home again home again

A few hours ago Kelcie and I drove up the gravel lane to the house in the early light of morning after watching the mountains emerge out of blackness on our beautiful drive home from Phoenix. And by blackness, I of course mean STARS!!!! amazing. anyway, when I looked at my watch which was still on Spain time, it had been almost exactly 36 hours from when we'd left on a night bus to get to the airport in barcelona yesterday. I got stuck in Chicago's nasty weather and flight fiasco for about 6 hours so when Kelcie got to Phoenix ahead of me she went to our cousin's house to nap before picking me up at about 2 in the morning. She was then ok to drive and we headed straight home. It feels amazing to be home. (Within about 25 minutes of arriving we were making ourselves some yummy green chili juevos rancheros breakfast dishes and snacking on all manner of chocolate covered fruits and pretzels and such...) The last few weeks in Spain were busy-busy with exams and papers then a lovely visit from Kate Harnish who is spending the year in Bradford, England with MVS. She overlapped a few hours with Kim, so we sat in the airport together and had cafes con leche and yogurt. lovely. Then the next day my sister came and we spent several days touring the city. (I am such a good guide..?) Except it was kinda cold and rainy. icky. Then we headed south to Andalucia. Granada and Sevilla. Absolutely beautiful. We also met some really fun people from all over and cooked and walked around with them. Then we returned to Barcelona, swam in the frigid water (I mean, you have to, right?) of the Med. Sea and got up early to come home. A lovely trip. and now I'm even poorer. (and now I'm even poorer, and now I'm poorer still.....) So, it is officially time to relax and catch up on sleep. and yummy food. and my super-awesome family. And reflect about an amazing semester abroad and one last semester to go at Goshen. I'm quite looking forward to it. (except the weather... ill try not to complain too much. actually, maybe I shouldn't make that promise... I prolly will... at least there's tea. and friends. and life in general. ) Well, until I see you, much love, and have a lovely week. slash new year slash remainder of your holiday time. besos.

insignificants. maybe.

so...i´ve realized something that bothers me about the metro. My sense of direction gets totally screwed over. As much as I try to keep my head straight while going through winding passages and stairs and such, I can´t. And then once you´re in the train and its underground, of course you can´t know where you´re going. So you just have to go in, get out and orient yourself. But you miss everything in between! Of course, they´re fast and efficient and really a good idea for cities. But that doesn´t mean I have to like them. Same goes for my apartment building. I enter on one side wind up the stair s and the balcony looks out over the other side. not hard to understand, but what I don´t understand is how the other apartments work, because I´ve never been inside. I just see where the doors are, and i want to see a floor plan! Silly me.

Hugo Chavez´s referendum didn´t get passed. 51% against, 49 for. This is a rather good thing, I think.

One week left of classes, and then finals. eek, finals? And papers! eek! and then only a tiny bit of time left in spain? que sad! but que awesome to go home!!! (And have kimi and kelcie here for a bit of traveling first!!!!!!) =)

Venezuela

So, I can´t decide what I think about Hugo Chavez... There are definitely things I like about him, and I think its good to have a strong force in the Americas opposing the U.S. but the whole constitutional changes regarding presidential terms (i.e. making it possible for him to be pres. for life) sound a bit too dictatorial for my likings. Latin America has seen too much of that already. I guess we´ll see what happens with the referendum on Sunday. And I´ll have to read more about him to see his policies and relations with other countries. (He´s quite the buddy of Daniel Ortega, pres. of Nicaragua and has promised financial and development support... which the country needs..but.. I just don´t understand these things well enough!)

more rome pictures!

And a brief note. The semester is coming to a close. One week of classes, and then finals! How can it be? I think I ask that at the end of each semester. Time goes by sooo fast. Or seems to. Porque el tiempo no cambia, as my friend recently reminded me. (Although...how do we reeeally know? A question for quantum-physicists?) Anyway. This weekend I am attempting to get some work done on a 10 page paper (1.5 spacing? what is that?) for my Union Europea class. And I´m hoping to see a flamenco presentation tonight. And go to Montserrat, this sweet monastery way up in the rocks outside of Barcelona. And go again to the menno church on Sunday. So, baaaasically, still not getting enough studying done. Hope your finals are going well, those of you who are beginning them, and I shall see many of you quite soon. =) (I mean, January... just a touch over a month...) =)

church!

