An Avant-garde Existence

¡Finalmente!

2010-12-22T18:37:00.000-05:00

'Winged Victory' - Nike of Samothrace - Louvre

It is interesting how things work out sometimes. I don’t want to leave Spain, but it seems that Spain doesn’t want me to leave either. I already overstayed my welcome… by extending my time here for another week, but just yesterday, my flight was cancelled due to the outrageous amounts of snow across Europe… I was rescheduled for today, Monday the 20^th, but now my new flight and all flights through 4:00 today have been cancelled… In other words… not the most promising of situations. Yesterday was a rich treat… or a comedy or errors, in a number of ways. I was supposed to rebook my reservation… but couldn’t online, and couldn’t through the phone because the offices are only open Monday through Friday. We decided to go to the Airport, and I ended up sitting on the floor for about seven or so hours… but then I got a free hotel that ended up being on the main avenue in Madrid for the night, so I guess it worked out! While waiting yesterday, a quote that I recently happened upon came to mind… I don’t think I included it in my last update from eons ago, but it is by Charles Swindoll, “We cannot change our past. We can not change the fact that people act in a certain way. We can not change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude."

Attitude really is very important. No matter how hard things may be, tired or stressed out we are, there is never an excuse to be unpleasant to people. Yesterday really brought that fact into focus. All of the airline workers were tired and working as hard as they could to get people flights, but often there was nothing they could do. Unfortunately, many customers were not able to fully comprehend everything in the situation, as is normal. Instead, they chose to focus on how it was UNFAIR to THEM, and how they DESERVED to have a flight out, etc. etc. It was repulsive. They deserve nothing… we deserve nothing, and that is a good thing to be reminded of. Our culture is continuously driven by selfish urges and desires, and an idolization of self. I am not saying that we are worthless and should not take care of ourselves at all. I am saying that it is important to think of others at all time, and to look at the whole picture. Of course, this is a quintessential example of things easier said than done; it is nearly impossible to fully comprehend the gravity of any situation where other people, factors and or obstacles are involved. Anyway, I will stop talking about that now and leave it out there to be considered.

Champs-Élysées

A few hours later… I am finally booked on a flight to the U.S.! I feel like I ran a marathon WITH my backpack, carryon, coat, and massive bag stuffed with bricks…. But all that matters is that I get to come home. I was supposed to go to London, last week actually, but I did some finagling and was able to switch my flight around for free until Sunday, which clearly didn’t work out. I am so glad that I got to spend an extra week here… Sarie and I taught class together and it was craziness! There are so many kids now that it would be physically impossible for one person to teach by themselves. I also spent the last two days of my time here with the Andersons. We had a big celebration dinner with the Caricols, who I stayed with, and it was wonderful. While I am waiting to board the flight to JFK, it is finally starting to hit me that I actually am leaving Spain and may not be back for a while, and it is very difficult to bear. It is amazing how much it feels like home here, though when I really dig I can find areas that I don’t and never will fit in. But still, the essence of Spain has infected me and I know for sure that it will never be something that I can scrub off, either the good or the bad. Returning to the United States is going to be a challenge I think, and take quite a bit of adjusting. Though I am excited.

Christmas is here, and for once I actually feel ready for it, though that doesn’t make sense at all. Of all the years, it seems like this year would be the least prepared for… but I am just ready for it. This could possibly be because I have finally been able to realize some of the true aspects of the holiday, and furthermore to anticipate them. I don’t care about gifts or decorations or anything else. I just want to spend this special time of year with people that I love and care about, and haven’t been able to see for at least three months if not more, (though I will admit, decorations and holiday themed things definitely have a special place in my heart and certainly add a cozy ambiance to the season).

Catacombs of Paris

I have been planning what I wanted to say in this last update / summary… but now that I am actually writing it, I realize that I have no idea what to say, and that things have only been a scattered mess so far. What do you want me to tell you? That I had an amazing time? That I have been challenged, stretched and pushed in more ways than I expected, and subsequently grown / learned from my mistakes, that I loved my time here possibly more than anything else I have done, that I have forged amazing relationships and friendships with a wide scope of people, though the focus may be narrow, and that though I am still in Spain at the moment, I already want to come back? All of those are true. And more.

Castille Mont'Juic - Barcelona, Spain9

One thing that has truly been impacting though is the utter feeling of desolation and being lost. The culture here is fun and exciting, but there is an ever-pervading sense of despair, confusion and desperation. Of the people that I have talked at length with who are Spanish, the majority do not believe at all in God, though they talked about God and why they didn’t believe etc. What most impacted me though was what they said. One occasion specifically is quite memorable to me, when one of the people that I was talking to said that the scariest thing in the world is dying, because we are just dead and there is nothing after that. I didn’t see that coming, and the words really… hurt, for lack of a better word. I actually almost cried because I was so sad that someone would be so scared and afraid of death, which is not to be dreaded, but rather something to be excited for, because this life is just a shade of a shadow of the other.

Reminiscing on the trip here, I can’t get over how hard it was for people to understand why I wanted to go to Spain for a mission trip. What is there in Spain? It’s a nice country that everyone romanticizes as a Quixotian landscape with plains, castles, knights and windmills and a nation fastened to God through the Catholic Church. Though all of those things may exist, almost every single one is an empty shell. I have come to understand that no one will be able to understand what it is like here or in any other country until they not only travel there, but actually live there and talk to real citizens about how they think, why they act the way they do, and what they believe and don’t believe. Walking down a street in Spain is not like walking down a street in the United States. Besides different locations, outfits, a couple of miles, and a few other things, there is a VAST difference that is quite difficult to comprehend. In the U.S., the majority of people say that they are Christians or at least believe in God, according to a variety of statistics. However, here, you would be lucky to come across 1 person in 100 that would say they truly believe in God and have a relationship with him and Jesus. If that. That aspect alone has really been a kick in the face about what I thought about things outside of the U.S. Though I knew that Europe was largely Atheistic and that hardly anyone went to church, it didn’t affect me until I met the people that go with the statistic, which should be a requirement before anyone is ever able to use statistics to prove a point – statistics take out the most important aspect of the facts – the actual representation of the person that is behind the data.

Not sure where all of that came from, but anyway, time to board.

Two days later… and I am home! Even though there were a number of trials and tribulations…. Over the past few days, I actually really enjoyed the majority of my time travelling and being stuck. It was really nice to talk to be able to talk to people from all over the place about a variety of things. On the plane to the U.S., I was kind of sad because it was not full; no one was near me to talk to. I didn’t sleep so that I would beat jet lag… HAHAHA. But after the fifth hour, I said something to the people in front of me, then they started talking to me, and we continued for the rest of the three hours on the flight. We talked about Spain, the US, etc, (they were two Spanish brothers coming to the US for the first time and had thousands of questions, and also wanted to know about my time in their country and what I thought). We talked at great length too about interesting things, such as the collapse of the Euro, the problems facing the European Union, and beating stereotypes in each of our countries. I even invited them to come to dinner with us while they are here, but don’t think they will be able to because they are here for work and only have odd little bits of free time. THEN. I was in JFK, waiting in yet another crazy long line. Some woman came around asking about id’s and boarding passes, but the man in front of me was quite lost and answered her that he couldn’t understand in Spanish, and she frowned and kept right on going. Not the best day for America. SO many people were rude and nasty to each other that day. Anyway, I ended up helping him and we figured out together how to scan his passport in this odd little thing I have never seen before… got through the line… and then I took him to his gate and ran to my flight… thank goodness it was late or I would have missed it! I am so happy that I am able to help people now through Spanish… Though I am definitely not fluent, I can do what I need to for the most part… and that day in the airport, which I guess was just yesterday, made me realize yet again that one of the things that I think makes me feel the most fulfilled, more than any other job, is just helping people out with whatever. If that could be my job… I would so do it. I think that is why I like jobs so much where I work face-to-face with customers.

So in sum… if I can even summarize any of this jumbled mess…. Spain was wonderful, and is a great place, but has more need than I can even express. This trip was an amazing opportunity and has greatly changed the way that I think / act and feel about a number of things. I am so grateful for all of the financial, prayer, and relational support that I received while on this trip. And, additionally, everything that I thought I needed to receive and didn’t, taught me more than everything that I was given.

Thank you all, and may God bless you and those that you care about during this magical and love-filled time of the year. Also, I challenge you to think about some of the things that I mentioned in this email, and to actually attempt to live and act according to what this season is truly about. Don’t let the hectic-ness of the holiday get to you and wear you out. Instead, let God and Christ fill you with their peace, and may you cherish every moment that you are able to spend with your friends, family and relatives. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Calculated Vestigiality

2010-11-14T19:22:00.000-05:00

It has almost been twenty days since my last update! What a travesty. First of all, I made a blog post WITH PICTURES roughly midway between the last update and now. I am not going to repeat it or redisplay the pictures… simply take a moment to follow this link, look for half a second at the pictures, and then you will be set. http://neckofjonathan-thomas.blogspot.com/2010/11/hotbeds-of-illness-que-leche.html Now on to other things. Perhaps the most important or significant of recent developments is that I am currently teaching at ECA in addition to English and tutoring in Alovera. The high school math teacher had to go back to the United States to work on renewing her Visa, (always a nightmare from what I have learned). She was in desperate need of substitutes, I said I would not mind helping, and since last Wednesday I have been teaching Geometry, Algebra 2 and Precalculus. Though it is difficult and takes extraordinary amounts of time to prepare and go through all of the problems ahead of time, I have really enjoyed it. I am supposed to finish this coming Wednesday, BUT, there is a chance that Visa issues will delay Mrs. Williams a bit longer. We shall see.

Rachel and Carissa Surprised me for my birthday!

Anyway, this is somewhat related to the next thing. I always think I feel like I semi know what direction to head in. BUT, that always changes, and teaching at ECA ushered in a new era of my life in Spain. Working with the children during our English activities is very enjoyable, but I love the challenge of demanding subjects with high school children. I have not taken any math classes for ages, especially the ones that I am teaching, but I love it, especially Algebra 2 and Precalculus, (though Algebra 2 is still somewhat in the lead). Through assorted events, conversations and experiences, I have realized how much of a need there is in Spain for a number of things. Though I know that is a bit vague, I hope to expound on it somewhat relatively soon in this email. Firstly though, just at ECA in Camarma, there is always a need for teachers, and just working with the students and seeing them learn, struggle and succeed has really impacted me. We all want the best for our children, and people here are no different. BUT, the availability of a ‘quality’ education, or at least one that we are used to, is significantly less accessible here. I have recently talked to a few people that are actually teaching in Spanish schools, and listening to their stories makes me hurt for the people of this country. There is so much potential in every person from the moment that they are born, but it takes special people to nurture those gifts, talents and abilities. Sometimes, parents can fulfill that role, sometimes teachers, sometimes friends, but if there are not people in a developing child’s life, a large portion of that vital development does not occur. I am not sure exactly what I am trying to say with that, because I have not had enough time to process it myself, but regardless this has been something on my mind continuously.

Carissa and I beginning our long day in Avila last weekend

Since my blog post, a number of things have happened. As I mentioned in my previous email, I am not at all certain what will happen after my time here. I have been looking for opportunities and have attempted to create opportunities to the best of my ability. Additionally, I have been praying and looking for a sign. Until last weekend, I still felt utterly lost, but as of this last week, everything has changed. Firstly, someone talked to me about Salamanca, which is the best place to study Spanish in the world. It is a smallish old city Northwest of Madrid, and has multitudes of Spanish programs, and a quality University. Anyway, I was really excited about it and felt like it was the first solid direction that I had received, and I had already been thinking about doing something of the sort. THEN, two entirely different and separate people talked to me about it over the course of the week, and then I met another person just yesterday who went there as well and raved endlessly about it as did all of the rest. I am so excited about the even the possibility of attending the program there. The only problem is, I am not sure exactly how I would fund this operation. I don’t think it would necessarily be the greatest thing to pile another loan on top of my current one for college, BUT…. Now to the next part, (Everything will eventually be explained, hopefully).

Not dangerous at all! (good thing you can't see the huge DROP)

Another thing that I have been considering / talking to people about is returning to teach in some capacity. There is a program through the Madrid community that accepts native English speakers to teach in public schools, BUT I would not be able to do it until the fall, and the provided stipend is designed to reduce any worker to consigned squalor, poverty and destitution. That is not entirely true, but it would not be possible to make loan repayments while working. A different option would be to teach in private schools, academies or programs, which is significantly more feasible and appealing. Teaching is still not necessarily my most desired career choice for the next year or so, but it is an option for returning to this country relatively soon. This weekend, there was a second English camp at the same location. We were only able to go Saturday, and ended up having to leave just before dinner, but we had a nice time and while there I met a slew of teachers, both Spanish and American. I talked to a number of them about their experiences, my current situation, and where to go from here at great length. Hopefully, things will start to open up and offers will be made over the next few weeks, but I am still not sure. I will just have to see what possibilities there are. BUT. Back to earlier, kind of, I am going to try to explain how I feel about things.

I decided to make Rachel feel daring...

After being here for over two months now, I have adapted to and come to love the culture, people and way of life here in Spain. My Spanish has been greatly improved, and for the most part I am largely self sufficient. My speaking ability is adequate, though not the best. Usually I can get across my point though in somewhat roundabout ways, and almost always can understand mostly everything if I can figure out the context. Sometimes though, especially when I am ultra tired, I am just completely lost, but that doesn’t happen too often, or bother excessively when it does. Nonetheless, after so much work and adjustment, I feel like returning to the United States for an extended period of time would be greatly detrimental to everything that has happened over the course of my time here. Clearly I will not be speaking Spanish or surrounded by it, and everything that has slowly built up will be pulverized by a vicious flood of eradication in mere moments. Additionally, my goal and dream has been to work in Europe and learn more languages. I am incredibly motivated and eager to become bilingual in Spanish as soon as possible. My current level is something that I want to expand rapidly, and I think that if I went to the Salamanca program, or another intensive program here in Spain, it would be possible for me to be mostly fluent within a year or less. Of course, there are many linguistic things that only come with time, and I am well aware of those factors. But, I think if I worked hard enough, within a year I could have a steadfast foundation and functioning usage of the language that would be more than adequate, and would hopefully prepare me for a job either in complete submersion, or a bilingual culture.

Continuing on from these thoughts, teaching seems more feasible in a number of ways, especially considering the fact that I would actually be earning a salary, BUT my advancement within the language would be hindered, and I can easily foresee being sucked into the system for five years, and still not being at the desired linguistic level after even such an extended period of time. There is still time, and I need to do more research on both options, but the teaching still just does not feel like it the right direction. Hopefully though, time will tell, and the choice will be relatively clear.

Wow this is already incredibly lengthy, and I have only covered a selective fraction of what I wished to cover. Very well then, I will address one more topic, namely the title of this update, and then retire for the already too late evening. VESTIGIALITY. Yes I know it is not a word, but it should be. It is an adjective and an adverb, so why can’t it be a noun? Silly English.

Hardcore Parkour!

I have been thinking for a long time about how to sufficiently explain the spirituality of this nation, but have struggled consecutively. I came up with this analogy just the other day, and hopefully it will help to explain the situation somewhat, but I still think it is not possible to understand unless you have been here and interacted with a wide variety of Spaniards for a great deal of time. SO. Spain is a Catholic Country, and that is fine. The problem though, is that for upwards of 85% of the population, if not more, Catholicism is vestigial. What is vestigial? Well, specifically regarding human beings, vestigial is a term applied to organs, processes, and even molecular structures that are either no longer in use, or have a purpose that is not what was originally intended. Perhaps the most visible example, is the little nub in the corner of our eyes that I frequently feel like cutting out whenever my eyes get really itchy from allergies. This has absolutely NO purpose or function, and is believed to be a remnant of a nictitating membrane, which a variety of animals, reptiles and birds require for various reasons. It is what makes dog’s and cat’s eyes reflect yellow at night, though it is quite different for them than with most other creatures that use it. I will spare the lecture and simplify it with this explanation: in other animals, it is a third eyelid that closes horizontally to either protect the eye, clear debris or to provide moisture. The remnant of the nictitating membrane in humans is a perfect equivalent to the majority of Spaniard’s Catholicism.

Throughout history, the Catholic Church has been possibly the strongest player in the Spanish arena of control. Many things were brought about by the Church, in both good and bad ways. Historically, the society and foundation of this country is Catholic. However, the country has evolved over time, and now the church is merely a decorative vestigial organ. There are a number of reasons for this that I could explain and will if you are interested, but I don’t believe that they are required at the moment. Children are named after saints, many go to Catholic schools. There are countless religious festivals and holidays, but these are quite misunderstood. For the most part, it is like celebrating the Fourth of July, or Flag Day in the United States. People dress up in red, white and blue, wave their little flags, have parades, a barbeque in their backyards, and then go back to their daily routines. It is not a religion. These religious holidays should not really be seen as religious holidays. Yes they are, of course, and the priests and nuns and a dismal percentage of the people involved are thoroughly ingrained into the discourse of their spiritual lives, but for everyone else, it is just a day off, with fun, food and parties. Similarly, the structure of their lives has a Catholic flavoring, but when tested there is no substance and the framework crumbles to dust. I still do not think that I am explaining this adequately but don’t know how to. The people are Catholic, but they are NOT Catholic, and that is something that is so hard to understand / explain. The churches are full, but of tourists in gaudy outfits that are only there to take pictures of the HISTORIC VESTIGES of a bygone era.

I just wrote an additional chunk but it is very late and I am tired and feel like this is something better discussed under lucid conditions. SO. I will end here. This is key to understanding things here, and what I have just talked about brings a whole mess of problems to the table, but if you can at least somewhat understand the situation from this, then I will have been at least partially successful in this. I am going to put some pictures up on the blog but it might take a day or two. This email will be there, hopefully by 5:00 EST tomorrow everything will be ready right here: http://neckofjonathan-thomas.blogspot.com/

Please pray for Spain

Please pray for guidance for me

Please be thankful for this time with your families, friends and relatives as the Thanksgiving season descends upon us. Rejoice in the time that you have together, and cherish each moment of time that you have been blessed with, because we never know when our time here will run out.

God Bless you.

Love Always,

Jonathan

Hotbeds of Illness.... ¡QUE LECHE!

2010-11-04T19:04:00.000-04:00

bobbing for apples at the ECA Fall Festival

I feel like I always start off with something along the lines of… ‘SO MUCH HAS BEEN HAPPENING…’ But really… it is the truth. Anything else would be a vicious lie. Each week feels like a month, and each day feels like two, three, or four. Oftentimes, especially when we go places, it feels like I have Alzheimer’s whilst attempting to conjure up what happened only six, seven or twelve hours earlier in a given day… So sad! I am semi-worried about losing my memory, because I feel like I already am. I have somewhat lost the capacity to speak as well… especially when it is a rigorous and grueling discussion in English… I simply cannot remember words, or mispronounce them, or spanishize them… but I am not even fluent in Spanish… so… I just don’t know.

Langostinos... HUGE shrimp. The second time I have eaten them...
they just look SO gross...

That was a whole lot of nothing, please forgive me. I just wrote two paragraphs, realized I already talked about them in the last thing, and am starting over again. I went to church with Kevin two Sundays ago and really enjoyed it. We have had two weeks of class now without Sarie, and everything has gone swimmingly. The kids are mostly well behaved, but here and there are a few with infinite energy… and can be challenging to control on occasion. BUT. It is still wonderful, and we have been having quite a bit of fun. It is wonderful, I laugh so much every day here, and feel like it will keep me from ever getting old at heart, or weary of life. There is just so much to live for! - Mmm… we helped out with the Fall Festival at ECA… which was very enjoyable. The weather here is so beautiful! Even today, though it was cold in the morning, it was hot and sunny during the day, I love it!

I began meeting with Ignacio two weeks ago and have really enjoyed it. We are moving forward very quickly and he is doing a great job! I still have yet to meet with another person; three times now it has fallen through. A ver… This last weekend, I went to Escorial by myself on Friday, and it was marvelous. El Escorial is a huge monastery / palace up in the mountains, a two hour train ride from here… quite the trip. It was so beautiful, and the weather was just peachy. Because of the altitude and location, it was actually fall-ish there… it was windy, leaves were in the air, as well as the occasional smell of fire, and it was blissful. I wandered through the mountains, throughout the town, the monastery, the gardens, and some of the largest parks that I have seen (city parks that is). Just amazing. A wonderful day of relaxation and rehabilitation for body, mind and spirit. I also had some ultra tasty hot chocolate, which made all of the difference. I was granted the opportunity to wait an additional hour after the train left without warning from the wrong track… all forty of us were so pleased… so I had some picatostas with the ‘real’ hot chocolate, AND a tarta de queso… kind of like a cheesecake… but not really at all. I wish I had a picture of it.

Pulpo - Octopus... I had been waiting FOREVER to try it!

Saturday… we had been planning to meet someone in Avilla, but it was a three hour train ride both ways and we were not up to it… we putzed, then met up with our friend Sophia from ECA in Madrid, who was showing some of her friends around Madrid who were visiting from their jobs teaching in Prague, (one of my favorite cities!) Interestingly enough, one of the people that was visiting was one of my friends from Grove City! I knew she was in Prague, but had NO idea that she would be coming to Spain. The weather sucked ultra sour grapes… so the whole sightseeing gig sputtered to a screeching halt. Substitute (as always) pastries and the day was greatly improved. We then had a three hour long lunch that became dinner… then went shopping in the city for the jillionth time. As usual, we did not get anything, but it is still fun. NO! We did actually, Rachel got an Audrey Hepburn poster. Meanwhile, we had been waiting to hear from Kevin… we were planning on staying with him so we could go to his church in the morning (the girls had not been there the other day that I went). I had called him in the morning, but he was at work, and only had a moment to talk. Naturally, it was in Spanish and ultra fast. I understood everything, OR SO I THOUGHT… but that’s not really true, I did understand. I had my suitcase with me, and the girls had their backpacks, I had one too of course, and he said we could take stuff to his apartment, but that would take about two hours, so I said we would just go over later… and we would tell him when we were ready and he should tell us likewise.

