Settling back in

So it's been a wild ride since being back home here in the US. With trips literally the day after I arrived home from, and then four different states in two weeks, it was quite the winter break. The last jaunt of the "break" was finally getting myself settled into an apartment back at school and to say the least, it was an adventure.

Anyways, I just returned from a wonderful weekend retreat way out of the busy city life and up in the woods. It was a much needed time for me. I have been feeling a little run down and tired and mostly just searching for myself again back here at school. I think God was finally saying, alright here you go, you're in one place for a few days and you can just relax. I was blessed with so many great conversations with new people and was also able to build a little bit more into my business network which was a huge bonus!

As I find myself reflecting now that I'm back home from the weekend. I feel just a beautiful presence of focus and peace. We were able to create extensive talk over risk and adventure in life this weekend and I feel that even after uprooting and going to Spain for the semester, God is just saying, you just wait for this life of risk and adventure, as in the words of one of my Capernaum kids, I feel God is saying, "you ain't seen nothing yet."

My only thought is summed up in a song that I am listening to right now and it is You're Beautiful by Phil Wickham. It just sums up all of my thoughts in this moment so please check it out.

Of course, I'm sure the worries are still in my head about the future of internships, careers, jobs, friends, family, you know all that other stuff but right now, I hope to just keep living life in real life, especially now that I have settled back in.

Coming to a close

In less than 24 hours I will be leaving the place I have called home here in Spain for the last 3 1/2 months. It has been such an incredible time and I am constantly reminded of the incredible experiences I have had while being here.

I am not entirely sure how I will feel tomorrow while leaving, I am sure it will be a very reflective mood. Also, a little sad. I know this because my house mom has even cried 3 times already just about the thought of me leaving.....and tomorrow is the real deal so I will be fully prepared for those waterworks. Every time she thinks of it she just repeats, "No puedo imaginar", which means, " I can't even imagine" haha. It's incredible! She is so full of love and joy and I could not have had a better place to call home for the past 3 1/2 months.

With these somewhat sad thoughts, there is light at the end of the tunnel, as I step out of this adventure and into my last travels while here in Europe to reunite with a friend and also meet new ones. It should be a great quick trip to end this amazing adventure on!

I can honestly say I will not have time to update here until I arrive back in the states. It shocks me but at the same time I can't help but be excited for the adventures that await me once I arrive back in the US. A few roadtrips right off the bat and a trip out to the east coast. It should be an incredible winter break and I am fully ready to embrace every piece of it.

I hope all is going well from wherever you may be reading this! Talk to you guys within a week or so from the other half of the world, or 1/3 I guess?

The fog

Well it's been a few weeks since my last travels and this past weekend Dublin was pretty amazing.

The anticipation and excitement before Dublin was incredible. I was excited for the people I was going to be traveling with and most of all I was excited to experience a new country! That has been one of the most amazing experiences of being abroad is just the ability to see and experience the culture of many countries in a short period time.

So anyways, first night we get to Dublin we are just overwhelmed by the amount of options for live Irish music and food. We quickly realized the difference in between live music and live Irish trad music. We picked out our first pub not knowing what to expect and we couldn't find a seat...on the first floor. Our waitress quickly told us that there was 5 floors of live music and food was available on every floor and so we found a perfect spot right next to the band on the second floor....it was incredible.

This first experience pretty much sums up the rest of our experience as we were just pub hopping finding new live music everywhere we went. It was just amazing.

Our most anticipated part of our trip was easily the Cliffs of Moher. Many of our friends had been there and everyone said we had to go and see them because it was one of the most beautiful places in the world.

To sum up my disappointment, it was the foggy day I had ever seen in my life, thus we did not see any cliffs.

So the next day was better and we toured around Dublin by bike, on foot, and on bus and it was amazing, with a fresh Guinness or two as well. It was a very long day but totally worth every penny.

The trip back home to Toledo was filled with a stop at burger king and a flight that was not delayed but half an hour early! We loved every second of this and I was fortunate enough to meet some Americans that were teaching English in Madrid. I was very thankful for the life chats I had with them and just the opportunity and experience they were having while teaching in Madrid.

If there is one thing that has been quite an experience while traveling, is just meeting people. It's amazing how much you have in common with other travelers and really makes you just grateful for friendships. This weekend was filled with meeting new people just randomly. The Irish are extremely friendly and we made many friends this weekend.

I hope all is going well wherever you are reading this from, sad and happy to think that in less than two weeks, this whole dream will be over! 

Just the past couple of days

So this past weekend i had a pretty good trip to Segovia, Spain. It's located just to the northwest of Madrid and it was a very beautiful city. It seemed very different from Toledo but at the same time you still knew you were in Spain.