or ¨turch,¨ as I used to say as a youngen´.
I went to mass once at the beginning of my time here, but other than that have been essentially without attendance to any service (though full of visits to churches and cathedrals). Partially due to travels and other such excuses. Anyway, near the beginning I found the address for the only Mennonite church in Barcelona in a city guide book. But of course, since all I had was the address, I never went, because I didn´t know what time to show up. (9:30 would be a little early in Spain??) Last week I finally searched the interenet and found mention of the service starting at 11 am. So This Sunday, along with the other Mennonite in the group, Dietrich, and the other linds(e) in the group, we made our way to the very outskirts of the city. And when we found the right place, we knew it by the peace-dove sign and wound our way down some stone stairs into a lovely silvan patio. ok, so it wasn´t a woods, but it had more trees than most of the city. Very beautiful. And Mennonite, I thought... We were late, but snuck into the teeny room with around 30 other people sitting along 2 sides. We sang several more worshipy praise songs (no four-part harmony, much to my dismay, though a very talented guitar player) and then moved into the sermon part. Oh, did I mention one of the songs was in Catalan? That was kinda fun. Anyway, the Guy spoke on something he never talks about, he said: Revelations 16 and the wrath/justice of God. Interesting. At the end he made a small comment about much of Revelations being pure gargabe. At least, thats what I understood him to say. =) Afterwards we talked to many of the people in the service and they were all exceptionally nice, as I expected (but we didn´t get asked to lunch at someone´s house...) ;) Turns out the guy who spoke, Dennis Byler, went to Goshen. Knows my parents. ohhhh, what a smalll (menno) world, it is! so, mom and dad: A big hello from Dennis!!! And we also met a girl from Switzerland who is also an exchange student here and so invited her to go with us to a park and to go up to Tibidabo, which is a monestary on the top of the mountain at the edge of Barcelona. We all had a lovely time, and I think I shall return on Sunday.
And now, I´m off to try to find the Faculty of Law so that I can get a book I need for a paper...ugh.
greetings to all, and encouragement to all you goshenites who have a full, most-likely icky 2 weeks ahead of you...

Todos los caminos conducen a Roma...

Or so they say. I took a plane. It was cold and rainy for much of our 3 day excursion (I went with 3 friends from BCA), but we had a wonderful time despite the weather, and so SO many cool things. Unfortunately, I am having many troubles getting my pictures onto my flash drive. So i only have a few. You´ll have to content yourselves with the colliseum for now... My favorite site/art I think was the Sistine chapel, though... I read an entire book about it my freshman year for JohnD.´s European History class, and unfortunately remember very little. But its incredible. So. I´ve been to Rome now. And I now want to learn Italian. I don´t think it would be too hard. Well, I bet I could learn to understand it quite quickly, and speaking wouldn´t take too much longer, methinks... We had a fun Italian <-> Spanish conversation with a man who worked in a coffee/gelato shop.
Tomorrow we a have a Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant with the other students in the program. Should be fun, and I´m excited for it, but I do miss you all, and look forward to coming back and seeing family and friends. Enjoy your thanksgivings and long weekends and whatever activities you do!

even shorter

craig won. not anymore. =)

Navidad, ¿ya?

So Christmas decorations--things like tinsel stars, my favorite!-- went up on the streets and such here just after Halloween. *sigh* I thought it was just the U.S.

Here´s a random thought: maybe with all the christmas shopping that will happen in the next month and a half, the U.S. economy will get a little boost and make a slight come-back on the euro... (wishful thinking, I know.) I´m getting more and more interested in economics and how so many things affect so many other things. (good sentence, eh?) I think I´d like to take an economics class to learn more. At present I know very little.

Also, on a semi-related note, my host-mom told me that because the dollar has fallen so much, people here are taking weekend trips to the U.S. to go shopping. WHAT?! yeah. Somehow its cheaper to fly across the ocean, buy a bunch of crap and fly back. (This is assuming you´re doing some serious shopping, I presume.) What a world. I don´t know what to think.

Look, a short-ish blog entry! go me!

autre week-end

hola, bonjour!
I know I´m not good at writing short blog entries, but I will try to summarize the weekend. :)
Friday we had a walkind tour of the gothic zone in barcelona for our history class. And in the evening I had an international potluck with my frisbee team. quite lovely! I kind of made a green chili quiche, but couldn´t find the right ingredients and had to improvise. also the oven didn´t have a temp gauge and was really hot, so i burnt the bottom. =( oh well. had lots of yummy food from all over.
Saturday 10 of us (frisbee people) drove to Marseilla, France (in 2 different cars) for a beach tourney. We arrived early evening and walked about a bit in the FREEZING, WINDY-ness and ate together in a restaurant. We stayed in a cheap hotel and sunday morning drove to the beach (beautiful). It wasn´t quite as cold or windy, but still pretty touch to make nice passes... The tourney was a 4X4 so we had two teams. Played with teams from France (obviosly) and Italy. How cool is that? So many different languages being used. I love the international-ness. We had a fun day and came out 6th or 7th out of 10 or 11 teams. But my team won the spirit award, which is almost as good or better than winning the tourney... ;) We finished in the dark and had a crepe in a beach-side restaurant before heading on the road again.
p.s. the glow-y tower thing is a building right near where i live. kind of a new icon ish thing for the city?