El Escorial

As usual, the drama was not performed as written, and havoc ensued. Around 9 we started calling / texting him, but his phone was off. We crashed in Starbucks for some much needed warmth and refreshment, then headed off to Ciudad de los Angeles… got there around 11 something, and were greeted with an empty apartment. We snuck in the lobby and waited, but the lights wouldn’t stay on and we were really creepy, so we retreated outside to the blustering wiles of the night, eventually caving and hampering down in a bar to have a delicious late night appetizer and hot chocolate, and finally met Kevin after midgnight. We learned, or at least tried to learn how to Salsa, Rumba, and some other Columbian thing. In other words, hours of laughter and fun. Probably my favorite part though, before we went to bed sometime between two and three, we all sat down together and prayed and read some from the bible in both English and Spanish. We went to church with him the next day, it was really nice, wandered aimlessly around the city, had some food, missed our train, missed the last bus, and walked home for about an hour and fifteen minutes… WITH A HUGE SUITCASE. NOT the most enjoyable, but the rest of the day was great so it balanced out.

Segovia's Cathedral

Monday, we were all exhausted, so we recovered in our respective locations. I ventured over to visit the English House at some point, we played some games and had a good time, then went to our favorite little Aloverian dive, Hernandez, what a place! The people that work there are so nice, and all of their bread products, especially pastries, are sumptuously sweet and succulent. Tuesday, we went on a massive expedition to Segovia, and it was absolutely perfect. The weather was second to none, and the sights were breathtaking. We have finally developed a good plan for devouring cities. We see a bit, then go out into the country. We looked at the Cathedral from the outside, and kept going. We went in the castle (supposed inspiration for the Orlando and Paris Disney castles… I believe it) and it was fine. But after, we tumbled down the precipitous cliffs into a park and wooded valley… and had the most fun ever. We frolicked, photographitized, and laughed for centuries. The only misfortune was that we had not eaten all day, and by then it was nearly six pm. ROUGH. We escaped from the inveigling allurement of the valley back onto the escarpment of the cliffs… and finally made it back to the city.

I cannot believe that I forgot to mention the Aqueduct! It is HUGE and beautiful and perfectly unblemished. Just gargantuan, and extremely impressive. So precise! I kept thinking about how it was built and the exact measurements needed before even the first stones were cut. I also was thankful that I was not there to help build it. Yuck. Back to the future… we barely made it into the first eatery we saw, and collapsed in a heap. We had baby bocadillos and béchamel sandwiches. SO NICE. Kind of. Then skedaddled… we took the high speed train out, such a good choice, went to an ultra delicious Italian restaurant in Madrid, missed two trains, missed all the buses, and had to walk home AGAIN. This time I got home around 12:50… but it was beautiful out and a nice refreshing walk, though Rachel had by this point become gravely ill. (Not to mention... Julito, Luisa, Julio and Teresa have been circulating the plague for almost a week and half now, and just yesterday Carissa's health has failed as well. I alone am a bastion of strength... we shall see how long it is before this fortress falls to dust)

Alcazar

Since then, Wednesday we… did something, (notice the trend of ambitiously long days without the proper amount of recuperative sleep) had classes, I met with Ignacio, then came home, and worked on a project for an excessive number of hours that I HAD to finish… and eventually did shortly before one I believe. I should have done my homework then for my Spanish classes today, but couldn’t function, so I went to bed and sat up thinking instead. Good choice! Today, I was able to finish my homework in time, then we had Spanish. We had to take two buses to get back today, so didn’t have a whole lot of time to get ready, but the day went smoothly.

So much fun!

But the best part… today, we have all been so tired that we have been giddy since waking, and it has proved to be a humorous and enjoyable birthday. On the bus rides, we laughed and talked the whole time, and on the final leg of the second trip, we were crying because we were laughing so hard. After hearing our attempts to create new nicknames / words related to Squinchy squimple and quilmp… the delightfully jolly gentleman in front of us grew somewhat tired of our endless tirade… (we were actually not being that loud… we could barely get out a sentence, before crumpling into balls of silent gut-wrenching laughter…) and decided to make a stand. He started ‘talking’ to us… but really it was just shouting without gestures. He said that if we were here to learn Spanish we should speak in it, and kept going on about that, then said that we should be a little bit less loud, with a few choice words that really made his speech eloquently foul. I was actually really upset, but the girls were bubbling to burst with laughter. Fortunately, the girl in front of me stood up for us some, but unfortunately for her, he started shouting at her. It was very interesting, a real good laugh afterwards for sure, but I was sad that I got yelled at, even if he may have just been a jerk. It is always difficult for me when people are angry or upset with me and I don’t completely understand why.

Beautiful weather and gorgeous geography

Anyway, classes were good, I came back home, and Teresa, Luisa and Julito came out singing happy birthday with a cake and a present! They got me the coolest gift ever! Little woven Spanish cufflinks that are red and yellow, I can’t wait to wear them, what a perfect present! J

Now I am finally finishing this update, and then bed hopefully. It has been a very long, enjoyable, and interesting day. Thank you everyone for your comments, thoughts and wishes on this day!

¡Dangerous Dichotomies!

2010-10-25T16:26:00.001-04:00

We ARE the windmills... definitely one of the best places we have been to

GORGEOUS

Courtyard of the Mezquita - quite nice

Inside

Córdoba

TEAM' started Spanish Church in Utreta

Just one of the wonders of Sevilla

My little friend!

Seville Cathedral

Our brief affair at Torremolinos... Southern Coast of Spain. Nice, freezing water, and rain... but still a good day

Luke's 10th Birthday! - Science themed

Carissa sucking the egg out of the flask... SO gross

Coke / Mentos rockets

English Camp! Peña de Horeb - SO pretty

Our new friend Kevin

And Will!

The only fall-looking place I have seen in Spain

Kevin and I went swimming in the river... It was crystal clear, fresh, and LIKE ICE.... I WAS SO COLD.

But it was really refreshing, and ULTRA worth it.

I can’t BELIEVE that it has almost been a month and a half since I arrived… and that I am already halfway through my brief Spanish foray. Things have really been picking up pace, and time is largely non-existent. I wrote a blog post about English Camp, which was the weekend before this most recent one. It was SO wonderful, and I will try to briefly summarize. We didn’t know really know a whole lot about what we were going to be doing, but knew we would have conversations with Spanish people to help them practice their English. I was quite surprised at how well most of them could speak, some were 100% fluent, and we talked about an enormous variety of things. We actually made some friends with Spanish people, and have already done a few things with some of them. The camp was by far one of the best things we have done since our arrival. It was wonderful to talk about extremely in-depth and sensitive issues with people without having to struggle through every step. Yes we struggled somewhat, but it was still a wonderful weekend. The location was fantastical as well, up in the mountains, with a crystal clear river, an ancient bridge, olive orchards and grape vineyards. In sum… excellence in all aspects.

Other things that have been going on… I started meeting with a number of people to help them with English. I meet with a man named Ignacio on Wednesdays, and Raul on Thursdays. I also have been tutoring Juaquin, a high school boy on Fridays, which has proved very interesting. We worked on Gerunds in English the other day, which was quite amusing. Most people don’t even know what they are, and it doesn’t help that they don’t really exist in Spanish. SO. I had to explain what they were in Spanish, though that isn’t quite possible… we had a few good laughs, but he understood and that’s all that matters really. Mmmm. I loved all of the people that we met at the English camp and wish I could see them always! I think we might possibly be doing something with some of them this coming weekend, and we have already spent some time with our friend Kevin. He lives in Madrid, and I went to church with him yesterday, it was a LOT of fun! His birthday happened to coincide with Rachel’s, so we went to Madrid to have dinner, I stayed at his house, and then got a haircut Saturday. WHAT a relief! I couldn’t take it anymore, it was too long. Today was our first day of class with Sarie on her sabbatical… in a sense. She in the U.S. with her eldest son to look at colleges, and to get trillions of things done that missionaries always need to tend to on their home assignment.

Speaking of the Andersons, I met with Paul today, and we have begun studying a book that is quite interesting. It was enjoyable to have a very stimulating and challenging discussion today. Sometimes I feel wishy-washy because often even having the simplest of conversations is significantly challenging. Also, this transitions into the main point of what I intended this update to be about. Since I am halfway through, I am feeling more and more pressure to figure out what to do after my return date. I tell everyone that I talk to how much I love Spain and will do almost anything to come back for a few years. Not forever I think, but I would love to work in the city, go to school a bit, and then after four or five years get my MBA and reevaluate where I am and where I am going. BUT. This all relates to the subject of this email… dichotomy. There is a HUGE one that is omnipresent in each and every one of our lives, and I am not sure that I have quite figured out how I am going to approach it. This dichotomy that I speak of is the difference between the Christian and the Secular world. I could talk about this for hours but will do my best to keep this short, succinct, and not unnecessarily detailed or repetitive. I have been trying to figure out whether I want to go into something with business, or something with teaching etc. But, I realized today through my discussion that what we do (occupationally) isn’t necessarily so important, as long as we have a strong and solid foundation, and have DECIDED our motivations. This sounds easy, BUT… think about how many families, how many people, wake up in the middle of their life, are unhappy, have ruined their relationships, have piles of things they bought but never have time to use, and don’t know why? The answer is: they have not LOOKED at themselves. Very infrequently do I come across people that truly know who they are and what they are about, and that is not a good thing. I have talked to my friends countless times about things like this, and feel like we never get anywhere. Not to say at allthat I am perfect in this regard, because clearly I am not, nor are any of us (sorry if you didn’t know or agree with that). BUT. It is SO important for us to not lie to ourselves about our motivations for things. On the other hand though, I know people that couldn’t even figure out what their motivations are for things if these motivations were sliding little needles into their eyes, (maybe that is a little dramatic). Anyway… I would encourage all of us to look a little deeper, dig a little farther, and maybe just maybe we will be able to realize what we truly want / believe. The things you find may not be the most pleasant, but you need to know and understand before you can work on them to change.

So, I guess my ‘crisis’ really isn’t truly a crisis at all. I just need to figure out what my life goal and purpose is. Is it to have material wealth and comforts? Or something else? I know what it should be. It should be to become a vassal of God and serve Him through whatever way He sees fit. I should avoid the rat race of life, and stick to the things that are important for me. ONE OF THE MOST important things that we have in this life are our relationships. They are the most work, the most difficult to build; true relationships cannot be bought, they are like a stone wall, that takes ages to put up, and needs constant work to maintain or else it will just turn into a ruin like those all over the country that I am in right now. Satan makes us think that if we don’t join this committee or that board, or volunteer to run this, or pledge to run that, that it either won’t happen or will be in ruins. The truth is, we need to manage our lives. Even if it is something that we love, it isn’t necessarily the right thing for us to be involved in. Before we makeany commitments, we need to prayerfully consider whether this is an area that God wants us to be involved in. It is great to be involved in Church, in the community, in your children’s schools, and in the art society. But if we are only rushing around to meetings, getting stressed out, working ourselves to the burn, not having time to think let alone pray or read each day, what purpose does that serve?

I am still not doing exceptionally well in this area. I love people, love helping people, and don’t feel useful unless I am constantly busy doing things. But that is not healthy, and it is not glorifying God. We need to be very careful, with each and every little decision that we make.

¡OOF! I didn’t mean to go off on that for so long. I am quite tired and need to get my rest for Spanish lessons tomorrow and then classes. Hopefully there are a few things you can think about here. Hopefully you have bitten the bullet and plunged in to read this far.

Lastly, a few prayer requests:

1.) Please continue to pray for my friend and his family

2.) Pray for Carissa, Rachel and myself that we are able to adequately run and maintain the English program while Sarie is in the U.S.

3.) Pray for Sarie and Christopher, for their safety and return, and hopefully at least some rest

4.) Pray for opportunities: to reach more people here in Spain, for relationships to grow and flourish, for people to realize that their motivations are off, and for ALL of us to realize the causes and results of our actions, whether they be foolish mistakes, or be they based off of shaky connections in our moral fiber.

~Jonathan

Campamiento del Campo

2010-10-19T17:27:00.002-04:00

Wow, I am actually writing a blog post! Just three days ago I embarked on a remarkable journey that has proven to be the penultimate event of my existence here thus far. And if you were not sure… I didn’t exactly use the word correctly, but I like it so too bad! (Penultimate… there now I have used it twice). At a foolishly early hour, we departed for al campo, the country, to help at the Muckle’s English Camp. All I knew was that they needed native English speakers to have thirty minute conversations with Spanish people. Sarie mentioned that there would be a variety of levels of English from Intermediate to flawlessly fluent. Completely Irrelevent: ¡I am extremely excited because I finally figured out how to reset my keyboard to facilitate entering Spanish accents in all programs fairly easily! But anyway.

So English Camp. We got there, there were trillions of Spanish people and we didn’t know anyone and felt like large ugly flies on the wall. But then we went to breakfast, which was fantastic, because I had not had the opportunity to partake prior to departing. At breakfast, we received our first indication as to what the remainder of the camp would be like. We sat with two couples, but the other one didn’t really say much to us. The talkative couple lived in England for some period of time, and we talked about a wide variety of things, though I cannot really think of any at the moment, other than how we said ‘walk it off,’ or ‘burn it off,’ in English. They were comparing this to the Spanish variety, which consists of bajar la comida… beating it down and out essentially… (after you have had far too much to eat and need to dispose of it somehow). We enjoyed our time with them immensely, and have already been in touch with them!

During the day Saturday, we had three thirty minute one on one conversations with different people, and had two hour long workshops. The conversations were great, I was lucky and had people that spoke English extremely well for all of mine on Saturday. I began with the usual, where are you from, who are you married to, do you have children, etc. But, I quickly pushed them to a whole new level. We were given a suggested question sheet if we ever ran out of questions… HA! I certainly didn’t need it. I asked them what they thought about certain things in life, something that means a lot to them, etc. I was trying to get them to answer abstract things, which is quite challenging in a non-native language. We eventually ended up talking about immigration and some resulting problems, the educational system in Spain and needed reforms, copyright issues and China’s purposeful blockage of enforcing infringement, and the effects that such policies have on companies, globalization and ‘Americanization,’ and myriads of other subjects.

Not only was it wonderful to finally be able to talk to some Spaniards that actually could hold a conversation in English, but it was extra great to actually discuss topics other than the superficial ones we have become accustomed to. We ended up having a bit of free time Saturday for siesta, and decided to go to the Roman Bridge. We were fortunate and had a very nice camp facility up in the mountains. It is the only place in Spain that has anything similar to Spain as far as I have seen. There were trees with yellow leaves! It was GORGEOUS, and there was a crystal clear river. It was so refreshing to be able to stroll through ancient olive groves and vineyards while talking with intellectuals from the country that we have been in for over a month now. Back to siesta: we walked to the bridge, then a small group of us, consisting of Rachel, Carissa, me, a middle aged couple whose daughter goes to ECA, though is Spanish, and a single guy named Kevin, detached ourselves and made a run for it! We decided (upon my persistent prodding) to venture to the top of the mountain, because it looked even better. Of course it was! And the multi-hour expedition proved to be the best of the weekend. We talked SO much, again about extremely interesting things, and it was amazing how open everyone was with each other.

Yesterday, before our English class, we were talking to Sarie about the camp, and how awesome it was that all the barriers that people keep up constantly here were obliterated and nonexistent during the weekend. People really opened up to each other and to us. I could talk about this alone for two pages, but surely that is not necessary. If you want more, email me and I’ll send it! J This is already much longer than the short tidbit I wanted… So I will hurry now. Camp was great, and we actually made some friends, especially with Kevin! He is from Colombia, and has been living in Madrid for almost three years now. I actually just hung out with him in Madrid today, and the three of us are planning to do something with him this weekend. I have two meetings a week now with two men from the community to work on their English, maybe my Spanish, and to discuss a whole variety of things. We also have four hours of Spanish lessons one of those days, followed by three hours of class. So. Lots and lots to do. I am also starting to tutor a high school boy this Friday… It is almost incomprehensible how suddenly everything has started happening. We are also planning to meet with other families that we met at camp, and are going to be attending ANOTHER camp in the beginning of November, and I can’t wait!

Sarie was not here today, so we ran everything by ourselves. It went relatively smoothly, which was quite nice. But it was just a taste of what is to come. She is leaving for two weeks to help her son find a college and do other missionary related things in the U.S., and is going to be crazy busy! We will have to fend for ourselves, but I am confident that with lots of preparation, and prayer, we can get through it. I am actually fairly caught up with pictures for once, which is a rare treat. It is my intention to put up some pictures from the South and from English camp this week, but we shall see. There is not a moment to spare from here on out… but I will do my best to magic up a little bit of extra time.

Pictures... FINALLY

2010-10-13T17:16:00.000-04:00

Teresa!

Julito! (Julio Jr.)

Julio Sr.

Luisa! (I can't believe I haven't put up pictures of them until now)

Joined by a few of our kiddies

Sarie Anderson! (the not-child) - she is the BEST and we work with her every DAY

An amazingly awesome activity

Toledo from the bottom

One of the Olive groves that I happened to meander through on my Osuna fest

One of the exposition buildings in Sevilla.

Part of Seville's Cathedral from above

Our little mascots! So precious

I have had some difficulty uploading pictures... so this is it for now. They aren't edited except for the paddle ones... sorry! I thought it would be good to show something even though I may be half a month behind... haha.

If you did not get my email update... here it is!

Unduly Late Update

It feels like I have been here for a year. Although I am still rather infantile in my day to day activities and interactions with people, I had an extensive conversation today in Spanish with the Caricols, namely Julio, about everything that happened this weekend. But, instead of just keeping it at a typical conversation about what happened etc, we pushed pretty deep, and I explained some what some things that I have been thinking about and that have been on my heart. My vocabulary regarding such things is not the best, but in a convoluted way I was able to get most everything across, and it was nice to achieve a new level. The most memorable conversation prior was about a book about a kid in a concentration camp, but I can’t remember if I already wrote about that…. Let’s see, what has happened recently.

Last weekend, we went to a mall that had that LARGEST indoor ski slope in Spain… possibly Europe I am not sure. Pretty crazy! We didn’t actually go into the ski area though, because Sarie sent me on a mission to help Christopher, her oldest son, to help find something to wear for his senior picture. We looked in a trillion stores and tried on tons of things… but eventually found something at the very last minute. Then, we watched the kids and had a game / pizza night… crazy fun! I taught everyone fishbowl, and it was great. The next day we learned how to play paddle… like tennis but not. Smaller court, less bouncy balls, walls, etc. It was fun, and I would like to play more, but there are NOT ANY public courts here at all. We all brought our tennis rackets, but have yet to play because you have to pay and reserve courts, and they are usually open for an hour or two each day, usually while we are teaching classes. Sunday night, we played Spanglish fishbowl… which was interesting. I had to write in Spanish, as well as Teresa who has the best English, and the others in English. Whatever language the word was in dictated the language that you had to give the clues in. Crazy fun!

Classes last week were very enjoyable. It is so much fun getting to know each of the kids and getting to see some of their personality come out a little bit. They dropped the whole shy first day front readily, and now are rather difficult to control. Which brings me to something that we have discussed rather extensively recently. The Spanish school system is not the best… to say the least. It is almost completely based on very large, very difficult exams… if you don’t pass at the end of the year, you fail the grade, more or less, but there is much more to it than that. The creativity of the students seems to be very limited… and furthering education is quite challenging. You have to pass a test to be able to go to college, and depending on how well you do determines which colleges you can go to, and what you can study. You have to decide around 9^th grade what you want to study, and then pre-study for that track in 10^th through 11^th, or 12^th… I can’t remember exactly, because the years of school are very different. They all start when they are three, which I think is great, but there is a lot of room for improvement. It is also virtually impossible to change your major… but people that do go to college rarely do not finish, different than in the U.S. That seems like a rather meaningless but semi-interesting summary of the schooling system here. However, I still want to get across the point that it can improve drastically, and how much of need the kids have for good teachers, especially with English, which can provide them with a way out if they work hard.

Speaking of school, Teresa, the girl that I live with, has been going to ECA, the missionary Christian school for two years now, and has improved so much in all areas that it is just unbelievable. However, I found out just recently that she is going to have to go back to Spanish school next year because the family cannot afford it. Julito really wants to go, and would excel greatly, but I don’t know if they are going to be able to make that happen, at least for a little while. He is so smart, and so full of energy, life, and a passion for learning. So, pray for them, that though they may not be at the best school, that they can still learn and receive a great education, and push themselves where they are not being pushed. Back to classes… they are going extremely well, and we are doing a lot on our own. Depending on the ages, we split them differently, and rotate through stations all teaching different things. Sarie is leaving soon to go to the U.S. with Christopher to look at colleges, and do a trillion other things for two weeks, which will leave the three of us all by ourselves running classes for 50 kids… not going to be easy! But so far God has provided when we have been in need, or had to redo everything we planned on the fly because of ability levels, technical difficulties, etc.

Yesterday, Tuesday, was a holiday, though I am not entirely sure if it was just in the Madrid province or countrywide. Regardless, we didn’t have class yesterday or Monday to keep everyone on the same page, and as usual were free last Friday. Lara Meinke, the coordinator for TEAMServers in Spain was in the area, and offered to take us with her to Seville over the holiday weekend. Of course we went with her, and it was fantastic! On the way down, we stopped at some of Spain’s famous windmills on the top of a hill in Castilla-La Mancha, famous for the wanderings of the senile Don Quixote, a national favorite… in every sense of the word. There was also a castle, which we explored thoroughly. One of my favorite things about here is the lack of unnecessary precautions and safety measures. When we went to Toledo, we could walk across the top of the walls hundreds of feet in the air with no railings, and likewise in the castle. I walked up to some platform, jumped up on the rampart in the castle, and then climbed over crumbling ancient walls to the roof. Pretty cool, and what a view! I am putting up pictures of these things on my blog while I type, though they are not edited, sorry! This way, you will HAVE to look if you want to see the pictures… because they are far too large to email. I will even give you all a treat and only type brief captions and not pages of discourse.