With just this short day trip to Segovia, the weekend brought a lot of time to reflect on the trip so far and just on life in general. The question always comes up, where do you want to be in 5 years. I'm a huge dreamer so people could ask me ten different times and I'd give them a different answer each time. I think while I was reading a fellow bloggers post I got my answer. One of my best friends from high school has a girlfriend who is teaching in Georgia. Not the state, the country. She was traveling and met a fellow American and asked him what he was doing and where he was going. The guy said he didn't know but he had plans to be in India by sometime next month. She then asked what he was going to do when he got there and he said something along the lines of, "I'm not sure yet, I'll find out once I get there." Cha ching!

Not to steal her story or anything but I just found it very comforting and it was as if God was just like, here's your answer man! The reality is, I don't have an answer of where exactly I want to be in 5 years but as I read in that blog, I guess I'll find out once I get there. Obviously I would like to have some sort of income that I could support myself and possibly a wife but we'll just find out when we get there!

That is one thing that I have learned here is just taking advantage of every day and just learning how to live for this day. With so many experiences that I could possibly have here every day, I try not to waste time worrying about what's going on tomorrow or the next. Not to say I don't get excited for upcoming trips, but you know what I mean.

I feel lately, there has just been a little storm of this going on because picking out classes to set up the last two semesters of my college and then thinking oh man, what about after that.....well I guess I'll just worry about it when I get there. As for now, with only 30 days or so left here, my time will be better served really trying to dive in even more into this culture and the people here and just live life one day at a time!

Hopefully that's not too cliche but just some of thoughts from this weekend. They pretty much all happened on a walk that I took just through a park in my house. It was probably one of the most relaxing times I've had since I've been here because it was an incredibly beautiful day and just to have silence and reflect was incredible.

So, I am very excited for these next 30 days to come. The one thing I am experiencing for the first time in my life is the LACK of anticipation for Christmas here in Spain. I think they got it somewhat right when they decided not to spend half their income on Christmas unlike some of us in the US. Not to judge but it was very humbling when I was asking my house mom about Christmas and asked if she was going to get the kids anything and she said no because of the crisis. Also, that it was not a big deal, kids usually got one or two things for Christmas and it was just a celebration with the family and that's about it. Very humbling.

Regardless, it's a great learning experience for me, but definitely an aspect I miss of my own culture!

Time for class but I'll post on here sooner rather than later!

It was beautiful and expensive...

Alright, so I'm not exactly sure where to begin this one. This past weekend was one of the most beautiful places/experiences I have had and been to in my life. I cannot physically describe it and there was not a photo that could capture the true beauty of Geneva, Switzerland and Chamonix, France.

The only way I can try and explain it is just by doing a quick little run through and summary of the trip.

So here it is,

 As the alarm went off at 4:03 am, I rolled right out of bed and went to eat breakfast. Of course my house mom was right there to greet me and prepare breakfast for me.....and I'm not entirely sure why because the night before I had told her that I was leaving very early, had said my goodbyes for the weekend, and had even told her not to worry about me in the morning because I did not want her have to get out of bed at 4 am just to heat a glass of milk for me....well either my Spanish wasn't correct or she just has an incredible heart and wanted to get up and do it anyway regardless of what I said because she told me she "just happened to be up".

So after adventuring the airport and getting on the flight we eventually landed in Switzerland. It was amazing and we ventured around downtown Geneva and got the cheapest meal we could find which was 10 euro. Not bad for Switzerland! Terrible for the fact I ate every meal in the Canaries for 2 euro or less....

The most amazing part of the trip was Saturday, taking the bus into Chamonix, France....

It was hands down the most beautiful town that I have ever been to in my life. It was absolutely amazing. We went hiking for around 4 to 5 hours, we weren't really sure cause we weren't too concerned with the time! We stopped and had a little picnic of granola bars and croissants and nutella from our hotel and some fresh water straight from the stream on the mountain!

That's me having a little drink from the stream after lunch!

We then marched right down to have some crepes at a French cafe because when in France, crepes has to be on the menu.

I ordered some type of crepe I wasn't sure of because it was in French and French was a little harder to understand than Spanish. Turns out it was a crepe with honey, I was very satisfied.

After our brief cafe break, we then took a gondola ride up to the top to go attempt to climb some cliffs and hang out in the first snow we had all seen of the year!

Here is a picture of the trip up!

And finally, this one is for Jill's mom Karen! This was during my hike and I thought it was fairly outdoorsy haha, I hope you enjoy it Karen!

None the less it was the most amazing trip I have taken yet.