tranquilo

So this weekend was a bit more tranquilo. This was due to the fact that I had midterms this week and needed to study. I´m not sure I like the system where you don´t have any tests or homework to speak of until bam! a mid term test and then bam! a final exam, and thats your whole grade for the class! I think they all went okay, but I shall have to wait to get them back in order to know. Not too great, but not bad, either. regular. Finished. ;)
I did go out one night to hang out with a friend from Goshen who is studying in Madrid. He and 3 people from his program came to check out Barcelona, so we met up one night and had a pleasant evening. I also went to the beach outside of Barcelona on Saturday to watch part of an ultimate hat-tourney. Unfortunately I didn´t know about it until too late to sign up. Too bad. But I guess better for my studying... It was a lovely day, bright and sunny and it was nice to be outside for the day. And fun to hang out with other people on my team who went to watch. But it would have been more fun to play. ;) This weekend I´m planning to go to a one-day beach tourney in France. Its a 4X4 tournament and I think 10 people from my team are going, so we should have 2 teams. We´re planning to go on Saturday morning, spend the day(afternoon/evening) in Marselle, sleep in a hotel, play on Sunday and then drive back. I´m excited.
I have realized that my time in Spain is going by quite quickly! I´ve already been here for 2 months, and have a bit less than 2 before I fly home. And only about 5 (6?) weeks left of school. This is both happy and sad. Happy because I haven´t been home or seen the majority of my family in a year. Thats a long time. I´m excited to see them again, and be in New Mexico. It will also be nice to get back to Goshen--I like small universities, Ive decided, and I miss my friends. Sad, because I´m having a lovely time and I´m doing something that will never happen again--spending a semester studying in Europe. I think I am taking advantage of it. On that note, I think I will walk home today and enjoy the unique architecture Barcelona has to offer. =)

about Madrid and Toledo

Brief summary: Thursday night 11 pm, get on bus in Barcelona (with Matt, a fellow frisbee player, aslo exchange student in another program).
Friday 6:45 am, get off bus in Madrid.
7:00 am, get on bus in Madrid.
8:00 am, get off bus in Toledo.
8:00 am-2:30 pm, go to cafe for breakfast, walk around Toledo, take pictures, enter free museums, see lots of cool buildings, look at swords in sword shops, eat lunch in a bar.
2:30-4:00 pm bus to Madrid.
4:00-6:30 pm walk around Madrid, see national palace, Cathedral, etc.
6:30-8:30 meet up with friend (Andrew Murto, for Goshenites) who is studying in Madrid and go to bars for supper
8:30 pm, find transportation and direction to sports complex
11:00 pm meet people and go to bed
Saturday
get up, eat breakfast, walk around, find grocery store and buy lunch, hang out with the rest of the team and get ready to play.
Play 2 games, win both! Go Piexets!!! (new name of team) We brag that we are the only undefeated team in spain and mabye the world...
Supper and party with all teams in the tourney
SUnday
Get up, eat a bit of breakfast, play 3 games in a row. win the first, lose the second two. tired. lost some players to injuries and didn´t have subs. boo. stretch and lay around nearly dead for a while. watch the finals of the tourney. we tied for 5th out of 9 teams. much better than i was expecting. (And largely due to the AMAZING japanese guy we picked up from the other Barça team.) Showered and went to bars with 3 other team members who were going home in bus. 11 pm, get on bus. 7 am, arrive in Barcelona. slept for an hour, got up and went to class. ughh.
Tired and sore, but it was a good time. =) I guess that wasn´t a very brief summary...
p.s. pictures are not uploading..I´ll try again later.

some randomies

Yesterday I saw 2 guys hauling a full size mattress through the gates into the metro. I´ve been keeping a mental list of interesting things I see in the metro (thus far easily beaten by chickens and such in the latin-american buses) but none were really too note-worthy before, just dogs, baby strollers, bikes and little european shopping carts...

I picked up a little cold this weekend in Madrid. I´m drinking tea out of my Nalgene and hoping to set the cold down again quite soon in some inconspicuous place where I will not be tempted to pick it up again...