Beautiful white windmills on a hill with lots of wind and a crazy old castle… SO COOL! The castle wasn’t that big, but who even cares! It’s crazy how many castles there are on the continent. Including watchtowers and other things, there are supposedly a couple thousand… just insane to think about! One of my dreams was crushed though over this weekend. I have ALWAYS wanted to live in a castle… but visiting one has made me realize I wouldn’t like it at all. It would be fun to use some architectural elements from one, but they are dark, dank, drafty and depressing. I don’t think it would fit me very well. Sigh. Friday evening, we arrived in Osuna, where Lara and another family, the Niemiers, live. It is pretty big, and a cool town / city. I stayed with the Niemiers, who have two sons and a daughter. The oldest son is currently a senior at Cedarville, where both Carissa and Rachel, the girls I am working with, went to school! Only Carissa semi-knew him though. Their second son is currently a philology major at Seville University, which I got to see. Their daughter is very nice and is ten, but acts like fifteen. Interestingly, both of them went to Spanish school for most of their lives, and Aaron, the middle one, is now studying at a Spanish university. They were crazy cool, and I hope to visit them again sometime soon. It is so interesting meeting and understanding all of the different missionary families here in Spain. Each is very different, with a varied degree of integration into the culture and lifestyles. Some are quite American, while others are very Spanish. Something that is SO interesting though is the plight of MK’s, the missionary kids. They are born in a country, but are not actually natives, yet are not really part of their home culture, mostly which is U.S. of the people that I have met. One of my good friends was an MK in Spain, which is the reason I am here, and my freshman roommate was an MK from Bangladesh. I miss David so much! Anyway, that has been something that I have thought about for four years now, and understanding them and connecting with them is so intriguing to me. Speaking of which, PLEASE pray for my friend and his family. His mother has been battling cancer for years, but just recently it has become unmanageable and she will be going into hospice care. Pray that they can find peace, and enjoy the rest of their time together, and rest assured that she will be joining her savior in heaven. The whole situation has been such a testament to so many people, and has been especially moving to me.

…

It is hard for me even to continue, because that is a subject always on my mind and dwelling in my heart. Another thing that has been close at hand has been the future, as usual. What to do after December? I still don’t know, and doors are still opening, and have yet to open. I don’t know what I want, or where God is going to lead me. I would love to come back and study Spanish for real in school 5 hours a day, but don’t think that is feasible at the moment. But we shall see, it seems like there are a lot of scholarships available… but I just don’t know.

I haven’t finished about the weekend! While in the South, which is SO beautiful by the way, we went to Cordoba, Sevilla, and a beach of Malaga, kind of. Cordoba was beautiful, and is renowned for its Mesquita, an Islamic mosque that was fortunate enough to be preserved, and then converted to a Catholic Church, though most of its original architecture has been kept in place. While we were there, it POURED, so we ran into an underground eatery. While there, I tried paella, a great Spanish classic! It is basically saffron rice, with a variety of seafood mixed in, and some vegetables. Typically, it has calamari, clams, and … can’t remember. But, as with most things, depending where you order it will mandate what comes in / on top of it. it was quite good, and I enjoyed it greatly. I need to start taking more pictures of all of the food I eat… Other than that, we ate food at Lara’s house or the Niemiers. Sunday we went to church in a community called Utrera, where TEAM started a church 25 years ago. It was really cool, and extremely fun! It is wonderful that there are so many believers there, and their passion for God is quite evident. The music was fun and lively, and the message was long, but very inspirational. Crazy statistic… in Alovera, the community that we live in, there are 7,000 people, and THREE Spanish believers…. There is a LONG way to go!

Sunday we went to Sevilla to see the third largest Cathedral in the world. It was not quite what I expected, but I enjoyed it greatly nonetheless. We went up into the tower, which actually was a Moorish minaret, that horses would walk up with the Muslim singer, (not sure what you call it) to announce the prayers throughout the day. The Moorish influence in Spain is huge, though many Spaniards would say that the influence is not nearly as great as it truly is. Unfortunately, not much of the architecture still exists because of the jillions of years of wars, but many things are evident, such as the huge city gardens, patios in the south, etc. (which are QUITE beautiful). There was also a world exposition in Spain in the late 1920’s for which a number of huge buildings were built that are breathtaking. The largest one is a huge semicircle, with two massive towers, wooden ceilings, marble pillared walkways, and beautiful tilework from each province and major city in Spain. Fortunately, the weather was wonderful for our brief stay in the city, and we enjoyed it with great relish.

On Tuesday, we fled for the coast, and went to a beach of Torremolinos, basically Malaga but not quite. It was nice, but nothing outrageously awesome. The water was liquid ice, but at least it was sunny. The wind started to pick off, and was chilly due to the deathly waters. HA. I just remembered about Sunday evening. I went on a major walk by myself, and saw some ancient Visigoth catacombs, found some bones, got lost in olive orchards, which are EVERYWHERE and QUITE beautiful. I almost got bitten by a rabid dog, found some ponies covered in filth and pleading for their lives… also known as cautiously grazing, almost tumbled to my death into a Roman quarry, invaded an ancient hermitage, walked down a mountain through the town… and then back up because it started to rain. This was all in Osuna… the history here is amazing, and I LOVE it. Even just street construction is awesome, because there are multiple layers of street types, hidden arches, building foundations and catacombs under streets and buildings everywhere. J Anyway, I clicked the last picture to upload… it’s a slow process! Lara takes two little stuffed animals around, kind of like the cardboard cutout school project that became famous a while ago… you take something with you every you go, and take pictures of it. I thought this was a great idea, and immediately began looking. I found a pretty awesome thing at a multinational fair in Seville, from a country I had never heard of which was surprising. I still can’t remember what it is now though. Anyway, it is this bizarre thing that… I can’t even describe. It is kind of like a doll, but canvas and stuffed, with a huge head, then painted. Every that sees it makes fun of me for how hideous it is, but I think it’s real cute! Then, at the beach, Rachel found her object, which is even more precious. It is a purple mobile type thing… with a big umbrella is thing, and an elephant suspended in the middle, and little tassels around the edges. Priceless, but actually two Euros, one of which was found by Raquel on the beach. What fortune!

We flew back this morning… which was a wretched misfortune. This has actually been one of my only bad days since I have been here… We flew the cheap airline, left at five, got there, and didn’t have boarding passes, so they charged us forty more euros, (the flight was only thirty… what a joke!) then they made me check my bag… even though it was the right size… and charged me again. I was granted with rough news this morning, and struggled all day to keep afloat. However, we prayed before class as always, and thankfully God helped to clear my heart and mind and help me to focus on the task at hand. Though today has not necessarily been the best, that is to be expected. Everyone has good and bad days, and all we can do is recover, take the punches as they come, and do our best. I have great hope for this week and the rest of the precious little time I will be here. Spain is a wonderful place, with wonderful people, so many of which are so lost, and hurting, just like the rest of us. Pray for what I said earlier, and always be praying for this nation, as well as your own. Pray for everyone really, it can’t hurt.

I made special thank you cards before I left, and almost was late to the airport because I was waiting for them… but they didn’t get there in time… so my parents sent them here, and they have disappeared! I hope they are found… because I want to send notes to everyone with my thanks, and can’t really afford to make new ones… Oh well. We shall see what happens. Thank you again for keeping with me, and for your eyes, ears, thoughts and prayers. J

May God bless you and your families this week, and may we all cherish the time that we have had, are having, and the time yet to come with those whom we love and care for.

~Juanito baba

Tidbit

2010-10-03T19:08:00.000-04:00

SO.

It was a great great weekend! We went to the only mall in Spain that has an indoor ski-slope... pretty cool. We didn't have time to go skiing though. The real reason we went... was the opening of the first Hollister in Spain... Chris, the oldest of the Anderson's sons, needed to get something for senior pictures, so we helped him find something....

Chocolate caliente is my favorite! It is essentially melted darkish chocolate, that you drink, but also dip things in, like churros, or picatostas, or something like that... it is fried toast smothered with cinnamon and sugar... so... UNBELIEVABLE. We had it Friday when the Caricol's (my host family) and I went out to the mall to look for shoes for Teresa... so good! Luisa is such a good cook by the way... and she made the picatostas / chocolate caliente today for merienda, (the semi-meal between lunch at dinner, usally around five or so).

Today... we learned how to play paddle, which is a combination of tennis and racketball... probably 3/4 tennis though... It rocks! I want to play every day. The courts are smaller, but have walls that you can use... great great fun!

Later, Julito and I played soccer, and I learned some cool new tricks. I also came up with a new expression today... QUE LECHE! Literally.. what milk! but really, more along the lines of what the heck, or something like that. Leche is already an expression, but I decided to add que, (what) because it made more sense to me. The kids liked it at least.

PICTURES TO COME SOON!

I am downloading them off my memory card at the moment... so hopefully I can get around to them this week.

Speaking of this week... it is going to be CRAZY.

We have full classes Monday through thursday, and three Spanish lessons... T,W, TH, and then we are leaving Friday morning for Sevilla... I am SO excited!!!! It is going to be so awesome! I think we are going to the beach at Malaga, maybe Cordoba, and potentially Cadiz as well, but only time will tell.

That's all for now, I need to sleep... class tomorrow!

<3

Fresh Update (same as the email that I just sent)

2010-09-29T07:29:00.000-04:00

Crazy times! A plethora of recent events have stretched me in new ways, and pushed me into a mode of ‘super functioning.’ We were told in the beginning that being in a new culture would make us slightly tired. That has certainly proven to be true. Last night I went to bed at ten for the first time in ages, but it felt great! Anyway, classes just started Monday, and I have loved every minute of it! So many things have been happening, as aforementioned. I have attempted to organize this beforehand in my mind to make it less scatterbrained. But I have forgotten everything that I planned. Whoops!

Last week was extremely busy, but ultra interesting as well. We had our first Spanish lesson, which was a trial in itself. We didn’t get off at the right stop and were late, but ended up finding our teacher a bit later. The first hour was for Rachel while Carissa and I listened in, and then our lesson began. It was all in Spanish, and rather challenging. I was greatly inspired by our lesson though, and started working on flashcards for the 55 very conjugations of Spanish… (really there are 14… but still). Then, we went to Madrid on Friday, and Toledo on Saturday, with a new friend named will who is teaching at ECA, the missionary school here. Sunday we relaxed, and I had LENTIL SOUP! And I LOVED it! I also had a vegetable soup the other day, which was solely pureed vegetables… but I actually liked it as well. I don’t even know who I am anymore! Sadly, I still have not succumbed to tomatoes… and onions are still a struggle though I have been able to eat them.

Classes started Monday! So much fun! I absolutely love all of the children that we work with. It is so wonderful that the reason we are here has finally become a reality. We started preparing as soon as we got here, and have been praying for each of the students. Something really exciting is the fact that we have a bunch of new families and students this year. It is so exhilarating to see this ministry actually growing while we are here! So far we have had a total of five classes, and worked with at least 43 children so far. The real number that we will have is going to be over fifty, but not everyone made it to the first class… some people forgot that classes started this week, and high school doesn’t even start until next Monday. There were two classes on Monday (usually there will be three) – the first at 4 was with first and second grade, and the second class at 5 with third and fourth graders. We will be meeting with them again today, and I am so excited! They are all so cute! And it is so awesome to watch them get really excited whenever they can understand things from a new language. At the beginning, when we were talking to them in English, they were scared and intimidated. However, after they figured a few things out, and were praised for their intelligence, they lit up, and became more talkative and excited every minute.

Yesterday, we worked with another group of first and second graders, then sixth graders, then fifth graders. Working with the older kids was quintuple the enjoyment of working with the smaller ones. Not at allto minimize what working with the smaller kids is like. I would equate working with them to a 9 on a 1 to 10, and the older kids as a 13, so therefore an extra bonus! After classes, I played futból with some of the kids… and it was honestly the most fun that I have had… in a long time. There is just something so special about playing games, and going crazy with kids, that can’t really beat anything else.

Mmm. I am watching TV in English for the first time since I have been here, and it is very difficult to think about what I am writing. Sorry for a lackluster performance. Speaking of TV, I feel like two of the three shows have impacted me. In the first one, a woman was killed for doing the right thing, and it ended with some cheesy thing about leaving behind a legacy of doing right. Anyway, it made me think a lot about things, especially our lives and how we choose to live them out. While studying verbs the other night, I came across a few Spanish expressions that while not necessarily exact in their translations were still very interesting to me. Dime con quién andas y te dire quién eres—tell me who your friends are, and I will tell you who you are. Something that I have been realizing especially after graduating is who my real friends are… but looking back, it is all based off of our relationships, how we built them, etc. Friends who I invested my time, energy, faith and love in I am still in touch with, and continue to be encouraged by. But this saying, in conjunction with the legacy thing, all kind of relates. Based on how we live out our lives, and every tiny decision that we make, add up to become, in a sense, our legacy.

On a semi-divergent tangent, last night I had a boatload of epiphanies. As I said, somewhere multiple pages ago, I went to sleep around ten. For those of you who do not know, it is almost impossible for me to sleep more than 6 hours straight. True to schedule, I woke up around 4, and had trouble returning to Rapid Eye Movement Bliss. But, prior to drifting away into the interior recesses of my mind, I was scrolling through things that have been happening in my life, starting this spring, maybe earlier, up to everything that led me to being here, in Spain, doing something I would have never thought of, or thought possible even 6 months ago. Anyway, to avoid prolonging this any longer, I will attempt to now come to the point that the majority of this email was about. I am realizing, at this very second, that most people don’t necessarily send update emails of this sort, and discuss their inner thoughts, feelings, and how what they are doing has affected them. However, I personally feel that the time I have here is not my own. I, as in Jonathan Hertneky, have been sent to do something by multiple people. Though some of this clearly was through my own volition, and through God’s work, I would not be here without the support of others. So, that is why I share what has been happening within me and around me, because in a way I feel like it is your support, encouragement, keeping in touch and prayers that have been at the forefront of these experiences.

Phew! That was a keyboard-full! Hopefully it made some amount of sense. Anyway, before sleeping I prayed for quite a while for direction, in thanks for everything, and multitudes of other things. So, upon waking up, I felt like I had concrete realizations, not decided by me. Firstly, one of the most surprising things, was that I thought about staying and working in this little English House, in this little town in another country, and that I would be perfectly happy giving up everything that I had planned on doing with my life to stay here and teach English to these kids every day. DON’T WORRY MOTHER. I don’t think that will actually happen… again, who knows, but I was quite shocked by that.

Finally, I went on a little hiatus from people for the last day or two, as much as I could to retreat into myself to mull over things. Something that I have been ‘realizing,’ but couldn’t really put my finger on until last night / early this morning is what we are ACTUALLY DOING HERE. To some of you, this may be the most important part of this email. SO. Yes, we are teaching English to people, but it is SO much more than that. These children are in their prime, they are young, they are full of life and excited, and are innocent. Something that has been odd is how people, especially older people, always seem to look at me whenever I pass or interact with them with some kind of trepidation. I have realized through observing Spanish youths, mainly high school and some university, that they are not necessarily the friendliest, especially to older people. Of course, that is completely true in the U.S., and is wholly dependent upon the age of the youths, and the changes going on, fitting in, etc. Yet, what is so important about what we are doing is that we ARE young people, we are all 22, and we are pouring everything within us out into the children that we are working with. We are hopefully being great role models to these children, and their families. We are letting them know that it is ok to be nice and friendly, and respectful to their parents and elders (rather lacking here). Sigh. I did not explain that anywhere near as well as I could have hoped. I don’t know what to say, except that I can see the value in what we do, and knowing that I can help them, or guide them in some way.

Of course there is more, but this is outrageously long. Again, any questions let me know! Keep praying, not just for me, but for these children, their families, the community, and people in this country in general. And those in your own country! OOOH. Just a little bit more sorry. I absolutely LOVE working with the Andersons, I love their family, and watched their kids the other day. And, I am really building good relationships with the people I live with. We continue our multilingual discussions about all sorts of things, and my relationship with the kids rocks! I helped Julito study for his English test, and he got 100%! He is also doing really well with English, and Teresa is amazing, as always! Ok really that is enough now.

You guys rock! Thanks for being great supporters, and keep in touch!!!!!! It really makes my day when I get a new email in my inbox from a friend, family member or supporter! J

Building Character

2010-09-25T18:21:00.000-04:00

The last three days have been as busy as four weeks of normal life. I cannot even think of what happened Wednesday… ? Thursday—Rachel, Carissa and I went into Alcala again to meet with our newfound Spanish Teacher. Unfortunately, we did not bring her address, phone number, (not that we have phones to call her with…) or the name of the bus stop where to meet her. I had a feeling that the stop was not marked on the route, but found one that looked like it, and we went there! We were excessively early, because we needed to take a bus to Alcala, and then another one to meet her. Not-completely stuffed stomachs led us to browse for Churros, but the only ones we found were a.) in a sketchy purplish place with no visible door, b.) crusty stale leftovers removed to an upper shelf in case any poor soul might glance their way and offer them salvation. Pickings being slim, we forewent our only true need and pretended to satiate ourselves with cofee. I had Colacao; a not as good version of Nesquick, which is not really good either for hot chocolate, yet this was the second time I ordered it…?

We went to the bus stop, it was time, she wasn’t there, I was ready to just leave, find a nice hot churro, and go home. We walked, and then saw her finally. So, about twenty minutes after our meeting time we arrived with her at her apartment, (actually her parents I am pretty sure) and commenced our primary lessons. Rachel, who has never had any training in the lingo of Spanish had the first hour—Carissa and I shared the second. It went very well, but it was entirely in Spanish. This was a challenge for Rachel, but extremely difficult for us. She started by asking us a philosophical question: can stars tell who a person is / what they are like? If only it were that simple to understand from the beginning. Then she drew a ‘star’ and put words at each tip. We were honored with the privilege of coming up with questions to ask her to figure out what each of the things meant to her. It was quite challenging, but just as good. I thoroughly enjoyed everything about her teaching style, demeanor, patience, etc.

NEXT. We went to Madrid all day Friday. We were sure that it would be best to not plan anything for the trip, print any maps, or look at anything at all really. Paul emailed us a googleMap with a suggested route on it, and Sarie gave us a list of names of places to see and take our pictures at. We walked for about six hours, but got to see quite a bit. It really is a wonderful city. I did not really think I would like it, but unlike other cities, it is nice throughout (in the old part at least). Instead of one main shopping district, it seemed that there were lots of shopping and pedestrian areas spread all throughout the city. The layout was fairly simple, and the parks were gorgeous. We walked in Retiro park for a good amount of time, and thoroughly enjoyed our experience. I cannot WAIT to go back and visit the Museums… especially the Prado, and the Reina Sofia, or whatever it is called.

TODAY we went to Toledo. One thing that Sarie told us recently is that in Spain it isn’t so much about the destination as it is the journey there. Fortunately we took this tenet to heart. We spent ages trying to coordinate exactly what times to leave and return, because we had to take three different forms of transportation to get there and back. First, a bus from here to the train station, then a train, then a ‘high speed’ train. The situation was made significantly more challenging by the fact that transportation is significantly reduced on the weekends. Anyway, everything was figured out so that we would leave, take the train, and then have 20 minutes until the high speed. ALSO. We made our first friend! YAYYYYY. At ECA, there is a new teacher named Will, whose sister is a senior at Grove City RIGHT NOW! But before that, he just started about a month ago, and is our age, so we asked him if he wanted to come and he did. He lives in Camarma, the town the school is in, so he rode his bike to Alcala and hopped on the train there.

Once we arrived at the Madrid station, we got in line to buy our tickets. For some reason, the train that we were taking requires travelers to purchase billetes from a teller instead of a machine like ALL of the other ones. We were given a hot treat! The line was really really really long, and about every other person asked fifty questions, was not at the right place to get a ticket, or just generally confused. Sweet Vermouth! Everyone was extremely slow as well. They made sure to waddle around the room before leaving in a lascivious and sauntering manner to display to all that they were successful in buying a ticket. Our train left at 10:50. We were not on it. But it was fine, because we went into the city, and bought pastries! I had a MASSIVE chocolate croissant, with ‘Hot Chocolate.’ But they take that literally. Though it was served in a mug, it was pretty much chocolate heated up, with some milk. It was extremelyyyyy thick. So I added sugar to make it even healthier! I had some the previous day in Madrid, when we bought churros. I thought I had consumed and experienced Churros before in the US, but I was wrong. Churros are actually odd little teardrop shaped things… I guess about a 1 ½ ft pinkie sized thing, looped and then pinched together at the ends, if that makes sense. They are not sweet, and I do not especially like them. But they serve them with chocolate… I had them with chocolate caliente (hot choc..) and it was fine. But I think they also have them with dipping chocolate, which seems like it would be twice as desirable. What I thought were churros are actually called porros, or something like that. They are thicker and straight, and maybe have sugar, I can’t remember.

I AM SO TIRED. Real quick. We went to Toledo, we walked a lot, it was nice, good day. We took the train, the train, then were waiting for the bus. The other day, we waited for the bus at the same place, one came to the other side of the street, and never came back. Today, the same thing happened, and it HAD the name of our town. I got on, some guy started talking to the driver, the girls were behind him, the driver shut the door and we left. It was 9:26 or so. We went NOT to our town, and instead to something like village of the bulls. NOT close to our town, and the last bus. So… I walked on the road… then on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere with fields on the side… through the fields (bad choice…), then on a highway yet to be built… all the dirt was hard and flat though so that was nice, then on another dirt road, then on another highway to be… then finally into the very end of the town, and walked through the main plaza where they were having some performance… I think today was running of the bulls in our town and I missed it and am sad… but hopefully will see it somewhere else. anyway, I got home around 11:10 or something which is not bad. But it was a long day, and a longer week. I am very happy though, and content. Even though it was chilly, the walk was really relaxing. It was nice to be by myself out in the country, walking by moonlight and listening to the wind rustling the grasses and cornstalks.

Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!

PEACE

Some photographic depictions of events and such

2010-09-21T13:14:00.000-04:00

This is my room!!! Where I live! Where I sleep! (Notice how tidy it is) - In Spanish culture, people keep their houses immaculately clean at all times, which is interesting. I feel sometimes like every time I move I am making a mess or disrupting things, but I have gotten over it, and tidy tidy tidy.

Rachel, Carissa and Jonathan! The English House Team! (Not to mention the BEST volunteers at the race!)

The barriers we lugged around at the race

My House!

It's true! There IS a Pool! <3 <3 <3

Learning

2010-09-20T16:35:00.002-04:00

A few more days have passed, yet it already feels as if I have been here for a month! I finally went to the English House today, and we cleaned for most of the day. The house is HUGEEEEE, and almost brand new, which is really nice. I absolutely LOVE the style of the houses here, at least in this town. Though the rooms and amenities are fairly small, they are still really cool and exciting. The English House has a garage which is essentially the basement, and then THREE OTHER FLOORS! The ‘first’ floor has the kitchen, entry hallway, bathroom, and living room / family room / dining room combination, (in Spain though, all floors on the first level are actually zero, and anything below that is negative). The second floor has three bedrooms, and the third is a loft / attic, with skylights and is very roomy. The setup in my house is similar kind of, but there is no basement, and no loft. I have yet to take pictures of the English House, the town, and more of my host family’s home. Soon though! At least I finally finished editing pictures from my Europe trip this summer, which means I only have three or so months of pictures left….

It has been fairly busy since I arrived! I am already struggling to remember everything that has happened over the last few days. I have spent a lot of time with the family, playing games with the kids, talking about things, asking questions, etc. It is extremely family oriented here, which is also nice. Whenever everyone is home, we are mostly all in the same room interacting with each other, or watching the Disney Channel, or soccer games. We spent some time with the Andersons, who I really really really like, which is good, because we will probably be spending a lot of time together! We went to a few stores; I got a watch because I never know what time it is, and learned the area somewhat. Saturday, we went into Madrid, for a race for the Peace Movement. Julio works for an organization call El movimiento por la paz. He has talked to me a bit about what he does, and from what I understand, he works with illegal aliens, trying to get them residency, rights, recognition and jobs. The race was fun; there was a race for kids, a 3K, and then a 10K. We got there really early and set up all of the metal barriers in the streets, and roped off the center so the runners could run on one side, then back on the other. It was an extremely long day and a lot of walking, I think we ended up walking seven or so miles, which is not really that many, but we had to carry the barriers to and from the road, which was quite tiring after a while.

While at the race, I met a deaf man, and we talked for a little bit, but it was quite difficult. I couldn’t understand everything that he said, but I am pretty sure that he was from Colombia, and then moved to Spain, so his sign language was a mix of the two. When he tried to say what he was signing it didn’t work out very well either because it was in another language. Nevertheless, I was able to explain that we were from the United States, were here to help for a number of months, that we had just graduated college, that I had a brother who was born deaf, and a few other things. It was a really cool situation, and just goes to reinforce that God wanted me to be here. Sunday, we went into Madrid to the international church, which was nice because it was in English and I could understand everything. Church was not until 1:00, and not over until 2 or so. We went to the Andersons afterwards and did not eat lunch until 4:30 or so. On the way, the kids and I were dancing and singing in the car, and made up some songs, including a great rap that was part English, part Spanish!

That afternoon, we played a number of games, and had the most fun that most of us have had in ages! The kids, Luisa and I played 500 Rummy for hours outside on the patio, which is so nice, and has a pool! We talked in English, in Spanish, in sounds, screams and laughs… Teresa, Julio and I were all delirious, which made us slightly more crazy than usual. Suffice it to say, one round took us almost twenty minutes… The game was anything but fast.

But on to other things—as part of our ongoing orientation, we have been recording and discussing our expectations, observations, and feelings about what we have seen and experienced. I thought that I had done my best to avoid making expectations, but the more I picked through the recesses of my mind, the more expectations I realized that I had. A number of them have been hidden, only coming to light after experiencing something, remembering what happened, and then exploring my thoughts and feelings at night before going to bed. On the whole, my expectations have been fairly reasonable I think; to meet lots of people, improve my Spanish, share my faith through example, and develop meaningful relationships. I would also like to travel some, which I think will happen, and that should be enough for me!

The weather has been quite nice, perhaps in the seventies or eighties, but again the rainy season is upon us. It has rained the last few days at least for a portion of the time, but not for very long. However, with everything being so dry, the rain on Thursday, (I think...) was heavy enough that it caused some major mud slides. When we went to ECA, the Evangelical Christian School in Camarma which is where the missionary kids go, the streets were caked with inches to almost a foot of mud from the hillsides above the town. While on the topic of ECA, I wanted to say that it is a fantastic school! The people there are all great, and the staff strives to impart the students with a strong work ethic, advanced studies, and a passion for the Lord. If I happen to live in Spain and have kids, I think I would send my kids there, without a doubt!

Anyway, in church on Sunday, the pastor was talking about how we all compartmentalize our lives, especially the sacred and the secular. But, there is no difference. By that, I mean that the sacred is everything in our lives. We shouldn’t go to church Sunday morning, read our bible for a few minutes, and then meet our sacred limit for the week. Every second of every day is sacred, and our decisions, thoughts and actions at all times represent our true dedication to our faith. If someone is the worship leader in Church, but disrespects his wife, is proud with his friends and coworkers, and has nefarious business deals during the week… what do his actions in Church mean?

This in conjunction with thinking about my purposes, intentions and expectations has brought me to a new level of understanding… for lack of a better word. I have realized that all of the expectations and plans that I have had for this trip have caused a problem… I will be looking to them, rather than seeing what doors will be opened for me or what paths I can take. It was a profound and humbling realization when everything finally clicked, but hopefully I can maintain my footing, and continuously be reminded of why I am here.

On yet another note, the food has been interesting! For the most part I have really liked everything that I have tried. I ate a salad that had carrots, peas, tuna, some other things, as well as cucumbers, a few salads, a traditional Spanish dish full of onions, and a wonderful selection of meats and cheeses. There is a lot of pork here, but many types of sausage and sliced forms, many of which are fantastic! I have done my best to have an open mind and to try new things, and have been doing fairly well so far. Classes start next week, and I cannot wait to start working with the children! I am meeting with a woman tomorrow who I might be taking Spanish classes from, and will possibly be meeting a few people every once and a while that are university students or older to exchange English and Spanish. So, please continue to pray, especially for strength, endurance, guidance and wisdom. Gracias!

Bienvenido España

2010-09-16T11:43:00.000-04:00

   I am in Spain, living for the next three months in a small town named Alovera, with a lovely family of four. Teresa is the girl, who is 13 I believe, and Julio (Jr., but I don't think they say such things here...?) is the boy, who is ten. The father's name is Julio, and the mother's name is Luisa. Teresa knows a lot of English, Luisa knows a good amount, Julio Jr. knows a bit as well, but understands more than he is able to speak at the moment. Sr. Julio knows some English, so I am very excited to continue practicing my Spanish with him and other members of the family.

   Upon my arrival yesterday, I was ecstatic that I had finally entered the country that I have dreamed about visiting for so long. Immediately after getting in the car with Paul Anderson, I decided that I wanted to stay FOREVER. We shall see though. The town is very nice, it is the 'dead' season for all vegetation... while looking out of the plane window everything is brown. But, it is still very beautiful, and the dry season has ended... so rain should replenish the lushness of the area. As I mentioned earlier, we are about 45 minutes East from Madrid, and should be going there twice this weekend, which is most exciting! We are also quite close to a town called Alcala de Henares. I can't type in accents while blogging which is most annoying, I will try to find a way to attempt such egregious errors.

   I met the two girls that I will be working with in the English House, and they are both very nice. They are in similar situations in life, they also just graduated, so it is nice to have people my age to work with. The two of them are staying all of the way through July of next year, when school lets out for the summer. I WANT TO STAY! Haha, we shall see. I think I am going to take some kind of Spanish class or something while I am here, but I have already been thrown headfirst into the language. I am extremely happy that I am living with such a generous and kind Spanish family. They are very understanding, and we have done well in this limited time understanding each other. It is challenging at times, but that is the best way to go I think!

   The Andersons, the Spanish house and 'my' house are all relatively close, and we can walk to everything. I think it might be a mile or so from the Andersons' to here? Not sure. Anyway, they printed us maps today because we are going on a scavenger hunt tomorrow of sorts through the town to acquaint ourselves. But I am already ahead of them! Kind of, I walked with the girls to the grocery store, to the English House, and then through town to here... I got semi-lost, but everything worked out in the end.

   I don't have pictures to share yet, but I will definitely post them tomorrow! We started orientation today, and will actually be continuing and preparing for school until the week after next, which is when classes at the Spanish House will start. We are going into Alcala tomorrow, and I have a feeling that the next three months are going to be a riotous whirlwind of work, building relationships, communicating, learning, and then it will be time to go!

   I finally know my address... this is the house I am staying in, so if you desire to send me mail, which you should strongly want to do. I don't know how long things will take to get here... maybe a week or so...?

Jonathan Hertneky (Julio Caricol y Luisa Saco)
Avenida Maria de las Mercedes, 10
19208 Alovera
Guadalajara
Spain

   In sum... It is only my first day, but everything is amazing, and I love it all! I know there will be challenges, and already are some, however I have done my best to preempt them, and will adapt to the circumstances as they occur. Thank you all for your prayers and support! Pray that all goes well, and that we are able to reach more people than ever with such a large staff through the English House and other assorted activities this year!

The first Update - Funding Options and God's Plan for the Mission

2010-08-13T01:20:00.000-04:00

I officially received my estimated budget, and I was right on track with the $6000 figure. Airfare was budgeted at $900, and I have been working with a travel agent that gets humanitarian fares... However we have created an itinerary and it appears that it will end up being closer to $1500, which is a bit more than expected. But that is ok! Also, I am now on the TEAM website, and if you are interested in making a donation to help with the mission trip you can do so online or by telephone. Personally, I think online is significantly easier, and is instant... which is good, because I also discovered that all of my funds are due by September 1. If everything is not in by that date, the trip will be cancelled and I will be unable to go... so there really is very little time left.

If you would like to send in a check, you can send it to TEAMServe..

Address: Attention TEAMServe

P.O. Box 969

Wheaton, IL 60187-0969

If you decide to send a check, you will need to make it out to TEAM. On the check please write my name and my account number through team: Jonathan Hertneky #010903

If you would like to contribute online through credit card, follow this link: https://dlq4.donatelinq.net/qv10/Donation.aspx?MerchantID=TEAM3144 once there, click missionaries and staff, and scroll down and my name will be listed.

If you would like to donate via phone, please call 630 653 5300 - TEAM Headquarters. Once the front desk attendant answers, ask to speak with the contribution department.

Using any of these three methods, TEAM will one way or another ask you for your address. Please include it, and you will be issued a receipt that you can use as a tax credit.

If you have any questions about anything, of course feel free to email me: jhert@ymail.com or call me (412)-496-5791

Regarding what I will be doing...

I have yet to receive a more detailed account of what my duties will be, however I have come to realize that the name and stated position is not the point. I just spent the evening with my friend Rachel Paul who just recently went to China on a mission trip, and taught English to Chinese teachers while she was there. She was very encouraging to me, and told me that she had no idea what she would be doing. However, God specifically put her in the position and made everything work out, and clearly He had a purpose for her. I know that God has a purpose for me as well, or else this trip would not have come to fruition. I may end up being an assistant to a teacher in a mission. However, there is so much more involved than just that. Think of how random interactions that you have with people can profoundly change the way that you think or feel about something. Speaking to a number of people about Spain, Spanish youths in particular, has helped me to understand their mindset somewhat more. In general, they are a very broken, atheistic and pleasure-seeking people. The suicide rate in Spain is one of the highest in the world, and many people live shackled to lives riddled with addiction to drugs, gambling, alcohol and sex. My personal goal for this mission is to be a positive influence and role model to everyone that I meet. I am not perfect by any means, but my hope is that God will work through me to show the people that I meet that there is more to live for than wordly pleasures, and that each and every one of their lives has meaning, and that there is a God who loves them and is waiting for them to accept Him into their lives.

I have no idea what God's plan is for me over this trip, but that is the beauty of it. It is not possible to know God's will, or to fully realize all of the implications that our actions have on others no matter how scrutinizing we are of every millisecond of interaction with others. If you are concerned about this trip, then pray about it, and ask God to guide me through this process. So far, He has led me to the country of Spain, and I cannot wait to see where He will take me once I get there.

Thank you so much for you prayers, thoughts and support. This trip will not be possible and would not have been possible up to this point without each and every one of you, who have influenced my life in one way or another, whether you or I know it or not.

~Jonathan

VIVA ESPANA!

2010-08-10T14:09:00.000-04:00

I just found out this past Friday that I was accepted by TEAMServe to go on a three month mission trip to Spain this fall!! It appears that I will be leaving around September 15th and returning on December 14th. There are still a number of details to be worked out, but hopefully everything will fall into place soon. I am going to be staying with a Spanish family, but they are not sure which family yet. I am going to be working at the English House, which is a mission that a family created and has been running for a few years. I am not entirely sure exactly what I will be doing yet, but am not overly worried. I am sure that I will have ample opportunities to help in a variety of ways. I need to go to an orientation and debriefing in Wheaton, Illinois before and after the trip, which means I will probably leave here around the 13th, have orientation on the 14th, and then leave from Chicago on the 15th. Debriefing = ?

I still do not have an official budget, and am waiting for them to send me piles of packets and documents on everything. Until then, I was told to have about $6,000 in mind... Hopefully the final number will not be much higher than that. I am not entirely sure how I will raise even close to that much in just a month, but time will tell! Fortunately I have been working excessively and have roughly $1,000 by myself, and hope to make more before I leave. Anyway, I was thinking about sending a letter to everyone about helping to support the mission trip, but upon second thought, there is not a whole lot of time. So, if you are interested in helping to fund a portion of the trip, even if it is $10, that would be a wonderful blessing. I believe that I am going to receive an account through TEAM that people can send money to, but I really do not know how that works yet. Soon hopefully...

For now, Marines are going to be on hold. Since I am leaving in mere moments, it is not feasible to try for the January Officer Training Section. I talked to the Air Force just the other day, and it seems that a career through them is not an option. I still have to talk to the NAVY, but do not know what they will say. Regardless, I will continue to train while in Spain as much as possible, and try for the June training session with the Marines. I have a few other potential prospects for jobs, and will continue to look. My goal is to attempt to find something while I am in Europe, but I do not know how realistic that is or if I will have any free time at all. I also met a woman at work from Brazil who seemed interested in possibly having me work for her, or setting me up with something there, which would be a wonderful treat!

Until my departure, I will likely continue to work all of the time, slowly prepare for Spain (I have been studying Spanish again and reading a number of books) and try to find ways to raise piles of support in an outrageously short period of time. I attempted to push back going until October to give me more time to prepare and work, but unfortunately that is not an option.

I am extremely excited about this tremendous opportunity, and cannot wait to make a difference, even if it is just one tiny little step at at a time. I still cannot really believe that I will be going - I have hoped and worked for this for so long, and now that it is happening it is almost unreal. I will of course blog about Spain, and will probably put up subsequent information on it before I leave... Such as my address, job duties, etc.

If you have any questions, or comments, or would like to talk to me, I would love to talk to you about any of this! My school email is in its death throes and soon to expire, so from now on this will be my email address of choice. (jhert@ymail.com)

Saludos, y adios! (go in health and in God)

~Jonathan

"The Treasures of Berlin"

2010-06-03T00:52:00.000-04:00

Berlin III / Return

I couldn’t resist making the title of today “The Treasures of Berlin,” because according to our itinerary that is exactly what our final day in a city would be. We had some fantastically hot croissants at breakfast covered with hazelnuisse, which is like nutella, but even better! I haven’t seen it anywhere else, but want MORE! I do still have that entire jar of Nutella to go through first though… bring on the pounds! I am DETERMINED to finish this today, because continuing to post things after the trip seems kind of counterproductive, and the few readers who were left are now straggling off into the dust filled oblivion of the world wide web and their own supple lives. We went to Schloss Charlottenburg, which was rebuilt after the war. It is one of the few Hohenzollern palaces left, I think but am not sure. Everything is kind of running together by now. We had an eccentric tour guide, who was nice and semi-informative. After touring the palatial residences and stuff, we went outside to explore the massive Royal Park, and then the Tiergarten, which consists of about 14 miles of extravagance. Looking at the itinerary, we supposedly went to a huge museum this day, but I don’t really remember this, and it is likely that I squished it into a different day already. Oh well.

After the palace, and perhaps the museum, our teachers offered us a chance to go to a concentration camp. The majority of the group decided to go, so we went to the subway, took a few, then got off and went and looked at the site of the 1930 something Olympics, which was interesting. We didn’t have a ton of time to look around, and only really saw the outside of the stadium, but it was still neat to go there. Then we got back on and traveled to the camp. In sum, it was a bit over two hours to get to the town the camp was in, which was more than we expected. Then we ended up walking to the camp, because the buses only ran in the morning, I think. By the time we got there it was a bit after 4:30, and the camp closed at 6. We walked around and everyone got out a little bit after 6. The camp was not at all like I expected. I think I would say it was more of a memorial than anything else. Almost all of it was destroyed either intentionally or through disuse throughout the ages. A few things were recreated, but it was very hard to envision the suffering of the people in the camps. There were not very many pictures, just history of the camp and a little bit about what the prisoners went through. At first, I was irritated that we spent a large part of our last day traveling to the camp, and it didn’t really seem worth it. But, having a few hours of time to reflect and be silent, I was able to think about a lot of things, and am overall glad that I got to go. One thing that was interesting to me is that the camp itself is actually quite beautiful now. Yes there are walls with barbed wire, and a few ugly buildings, and the memories and people buried there, but nature has reclaimed it. If you did not know what was there, you would not readily be able to tell by looking. Where almost a hundred buildings stood that were created for holding, demoralizing and ultimately destroying people, there are now long flowing fields of grass, with some occasional wildflowers. Where once there were blood-soaked parade grounds are now tall elegant trees. Horrible things happened there, which is kind of a two-edged sword. First, no matter what something may look like, it will never erase what has happened somewhere. But secondly, it also shows how time does ‘erase’ things, or seem to at least. I realized more than at any other time how important it is to remember the past… I cannot exactly put into words what I am thinking, but hopefully this kind of explains. There will always be things that happen and have happened, and not that we should not mourn, or that we should always be thinking about the past… But we need to reflect on it, and use what the past has taught when living our daily lives, and when planning out the future.

Hmmm… I do not really want to write anything else after that. However, I do want to finish this now, so I will. After the camp, we rode back into Berlin, which took less time because we didn’t have to transfer at all. We were looking for a nice place for dinner, and thought that the TV Tower would be a nice place to go – the TV tower in Berlin is kind of like the towers in Seattle and Toronto… A super skinny high cement stick with a ball at the top. When we arrived in the base, we were told that dinner was booked for the entire weekend, so we set out again looking for other alternatives. The day before, we had seen boats cruising around that had dinner on them, so we went to find the dock, but were unable to find anything except for sight-seeing boats. We decided to return to where Berlin began, around the Nikolai church, and chose a restaurant because it had Wiener-Schnitzel and most of us had not been able to try it while in Vienna. We ate, and I ate way too much, I had two entrees and an appetizer. Fortunately, my stomach did not act up during the trip which was a huge blessing. Although I am not extra careful most of the time to avoid things that will upset my insides, it was significantly harder during the trip since I had absolutely no idea what we were eating or what ingredients were used. However, 13 days was my limit… I got back to the hotel and did not feel especially well. After cancelling our flight, they ended up booking us a new flight much earlier in the morning, which meant we would only get about four hours of sleep or so before we had to leave. We had planned to stay up all night, so everyone decided to play fishbowl and cards and not go to bed. I did not really want to bother everyone while being ill, so I went and paced the lobby for about thirty minutes. Eventually, I erupted and dislocated the contents of my stomach, which was not pleasant, but I figured that I would not be ill again. I went back to the room, and was so exhausted that I fell asleep with everything on but my shoes even though people were playing a loud game inches away from me. When I woke up, I felt fine, but as soon as we got on the bus I felt really nauseous and shutting my eyes didn’t seem to help. I crushed my head into my little piggy pillow, and somehow managed to not throw up on the bus. The second we got off, I threw up over the railing of the airport ramp into lunch bags, which was pretty gross… Since all of my dinner had already been depleted, all that was really left was bile, and it didn’t really feel very good. I was very concerned, because whenever I have a flare up like this, I usually end up going to the hospital because I get dehydrated. People kept telling me that I should eat and try to have water or something, but I knew that I could not afford the chance that it would make me throw up again.