We did stumble upon the Red Light District of Switzerland which is a fascinating story but we will save that one for in person!

I hope you are all enjoying Fall back in the US because I have decided there is not exactly Fall here in Spain, one day the temperature just becomes not as warm and the leaves just all fall off the trees and it's Winter.....

Very interesting, none the less, hope all is well at home!



 

A little break in the storm...

So I am on a quick little weekend break from traveling the past two weeks and it is almost hard to adjust to the silence and slow pace of just hanging out and getting some work done for school.

It has been pretty amazing having the opportunity to see lots of Spain for the past 8 weeks and now will be my first venture outside of this country. I am very excited to see the Alps in Switzerland and in France as we will be knocking out two countries in one weekend!

I just booked another trip to Portugal as well this past week with one of my friends that I was fortunate enough to meet while I was working at a Young Life camp two summers ago! Hopefully everything runs right on time with that trip or else I may be stuck in Spain for Christmas....no worries though.

As I reflect on my time here so far, I just can't help but be thankful for the technology I have to be able to communicate with people back at home and just the ability to obtain any news information literally within 30 seconds. This is something I definitely took for granted before my trip and this trip has really opened my eyes to how much I use this incredible technology like the internet or wireless internet without even thinking about it.

The craziest thing by far though, is how fast the time has gone by here. It almost feels like life is on fast forward when you are traveling and it just amazes me. In between running around cities to try and see everything it has to offer or even the 6 hour plane delay that I had this past weekend. The time goes by much faster. This is always good and bad considering I miss so many people back home but I also want to experience as much as I possibly can while I am here!

None the less, for one we're still alive here and enjoying every second of it! I am learning so much more about the Spanish culture just through experiences in my home, my classes, and from traveling.

Here is one thing that has been extremely hard so far though.

At the beginning of my time here, my house mom would pretty much do everything for me. She would just tell me that I need to study or need to rest or whatever it was. At first I thought, oh she's just being nice and wanting to welcome me into her home and it will wear off....

Well here we are 8 weeks later and it's still the same. It is very hard for me to communicate to her that I live on my own in the US and that I am capable of turning on a microwave or putting a piece of toast in the toaster....

This is hilarious at times but other times I just want to be like, seriously, I can do this. Just relax!

It seems kind of an oxymoron because some people would say how the heck could you be complaining about being served all the time.
I think the truth is though, my American upbringing and the constant preaching of being independent and being able to do everything by yourself. The "rugged individualism" if you will is facing this culture that says when you're a student the only job you have is to study and make sure you do well in school. You do not worry about ANYTHING else.

It is quite incredible how the clash of cultures just within myself has played out. None the less it has been extremely interesting to learn hands on about this part of the culture and I can't complain to much that someone is making meals for me!

For now, it's about lunch time then back to "studying". This week will be filled with the anticipation of getting back to traveling! I hope everyone may enjoy, I'm praying for all of you back home!

Day 20 something.....

So this post defines how the study abroad trip has been going so far. It has just blown by and I can't even remember how many days it has been for these pictures so I apologize in advance but to make up for it. I will try and put some photos here that just summarizes my trip to the Canaries that I had this past 5 days.

So it all started off with this little view from our apartment.....well actually a night in the airport, then a 3 hour flight to get this view...

The ocean was looking pretty tempting so we took a walk down to the beach and found some sand dunes which were incredible...

We spent a few days hanging around on the beach until we received a generous offer to get a little scuba diving action in....

(Sorry I can't get the picture right side up!)

And then the final walk on the beach with the moon guiding us home...

 Needless to say it was an incredible trip!

As we flew into the island, it just looked like we were flying into a fairytale, with slight clouds over a little piece of land in the middle of the ocean. It was absolutely incredible. We were fortunate enough to have the perfect mix of relaxation and adventure during our fall break. It made it even better when other students came back complaining about how they had walked and traveled through rain the entire four days and when I looked back on how good sunny and 80's felt for a few days, I felt pretty lucky.

Jill was quick to humble me when I came home and skyped her and told her that everything was just great right now and she asked me how could it not be after a few days in the Canaries. She put me right back on track and made me realize how blessed I actually am to have these experiences. Just incredible.

Life on the island, like most islands, was very relaxed and was just a reminder not to get too caught up in life with the little things. Especially in a time of minor stress with random thoughts of always trying to figure out the rest of my life in school, internships, and careers. This was definitely a great time to just get away and out of touch for a few days. Come to find out there was a hurricane in New York? Who would have thought.

Anyways, I remain very thankful and blessed that I am fortunate to have all these opportunities. I hope and pray for rest and peace in your lives as well.