The rainy October weather seems to about done. This makes sense, I guess, as it is the last day of October. Now its generally sunny, or parcially cloudy, and chilly-ish. Fall weather, one could say.

One of Spain´s (or Catalunya´s, I guess I don´t know how far the tradition extends...) traditions near All-Saints day is to sell roasted chestnuts and sweet potatoes on the street. They look really yummy and I think I shall have to try them this weekend.

another fun weekend in BCN

This weekend some friends and I went dancing at a latin club. (yay!) We met lots of people from all over South America (and el Caribe) and stayed out until way too late in the morning. And we all wore high heels, which was really silly. I knew this desde el principio, but wore some short heels with straps anyway. We all had blisters and/or sore feet. And walked back to the one girl´s house barefoot. Which is really unacceptable in Barcelona. oops. Then I went to bed and woke myself up three hours later to go to frisbee practice. (yay!) During which my feet continued to hurt. Silly me. ANd I was tired. My fault, clearly.
After practice we all went out to a bar (restaurant) and had some sandwhiches and salads. It was a fun time to just chat with people. We proceeded then to go buy uniforms! yippee! And next week (after the tourney in Madrid this weekend!) we hope to get logos printed on them. I´m a little bit excited.
After this full afternoon I was thoroughly exhausted and went home, ate and went to bed for many hours.
Sunday I did some homework and in the evening some friends and I went to a movie. We decided that while we were here we wanted to see a SPanish movie. So we did. Its called ¨Las Trece Rosas.¨ About the war/Franco and women who resisted and were killed in a firing squad because of it. Awful. Awful. But an excellent movie. (We all cried quite a lot...) So it was a good movie to see in Spain, because it had so much history in it. It was also fun because I understood it! Nice to be at a level where I can watch movies in Spanish and understand. =)
So, there´s my weekend. After this weekend I shall have more stories to tell. I leave tomorrow night at 11 by bus to get to Madrid... ugh.
Enjoy fall, if it is indeed fall where you are!
p.s. more pictures added to previous blog entry.

cosas variadas

** Last week friends and I went to Park Güell and La Padrera (park and house designed by Gaudí) They are really neat.
** This weekend I took a road-trip with my host-family (Ana; her daughter, Mar; her son, Moises and his dog, Pluja). We went to visit Ana´s sister, who lives in Navarra (the state...northern Spain, about 4 hours from Barcelona) in their parents old house. Highlights of the trip include: being in the country! I really like Barcelona, but it was amaaazing to be in the campo again. We drove up one night into the mountains. It was cold, but beautiful. I guess like my old cowboy friend Hal says, ¨You can take the girl out of the country, but you can´t take the country out of the girl...¨ cliché, I know... And I went out with Mar, Moises and some of their friends ( as kids they spent their summers there). Lovely time. Also, Ana and her sister went out and bought a bunch of roasted red chilis! que heaven for me! So they canned and froze them. We eat them with pork. Its fantastic.
** Second frisbee practise today, since I have classes on Monday nights and can´t go. I´m excited.
** Classes are still going well, some more interesting than others. My drawing class if fun, and I like being in a class with Spanish students. The professor speaks in Catalan, though, which is a bit unfortunate. I usually understand, and if not, I ask people. We have 2 breaks during each class (since its 3 hours long) and everyone goes outside to smoke. I think I am less bothered by cigarette smoke than I used to be. This bothers me. Means I´ve been around too much. hmph.