We waited forever to get on our flight—British Airways flight attendants were on strike, so I think they had scabs working to cover all of the shifts, which might explain why everything was so behind throughout the day. Anyway, we waiting in line, and I kept running through the bathroom because I thought I would be sick, but ended up being fine. I don’t know how I made it through the line, but I did, and was the last person on the plane… great. I was in the first row behind first class, and saw that my seat was between two people, which I had a feeling would cause problems. Little did I know… as soon as I got there, the woman rolled her eyes and stood up, and I put my bag in the overhead and tried to get my IPod out of my backpack but it got stuck and took a minute or two, so she made a few comforting noises to let me know that standing waiting for me was not the first priority. I managed to get it out, got in my seat, and immediately felt like I was going to hurl. I felt so bad that I had to make her get up, and she said rude things to me, and I rushed to the front. Before I went into the bathroom, which was right by the flight attendants and the cockpit (it was a small plane for the first flight) I asked them if there was any way that I could move up a row just so I wouldn’t have to keep making them get up if I didn’t feel well. They told me that wasn’t possible and that I would just have to ask the woman if she wanted to switch seats with me, which did not seem at all enticing. Anyway, I went in and it happened… it’s funny almost how horrible I looked after I was finished. You know how everything leaks whenever you vomit? Such as your nose and your eyes? I was basically sobbing for the ten minutes that I was in there and snotting… and it was wretched. I wiped my face before I left, but I was cold and clammy and ultra pale, as soon as I opened the door the flight attendants jumped a bit because I looked so bad. I am so thankful that while I was in there they moved the two people in my row up so I could sit on the isle by myself. I ended up passing out and sleeping the whole way, and woke up on the runway at Heathrow. I felt nauseous every time that I moved, and thought I would be sick again in heathrow. Again, people told me to eat and drink… but I knew it wouldn’t be wise. I waited a few hours, then had someone get me a little bottle of water. I took really little sips very very slowly, and eventually just about finished it and was fine, though still queasy. I ended up having a sandwich, and was able to walk around for a bit. We got on our other flight and I slept most of the way, and then we got to jfk. I felt much better, especially after catching up on my two weeks of negative sleep… we ended up going to Manhattan to times square because Lisa and Lindsay had never been there, and Taylor hadn’t been there at night. We went to a really nice Italian Family Style restaurant named Carmine’s, had delicious food, went back, went to bed, and then I got home the next day. And that’s my trip!!!

J Thanks for reading! I had a great time, and hope that you enjoyed my trip vicariously as well as you could!

Pastry Crawl / Lost Nefertiti

2010-06-01T09:10:00.000-04:00

Berlin II

Today we walked for about nine hours straight, if not more. It was a nice day, and we saw many wonderful things. But walking for so long was just a tad too much. Anyway, after breakfast (which was pretty good) we traveled over to the Reichstag, and met up with two tour guides. We split into two groups, which was nice, because we were able to hear our guides and move much more quickly. Our guide was pretty crazy, and definitely my favorite one overall. She was extremely intelligent and informational, and shared the history of the places with interesting twists to keep us interested. We walked with her for three hours from the Reichstag to a monument to holocaust victims, which by far is one of the coolest monuments that I have ever seen. The monument consists of a huge field of cement blocks ranging from one foot to maybe ten or twelve feet high, all at staggered heights, with narrowing undulating paths in between them. The whole point of the monument is for people inside to feel confused, lost, and see fleeting glimpses of other people in the ‘maze,’ and never know if the people that they see will ever be seen again. It recreated how the victims felt, and was very powerful. I really wanted to go back to it but we never got a chance to, which was unfortunate.

The next stop was the Brandenburg Gate, which was very nice too. It is amazing that it as well as the Reichstag and some of the other buildings in Berlin even survived. Almost the entire city was destroyed during the Second World War, but the city put itself back together to create a thriving and powerful city, just in the twenty years since reunification. The area around the gate was completely obliterated during the war, but then East Germany decided to rebuild all of it exactly as it was to show the strength and prowess of the communist front. Right on the block, called the Unter den Linden, was a memorial to all victims of all wars that Germany was part of, called the Neue Wache. It was very odd, but a good idea nonetheless, and was a great symbol of how strongly Germans feel against wars. They do not want to fight or be involved in any wars, and have created monuments to the results of wars throughout their country to remind them in case they forget.

We had some lunch, and almost didn’t make it back on time to meet the group. Our waitress stole money from us so we stole her tip. Whoops. After sprinting back and meeting our group, (of course we were late) we went to the Pergamon Museum, which was pretty awesome. It is Berlin’s museum of antiquities, specifically Greek and Roman, though there are a few others lumped in. The museum houses the Pergamon Altar, which is one of the meager few altars completely reconstructed with the most and largest pieces still intact. The altar alone was so large that it probably took up about 1/3 of the museum… it was pretty impressive. I think the museum has the bust of Nefertiti, but she must have been shrouded away somewhere because I looked at everything in the museum and she didn’t show her pretty little face.

Our schedule was ravaged slightly by the overwhelming tardiness of our group and unforeseen construction. We didn’t get a chance to go up into the dome of the Reichstag, or to another tower in the city. To make up for lost time, we switched some stuff around that we were supposed to do the last day to give us an opportunity to go to a concentration camp the last day that we were there (Saturday). We sluggishly tumbled towards Nikolaiviertel; the birth-place of Berlin. This area was beautiful, and very similar to the other older and more intact cities that we had seen throughout out trip so far. We peeked around and then we sauntered back to the Reichstag to try to get into the dome. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out and it closed, but we accepted our fates, and walked to Oranienburgerstrasse, which was supposedly a great place for cafes and nightlife and music and blessings. We ended up walking along some of the neatest places in the city, with modern architecture seemingly floating on the water, hundreds of stone and marble steps. There were miles of little cafes and restaurants perching over the waters’ edge, reflecting their enticingly glittering lights across the surface of the timeless canal that smashed into our starving and impressionable retinas.

The main purpose of this expedition was to find an internet café, because our delightfully dumpy hotel only provided internet for eight Euros for thirty minutes, which was a hot joke. Eventually we found an internet café, but it was the biggest cesspool that we had ever seen. Some computers were shoved in the back, and the rest of the narrow and tepid room was stuffed with overflowing shelves of alcohol and cigarettes. A few of us decided to forgo this wonderful opportunity, namely because we would have had to wait forever for everyone to go, and they didn’t have wireless which I needed. We walked, found a few more, and then eventually found one that suited our needs, was actually clean, and had a mostly friendly clerk. Later, we met back up and started our DESSERT / PASTRY CRAWL, which was INCREDIBLY fun. Except for at the beginning… We were starving as usual, and walked along the boulevard looking for enticing things to consume. A man tried to pull us off the street to his restaurant, but it was full of elephants and only had some nasty looking deflated picture of wet dessert. Somehow we escaped, but each successive place we went to was more of a dive than the first, which was both unbelievable and disappointing.

We decided that the area didn’t seem very successful, and went to a station. Supposedly, three subways connected to the station, but this was untrue. One thing about the stations in Berlin that is semi tricky is their length. Since there are subways, trams and buses, everything is very spread out. The subway stations alone are massive, because the trains are so long. You can walk underground, walk again to another line, to another, then go up, then go up into a station, then back down, and still not have seen all of the available options. We played a game called get frustrated with each other, run around and still not know where to go. For some reason, I was not stressed out in the least, and felt fresh and energized. At this point, I think, some of our more heated group members evacuated themselves because they could not take the ‘stress’ anymore. The rest of us entered our sweets scramble with full force. We encountered a delightful stall called Le Crobag, which soon became one of our most cherished eateries throughout the city. Fortunately for us, there were two to three per station, not to mention the ones sporadically interjected throughout the ground level of the city. At the Crobag, I had a cookie and a pastry, and it was wonderful. Everyone else got something, ranging from a salami sandwich to a quintuple chocolate muffin. We walked for approximately two minutes, then quelled our hunger again at McDonalds. Clearly McDonalds was the place to be on Friday night, everyone and their German brother came out to the U-Bahn station WITH BAGS full of alcohol, got a big mac, and started their nightly festival on the tables. Good thing the police were there and ordered something, and chatted with the pre-drunkards without saying a word of warning or concern.

It was time to go, we got on something, took it somewhere, then ended up by the U5 which we actually knew how to get back from. While there, we found yet ANOTHER crobag, but passed it up. We were blessed with the presence of a private pastry place a foot from the tracks. Of COURSE we all got something there too! Jon Cospito and I decided to have a competition, and got the largest croissants ever. Good thing it was like biting into a dehydrated moisture vacuum. As soon as we got on the subway, we began to rapidly consume our head-sized croissants. After the first bite, we started gasping for air and water as the voracious pastry began to close off our respiratory system from the top. In sum, the ‘competition’ was one of the slowest things that was ever observed. Finally, after about twelve minutes, I won, and it was over at last! To pass time, we played bumper people on the U-bahn (i.e. standing without touching any fixtures and trying to get others to fall over). Everyone else loved us. Oh, I almost forgot, during the day we had gone to an enormous department store that had an extensive grocery / fine foods store in the basement. I got some tasty bonbons and other stuff, and a really cool product from Spain. As soon as we got back to the hotel, Rachel Paul and I ‘went to Spain,’ and it was one of the most enjoyable times so far. We talked for hours about all sorts of stuff while having a Spanish themed flair. We were so tired and weak from walking that we ended up literally crawling from the lobby into the elevator into our rooms.

Berlin Divided

2010-05-31T22:11:00.000-04:00

Berlin I

The first day ‘in’ Berlin consisted of traveling there from Prague. The bus ride was over five hours long, and not the most delightful thing ever. We had a lunch break at a gas station, and all I could think about was how I had been deprived of milk for almost a week and a half. I ran around screaming for milk, and finally found some. It was in a really odd carton and called milch. It was not the most pleasant tasting or coldest of beverages. A good description would be: dirty bathwater from lukewarm sinners. Anyway, I slept for the entire bus ride, which was most wonderful. We finally got to the hotel around 3 or so, and were blown away by the extravagance purchased for us by our tour company. It was the foulest remnant of block-communist era buildings, with cigarette holes not only in the walls and carpet, BUT IN THE CEILING as well. One plus, however, was that our room (since we had a triple) had bunk beds, which means we ended up with four beds total. Also, there was not any form of air conditioning, but we were lucky—it was quite cold every night, and we opened up our windows all the way and were blanketed with delightfully fresh cool air through our sumptuously thick sheet-spreads. I am ahead of myself… After dropping off our stuff, we walked for an hour to the closest subway stop, (actually one away from the closest one… but closest is an oxymoron. Closest didn’t exist, because our hotel was as far as possible from any form of mass transit) waited in a clump in the middle of the subway tunnel blocking everyone trying to get through while trying to get tickets, and finally traveled to Checkpoint Charlie – the entrance / exit to the American Quarter during the reign of the Berlin Wall.

The U-bahn (subway system), S-bahn (trams) and buses of Berlin were the nicest by far. Everything was very clean, always on time, modern, fast, easy to figure out for the most part, and the grid was extensive. After all of the cities that we had been to, especially Prague, we couldn’t image that Berlin could be nice. A few of us were talking about it the night before during our Nutella party, and were positing about what Berlin could possibly be like. Consensus said that it would just be some big big city. With stuff. That’s all. As usual, our predictions were incorrect, but we are not quite there yet. It is challenging not to write with too much hindsight, especially since this is four days behind (it feels like we were in Berlin over a month ago). Regardless, we went to the checkpoint and the museum, which was interesting. The museum was all about the Berlin wall, and very interesting. Unfortunately, only about half of it had English translations, so the rest we just had to wander around and make up stories about what the script was telling us.

After the checkpoint, we went over to the area where our restaurant was for dinner. It was in a really ritzy region of Berlin, West Berlin to be exact, which was / still is the central area of capitalism. The area was called the Kudom, but I am not sure if that is anything close to the real spelling. The region was built up during the division of Germany, so that any Eastern Germans that came over would be flabbergasted by the luxury and amount of goods available for sale. Now it is mostly the big international high end stores, like any main shopping street in any major cosmopolitan area. We walked around for a bit, but were late, so we went to dinner, which was pretty good. We had German meatballs, which were kind of like meatloaf…? But then I discovered clots of slimy onions inside so I forwent most of my meal. Dessert was some kind of cake thing drowning in mounds of bloody fruit. Suffice it to say… I did not partake. Since I was not eating, I decided to talk to our servers about things to do in Berlin / places to go. Berlin was the city that we knew the least about, and was the largest by far. They were not especially helpful—I asked specifically about places that were café like with live music, which we all really enjoy. However, one of them said that later at night the very restaurant we were in had karaoke at night downstairs, and that they would be there and we should visit. Clearly we had made our choice for the evening. Our servers also mentioned a café thing on the 23 story of the Europa Center which was only a few blocks away. After dinner we walked over and tried to figure out what they were talking about, and eventually saw a huge line of dressed up twenty-somethings waiting in line. We realized that it was more of a club than a café, but when we went over to ask about it the people shooed us away. They weren’t into our chubby American bodies and poor fashion choices. After being horribly denied, we sauntered away pretending not to be crushed and defeated. We ended up staggering back to the restaurant, but it was still too early for karaoke. Haagen-Dazs was right next door, which resulted in us succumbing to frozen dairy treats for about an hour. We talked to the workers there as well, who told us that the place we had just been kicked out of was a dump, and that there were better places over by Potsdamerplatz.

After our sensational satiation, we finally entered the restaurant again for karaoke. Our dinner waiter was working in the front and very excited that we had come back, but was quite busy so we didn’t really see him at all while we were there, and he was a little bit creepy too. Karaoke was a hot mess, but really fun. Our group consisted of about eight or so people, and we put in a total of about nine requests. Taylor went up and sang something by himself, and the crowd went WILD! It was very amusing, particularly because most of the people that went up sang English songs, could not pronounce the words correctly, and were about three and a half keys off in either direction. Some people were extremely good, especially a group of three African Americans that performed. All of them were dead on with pitches and notes, and sang exactly like all of the original artists. Impressive is not an adequate adjective, but my soggy mind is incapable of writing any better at the present. I can’t WAIT to talk about some of the other stuff that we did, especially our day plus trip back, but alas, I must.

One thing I forgot to mention earlier, a lot of the nicer streets, especially in Berlin, had storefronts for car dealers like Ferrari, Mini Cooper, Mercedes and Volkswagen. They were really classy, and much nicer than trashy lot dealerships. Speaking of Ferrari, when we were in Prague, we found the coolest little store ever with lots of sporty brands like Puma. While there, I was forced to get a backpack and a pair of shoes, which are really the only things that I got for myself from the trip. What a blessing! The shoes and backpack were not only Puma, but were Puma Ferrari!!! They are wicked, and everyone that sees them falls on the ground because their brains cease to function when affronted with such outrageously fantastic color, styles and design—not to MENTION the combination of such potent brands.

Back to karaoke—we did not go up very often because they put all of our requests off to the side in a pile, which was obnoxious, especially because we were much better than the tone deaf people that went up thirty times in a row. I think we did two or three more, and got videos of all of the performances. Just about every time, people started frothing and dancing around when we sang / dance. It was very amusing to watch. Probably my favorite part of karaoke was the VIDEOS. Like most karaoke settings, the music is all synthesized and poor, but this place had created their own VIDEOS to go ‘along’ with the music. They might have been the most ridiculous things that I have ever seen. None of them matched the words, and were all 70’s B-rated films. Horrific! I wish I had a copy of some of them. We ended up staying until 12 or 12:30, which was a poor decision. I had mentioned repeatedly that the subways would likely close down around 12:30… but people decided to flounder in their quagmire of ignorance and pretend not to hear me. Surprise! When we got the station it wasn’t open, and it took us ages to get back, as usual. Eventually we did, and quickly fell asleep, in our opulently impoverished hotel room.

Czech me out!

2010-05-30T18:51:00.000-04:00

Prague III

After the first night, we pretty much decided that Prague was by far our favorite city that we had visited. Our third and final day there was massively eventful, but almost three days ago now, and it is going to be a struggle for me to recreate the experiences that we shared in such glorious detail. I think we got up pretty early, had some breakfast, and then fled to Malastrana, the ‘lesser town’ up to the Prague ‘Castle’ Complex, which is the largest one in the world. It was actually pretty ridiculous walking along it, and I cannot even imagine seeing everything there. ‘Castle’ is rather deceptively used I should say. It was more of long buildings… that were plaster. Interestingly, most of the architecture that we have seen on our trip seems like it is stone, but is plaster instead. But, the castle was different, because parts were visible that were original, and we got to go inside and see some of the still existing pieces that were definitely castle-like. According to our guide, we were blessed with the chance to see one of the best things ever at noon… the changing of the guard. The guards were the worst that I have ever seen. They are not supposed to move or look at you, but were practically turning their heads and darting their eyes all over the place. I watched the changing of the guards through my eyelids sitting on the stones of the square. It was so worth it. While ‘watching’ the changing of the guards, Rachel Paul decided it would be beneficial to her vantage point to stick her head through the wrought-iron fence. Too bad she couldn’t get it out after the most wonderful ceremony was over… She ended up having to push her ear back against her head in order to get out. Unfortunately I was not privileged enough to witness this miracle because I was experiencing the ecstasy of a brief nap.

Our conversion after the changing left us wanton for more artistic supplementation. We traversed to the art museum and roamed through galleries. It was very interesting—they had some Goyas, Peter Paul Rubens, El Greco and supposedly a Rembrandt. I walked around and was the last one in there, it was very ‘precious.’ Precious is a special word for me… A number of our tour guides who have been linguistically challenged for some reason seem to know and love the word precious. I am not sure why, but when unable to come up with another word for intricate, beautiful or ornate, they interpose precious. As usual, I was late to meet everyone. Not having any time telling device has been somewhat of a hassle, but freeing as well. For the most part, I am usually pretty accurate with telling roughly what time it is. But, when it comes down to exact minutes… it is rather hard to know. Anyway, I was fortunate and a few people were waiting for me. We ran out, and the whole group was waiting for us, as usual. Actually that isn’t true… we went to lunch at some point before that. We got Frankenfurters from a square, and they were quite nice. Then we went to starbucks, and all fell asleep on a table. We decided to resume walking around, but I went off on my own for a bit to look at some neat shops that I had seen earlier. We met up, then we went to the museum. So now that I got that straight, I was late, and the group was waiting, but for no good reason… because they went to the ‘Eiffel Tower’ and we did not. We went and strolled through the streets, then looked at places to eat. I talked to a few locals about good places to eat, and received a wide variety of choices. None of them seemed even remotely interesting.

Fortunately, I had spotted a savory temptation earlier in the day and decided to check it out. We peeked in and DIEEEDDDDDDDD…. The restaurant was inside of the top of the hillside. It was one of the oldest wine cellars / caves in the region and was a stockpile for the ‘precious’ wines of the Kings of Prague and later the delightfully lippy Habsburgs. We were the only people there when we got there, and got a huge table that was in its own little section of cave. In other words, it was the best thing ever and then some. Of course, it was the most lavish, opulent and exorbitantly expensive meal of the trip, but that is exactly what I was looking for. We started off with soup, and I got SPINACH SOUP… Imagine that! It was the best thing ever though. It tasted like creamed and liquefied butter, was perfectly smooth, and blessed with pounds of manna. We ordered a bottle of Riesling as well, and it was the BEST thing I have ever tasted! Typically I do not really enjoy wine, but it was so soft and smooth and delicate… If it could have been symbolized with an object, it would be the finest piece of the most intricate and fragile crystal in the world… I also split Carpaccio ham with Rachel, which was quite nice. I have never really had raw meat like that, and was not aware that is what it would be, but it was interesting, and fairly tasty. For my meal, I ordered Roasted Pheasant Legs that were wrapped in bacon! I think it came with potatoes or something, I can’t really remember. At dinner, Jon Cospito had pork medallions coated with nectar from Mount Olympia. Other people had some less desirable things, but everyone loved them. We ordered dessert as well, which was also a blessed treat. The majority of us had honey cake with cream. We didn’t know what it would be, but it sounded delightful so we ordered it. I can’t really describe what it was like, kind of a thick cinnamon bun like cake with layers of delight and honey throughout. There was a pile of the purest of cream next to our cake that we consumed with relish. We lingered, and talked to our waiter, who we think was named Robert… but were not entirely sure. Oh, one of the best parts!!! They have live music every night, and the people that came in and performed were UNBELIEVABLE. The woman had the best voice ever, and a description cannot be put into words. Fortunately, we took a video so hopefully it will turn out well and sound fantastic. Actually though, I just watched it and it was not ultra good. Oh well. The point is, it was some of the best food that I have had in my entire life, I was with people that I really enjoyed, and it will be an experience that all of us will remember for a very long time.

Whilst consuming and chatting with Robert, Lisa asked where a good place would be to go for the night. It was strongly desired by all to go to some kind of café with live music, but as of dinner we had not yet been able to secure an acceptable location. He recommended a few places that we didn’t really want to go, but then said that he would meet us at a really cool mostly Czech pub down the hill by the river and the Charles Bridge after he got off work at 11:30. We thought that sounded interesting and decided we would do that. We went to the hotel, leisurely due to our recently inflicted obesity, and then took a brief nap. I think that was the last day that I put up a blog… or at least finished it, I can’t remember if we had internet then. I woke everyone up and we left to meet Robert at Zanzibar! It took us ages to get there and we were late, so we sprinted across the Charles Bridge and arrived in a state of heaving distress and exhaustion. We ended up waiting for him until midnight, but he never showed up, so we went back to the hotel and had a NUTELLA party! I bought an enormous jar of Nutella, and a loaf of bread, and we ate it and talked for hours into the night. It was quite nice.

So late / Update

2010-05-28T16:44:00.000-04:00

Internet has been non-existent and I have been quite drained. It is currently our second night in Berlin, which is wonderful, but this post is only about the second day of Prague... OOH... Good news! We found out our flight got cancelled a few days ago... because of the British Airways worker strike, but just today were rebooked, and things are fine. We are leaving super early now on Sunday, I think 5 or something from the hotel. Sunday / Monday will be a day chock full of blessings. Anyway, here is the post, hopefully it is semi enjoyable. Sorry I am so behind! I will try to get EVERYTHING done tomorrow and be all caught up but don't know when I will be able to access internet again. We are in our fourth shady hepatitis-infested internet cafe of the night... and I finally found wireless. :-)

Prague II

A day late… so this has the potential for being sloppy, disorganized and full of gaps through my experience riddled memory. Everything began rather early, at 9:00 I believe… which was not the most pleasant since we had only been blessed with approximately 3-ish or so hours of sleep. Fortunately though, we were led by our overall guide Iain, who took us around himself, was fast, and was not plagued by language barriers. BUT, it was a longggg day, to say the least. We trammed it up to the Western side of the city, which is called Malastrana, or ‘the lesser town.’ It is still nice, but nothing compared to the first district. We saw a church—same old same old. Then we walked across the famous Charles Bridge, which was actually pretty neat, but was under construction. Afterwards, we climbed the tower of the bridge’s gatehouse, which was one of my favorite towers yet. We were actually on the roof, and could look out / climb up to get a completely panoramic view of the city. As it has every day, it rained in the morning, but by the time we got to the tower things had cleared up and gotten rather warm.

