could get one of the four right. Berta turned out to be all of the above and a great cook. We should’ve included “speaks English” into the mix, because I am screwed right now. She just looks at me and says something, all I say in return is “si” or “no” hoping that the question wasn’t something like “what do you want me to cook?” or “do you like mayonnaise on your sandwich?”
The city is BEAUTIFUL. If you missed that, let me repeat it. The city is BEAUTIFUL. I am posting some pictures for you to see. I can’t believe this city. Alex and I went walking and just fell in love until we realized that we didn’t know where we were. All we knew was that it was a dark alley and there were about 15 men huddled about 10 feet away. We quickly ran home and, once safe, decided that the city was amazing. They may need to put in beds that are more than 5 feet long though.
I do have my own room with my own desk (folding table and old dining room chair), bed (“extra springy” is what she called it, sags is what I call it), closet (bigger than at home), and my own heater (thank God because it was 60 degrees in here according to Alex’s clock this morning). I wouldn’t know what time it was because I forgot to get a clock and wouldn’t know how to buy one because I forgot my Spanish/English dictionary. Berta saw my guitar and said that I am not allowed to play it here, so it is just chilling in the corner.
Let me tell you about today. We went on a walking tour of the city. Turns out that in Star Wars Episode 1 there is a part where Princess Lea is in the castle or something (I asked my buddy Cleet what she was saying) and that is actually a building in Seville. Viggo Morgensen (Aragorn in Lord of the Rings) just finished filming a movie in a small square here, and some other old movie was filmed here, but who cares about those? We walked by a few pubs and Cleet told me that he knew the place to go to. We actually hung out in the back of the group the whole tour because I didn’t know what the heck they were saying and he has been here since August so he had heard the tour before. He told me a few things to do and cheaper ways to get around. We ended up leaving and heading to a place called Tex-Mex after the tour. It is a bar owned by an American man who also started up a school in Spain. It was great to sit back and look at all the American stuff while having a pint of Budweiser from the only place in town that carries it on the draft. It is also 2.20 euros compared to the more expensive domestics, UK, and Irish beers that run up to 3.00 euros. We will probably go back tonight because we need to sign up a reservation. You guys will love this. There is a 20 euro reservation for a midnight February 5th showing of the Super Bowl. Granted you get 4 pints of Bud, free popcorn, and door prizes, but I won’t drink that much, popcorn gets nasty after awhile, and God knows that you never win door prizes, your friend is always the one who wins. So I may skip and spend $15 for the iTunes video highlight reel.
Here are my prayer requests. I don’t know Spanish and I want to. Pretty simple one, pray that I have the heart to learn and patience not to be frustrated mixed with the openness to look like a fool and open my mouth. Christie and I have seen each other about 5 minutes so far because we don’t know where the other lives and don’t have phones until tomorrow. Prayer that I find a way to make time to see her and cherish that time because I realized as I looked at her on the plane to Spain how much I take advantage of this woman who is so amazingly beautiful on the inside and out. I don’t give her the time she deserves or the attention way too many times, and I don’t let her know how lucky I really am. So prayer also that I realize who she is and how much she means to me. Finally, prayer that I can find a way to plug in my computer. I am living off of my last charge because I had a sweet converter/transformer for the whole first day here. You see, I was reading the Bible last night and I heard a loud pop like somebody had popped a bag. I didn’t think much of it until I looked up and saw smoke coming from the outlet. This resulted in me freaking out, dropping the Bible (tell 2 John sorry that I wrinkled up one of his pages in the process) and holding onto a smoking piece of plastic for the next half hour until it started smoking. I then put it away quietly and prayed that Berta wouldn’t notice. To be more realistic though, I have a new fervor for studying the Bible so a prayer that I can continue to do so without distractions.
That is all for now, pass it on that http://the-college-years.blogspot.com is back in business for today at least and drop me an email if you want. Hopefully I’ll learn how to use the school computers (the keyboards are WAY different and confusing) and be able to reply or find a piece to convert without starting a fire.