**more pictures later? I´m having trouble attaching them and I need to go to class. Adeu!

a few social issues

So, I keep seeing all these ads here for vacation trips to various islands. All expenses included in big packages (flight, hotel, meals, etc.) In particular, Dominican Republic. This of course catches my eye, as I spent 3 months there last summer. It makes me sad. Because I learned that most of the hotel resorts are foreign-owned. Mostly European. So this means: A European, lets just say a Spaniard books a vacation package to the D.R. The money to the travel agent goes to a Spaniard. The airline is Spanish, money goes there. A Spaniard also owns the hotel, so that money also goes to a Spaniard. The Hotel has two big restaurants in it, also Spanish-owned. Probably cousins of the hotel owner. While there, guests can take a day-long boat trip out to...see the whales, say. This business is Spanish-owned as well. (This is all hypothetical, but I learned that it really works this way.) So, the economy of Spain is helped, and the Spaniard gets a nice, comfortable vacation. Effing cheap, I might add, because all the hotel workers, and restaurant workers, and boat workers are Dominican. Or Haitian. And they get paid dirt cheap wages. But its a job. And for them, the wages aren´t too bad. And they might be able to learn English or Italian or something while working there, because of all the foreigners. And then they can get moved up, or get a better job somewhere else. And what does the economy of the DR get? Not much. Def. not as much as if the resorts were all owned by Dominicans and the money went into the economy, rather then never touching it and staying in Europe. But of course, any Dominican rich enough to invest in something like that would have to be part of one of the top 10 families in the DR who already own something like 90% of the businesses and land in the country anyway.... And then there are the enviromental problems: I´m sure I don´t know all of them, but the resorts are taking away precious beaches and destroying the habitats of the few special species still left on the island. And they´re using a ton of water. And energy, because heaven-forbid the guests of the hotel not have hot water for showers, even though all the campesinos take bucket showers or bath in rivers and the city people don´t have hot water and the electricity only works from time to time because people tap the wires and it causes outages/ the company tries to compensate for lost energy by simply shutting it off.... And then there are the sewage systems, which probably get dumped into the ocean and cause more problems, but, hey, the Dominican government isn´t going to bust the resorts because, well, its money and tourism...(even though, see above...)
So, it makes me sad. But from the perspective here, not knowing or choosing not to know about those things... its a really great deal. Why not go?

Besides that, I feel that I have been pretty far removed from my social/political/religious/economical/everything world of thought this summer. Meaning, in Nicaragua, doing what I was doing and talking to the people to whom I talked, I had nearly constant stimulation in these areas. I had to think about them. And I liked it. It was hard, sometimes, but I like those questions. Here, I´ve had very few. Its quite easy in this setting for me to relax and just have a good time. To forget about the world´s problems. To forget about the injustices. To think it is normal for people to be able to travel and study. These are not truths. And while I think its okay not to constantly be thinking about the injustices and the problems (breaks are good. and necessary.) I want to be sure that I don´t get too caught up in my fun/easy/priveledged world. I want to have a balance. This opportunity is giving me a good view on the other end of the spectrum (ok, maybe not the end...other side of what I know...my personal middle-ground= what I know/am used to/my lifestyle of growing up??) That probably doesn´t make sense. Just know that I am experiencing new and good things, and enjoying life. Curious about where these new things will take me. Excited.

FRISBILLERS!!!!

This is the name of my new ultimate frisbee team. Thats right, I joined a team. And by that I mean that I went and played on the beach with some people last week and went to a meeting at someones house two nights ago and we decided to form a team. There´s another team already formed in Barcelona (Patatas Bravas) but they apparently don´t have enough space for all the people who want to play. I´m so excited. We are planning practise days and looking for a field we can rent. We´re looking at which tourneys we can go to (YIPPEE--a fantastic way to travel around spain!!!) and what uniforms to buy/what the logo should look like. Also, there´s a possibilitiy of a name change, if someone comes up with a better one. But, for now, we´re the Frisbillers. Saturday I´m going to go play on a beach a little further down from Barcelona with the Patatas Bravas folks (pick-up day, open) and some of my team. Jijijiji. I´m excited.
On other exciting news, some other BCA friends and bought tickets to Rome in November. 60 euros round trip. I´m excited. Though we don´t have enough time to see all we want to... ;) Hard life, I know.

classes and cuisine

Classes:
Mondays are really full. All four classes. Literature del siglo de oro (golden century), History of Spain, European Union and finally, from 6-9 at night, Drawing. For the art class I have to go to a different campus (by metro), I´m headed there soon. I shall now expand a bit on the classes. The Lit class is going to be fun. Gonna read some Cervantes and other classic stuff. The prof is really interesting. She knows a lot, too. History of Spain has thus far been somewhat unremarkable, but I´m excited to learn it. European Union I have only had twice, but I love it. The prof is a bit intimidating, and I´m going to have to work hard, but I´m going to learn a lot. The drawing class is a regular university class (the others are taught by reg. professors, but only offered to the BCA students. a little bit lame. not much, just a little). The professor sometimes breaks into Catalan and I can follow her, but not understand well. I don´t know if the whole term is figure drawing, but last week was and we drew a naked model for 3 hours. (Not something Goshen does....) I think it will be neat, and hopefully I will make some friends.