The bridge tower was a success, and was followed by a trip to the famous Old Town Hall to see the Astronomical / other things clock. Anticipation built as we and hundreds of others amassed to witness the greatest event of all time, whilst children fawned over us and picked our plentiful touristic pockets. At noon every day, the clock is transformed into a magical presentation of animated characters, fantastical musical notes, and movements that bring shame to the greatest of dancers. The ‘show’ was perhaps two minutes or long, and worth its weight in Hungarian Forints (close to valueless). I guess it was interesting… but nothing that I will prophesy about in the future (a clear indicator of the successfulness of anything). An opportunity was presented to us through the leathery hands of fate, the miraculous chance to climb the clock tower and look out over the city! We did, and it was actually pretty nice, there was an elevator and the steps were wide and shallow and provided ample room for hefty honeys, backpacks, big bones and the like. While upon said tower, I spotted a rooftop terrace restaurant on top of the main Old Town Square. I pointed out the location to others, and we agreed that it would be a great place to eat. The terrace is located on the roof of Hotel U Prince, which soon became a common subject for discussion, argument and reminiscence. Anyway, the hotel has to be one of the nicest in the city because of its prime location, sumptuous décor and prestigious presentation. The food was both unbelievably expensive and delicious, but worthwhile all the same. I think my lunch came out to be $17 USD, which is not bad, but compared to other meals at other places was exorbitant. We had a fabulous view of the entire city, and could not have had more fun or chosen a more perfect location. After luncheon, we rejoined the group, and traveled to the Jewish quarter. We saw the oldest synagogue in Europe, and a cemetery that was quite small, but had over 80,000 ‘inhabitants.’ This resulted from stacking bodies over the centuries sometimes almost twenty high, because they were not allowed to bury anywhere else. It was very interesting, and the holocaust memorials were quite striking. It was a very sobering reminder of the all-too recent past and the atrocities that humans are capable of.

We stayed in the Jewish quarter for a significant amount of time, and then split up again. We planned to meet for dinner at a set time location, and then branched off. Somehow, it ended up being Jonathan Cospito and myself, which was interesting, because we had an outlandishly awesome adventure during our last trip which ended with my impalement via sea urchin. Fortunately, my feet were not penetrated, and our precious few hours of freedom were most enjoyable. We walked almost the entire length of the city, took a tram to the hotel to drop stuff off, and took another tram to return and meet the remainder for dinner. Good thing we got to the stop seven minutes before our meeting time, and had over 15 minutes of walking. We had to run as fast as we could, I in my dress shoes, because of course I thought it would be a good day to look nice (poor choice on all accounts). Running in dress shoes isn’t that bad usually, but the cobblestone streets hurt a bit since the corners were all pointed and tried to mangle me as best they could. We made it, sweat for five hours, had an interesting dinner, and then prepared ourselves for desert. A brief diatribe about after-dinner treats that we have experienced throughout the trip… The meal schedule goes as follows for each city: breakfast at the hotel, buy lunch, meet for dinner the first two nights, and buy your own on the third. Throughout the entirety of the trip, dessert has been a stressful and catastrophic course of each and every provided meal. The first night, we got a wet piece of pastry stuffed with something that looked like spaghetti, tasted like too sour cream, and was stuffed with raisins. Perhaps some people may still be unaware, but squishy dehydrated desiccated grapes are one of my least favorite things, especially when found poisoning a dessert, extra-specially when it is not readily apparent that they are lurking in the midst of sumptuous decadent layers of treats.

After the second meal, we had another dessert that looked quite good. It seemed to be some kind of chocolate cake thing, with three equally thick layers. The outer ones were cake-ish, and the middle seemed to be a thick chocolate cream / paste / something. Delightfully, it was topped and surrounded by supple piles of thick white cream. Interestingly, most of the cream that I have had here is non-sweet, just fluffy white mounds. Anyway, I started to consume it, and then realized to my horror that it was infested with disease-laden elderly wrinkled putrescent grapes (raisins). This even was very scarring, and I have had fretful dreams of this exact experience repeatedly throughout the last few nights. I don’t remember what I got the third night, but I am sure it was nice because I was able to choose myself. In Vienna, I was blessed with plentiful manna. At the witch place, we had chocolate volcano or something like that, I wrote about it in my other post. That was the one dessert that we were free from pain and suffering. However, we realized later that apricot was used in some kind of liqueur as an ‘appetizing addition’ to the already perfect item. Our second day in Vienna, however, is one that I will never forget. First of all, the restaurant was not ready for us, which was not nice. It took us a long time to get anything, and some people had to forgo bread, which is never nice. But, the meal was decent, and then there was dessert. Dessert came out, and seemed to be fried ice cream, with whipped cream and some kind of sauce if I remember correctly. Whenever people closer to us were served and sampled, they said it was delicious, and marvelous, and the best thing ever. Expectations were high. I was handed a plate, began to consume, and it was quite nice. It turns out it was breaded I think, but not with bread crumbs. Some kind of pastry or graham cracker was used for the ‘breading’ so the result was a pleasant and semi-crunchy shell. Anyway, I got through the crust and the first layers of ice cream, and was so satisfied. THEN my spoon got stuck in the middle of the ball, upon which I discovered that my wonderful treat had been desecrated with a mass of toxic APRICOT PUS. Anyway, that was an unpleasant treat… so I just got over it. In Prague, our first dinner was pretty good, and for dessert, we all got large martini glasses with some odd yogurt like cream on top, and mounds of cherries on the bottom. In other words, not the most fantastic thing ever. So, by then we had had raisins stuffed in dessert, fruit suspended in ice cream, fruit sunken in yogurt, and some MORE raisins. While at dinner the other night which is the correct one for the post, I made a prediction that we would get apricots suspended in bread… and then guess what happened? My prayers were answered and we got bread stuffed with fruit! However my guesstimation was slightly skewed; there was fruit but it was peaches as opposed to apricots.

After our blessed dessert, we went in a large group to a bridge to overlook the Prague castle complex and the Charles bridge illuminated. We went, stood around for an hour, chatted and took pictures, and it was very pleasant. Previously, one person had mentioned that there was a really cool café right by where we would be heading. On the way over, we passed some steps that went down to a non-lit dive on the river with decrepit tables, sketchy people and a very sad individual performing ‘live’ music… we were hard pressed to consider it live though, he seemed pretty close to death.

Unbelievable! This is so late I can’t even take it and already far too long. To make this extraordinarily long story a bit shorter, I will super summarize. We went to this dump, no one served us, we left, and café crawled, and ended up going to five or six cafes. We had desserts, ended up at some crazy cool Czech place, where dogs were scurrying under our feet and shredding filthy sticks. There was a huge Highland Mastiff there, whose owner was a Scotchman. We went and pet the dog, and the guy came to our table. He made me order him a beer, and then we realized that he was very drunk… and rude and vulgar. But it was interesting… we left, finally got back to the hotel, and that was that.

Viennese Epilogue / Intro to Prague

2010-05-24T19:07:00.001-04:00

This morning, as I mentioned earlier, we went to the Schonbrung Palace. It was modeled in part after Versailles and was quite opulent. Last night, I was discussing with others about what today would possibly be like, and we all agreed that we would hope for a non-guided tour, though that was a distinctly likely possibility. Our prayers were answered, and we were able to walk through at our own pace. The palace was fantastic, and had not only parquet but wonderfully inlaid wooden floors, that were unbelievably smooth and lustrous. The floors were my favorite part, but most other people didn’t even notice. Whenever I asked some people about it they gave me blank stares. Anyway, the gardens were immense, and open to the public, which was astounding. The amount of work put into maintaining such vast grounds was mindboggling and impressive, to say the least. We took some pictures, walked around, saw tons of old carriages, and got on the bus for the 5 hour transportation fest. The ride was nice and I got to sleep, but as I mentioned earlier it started pouring right as we got to the city. Our luggage was drenched, and the fire in our souls was dampened, and left sparking. BUT I was in a super good mood because I consumed vast amounts of sugar, and got everyone riled up. Dinner was interesting, but delicious. Dessert, however, was an amorphous blob of fruit goop and soiled white stuff. I tried it, but whenever I uncovered large blackish blood-clot like substances I decided it was high time for fasting. As an encore to supping, our teacher came over and warned us about the city. Prague is the number one city in the world for human trafficking, so he told us to never be alone, put our drinks down, stay out late, and to avoid certain parts of the city. Certain individuals made a number of tasteless jokes about being taken, and it was obvious that the girls were disturbed fairly heavily.

When we were talking to the Hungarians in Budapest that we met at the pub, they recommended a few places for us to visit, one of them being the Golden Tiger, Zlatyha Tigra in Czech, or something close to that. We got directions, guessed our way onto a tram and back off, went where we were told it was, met a wall, asked for more directions and eventually found us. When our friends told us we should go there, they also said we should arrive around 1:45 pm, which we thought was odd. When we got there, we realized why. It was a Monday night, but the place was still packed and crazy. The owner told us to leave; we tried asking about when to come back but they didn’t really understand. Upon our abrupt departure, the eight of us started to confer about what to do. Meaning, most of us wanted to walk around and acquaint ourselves with the city, but our lovely crew of dissenters wanted to sit IMMEDIATELY and not wander ANYWHERE or explore ANYTHING. I lovingly told them that were foolish because we didn’t know anything about the city, and walking for ten or fifteen minutes would give us a good insight as well as present us with a variety of opportunities for dessert / whatever people wanted to get. We saw some cool places, but ended up going to Restaurace U Supa, which was FANTASTIC!!!!!! There was live music, which immediately attracted us, and it was open to the plaza. We decided to go in, and were met with an oddly urban yet historical setting. The building was ancient, but there were trendy light fixtures and tables and a bar, and the music was brilliant. There was a violinist, a string bass player, and a guy playing something that looked like a meshing of harpsichord, marimba and xylophone. I still don’t know what it was, but it was great nonetheless. Dinner was a ton of fun, we all got Pilsner and Taylor and I tried an aperitif called Becherovka, which was extremely strong yet smooth, and a traditional Czechoslovakian drink—it is always nice to experience local things.

(Taylor is on the Left, then Jeff, then Jonathan Cospito, then me)

I ended up being obese, and got a platter of meats and beer cheese, which was really odd tasting, but I liked it. Other people got other stuff, we ate it, it was nice, and then I got dessert as well. So much food! I could still eat an entire sausage though. Jon Cospito, Taylor and Jeff all got some kind of smoked / grilled / maybe baked sausage thing that was SO delicious. I could eat it every day for a month, and then only be mildly tired of it. We weren’t allowed to split the check and it took ages to divide it up, especially because we only had thousand dollar crown bills because of our recent currency withdrawal from ATMs. I guess we will figure out the rest tomorrow. We left, and strolled through the streets, but were wary of being taken. For the most part, people just trust me and follow my directions, but pretty much EVERY time one person asks me again and again where we are going, and in a very unpleasant way. As usual, we got back to the hotel safe and sound, and it didn’t really take very long either. Our hotel was built during the communist era and used to be an ugly junkbox, but they refurbished it and now it looks pretty classy, which is the biggest blessing of all. That’s all for today! J

Fall of the Habsburgs

2010-05-24T13:03:00.000-04:00

Vienna III

Yesterday was very nice. It started early, so our lack of sleep was quite detrimental. Fortunately, I had some energy stored up somewhere and was able to be relatively lively throughout the day’s course of events. We traveled to the Belvedere palace, which I believe was the summer palace / residence of something Joseph, but I am not entirely sure. Even though it was just yesterday morning, it feels as if days or even weeks have gone by since then, due to the length and extravagance of our days. The palace was quite nice, and had a lot of original decoration, and wonderful parquet floors. It has been turned into the Gallery for the artists of Gustav Klimt’s genre. An overwhelming amount of people are obsessed with Klimt in Vienna, which is rather surprising to me. I think he is good, but I am not nuts for Klimt, and felt that a dish towel with The Kiss was a tad excessive. Artwork is a wonderful thing, but I feel like squishing some shoddy replica onto a flimsy keychain kind of defeats every purpose. Regardless, we finished, then walked through the gardens, (very nice) and entered the lower Belvedere. The layout is as follows, there are two long buildings, the upper, (on the top of a long hill) then the lower at the bottom, with a very long swath of lush gardens between—rife with statuary, fountains, and the like. The lower belvedere was very interesting, and was hosting a special exhibit while we were there. It was a collection of beautifully decorated and restored panels from church altars throughout all of the Austrian Empire painted in the Gothic style. As a rule, gothic paintings are not typically my favorite, but these were some of the most remarkable ones that I have seen. Unfortunately, many of the museums, such as the Belvedere, Schonbrung today, and the National Gallery in Budapest do not allow pictures to be taken, so I will have to reminisce rather than re-visualize.

After that, we walked to Karlzplatz (Charles Square) and went to St. Karlz church (St. Charles). It was a beautiful church decorated in white marble, gold gilding, but not too much, and an enormous frescoed dome. BUT, the church installed an elevator pretty much in the middle of the sanctuary via which tourists could go up to see the dome. We did, of course, and were treated with a ‘special’ circumstance. The dome was being renovated, so there was scaffolding in a strip across the middle of the dome, with support down the sides. AND, there was scaffolding all the way up to the little cupola in the center of the dome. I didn’t realize how high it was until we were in the elevator… I think it is just as high if not higher than the main inner dome of Saint Peter’s Cathedral in the Vatican. Anyway, we got up, and then were on the scaffolding, which was quite terrifying… I knew that we were suspended over NOTHING, and every time people walked around the whole thing would shake and jiggle. But, I felt confident at the elevator top because the long strip at least went to both sides of the dome across the middle, and at certain points was actually anchored into the wall. Then, in the middle of the strip was a small set of stairs through the scaffolding that went all the way up. This was the worst part by far, because it was in the middle of the main platform that was already shaky and over NOTHING… and there was a ten person limit, but no one was observing it. Additionally, you could not see how many people were on it because it went through the roof of the main dome; it was only possible to see the whole thing bounce up and down every time people took a step. So, we climbed it, and got way up to the top, and it was CRAZY high. We could see pretty much the entire city, which was shocking, because we all thought that it was not as high as it turned out to be. On the way down I took a picture or two of the ceiling which was marvelous. The paintings had all been restored, and we were so close that we could actually touch them. It was scary, but great nevertheless.

Vienna was wonderful, but we kind of stayed in the 1^st district all of the time, and didn’t really get to see anything else. However, on Sunday, (yesterday) our guide told us that the towns & villages outlying the city were quite rich and elegantly simple, with a lot of wineries and the like. So, we went out to Grinzing immediately after St. Karlz, which took forever to get to. We have slowly realized that our guide, Iain, is somewhat directionally challenged. We followed the directions that he gave us, which of course ended up not being right at all…. We wandered aimlessly for a bit, then found a subway, got on, went to the tram stop, and FLEW towards Grinzing. As in, stopped at every single traffic light, because clearly mass transportation is far less important than snots driving around in their posh little cars. The scenery was nice, maybe, I don’t actually remember, but the SECOND we got off at Grinzing, it started raining, and within seconds was pouring so hard that we and a group of locals were smashed together in a wet heaving mob fifty feet from the arches, through which the rain somehow managed to squirt at us with a ridiculously high velocity. THEN it started hailing. By then, it was about 2 or 2:30, and we were starving… We hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and walking around all day is rather exhausting and hunger inducing. I started talking to some local girl about places to go, and she said to go to the Chinese restaurant in town… We talked it over as a group, and then decided to go to the Chinese place, which might possibly have been one of the best choices that we made in ages. It was a very nice restaurant, not like the majority of the ones in the US. We had the buffet and were finally full from a meal. This is already too long… so summary time! After overindulging, we jumped outside and ran up the hill to look out, and were awestruck. There were hundreds of lavish villas tucked away with marble sidewalks and hand-laid stone streets. We walked for about an hour, up to the summit, and were amidst miles of vineyards. After finally getting to the top, everything was closed, and no one wanted to go to the restaurant that was open with me, so we went back to Grinzing via bus, which was dumb, because we knew that the stores would be closed. But they wanted to go to the stores, and were SHELLSHOCKED when they discovered none were open. We split up, and I went and got ‘chocolate dice’ from a restaurant that is almost 960 years old and really classy. We went back, and THEN we met the group at 8 to go to the Music Hauz. Which was conceptually interesting, but realistically a museum / interactive workshop for middle school children, and half of the displays and exhibits were non-functional.

I went along with everyone but got ahead, and was only behind two other people from our group. We got to the end, which is a gift shop, but was closed because it was around 9:00. So, the only other way to get out (we were on the top floor by then) was a sign pointing to the emergency exit. The girls with me were afraid that we would get in trouble, but I said that clearly if the shop is closed there is no other way to get out, and the arrows all point to this door. They left, and I made a rational decision to exit via emergency. It was a great choice, until I got to the bottom of the stairwell and both of the doors were locked. I began to panic, ran up to each level and discovered that every door was locked. The building had a covered courtyard, and the stairs had windows that opened out into it. I jumped up onto a ledge and opened a window and was about to scream for help, but someone was playing piano in the lobby, so I figured I would check one last time, wait for the song to end, and then demand to be rescued. When I got to the bottom, I checked the doors again, and realized that the door to exit with swung out, and though it was locked, wasn’t really… I was free, and sobbed in a pile on the floor of the lobby. Not really, but four other people and I waited for 45 MINUTES for everyone else to get out, what a JOKE. I don’t know WHAT they were doing in there, but I guess some people just can’t resist putting little blocks into a hole to make melodies come out. Oh well.

We had heard that Wiener schnitzel was a hugely popular dish in Vienna, and wanted to try it, so we went out to the café we visited the first night, and ended up having the same waitress!!! We had tons of treats, and a great time. Afterwards, we played three quick games of Ein Geist, took the subway, got off at the same wrong stop we do every time, backtracked, and got back around one or so. It was a blessed evening. We just got to Prague at 5:30ish… after the massively long bus ride, but I feel great! It is a soggy mess here, and started raining right as we entered the outskirts of the city. We are going to dinner in ten minutes, and have NO IDEA what we will do this evening. J

Stephensplatz

2010-05-23T18:51:00.000-04:00

What a crazily fantastic day! It started off with a late start… My alarm went off at 7:30… and I shut it off, but then the other four that I set were on silent for some reason. Luckily, I woke up at 8:34 on the dot, popped out of bed, rushed into and out of the shower, got Taylor up and then prepared for the day as quickly as possible. After a breakfast that consisted of plundering the china and stuffing foodstuffs into napkins which I discreetly stowed in my burdensome back baggage, we went to the First District, (the oldest and nicest part of the city… AND IT’S HUGE). We met our decrepit and mournful tour guide, and traversed through the narrow streets of the oldest parts of the city. Our trek was not exactly delightfully, mostly because it rained off and on, and we could hear nothing of what Linduh was saying. THEN we went to the Imperial Palace, which I was neutral towards… In the beginning, the museum was dedicated to Sisi, the wife of Franz-Joseph, which was funny, because by focusing on her life and entrapment into a position she was excessively reluctant to take, the country could avoid talking about the serious problems of the dual monarchy and Habsburg rain, especially in the later years of the Holy Roman Empire.

Interestingly, since the government in Vienna experienced a peaceful transition, there was no violent revolution or rebellion, and most things within the palace remained intact and in place. Therefore, we were able to see the rooms as they looked with opulent furnishings, parquet floors, gilding, massive chandeliers, and rich oil paintings. We toured for about an hour, then went and looked ant room upon room of the crystal, china and gold collection, which was nice, but not exactly the most intriguing of subjects. Uh. I just fell asleep and had two sentences or so worth of solkjokmwelkjasgdlkjlllllllbbbbbb,oyyyyyyys’;lkjwwwwww (which looks a lot like the Hungarian Language). Um, yes, so we did that, then went and saw some band playing in the main palace courtyard. It is Unbelievable how massive the palace complex is… it is multiple blocks and has SO much stuff in it. But, the Habsburgs were around for hundreds of years and had riches falling out of their chamber pots… so whatever. Then, we went and looked at the stables of the Lipizzaner horses, and the Spanish Riding School. Supposedly, we were supposed to see one of their world renowned shows, but that ended up not happening. We went to lunch, and had Bratwurst and Wiener things… It is amusing when almost everything has Wiener in it. I am getting better at pronouncing things and reading signs, but it is all still a bit confusing.

After our hot luncheon, I decided to get a pastry. And of COURSE got the LARGEST pastry in the world! It was basically the size of those log cakes that you can get; a cancerously large lady lock oozing with white creamy pus. Yum! And the top was doused with a crisp shell of the purest milk chocolate. Good thing the pastry was quintuple the size of my mouth… I tried eating from the end, and was rewarded with a face-full of cream. I have never had anything like the cream. It was sweet, but not overly rich, and really fluffy, and must have had some kind of marshmallow stuff in it. I don’t know. It was good, but a huge mess… every bite that I took would create the Heathrow incident all over. I would bite, and then pastry and cream would erupt in a cloud of sight-threatening ash on everyone and everything around me.

I really want to end now, since it is 3:54… but I know I will forget things and there is SO MUCH TO TELL FROM TODAY! Anyway, the name of the huge Cathedral is actually St. Stephens, and is miraculous indeed. We went inside, and I was blown away. It is very very old, and has been through so much. It was bombed during the war, the roof crashed and burned, but yet there were still century old statues of saints, and beautiful reliquaries throughout. I don’t know how so much survived with so little damage. It was also really cool to see areas where there had been damage and stuff had been rebuilt, it exposed some of the scars of the wars, but proved that the church and its people still survive. Something I had been looking forward to was climbing the church tower, which occurred after our browse through the innards of the cathedral. I had a feeling that the climb would be long and strenuous… if only I had known!

