One week into things....

(written Sunday, Sept. 7^th)

Hola from Espana!

We’ve been here for officially a week now, even though it feels like a month! I definitely feel settled here, having a schedule and structure helps a lot.

I’ve been a bit homesick today. I’ve only been really homesick one other time this week, after talking to my parents on Friday, but something about Sundays just do me in a bit. I love Sundays so much at home, whether it’s being lazy with the roommates at Bethel or with the fam at home. I miss my churches at home. I miss playing guitar and piano like crazy. Mostly, I’m just really missing my friends these days. Here in Spain, we don’t really have an equivalent/opportunity to hang out at someone’s house to talk or watch a movie, and I’m definitely aching for some good late night “dissecting life” chats with my beautiful friends. I know this will all pass….just some of the bumps along the road these first few weeks.

Anyways, Espana! It’s been quite the week. I’m loving my classes so far, especially the ones we take with Ricardo. I have Modern Spain (history/a bit of sociology, but all under the perspective of ethics) and Advanced Comm with him, and it’s been sweet to dig into those. My prof for Photography is quite a character, but I’m taking the class with just 4 other girls, so we should have a fun adventure with that. :)

I’ve had some super good chats with Sandra this week. We wasted no time in getting to the taboo subjects within the first week, and since we have some pretty different views on some things, we were able to establish from the get-go that we both really respect the other, despite our different viewpoints. We talked about the different styles of communication we have (Spaniards tend to be very blunt and honest about things, and often don’t mind discussing things very openly, while my Midwestern upbringing and personality has me assuming that hatred is involved anytime someone raises their voice! :P) One of the amazing challenges I hope to grow from this semester: to state my beliefs honestly, openly, and respectfully even if it causes confrontation or a bit of heated discussion.

So far, we have a LOT of free time here. Sometimes only an hour or two of class a day. Like I mentioned before, it’s been a bit of a challenge to fill those hours sometimes. It’s not very common to invite someone over to your house, people usually go out to bars or restaurants to socialize. It has been fun to try out the different types of restaurants or tapas bars around here (the ice cream/hot chocolate/coffee/any type of chocolate is amazing here!!), and we went dancing one night. Still, I haven’t experienced the full extent of Spanish night life yet- it cracks me up a bit when my host mom comments on how early I come in at night (aka 1 or 2 am :P). Hopefully I’ll get a bit more nocturnal as the semester goes on!

We visited an evangelical church here in Segovia this morning. The religious climate here is so different; there are only 2 evangelical churches in Segovia (and tons of Catholic ones, obviously), and this one we visited was very small, only 50-75 people in this little room. To be “cristiano” here is not really a positive thing in society, while to be “evangelico” is merely strange and rare. At first, it made me really homesick for St. Mikes and Sanctuary, but once we got into the service, I was amazed at how similar it was to the services I’ve attended in Mexico and at Nueva Esperanza. Very odd, because neither of these churches had ties to Spain, but sooo refreshing at the same time. It was lovely to sing some of those familiar songs and see people expressing their worship in a way I haven’t encountered here yet. And amazingly, I understood the whole sermon. J Anyways, it was definitely a huge refreshment, as I’ve struggled a lot more than I thought I would spiritually here. I may end up blabbing a lot about this here, but it’s been a week of definite confusion, wrestling, and growth as far as spiritual things go. Who knows what’s in store for these next few months…..but God has definitely been faithful.

Umm what else….I’m LOVING the food! I didn’t think I would, but I think my stomach is growing every day I’m here :P. Sandra is a great cook, and we’ve had something different every meal. Lots of pork, some beef and chicken, some fish. Eggs and potatoes, crunchy bread with every meal. A good amount of fruits and vegetables, lots of fried stuff. Not necessarily new ingredients, just very different ways of preparing them and combining things. My fave so far: coffee flavored flan. Mmmmm. :)

I think that’s good for now. I miss you all tons and tons, and I can’t wait to hug you in a few months. I don’t have a ton of internet access here (good for my facebook addiction for sure…), but it’s been great to hear from some of you so far. Y’all are in my prayers and thoughts every day…..adios!