Cuisine:
Breakfast: Cafe con leche. y azucar (of course). I usually dip some little galletas in my cafe... they taste a bit like animal crackers, but are big and flat and round. and yummy. bread (white baguette) with margarine and jam. a new and wonderful addition: cheese! The past week we have had those cute little triangles of cream-cheese-ish stuff all wrapped in tinfoil. yummy. I sometimes eat a peach or an apple at breakfast too. And Ana got a box of Muesli with dried fruit from her daughter or something? So sometimes I eat cereal, too. I am content with breakfasts.
Lunch: If I am gone during the day (have classes at the university) I get a bocadillo (sandwhich on baguette bread) and a piece of fruit. The bocadillo generally has jamon del pais in it, which is a cured (not cooked) ham that looks a little like raw bacon. Its pretty good, but I get happy on the days when my bocadillo contains jamon dulce, your reg. sandwich meat and a slice of cheese. I like cheese. If I am home for lunch (2-3 in the afternoon) we have various dishes. sometimes a pasta dish. sometimes fried fish. sometimes a plate of cooked peas. sometimes lentils. I like nearly everything. (Somehow after my childhood years of incredible picky-ness with food I have become rather open to most food set before me. cool, huh, mom?) We usually have a little bit of salad (iceberg lettuce) with vinegar and olive oil. Sometimes I get a cut up tomato with chunks of garlic on it. Quite tasty. But I wouldn´t want to go out for a couple hours after all the garlic... =) Dessert is a piece of fruit. Again, usually apple or peach, but sometimes melon or grapes or a banana.
Supper: supper happens any time between 8-9:30 at night. Sometimes later. But usually its 8:30. Supper always has more than one course. Similiar to lunch options. Last night was a light supper and the main dish was a tortilla. Don´t think ¨tortilla¨ of latin america. This is basically an omellette and has nothing to do with flour or corn. The ¨tortillas francesas¨ are just egg, and the ¨tortillas españolas¨or de patatas have chunks of potato in them. quite tasty. The night before we had lentils and fried anchovies. (yup, ate those, too.) There is currenly a jar of snails on the counter and I wonder if they are for the grandkids to play with, or if I shall soon get a meal of them. Either way, its kind of fun. =)
Other random notes: If I go out to a bar to eat with friends (not very common, becuase when I can eat for free, why pay?) its easy to find food from all over. The most common thing in Spain, though, is a tapas bar. Tapas are little appetizers or entrees that one generally eats with a cup of wine or bottle of beer. They are things like meatballs, patatas bravas (fried potatoes with tomato), fish, etc.
Panadarias are all around and today on my search of a public library (found, but closed) I took advantagea and bought a yummy pastry. They smell so good when you walk by... I think I might start stopping more often (surprised? didn´t think so...) and spending my change on breads instead of at cafes... we shall see. its easier to sit and chat with friends at a cafe...

pictures of Santiago trip

I like arquitectura

me, climbing on a wall near an old cemetary (see tombs in background)

Carmen and I in Santiago

really cool stair case in a church

some yummy wine, actually. white, house wine.

this is the way-cool catedral de santiago...

capitulo 3: in which lindsy has an amazing weekend

This weekend was one huge party for the whole of Barcelona. Dia de la Merce. So friday, saturday, sunday and monday pretty much no one worked and everyone played. Except for the poor people who own restaurants, clean streets, serve beer, etc. I shall try to sum up all the things we did. ¨We¨ generally being a group of 4 or 5 of us BCA people who have found good companionship with one another and are on the whole rather frugal/cheap and don´t spend half the money that some of our fellow study-abroad students do. We are quite proud of this. Other people say things like, oh, how cute. *shrug* that is beside the point.
Friday, go: History of Art test. then a cafe for cafe con leche. Home for dinner. Off to the beach where there was a fireworks show. pretty nice. Then walk along the beach find a cumbia band playing at an outdoor bar. Turns out I really like live cumbia. Band consisted of a mexican, a chilean, paraguayan, and maybe a guy from uruguay? I hope I spelled all those right... anyway, they were really fun and quite good. After they ended we walked around some more and then went home.
Saturday: Home in the morning/afternoon. Evening went to a plaza to try to find a break-dancing performance. Found a Rumba band instead. turns out I also really like rumba. and reaaally want to learn how to dance it. (surprise, surprise, eh?) Then we walked around some more and found the break-dancers. They were quite good. I want to learn to break dance. Then walked to another plaza where there were more free concerts (I heart free concerts). Watched a sweet band from Barcelona who´s name currently escapes me. THen The Undertones came on (this was the band we went to see). From Ireland. Anyone know them? THey were pretty fun. Meanwhile we got smashed into a lot by an extreeemely drunk woman and met some Italian guys. Then we went via metro to yet another plaza to try to catch The Thrills (also Irish) but the place was SOO packed and huge and there for 4 different stages and we were tired and our feet hurt. So we found a bar and sat down and talked instead. Got home late.
Sunday: Home for the morning. Left in the afternoon to meet friends at the Sagrada Familia and go from there to still more free concerts. Couldn´t find one friend. waited. waited. called. waited. went to eat supper at a yummy greek rest. called. went to concert. found her! and other friend! amazing. Watched the end of another Barça band. Pretty good, till they stared singing in English. And then....we pushed our way up to the front. about 20 feet from the stage. and saw... TRAVIS!!! One of my favorite bands, actually. in Barcelona! free! and we were so close! and they were amazing. then to a restaurant and split a yummy pesto pasta dish. Then home.
Monday: home for the morning. Afternoon met friends at Picasso museum (free for the day). waited in line and then walked through museum. Picasso is not my favorite artist, and he still isn´t, but I like his stuff better after seeing the whole progression of his work. neat. then to another plaza to eat our packed suppers and share some sangria while we waited for the fountain/fireworks show. It was well worth the wait. we had good seats and the show was spectacular. best show ive seen, i think. combo of fountain, fireworks, and music. (tho a strange selection-opera to rock to country and pop...) And it lasted a long time. I think it made up for me missing the last three fourth-of-july´s. Afterward waited for the crowd to leave and saw two guys throwing a disc around! went and played with them. German, but living in Barcelona. Told me that people play on wednesday nights on the beach. yippee!
Wednesday night on the beach: played frisbee! have lots of sand-scrapes. had so much fun. made friends. now on the ultimate listserve, I think. que happy!!!
well, im off to study grammar for a test tomorrow. This was a long blog. It was a long weekend. =)
amor to all!