The tower was unbelievably narrow, with ancient stone steps, low ceilings, and walls that tried to squeeze every breath of life out of you. At least the way up was the way down as well. It was a special treat whenever we passed people, which was every minute or so. It was hard enough to fit myself in the stairway, not to mention thirty people in a row squished in on top of you. I didn’t realize how fun it would be to get to know someone very intimately by a radically ravishing first encounter. The steps were very high, narrow, and spiraled. So, you would realize that you were going to pass someone whenever you started bumping shoes with your head, which would quickly transform into a festival of claustrophobia. My face would slowly slide up people’s thighs, then abdomens, chests and faces. Finally we got to the top of the tower… and it wasn’t that exciting. I literally cannot write another word right now… I keep making gibberish sentences.

Ok, just got back from the next day, but I REALLY want to finish this yesterday’s, there is SO MUCH LEFT STILL. I could write ten pages about what happened each day but still not be able to include every detail / fantastic / awkward interaction with other people. So… we did the tower, and then we had some free time. One thing I forgot though, that happened before the tower and was the most enjoyable thing ever was Ein Geist dem Friedhof – a childhood favorite of mine: Ghost in the graveyard! However, we now are ten to twelve years older, and were in a city in another country on the busiest streets in the oldest district. So, one of us would be the ghost, and everyone else would hide somewhere along the avenue. I began, and as soon as I got close to people, they would SCREAM ‘Ghost in the graveyard’ in the square as loud as they could, and then everybody would run screaming to the base. It was unbelievably fun, and watching people’s reactions was possibly the best thing ever. One little girl said ‘look mom, grown-ups are playing tag.’ That was a hot treat, and we played about five times along the way to Saint Stephen's.

For free time, we went shopping, but then lost the people we were with, and decided to pick a direction and just start walking, which we did. We ended up on the other side of the city, and then it started to rain a bit, which meant that a downpour was coming, which has happened pretty much every day so far, so we have learned to expect it. BUT the weather was beautiful for the rest of the day, warm and sunny and fresh. We stumbled upon a billiard bar kind of thing, which was ultra posh and new, and had really nice pool tables. We had some coke, and played cutthroat throughout the hour long rain, then went back to meet for dinner, which was less than delightful. The waiter was really rude, and some people didn’t get part of their meals, and it was unfortunate. Afterwards, we crossed over into the praterpark, the famous Viennese amusement park, which has a very odd setup. You might possibly know it from its ‘famous’ Ferris wheel, which is basically a huge ugly mass of steel beams with massive cabins as cars, which is interesting, but it took 45 minutes to ride, and … yeah. You pay to get on the rides, not to get into the park, which kind of sucks because everything was quite pricey. BUT the park is really just a park, with individual companies and owners running and operating each ride, so there was repetition, though many options. One thing that was super cool (so we thought) was a massive tower with swings that would start low and then go all the way up. Basically, it was like a swings ride at any amusement park, but the thing the swings was on went REALLY high… we went on it, and it was one of the most terrifying things I have done in my life. It wasn’t bad, until we were the highest thing in the park, and only supported by flimsy little chains and a flappy seatbelt. The wind was vicious and twisted us around in the seats while we were going extremely fast, which was rather unpleasant. It was really cool, but there is a reason you have never seen a ride like that in the United States.

Throughout the day, we had been on our typical conquest to talk to as many people as possible, and had been asking them what they like to do for fun, what we should do, etc. We had a lot of ideas presented to us, but the winner by FAR was the ‘Prater Dome’ – the largest Discotech in Vienna, that was INSIDE of the prater park. Everyone we talked to said it was really fun and had a lot of dancing. After being bled dry by the rides, we decided we would go to the PraterDome. We walked up, and it looked super cool, but got bounced, without an explanation. Rachel and I really wanted to go then, so we went back and asked them why we weren’t allowed in. They didn’t really say, but told us that the two of us were fine and could go in…?! Regardless, we went back to the hotel and changed, missed the last tram, took taxis, and got there at midnight. We finally got in, and it was THE NEATEST PLACE that I have seen! The disco was huge, with two or possibly three dance floors / rooms, five or more bars, a club room or something, and so much more! They gave us neat little cards like at Dave and Busters that you could charge everything to, and the vending machines were extremely exciting. You put your card on them and then it recognized you and charged your account. I only ended up getting a coke, because they are so delicious AND they come in glass bottles!

The first dance room we went into had really odd music, like old hits, and just weird stuff. So we fled, and ended up in the ‘cool’ room, which was ultra fantastic. We went straight to the dance floor, and the acoustics were unbelievable. The sound was perfectly balanced, and the speakers were set up so you felt like you were fully immersed in music, like wearing really good headphones, but ‘hearing’ with your entire body. I have never experienced anything like it, it was very impressive, and I would love to watch a movie in there! Tons of fog was continuously pumped out, and there was every kind of laser, strobe light and rotating spotlights imaginable. It was unbelievable, and the dj was fantastic. Interestingly, no one was really dancing there either, so we decided that it must be a European thing to just move more slowly and not really do anything. We were CRAZY, which was funny / sad because we had no alcohol at all and were having the most fun every, whereas most other people semi-inebriated, not really doing anything, and do this kind of thing every night. I just don’t get it… it was very disappointing while reflecting on the way home to think that so many people are incapable of having fun without alcohol or some other kind of vice. Anyway, it was awesome, and we got up on the raised stage, and eventually got a few people to dance, but I think people just didn’t really know how to take us, and I am SURE they could tell we were Americans. Another cool thing though was that there were a lot of people there from different countries, so we got to see a wide swath of Europe’s young adults.

Getting back was less than fun, we had to talk to a bunch of people to get directions, and ended up walking a good bit of the way, but it was a great time and definitely something that I will remember for a long long time. Sorry this is late; I just could NOT stay awake last night! I will try to write stuff about today now, but I need to shower, am tired, and get up unhealthily early to leave for Prague tomorrow. I LOVE VIENNA!!! J

Franz Joseph II

2010-05-21T19:30:00.000-04:00

Utter exhaustion – what I experienced today, along with physical pain and distortion. I didn’t realize that I had a stab wound from last night until this morning… We were dancing right by the stage, and often we would get bumped into the stage—once I got smashed into a cement cube, which slid the whole way up my back. It hurt, but I got over it. This morning, after showering, I went to prepare for the day and Taylor and Jon SCREAMED, and then asked me what happened. I didn’t know what they were talking about, and they told me I had a huge red streak on my back that looked like a massive stab wound. I looked in the mirror and it really does look repulsive… I can’t believe that I couldn’t feel it.

Anyway, we went on a tour today, and it rained a lot. Our tour guide (someone we met up with) was really nice, but really old and she couldn’t talk loudly, and it was hard for her to explain things sometimes… AND we were going really slowly… we took a few trams / subways, and I fell asleep within a minute of sitting down EVERY time, even though we typically only traveled a stop or two. We saw the Opera house and St. Peter’s and Saint Matthew’s… maybe? I am not sure. Regardless, we are climbing the spire of the huge one tomorrow whatever its name is. We had lunch and it was a tasty treat… though overpriced… Our coffers (just filled this morning) are close to depleted after only one day here. Vienna is gorgeous and a fantastic city, but very ritzy, pricey, and Euro based, which means that we triple lose when converting. But that’s ok, we just have to be careful about eating. One thing that is kind of annoying is that they don’t pay for ANY of our lunches, which can really add up. To combat this, I have smuggled croissants from breakfast to devour throughout the day when my hunger attacks occur. I can typically assuage my stomach’s gluttonous desires for a short while, but then it breaks free of my dictatorship and tortures me endlessly.

We did some other stuff… took some pictures… I don’t really remember. It was a really nice day though, and very relaxing (slow – not crazy fast paced like other days). We had dinner at something that I think translated into the wizard’s hex?! I knew it would be an exceptional experience whenever I noticed witches hanging in the windows before we walked in. Dinner was actually pretty good, some kind of beef in a deep beefyish sauce, with massive dumpling balls…. I am surprised that I ate them, but I was starving so it worked out. Then we had molten lava cake for dessert. I had mine, and four other people’s… Very unusual for me, maybe I am dying. Afterwards, we fled to the hotel, dropped off some stuff, then picked a random tram, went to a station, got off, got on another one, and then floated around the city center (the old district, which is very nice – though outrageously overpriced and a tourist trap). We eventually went to an outdoor café right in the middle of the main pedestrian street, in sight of huge monuments, baroque and neoclassical buildings, and the monolithic gothic Matthias (or whatever it is actually called) cathedral. We had AMAZING desserts! I got a gelato dish with whole hazelnuts, chocolate and vanilla ice cream, some oddly soft yet crunchy cookie thingies, something else, and a whole lot of delicious. Taylor got nothing, but the two girls got spaghetti ice, or gelato, I don’t know what it is actually called, the whole menu was in German. I believe it was vanilla, but I am not sure, and looked like spaghetti, which was smothered with pounds of Nutella, hazelnuts, and some other unknown delicious sauce. We devoured our desserts, then ordered Nutella crepes and Hot Chocoalte. MMMM! I could probably still eat more. After, we played truth or dare while walking, taylor had to go hug some old couple who ended up being from Barcelona, trying to find a night club. Rachel ‘fell’ on some kids in a subway, and the other girl and myself were able to escape our plagued plights by getting lost. Vienna is quite large, and none of us really knew the subway / metro / bus / tram system… usually we are fine, but I thought the place we wanted to go was something else, we got there, the station was closed, we transferred four or five times, and it was a hot mess. But we got back, and are safe and WHAT a blessing. It was a very good night.

P.S. our hotel is AWESOME! It is this old baroque building, and Taylor and I have the main room on the second floor. It is huge! With an elaborately decorated ceiling, probably 15 feet high, ad chandelier, (simple yet nice) and are located on the main set of projecting windows, supported by very bustuous Caryatids. Everyone that has seen our room gets super jealous… I might be butchered in my sleep over the next three nights, but at least if that happens I will die comfortably, at peace, and very satisfied.

That’s enough for now. Hopefully these posts can give you even a portion of a glimpse into our lavishly academic adventure. SORRY! No pictures today... I can't get them to upload... :-(

Siege of Budapest

2010-05-20T21:16:00.000-04:00

WHAT a whirlwind of a day! We just got back to the hotel lobby at 2:07, and have to get on the bus with all of our bags packed at 8:30 to leave for Vienna. It is amazing how quickly we have become comfortable with the city, its layout, and its people. Don’t worry, none of us can even say thank you yet. Our tour guide Ian told us on the first day that we would be lucky if we picked up thank you, and i think it may be something like kirshy or something, but probably spelled nothing like that. S is pronounced sh, unless it is followed by a z, to make the s sound, which is why Budapest is pronounced Budapesht (interesting fact now you are a droplet wiser).

This morning, we had some tasty breakfast again, the eggs are TO DIE FOR. They use Paprika in lots of things and it is so good. Overall, I have thoroughly enjoyed the food here. The dinner we had the first night was some weird blob noodle things with some kind of meat… and paprika! And it was SO delicious! The second night we had some soup… with paprika! And it was delicious as well! Anyway, after breakfast, we got at 24 hour pass, took a tram thing then climbed up this mountain that has a huge statue called Lady Freedom or something like that… It overlooks both of the cities from Gelliert hill, right by huge Turkish Baths. The hill is really cool, and there is a church carved into it and passageways all through it, which I would have LOVED to go into. We got to the top, floated around, cried over the view, then went up into the citadel, and into the bunker the Nazis formed inside and down into the leaky depths of despair. There were horrible pictures and weapons and all sorts of other memorabilia from the war, but it was very interesting, and important to see. Then we went up on the wall, and of course I ran along it with my friends and took pictures and it was a hot blessing.

We were not blessed with paid meals today… OH.. but we went to Heroes’ Square, and Andrassy Avenue (remember—Andrasshee) – both of which were quite nice. Basically, Andrassy is the main avenue in Budapest with all of the posh stores, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Armani, the Opera House, etc. After that, we had agreed to meet our new Hungarian friends, Lorri, Wally, ‘the godfather,’ and two others at the pub where we met them last night at 3 pm. We were in Pest on the complete opposite side of Budapest from the pub, and it was 1:20 or so and distress was heaping itself upon our foreign flesh. About six people were supposed to go, but then everyone backed out, and wanted to shop, even though we had promised the guys we would meet them, which was very frustrating. THEN they asked us to come back and meet them so they could meet the Hungarians as well (a few of them were not with us). Anyway, we agreed to meet in front of St. Stephen’s Basilica at six and then go out to dinner.

In the end, three of us fled to the other side of the city: Jonathan Hertneky, Dale Taylor Palmer Mierow, and Lisa Herman, which was a solidly robust and equilateral group, (blessing). We got to Mammut, the huge mall place, and went inside and got CREPES again! (taylor wasn’t with us when we got them yesterday) – we all got something different and were ultra satisfied with our choices. Then, it was 2:50, so we go out, it starts to rain, we start to run… AND CAN’T FIND THE PUB! We knew exactly where it was, and the street, but it literally was nowhere to be seen… so we didn’t know what to do… We remembered leaving and going up the hill to the castle and then down the other side to our hotel, so we figured it couldn’t be far. For the next thirty minutes, we sprinted up and down the block, the next block, and the following two, then through the mall, then around the corner, then back. A few times, we passed where we thought it should be… but there was no sign, no windows, no nothing, just two huge black iron slabs fifteen feet tall. THEN, at three thirty, we decided to give up and were sobbing in the streets like the soiled urchins we were… Lisa decided to go into the store next door and talked to the owner, who said, ‘oh yeah there is a pub next door… it doesn’t open until six though.’

Unbelievable to say the least… but at least we were reassured that we weren’t crazy sycophants and delirious. We were heavily disappointed, but decided that we would talk to hundreds of Hungarians to make up for it, and have the BEST DAY EVER! We stopped at the hotel for a slice to drop stuff off and refresh, headed out towards the Pest side, had crazy photoshoots in on and around some centuries old fountain, and then went to the square to wait, and wait, and wait for theme to meet us…. Oh… we also walked about four miles up and down the avenue and around it talking to people about places to go at night like a Disco or something, and then we went into Louis Vuitton, asked the security guy where would be the best place to eat, and he said there were ONLY two places that were worth it, and one was called Mensza. We traversed some more, finally found it, realized it would surely be the most fantastical place to consume our supper, then fled to the square. As aforementioned, waiting was an integral part of this joyous experience… which actually was nice, we were able to melt into the ground for a few clicks before our friends got there, the two that actually asked us to meet them again never showed up… we shall see if they are spoken to tomorrow… but we went to the restaurant and I got grilled salmon and garlic soup and they were both UNBELIEVABLE! And not even that expensive… maybe twenty five dollars after conversion… so worth it! Then, we ran around trying to find the most exquisite pastry shop in Hungary, eventually found it an hour later, but it was closed, SOOOOOOO we put our full day of research into use! I would say we talked to roughly twenty young Hungarian people today, and it was really enjoyable-we chatted about all sorts of stuff, and they gave us huge lists of recommendations. Some of the main ones were: A38 – a floating club kind of a thing on a boat… Rio Café, some outdoor dance thing, and morrison’s jazz bar… Taylor and I looked at Morrison’s and were accosted by sleaze… so that was out.

After failing to pastrify, I caved to some decadent chocolate in some store, and we walked towards A38 and the other place, twenty million blocks and five bridges later, we got there, tried to get in (the outside one) – but the bouncers wouldn’t let us because we had backpacks-after we had already spent twelve minutes converting cash to exact change for admission, but that was ok. so we went to some shady park, saw a monk on a bike, cried, and then headed for A38. We saw it, heard music, but didn’t see any people. We were skeptical, but it started to sprinkle so we just went in, and found out there were two events 1 upstairs on the rooftop with electronic music, and one in the bowels of the ship with ‘pop’ music. The one on the top was 500 Forint, and the basement 1,000… so of course we went upstairs… we danced, but were the only ones dancing, a lot of people came in but just gawked, and it is hard to dance to the same thing over and over. After a short paralysis of indecision, a favorite treat dear to the hearts of many on this trip, it was decided we would fork over some more cashhh and go downstairs. Downstairs was REALLY cool, with neat lights and videos, but again NO one was dancing, and there were a thousand people, and all of them were smoking and spilling drinks all over the place. We didn’t get anything, because we had all run out of the currency and there were no ATMS or anything, but we didn’t really care. The DJ was crazy awesome and basically made his own songs with awesome beats, and we went CRAZYYYYY. Occasionally some people would come up for a minute, but were all really awkward and didn’t know what to do.. we decided later that no one really knew how to dance there… and it was just very odd. THEN we met some Americans who thought we were locals… haha! AND they are probably going to be in Prague when we will be, so we might meet them. We shall see. We FINALLY left a bit before one, walked forever and a half through POURING rain… got to the metro, and discovered that it was closed. While I exclaimed in Spanish my disappointment, some British guy rushed over and dragged us along, telling us there was one night bus that could take us back. We got to the stop, stood in the rain for twenty minutes, then took the bus back… and were the last stop… I have never felt like I was in a womb more than that bus ride. People were starting to meld together because they were smashed so tightly into one another… it was pretty rancid. AND the insides were dripping because everyone was soaked, and hot, and the evaporating sweat and steam made a blissfully sweet aroma of cherries and the freshest of cauliflowers.

I feel like I am making this sound wretched, but it was SO much fun… I think today alone was almost more fun than the entire two weeks of my trip last year… we shall see though. I am having a great time and can’t WAIT for Vienna!!!! AND THE ALPS TOMORROW MORNING!!!! J

mmmmm.

After the bus, we crawled through the streets for an hour because the stop wasn’t exactly close to our hotel, and now it is after three and I am stopping this MINUTE because I need to sleep.

PEACE AND BLESSINGS!

Blessed Relief (Budapest II)

2010-05-19T20:20:00.000-04:00

Praises! Upon our arrival in Budapest yesterday, we were greeted with the news that it was likely to rain the entire time we were here. BUT, our presence has served as a foil to the elements, and we were spared so far. We just got back to the hotel… but waddled rather quickly… it was starting to rain. We leave for dinner in fifteen minutes or so, I will attempt to expulse interesting things in a timely fashion but no promises.

(scam violin artist)

Our day pretty much retraced our steps last night, we climbed the very stairs that we descended yester-eve, and then traversed the buda-top for the majority of the morning. We saw some hot treats: St. Matthias Church, the Buda Castle / Royal Palace (which is now the Hungarian National Gallery), some other things, and cool streets and buildings. OH. And we went up on the Fisherman’s Bastion which was ultra fantastic. It is a limestone mass of delicately handsome masonry, echoing the spirit of the fallen fishermen that resisted during one of Buda’s multiple failed rebellions. The Hungarians always rebelled, but never won. Except for 1989—kind of.

We went on a ‘tour’ through the national gallery; we were late, our guide was late, our guide struggled immensely with English. She frequently had to touch her head or face to remind herself that she was alive and in an art gallery versus a scorchingly translational hell. Her information was very interesting, but we were all rather tired, which reminds me of a story. During our boat-fest yesterday, we listened to a pre-recorded track with classical music listing in the background. Remember that we were awake after almost two days, sitting on a boat, looking through streaming glass at hazy junk in semi-darkness. Though the view was riveting and breathtakingly clear… we couldn’t help but all fall asleep. Our boat ride was a paid excuse to take an anesthetic vacation from the violent weather and biting cold. Anyway, back to the national gallery: most of the time, she would talk, and half of us would sit or slowly sink to the floor, or collapse on a wall. Fortunately, the government is poor and there is not a security device on each painting, one adult with us smashed into the frame of a giant canvas that flapped against the wall for a few minutes… but I don’t think most people noticed since they were cavorting with gluttonous grapes midst grassy graves in fields of their imagination (sleeping).

(view of parliament from the fisherman's bastion)

We fled from the gallery, strolled through some shops and were assaulted by a violinist who pawned his device off on me, forced me to play, and then demanded that I give him 1,000 Florint (roughly $5). I said I didn’t have cash (obviously untrue) but the man wouldn’t let us leave, so someone else gave him a bill, and then I bought them a bottle of wine later to repay my gregarious debts. Post inveiglement, we crawled down the hill of the castle to Moscow square, wandered aimlessly, asked people for directions that glared at us and walked away, and eventually stuffed ourselves with the flesh of Nutella filled crepes. YUM. Now we are leaving.

OK…. So… Dinner was fine… and then we went out up to the fisherman thing again which was all lit up… and the parliament across the river was, and it was beautiful. This part may be less than poor because I am tired and it is 1:54 and we just got back… blaahhhh. Um. yes so we went up on the hill, and did some group pictures on the steps which were ultra fantastic, then walked around, and went to an ‘american bar’ – and taylor spilled my Kir Royale all over me, then I got a Bird of Paradise and it was quite nice. BUT we wanted to dance for a little bit at a Disco, and asked EVERYONE, but it is amazing how many people speak NO English here… We ended up asking some security guards from somewhere, and they only spoke Hungarian but understood Disco… and told us that there was one on the third level of the mall, but it was closed. Great. We walked around and found a pub, asked two people there and they blew raspberries at us, then we saw a group of loud young guys in the back, and I asked them, and they spoke English well… and long story short… they made us sit with them for two hours and we had crazy fun AND WE ARE MEETING THEM TOMORROW at three pm and they are going to take us to the non-tourist places in Budapest… which is going to rock. Who knows what we will end up doing, but I am sure it will be fun. We were all very excited that we actually got to meet real Hungarians and talk to them about school and life here vs life in America… I can’t wait for tomorrow…

Traverse to and Travails in Budapest (Day 1)

2010-05-19T20:15:00.000-04:00

Today was an insane riot of boisterous activity and scathingly long hours of traveling. BUT AWESOME every way shape and form! (Not to mention the fact that it has actually been two days… but ‘one…’ so yeah) It began Monday Morning, EST with a 9am arrival at pgh, then a flight to JFK, (Speaking of which, I baked a blessed treat for myself by not finishing packing until 4:45… mmmmm bittersweet chocolate). We took a British Airways flight that left at 7pm, and it was a 6 or 7 or something hour flight… It was MOST fortunate that we ended up leaving only slightly late. 1.) That volcano is ‘still’ spewing chunky ashy into the atmosphere in an attempt to destroy the capitalistic dreams of Heathrow International. All of yesterdays (Sunday’s now?) flights were cancelled, and ours almost was, but we were spared. Good thing Heathrow sent a test flight after all of the cancellations to discover there wasn’t a slice of ash anywhere in the area… whoops! (mmm... about this picture... none of these are edited and i can't even see them... so hopefully they are good, i only have ten minutes and they take forever to upload... this is the Buda Castle )

Anyway, the flight was nice, and we had some tasties, and I slept A LOT. Then we got to Heathrow, and had the pleasure of joining meatfest 2010. Each country’s citizens decided that at least a third of all residents should fly to London Monday evening / early early Tuesday morning… My favorite was when we went up the escalator and could not get off at the top because there were people spilling down… so we smashed into them and more people kept coming—it was pleasantly moist and humid in the hell-o-chamber-scalator.