general news

This weekend our whole BCA group took a trip to Santiago de Compostela. Its in the northeastern part of Spain and apparently usually has Atlantic-type weather (rain), but it was sunny and nice almost the whole time we were there (friday p.m. to tuesday a.m.) The reason for our visit was to study the architecture there for our art history pre-semester course. We flew there as a group, which kind of boggles my mind still, because something like that just wouldn´t make sense in the U.S. Anyway, it was a great time, for the most part. I looooved the Cathedral there (de Santiago, you could look it up online) which is fairly famous and which constantly has pilgrims arriving on foot from all over. We saw a lot of people coming in with big back-packs and walking sticks, etc. Also, there are several old monostaries and the university is quite old as well. Its fun to be in buildings built before the Americas were, well... something. Discovered by other people? Anyway. We also had lots of free time to wander about in the narrow crooked streets of Santiago. I hadn´t realized how much Celtic infuence there is in that part of Spain. Its a completely different culture from Catalunya (Barcelona) and they also have another language that they speak there, in addition to Spanish. Quite cool. I also went dancing one night with a couple other girls and we had a good time. Though I wanted more latin music. =) The pieces of the trip I didn´t enjoy so much were walking around in a group of over 30 people and being such obvious tourists/foreigners. I´ve never liked that feeling, and its worse when I´m in a big group. Plus then you have all the annoyances of splitting off into little groups to do things and trying not to leave people out etc. But this was our last real group activity, and from now on our schedules will be more individual. I´m hoping to make Spanish friends and find some fun things to do around the city. This weekend is a holiday, so there should be plenty of opportunities to hear live music, etc. And maybe I can go dancing again.
Classes started today and this morning I had a literature class. I think I´m really going to enjoy it. Its a BCA class, so there aren´t other university students, but tomorrow I am going to a Spanish class at the university, so we shall see how it goes. =)
I guess thats it for now. I hope to put up some pictures of Santiago soon. Thanks for the comments and emails, I love hearing from you!!!

a few pictures

Why I am in love with Gaudi...(La Sagrada Familia and La Pedrera) and a blurry picture of my room

september in barcelona

i love it. or do I love Barcelona in September? I think both. Today I went to the beach--about 20 minutes walking from my house--and enjoyed the beautiful sea. I live in a big apartment building, as do the majority of the nearly 8 million people who live in Barcelona, I think. The city is pedestrian friendly, unlike some latin american cities *cough * Managua. But I miss the public transportation of Managua. I haven´t taken the bus or metro yet here, but I will tomorrow to go to the University. I´m trying to figure out the new biking system here--you can buy a card and take a bike from one rack and leave it in another. Still have to figure out how to buy a card and where the stations are, to see if it will work to go to and from the university, I hope so, that would be fantastic. Oh, about my family. Its really just an older woman. Kids all older and away from home. some married, some not. I think the youngest daughter (30 ish) Mar will be in and out. she seems really nice. Well, I hope to put pictures up soon. Maybe when I am using free interenet at the University instead of a cafe.
P.S. my mailing address is this, and you would make me extremely happy if you were to send me a lil letter!