Then we had another flight, and I slept. OH! I got this delightful neck pillow, that is A PIG on one end, and BRIGHT PINK, and all of the flight attendants lost control when they saw it. We got to Budapest at some point, and met our guide for the trip, who is Scottish and at least fifty, but a rich and supple source of scarce and succulent information, has an outstanding accent, and is the physical embodiment of… Some beloved grandfatherly Scotsman that is spring and spry yet.

(us on the Szechenyi or something Chain Bridge)

Mmmm.. we got to Budapest and it was raining… we checked in at our hotel, I am with Taylor Mierow and my twin Jonathan Cospito. We then travelled to St. Stephen’s Basilica where we saw his thousand year old embalmed hand. I was surprised how fresh it still was. Uh… I am falling asleep and probably can’t publish this anytime soon because we can’t get the internet to work… to sum up what happened, we walked through the city (pretty, but full of rain and raging winds – trees and leaves were EVERYWHERE… and it was FREEEEZZIINNNNGGG. We went on a boat cruise of the Danube, went to dinner which was REALLY nice and delicious and were serenaded by a French accordion player. After dinner, the group was planning on going back to the hotel. BUT OF COURSE that wasn’t enough, so I suggested we walk to the main bridge since everything would be lit up and gorgeous, and walk up to the castle, take some pictures, then walk down the back of the hill and to our hotel. I somehow convinced 4 people to go with me and it rocked. I will try to put up pictures if and when I post this… but we walked up hundreds of stairs through black woods, and ended up on the castle, and there was NO ONE there and we could see everything and it was gorgeous and such a good choice, even though we were numb.

I think that is everything from today?! Who knows. It was super great, I am super tired, but tomorrow is going to be EVEN BETTER!

Anticipations of Excitement Amidst Final Anguish

2010-05-10T15:14:00.002-04:00

So... I 'graduate' this Saturday. As in... I will walk across the stage and be handed a pseudo-diploma since I will not have completed all of my courses. That may be sad, BUT the Monday after graduation, I leave with some good friends on a trip to Europe - Specifically Budapest, Vienna, Berlin and Prague. What a hot treat! The trip is part of my class that I need to graduate, so I hope I don't fail at walking around / seeing fantabulous things / being blessed with the opportunity to see things from a new perspective / changing my view of the world. Time shall tell.

I am going to include our lengthy itinerary.... My goal is to keep this blog updated while on the trip, somehow, as much as possible, so I can share my experiences. I know there will be such infinite amounts of bliss-fill exploration and delight each and every day that summarizing everything in an email after two weeks is going to be a wretched degradation of watered-down forgotten laziness equivalent to a soggy tattered half frozen mildew infested blanket. So I will spare you. You don't have to read what I write, but hopefully if you choose to you can vicariously undergo my physical adventure, and be a spiritual cohort.

Finals are underway, the midst of which I am currently drowning in whilst oozing vitality into the warmly analgesic setting of the unpleasantly sterile 'stacks' of the library. What blessed chastisement.

The future is bright, with prospects abounding. Convocation is around the corner, but cannot be fully realized until the hours of studying are past. Fortunately, the onset of withdrawal will be offset by the aforementioned transcontinental rompings.

Anyway, I need to pay attention to studying again. BLAHJSDLGKJAPOWIENG;KJS

The Itinerary... NOW

DAY 1 DEPARTURE FROM NEW YORK

Enjoy full meal service on your scheduled wide-bodied flight to Budapest.

DAY 2 ARRIVE BUDAPEST (3 NIGHTS)

We will be met at the airport by our tour manager/guide and transfer into the historic capital city of Budapest. We continue to Budapest, a modern cultural city, and the capital of Hungary, where we will take a Boat Tour on the Danube River, a relaxing and scenic introduction to Budapest. Highlights of the trip will include, Elizabeth Bridge, Chain Bridge, St. Anne’s Church, St. Elizabeth’s Church, the Centenary Monument, Margaret Bridge and the spectacular Houses of Parliament.

DAY 3 BUDAPEST

This morning we explore the hill town of Buda, which grew up around its castle; today this area is known as the Castle District. We begin with a Walking Tour through the Old Town, exploring the cobbled streets and squares. Highlights will include: the State Archives, Lord’s Street, Mihaly Tancsics Street, and Holy Trinity Sqaure. We continue with a visit to Matthias Church, officially named the Church of Our Lady, it is the symbol of Buda's Castle District. The last two Hungarian kings (Habsburgs) were crowned in the church: Franz Joseph in 1867 and Charles IV in 1916. The church interior is decorated with works of two outstanding 19th-century Hungarian painters, Károly Lotz and Bertalan Székely. We continue our morning to nearby Fisherman’s Bastion, where we will view the Grand Equestrian Monument of King Stephen, and ascend the Tower for a magnificent view over the city, including the Houses of Parliament located on the banks of the Danube. Our afternoon will be spent around the Royal Palace, an architectural treasure, highlighted by Lion Gate, Matyas Fountain and the Neo-Classical Dome. The palace today houses several museums, and we will visit the Hungarian National Gallery, where artworks depicting Hungary’s turbulent history are displayed. The gallery houses an extensive collection of Hungarian art from medieval times to the 20th century. Highlights of the collection include: the St. Anne Altarpiece, the Madonna of Toporc, Madonna of Bartfy, Woman Bathing by Karoly Lotz, Picnic in May by Pal Szinyei Merse and Dusty Road by Mihaly Munkacsy.

DAY 4 BUDAPEST

Our morning commences in Heroes’ Square, where we will view the Millennium Monument, built in 1896 to commemorate the 1000-year anniversary of Hungary’s history. We will conclude the day with a visit to the Museum of Fine Arts, housed in a spectacular building with an eight-pillared portico supporting a tympanum. The museum’s collection includes works by Durer, Holbein, Cranach, Brueghel, Rembrandt, Hals, Vermeer, Rubens, Raphael, Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto, El Greco, Velazquez, Goya, Poussin, Pissaro, Gauguin, Manet and Picasso. Our afternoon begins with a visit to St. Stephen’s Basilica, the largest church in the country, which took over 50 years to build. The bust above the main entrance is of King Stephen, Hungary's first Christian king, and inside the church, in the Chapel of the Holy Right, you can see Hungarian Catholicism's most cherished and bizarre holy relic, Stephen's preserved right hand.

DAY 5 BUDAPEST - VIENNA (3 NIGHTS)

This morning we leave Hungary and journey to Vienna, Austria’s historic and scenic capital city. This afternoon we will take a Walking Tour through Old Vienna, which will include the Hoher Markt, where we will see Virgin Mary’s Wedding Fountain and an Art Nouveau clock, the Altes Rathaus, the former town hall, the old Chancellery of Bohemia, the Clock Museum, St. Peter’s Church, St. Stephen’s Cathedral and Figarohuas, where Mozart once lived.

DAY 6 VIENNA (IMPERIAL VIENNA)

Our morning begins with a visit to the former winter palace of the Habsburgs, the vast and impressive Hofburg, which sits in the heart of Vienna. This complex of imperial edifices grew with the empire, so that today the palace is virtually a city within a city. Our visit will include the Imperial Apartments; the Imperial Treasury, featuring the crown jewels and an assortment of imperial riches; the Spanish Riding School, where we will marvel at the skill and beauty of the sleek Lippizaner stallions as their adept trainers put them through their paces in a show that hasn't changed for 4 centuries. (Subject to availability and performance schedule); We will also visit the Lippizaner Museum, a permanent exhibition, which depicts the historic inception of the Spanish Riding School. Our day concludes with a visit to St. Stephen’s Cathedral, one of the greatest Gothic structures in Europe, rich in woodcarvings, altars, sculptures, and paintings. We will also have the opportunity to Ascend the Spire to the viewing platform for spectacular views of the city. After dinner we will explore Prater Park, the city’s classic amusement park, complete with wonderful foods and the world-famous Ferris wheel.

DAY 7 VIENNA (THE BELVEDERE QUARTER)

Our morning commences in Karlsplatz, where we will visit Karlskirche, dedicated to St Charles Borromeo, patron saint of the plague. This richly eclectic Baroque masterpiece is dominated on the outside by a massive Dome and two columns, which were inspired by Trajan’s Column in Rome. Our morning continues to the Palaces and Gardens of the Belvedere, the former summer residence of Prince Eugene of Savoy. The Belevedere consists of two palaces linked by a formal garden laid out in the French style. Our specialist-guided tour begins at the Upper Belvedere, featuring an impressive façade designed to reflect Prince Eugene’s glory. In addition to the impressive interiors of the Sala Terrena, with its sweeping staircase, chapel and Marble Hall; the building also houses collections of 19th and 20th century paintings, including the Gustav Klimt Collection, belonging to the Austrian Gallery. After a stroll through the spectacular Gardens, we will continue our tour through the Lower Belvedere. The Museum of Austrian Baroque Art is housed in the elegant rooms of the Lower Belvedere. Works of art by the artists and sculptors who shaped the city during Vienna’s Golden Age are on display. Our final visit will be the Orangery, which houses the Museum of Austrian Medieval Art, including Gothic and Early Renaissance paintings and sculpture. The remainder of the day will be free to do any last minute exploring or shopping in Vienna. After dinner, we will spend our final evening in Vienna at the brand new Haus Der Musik. We will be invited to hear, see and feel music. Unexpected experiences of sound inside larger than life instruments await us, as well as the opportunity to take hold of the baton and conduct the Vienna Philharmonic, or to compose our own melody.

DAY 8 VIENNA - PRAGUE (3 NIGHTS)

This morning we begin with a visit to the 1,441-room Schönbrunn Palace, which was designed for the Habsburgs before being remodeled to its current form by Maria Theresa. Schönbrunn was the imperial summer palace during Maria Theresa's 40-year reign, and it was the scene of great ceremonial balls, lavish banquets, and fabulous receptions held during the Congress of Vienna, including a performance by a 6 year-old Mozart. Our tour will include the State Apartments, featuring magnificent ornamentation in the rococo style, with red, white, and gold predominating, a stroll through the Imperial Gardens, and a brief visit to the Wagenburg or Carriage Museum, which contains a fine display of imperial coaches from the 17th through the 20th century. We continue to Prague, one of Europe’s most beautiful and unique capital cities.

DAY 9 PRAGUE

Our morning commences in the Little Quarter, where we begin with a visit to the Church of St. Nicholas, an 18th century Baroque masterpiece featuring statues, frescoes and paintings by the leading artists of the day. Our morning continues as we stroll across Charles Bridge on our way to the winding alleys of Old Town. Charles Bridge, Prague’s most familiar monument, is a haven for crafts and trinket stalls and features spectacular statues of the Saints lining each side. Our tour of the Bridge concludes with a visit to Old Town Bridge Tower, where we can ascend to the viewing gallery for magnificent views of Prague Castle and the Little Quarter.

In the Old Town Square, we will congregate in front of Old Town Hall's Astronomical Clock to watch the glockenspiel spectacle. In addition, we will have the opportunity to climb to the top of the Old Town Hall Tower for a panoramic view of the city. This afternoon we explore the Jewish Quarter, where we will explore the unique Old Jewish Cemetery. Founded in 1478, this remarkable site was, for over 300 years, the only burial ground available to Jews. Due to a lack of space, people had to be buried on top of each other up to 12 layers deep. We continue with a visit to the Old-New Synagogue, the oldest synagogue in Europe and one of the earliest Gothic buildings in Prague.

DAY 10 PRAGUE

Our morning begins as we explore the huge hilltop complex known collectively as Prague Castle; which encompasses dozens of houses, towers, churches, courtyards, and monuments. We begin with a visit to St. Vitus Cathedral, the dominant and the most historically important section of the castle complex. The massive Gothic cathedral features 21 chapels, with St. Wenceslas Chapel being the most important. During our walk through the complex, we will stroll along the Golden Lane, a picturesque street of tiny 16th-century houses built into the castle fortifications, and view Powder Tower, White Tower, Lobkowitz Palace, St. George’s Convent, before visiting the Royal Palace, where for more than 700 years, beginning in the 9th century, Bohemian kings and princes resided. Our visit will include the Vaulted Vladislav Hall, where coronations were hosted and Václav Havel was inaugurated president. The adjacent Diet was where kings and queens met with their advisers and where the supreme court was held. From a window in the Ludwig Wing, where the Bohemia Chancellery met, the Second Defenestration took place. Our day concludes in the nearby Hradcany District, where we will visit Sternberg Palace, housing the National Gallery’s collection of European art, including works by such masters as El Greco, Brueghel, Durer, Rembrandt, Tintoretto, Goya, Monet, Renoir and Picasso.

DAY 11 PRAGUE - BERLIN (3 NIGHTS)

This morning we will travel to the historic and modern capital city of Berlin. Our sightseeing begins with a visit to Museum Haus am Checkpoint Charlie, where we will view parts of the Berlin Wall, as well as an illustrated history of the Berlin Wall, and the division it caused in the city and in Germany. This afternoon we will take a Walking Tour of Breitscheidplatz and Ku’ Damm, the center of the former West Berlin. The Ku’ Damm is Berlin’s showcase boulevard, renowned for its great cafes visited by famous writers, directors and painters. During our walk, we will see the Kantdreieck, a building containing only right angles, the Judisches Gemeindehaus, Fasanenstrasse, the Theater des Westens, the Ludwig-Erhard Haus, and the spectacular Europa Center. At the conclusion of our walk, we will visit the Kaiser-Wilhelm Gedachtniskirche (Memorial Church), where you will see the destructive power of war. The church was damaged heavily during WWII and has been left in its damaged state as a reminder of war and its consequences.

DAY 12 BERLIN (EAST BERLIN: A NEW FREEDOM)

Our morning commences with a visit to the Reichstag, a building destroyed by the Allies in WWII, which today is again the home of the country's parliament. The building still evokes the neo-Renaissance style it had when it opened in 1894, though a new glass dome designed by Sir Norman Foster crowns the modern version. We will go through the west gate for an Elevator Ride up to the dome, where a sweeping vista of Berlin opens before us on the Observation Platform. We continue to Brandenburg Gate, a triumphal arch, which stood in no man’s land between East and West Berlin during the Cold War and became a symbol of a divided Germany. We will enter the Room of Silence, built into one of the guardhouses, where visitors gather to meditate and reflect on Germany's past, before continuing with a Walking Tour down the famous Unter den Linden, one of Berlin’s most fashionable and important boulevards. Along the walk we will view the Deutsche Staatsbibliothek, the Equestrian Statue of Frederick the Great, Humboldt-Universitat and the Deutsche Staatsoper, before stopping for a visit to the Neue Wache, a monument to victims of Militarism and Fascism. The building houses the mortal remains of the Unknown Soldier from the battlefields and of an unknown prisoner from a concentration camp.

This afternoon we visit the Pergamon Museum, where we will focus on the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, housed in the north and east wings of the museum. We will enter the central hall to view the Pergamon Altar (180-160 BC), which is so large that it has a huge room all to itself, and some 27 steps lead from the museum floor up to the colonnade. We will conclude the day with a visit to the Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral), a modern cathedral destroyed during WWII, but fully restored to its original beauty.

DAY 13 BERLIN (THE TREASURES OF BERLIN)

This morning we visit Schloss Charlottenburg, one of the finest examples of baroque architecture in Germany. Built by Sophie Charlotte, the wife of Friedrich I, the residence was begun as a summer palace, but eventually grew into the massive structure we will view today. Our visit will include the Historical Apartments, including the apartments of Friedrich and his "philosopher queen," the Reception Chamber, decorated with frieze panels, vaulted ceilings, and mirror-paneled niches, and the Porcelain Chamber, containing a fine collection of Chinese porcelain. We will also visit the new wing, known as the Knobelsdorff-Flügel, which contains the apartments of Friedrich the Great. We will have a bit of free time to wander and explore the extensive Royal Park, including the French style Baroque garden, before continuing to the Tiergarten, the largest green space in central Berlin, with more than 14 miles of meandering walkways, canals, ponds, and flowerbeds. Among the park's monuments we will view is the Victory Column, a golden goddess of victory perched atop a soaring red-granite pedestal. Those that choose can climb the 290-step spiral staircase to the 157-ft. Observation Platform. We conclude the day with a visit to the Gemäldegalerie (Picture Gallery), one of Germany's finest art museums. Several rooms are devoted to early German masters, including the Dürer collection, as well as many of the great European masters including Raphael, Titian, Botticelli, Correggio, van Eyck, Bosch, Brueghel, and Rembrandt. This evening we will explore and dine in the historic Nikolaiviertel, restored in time for the city's 750th anniversary, located on the banks of the Spree River. This is where Berlin was born, and many of the medieval and baroque buildings in the neighborhood were completely reconstructed after World War II.

DAY 14 DEPARTURE FROM BERLIN

Our enjoyable and rewarding trip will come to an end as our guide accompanies us to the airport for the return flight home.

The Scalpel's Duet

2009-09-19T19:40:00.003-04:00

So I am having surgery on Monday and i am SO EXCITED about it! ....

I hope it goes better than the one above... with my extra large and extremely unnecessary incision.

Yay! Happy Holidays... Happy Holidays... While the surgeons, are cutting, I'll be blooding.... on... THEIR FACE!!!

You can send me tasty treats!

Or poke my incisions! (I don't think you will want to though)

Buy My BOOK

2009-03-13T21:35:00.004-04:00

You should go preview my book I just made!

Why? Because we will be SO UPSET if you don't look at it!

I mean, we worked so hard on it, and a lot of our friends are in it too. It's a GREAT STEAL.

Hi. So.. Maybe you should go CHECK IT OUT!

We are going to offer this nice link for you to follow, even: http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/605509

Hi thanks for shopping!

Have a great weekend!

Small Thoughts

2008-01-07T00:39:00.000-05:00

- Last evening, i had the pleasure of seeing a children's movie by the name of Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. Surprisingly, it was very emotional. Though not depressing, it was a kind of 'happy' sad, like in many Disney movies. Although i was not moved to tears, (mainly because others were present) some of our company were not so fortunate. The lead role was 'leaving' the earth, but under his own volition, so it was an interesting twist to death, but he emphasized the importance of his life before, and removed importance from the act of dying. Another part of the movie that was inspiring was a gift that the other character received, but i will not reveal what this gift was. Regardless, the purpose of the gift was to 'help' the character when she needed it, but in reality it helped her to unlock the potential that she already had hidden inside of her.

- Too often, we ignore the potential that we have, or are unaware of its presence at all..... A main area of concern for many people, such as college students, is their vocation. Recently, thinking about the future and my plans has led me to believe that unless we are unable to determine what we are best at and enjoy the most, we will never be fully happy with our lives or jobs. Of course, I am not the first to arrive at this conclusion, but the process of moving from comprehension of this ideal to application is extremely challenging, as evidenced by the number of workers who are currently unhappy.

- I am not sure what i am trying to prove... but i just felt like writing, and when i do, things just flow out, which i guess demonstrates my stream of consciousness. hopefully it is at least semi-interesting. :-)

- One thing about the movie that i really liked was how it made me feel like a child again. It was fascinating to me that while i was watching the movie, patterns of thought i had as a child resurfaced in my mind, and i was able to enjoy the movie, at least in part, from the perspective of a child. Although this may seem sappy and nonsensical, it was quite interesting. I only comment on this because i cannot remember this ever happening before.

- ANYWAYS, hopefully everyone is enjoying the new year. Have you made resolutions? i think i did, but don't really remember what they are... Guess i won't be living them up...

Something about Family

2007-12-29T01:41:00.000-05:00

- Why is it that the people that frustrate us the most can sometimes be the most fun to be around? Although it has occurred to me before that family is important etc. etc., something during this holiday season changed. I am not sure exactly what, but whatever it is was interesting and somehow profound. While planning to come home for Christmas break, i dreaded family interactions, because past experiences have taught me how miserable being at home can be sometimes. However, being with extended family members for the last two weeks every day for over ten hours still has yet to grow old. Instead of planning escape strategies with friends while making it seem like an innocent mistake, i have desired to stay at home rather than see friends or talk to them (not saying that i don't like them, or want to see them, or talk to them, but i know that after New Year's there will be plenty of time for that). No, this year has been different. I have enjoyed being in the presence of my family, have been enjoyable to be around myself, and hopefully have helped others to similarly enjoy their holiday festivities.

- Tonight we played some favorite games for hours on end, such as Boggle and Pictionary. I can't remember the last time that i laughed as hard or as long as i did tonight. It was just a blast! I am sad that everyone will be leaving soon, but it will be nice to have things back to normal for a while, and slightly less things to preoccupy the household with. But having guests is one of the greatest things ever! Yes, some side-effects such as constant cleaning, last minute errands to the store, sleepless nights, and constant working may occur, but it is so worth it!

- Christmas is one of my favorite times of year, and i am glad that this special occasion coincided with an important realization / maturation stage in my life. Hopefully every Christmas will continue to be filled with joy, merriment, and sharing. And hopefully I will be able to give back what so many others have been able to give to me! :-)

- Merry Christmas!