Lindsy Glick
c/o BCA
Montealegre 6-8
Facultad de Geografia e Historia
Univerisidad de Barcelona
08001-Barcelona, SPAIN

*kiss kiss*

Estoy en Espana

Hola mis amigos! I arrived a sleepy one in Paris and met up with most of the other BCA students there and we waited for a few house before getting out flight to Barcelona. They we all got on a bus (after a bit of a detour in the airport trying to get the luggage...) and headed to a hotel south of Barcelon. Its only a few blocks from the beach, which I took advantage of during our free time today. Thus far weve had some spanish classes, orientation lectures and tasty food. Im pretty excited about chocolate croissants and fruit for breakfast. Though I shall have to get used to fish, I think. Ive met most of the other BCAers, but don´t remember everyones name yet. Most seem pretty different from the Goshen crowd, but I think we can all have a sweet time together. =) I´m also pretty excited about meeting my host family this weekend and picking out classes to take at the university. And I even found a site online about an ultimate frisbee team in Barcelona. they play on the beach once a week. I want to be friends with them. =) Well, internet time is about up. More when I get a chance and have more to tell--I harldy feel Im in Spain at this point, since were staying in a hotel. ciao.

Ok, this has nothing to do with Nicaragua or Spain. Its from Spring Break last year. The Everglades. I was testing some things on this blog, thought I'd leave it.

the space between

I am back in Goshen for a few days. Just over a week, actually. It feels nice. I'm seeing friends and some family, though I won't get to see my immediate family until Christmas time. Working backwards, I got in to Goshen on Thursday after a night in Chicago with some friends. I had to stay over night in order to pick up my visa for Spain. But that is future, so that will have to wait. I flew into Chicago por Miami from San Jose, Costa Rica on Wednesday. On Tuesday I took a bus to San Jose from Managua, Nicaragua, where I spent most of my summer. (Hows that for confusing?) I was working with Mennonite Central Committee (relief/development agency of the Mennonite Church) and local Nicaraguan organization, CEPAD. I mainly accompanied delegations/church groups from the U.S. on their short term mission trips or partner relationships with Nicaraguan communities. Did a bit of translating, and a lot of traveling, thinking, seeing and doing. Overall a great experience. I definetly have a lot of questions about my future, the church (Latin American and North American), God, service (particularly international), economics, justice, politics, development, etc. But since this whole experience was made possible through a program at Goshen called "Service Inquiry Program" I feel validated in my questioning. Not that I needed validation.
Moving on to the future: I have one week here to do things like visit with friends, go to the eye doctor, laundry, financial stuff, writing essays, talking with advisors about classes and graduation... the list goes on. Come next Sunday, I am flying off to another 3-4 month adventure. This time to Europe--Barcelona, Spain, to be exact. (And thats "Barthelona," mind you.) I'll have to learn Spanish all over again. Not that I'm fluent by any means, but Central American-Spanish and Spain-Spanish are waaaay different. Not to mention I have no idea how to use the "vosotros" form. And they speak Catalan there. Eeek. So, in Barthelona I will be studying at the university there. Which is somewhere around 70 times the size of Goshen, my dear college here in Indiana. This along with the fact that I'm coming pretty much straight from a "third-world" country (Supposedly the 2nd poorest in all of the Americas, above only Haiti) might give me a bit of culture shock, though I usually deal pretty easily with change. But lets just take a little look the difference in public transportation in Managua and Barthelona: city bus anywhere in Managua: 2.5 cordobas or around 15 U.S. cents. taxi? 20-25 cordobas if you're not going far. Lets call it U.S. $ 1.25. In Barth a one-journey ticket to the metro is E. $1.25. U.S. $ nearly 2. (don't know the exact conversion yet) and a taxi from the airport to our orientation hotel? E. 30-35, or about U.S. $ 40 !!! I don't know what I'm going to do... I'll be the cheapest Estadounidense in Spain, probably...
At any rate (U.S., Euro, Cordoba, Colone...) I'm quite excited to go to Spain, live with a family there, meet new friends and see a lot of sweet architecture. I'm also pretty bummed about being gone (again) from friends and family and coming back to Goshen College with only one semester to go. Its a bit creepy thinking about life after college, so I often try to avoid it. =) Well, I guess thats enough for a first blog. I'm off to go Salsa dancing. Tenga un buen dia, buena noche o cualquier tiempo...