tengo cinco años.

today i played like a five year old. we walked around a park outside of the royal palace, and played on in the "infant zone" literally translated. and heres what i have to show for myself.

happy memorial day friends :)

younglife!

the past two days have been beautiful in spain and its cooled off a little bit which has been wonderful. so yesterday and today i slept in a little bit, then waited for the roomies to get up so we could go play! we went to el parque de retiro yesterday and walked around and saw the rose garden. oh my beautiful, thats all ive got to say. the parks here are incredible because, lets be honest, its the only grassy areas all over the city. back yards are no existent, nor do they like you to sit in the grass that you do fund, unless its in one of the parques. but while the rest of the group stayed at the park, i snuck away (not really snuck, but just left) to go on my own adventure.

younglife is such a small world. really it is. so i worked when i worked at malibu club, i met fun friends and its always fun to have a reunion! so, got on facebook, and come to find out my friend david was in madrid, and he told me that younglife had club saturday night. so what did i do? i went to a spanish younglife club in madrid! SUPER COOL. it was a small club, thats for sure, but it was so awesome just to see that its here, the lord is so present in it, and yep. i was really happy. fun fact: they sang both english and spanish songs. firework by katy perry or course was on the list. another one of davids friends came, because he is a wyldlife leader in birmingham. after that i met up with their friends to watch the barcelona vs manchester united futbol game and just catch up on life. come to find out a bunch of guys play football for samford (who is in appalachians conference for sports) and they were talking about how awesome it is to play in boone. then there was some trash talk about how they expect to win next year. no worries: i put them in their places. but it was a fun adventure to meet other estudiantes americanos.

today, me and 2 girls from another university, in indiana, went back to retiro and walked around a bit then ohhh my. there was a lake (just a baby one) where you can rent boats and go paddle on around. most hilarious adventure. got my arm work out for the month. and might have crashed into a few other boats. and since i forgot to bring nigel, we WILL be doing it again. i love paddle boats in madrid.

new goal to add to the list: i want to become a "regular" at a place, yes, here in madrid. this will be a tad bit difficult. also, i believe going to a bullfight should be added. so many fun things in spain. love it hereeee!

thats all for now folks :)

catching up.

oh boy where to start! ive only been here a few days and i feel like i have so much to share and catch yall up on. wednesday we had our orientation for the program and basically, i will have classes monday through thursday from 930-115 then home for lunch and the rest of the afternoon and evenings are free. so clearly that means i like to go on an adventure everyday. so far we have only ventured to this one section of town puerte del sol and the plaza mayor de madrid. its basically a downtown area with way too many shops and all the sorts. but whats also kind of cool is that the country just had elections and now there are people camping out in sol as protests to the ways people are elected and saying the government is corrupt. so its really just interesting because as soon as you step off the metro, you see thousands of signs. encouraging note: i cant read most of them and understand them :)

so with these fun little adventures we, a group of chicas, tend to do a little shopping. now yall know one of my goals was the learn to dress like a sassy spaniard, and its a little difficult. but i started the process yesterday and bought some sassy sandals. ill try and rock em in the states, but we shall see.

today we took our first class field trip. i decided to call them field trip fridays. and todays adventure was to segovia spain. it was about an hour bus ride from madrid and literally this town has so much history. we went to an a castle which was a summer home for most of the kings and queens, climbed the town and saw all sorts of fun things. i also met a boy. his name is juan, he loves holding my hand and hes my charming knight, but he doesnt talk much.

meet juan. ok, ill stop with the punny jokes. im laughing at myself, because we all know i think im hilarious.

we also went and visited this gothic cathedral. i dont know much about what a "gothic" cathedral is, but oh my this place was huge and full of so much old stuff, actually the bodies or previous priests and basically monuments to each of them. it was beyond beautiful, and what was really cool is that it opened up the religion topic with some of the friends. so, needless to say, that was a bit interesting.

another fun thing i checked off the list today in segovia, was my cross! i had been looking in shops in madrid for a cross, and jokes on me, the only one i found was 423 euros! um, no. but i found an incredible, i guess its iron, cross en segovia for only 7, so thats my official cross from spain. i love how different this collection is going to be.

so this is just a bit of what i have done so far. and i guess now i can just share my randomness. i like lists, so ill just use a list.

1. i can use the metro, no fear. that didnt take long

2. early mornings, coffee, and sweet time with the lord start me off everyday.

3. chocolate crescents. YUM!

4. overseas coffee dates are wonderful.

5. concha (my spanish mom) cracks me up! yall, she is a little sassy. and cant pronounce the z sound in zoeys name. hilarious.

6. im obsessed with skype.

7. they all know im american, so i quite trying to fit in and embraced my inner tourist.

8. no a/c when its 90 degrees = sweatyyyy

9. I GET TO SEE CAITLIN SHEFFIELD IN TWO WEEKS! FREAKING OUTTTTT!

10. i feel like i live in the future since im 6 hours ahead.

11. someone requested being added to the "goals" list. heres your shout out. i have a goal to chat with you mucho. duh.

12. my pup back home is officially naked! (summer haircut of course.)

thats about all thats on my mind for now. sorry for my randomness and super long post and any bad grammar and such, its just 3 in the morning here. but ill try and do better, promise. love yall!

buenos dias

good morning from madrid! i made it safe and sound after a long day of traveling and rushing around! long story short: i originally had a flight from raleigh to new york at 4pm and then new york to madrid, but there became a bit of a problem when the airline cancelled my flight to new york at noon! so we called the airlines and they were going to send me the next day, but yall know i was persistent on getting there at the scheduled time, so they said they had a flight to atlanta at 1:30 then i could fly from atlanta to madrid. so we took it. pops put the car in nascar mode and we checked in around 1230. i might have been in the backseat freaking out, but we made it! and who did i find sitting at the gate in raleigh, but my rooms, zoey (whose flight was delayed to atalnta so she was on mine!)

all the flights went well and arriving in madrid was a breeze. my host family is the jam. love them. we are staying with a younger girl (25) and her parents dont live here, but they help out with everything, since other students live here as well. i think my number 1 goal is going to be concha (the mom)...to make a best friend. i have been cracking up at her for hours here already. shes great. the place we are staying in is an apartment really close to a direct line on the metro to the university. my dad here (santiago) took zoey and i on our first metro adventure and showed us where to go then took us downtown and we walked around and such.

but for now, just thought i would update to say im here! im sure i will have lots more to tell once i get a little more used to the time difference, but for now, ya girl is tired and cant type without a thousand typos.

new adventure.

welp friends, its that time again. i figured since i had this blog in costa rica, i might as well use it for another adventure. this time: SPAIN! i fly out tomorrow afternoon, and cant seem to calm down enough to get a good nights sleep. i will be there for one month, taking 2 classes with a study abroad program that appalachian has. there are about 20 of us going on this adventure and i am beyond excited to get to know each of them! i sat down and talked about what my goals were for spain with an amigo and thought i would share them, some of them sincere, and others might be a joke, but its my list :)

1. make a best friend.

2. go to a professional soccer game.

3. stick my toesies in the mediterranean sea (hopefully in alicante to see the one and only caitlin sheffield!!!).

4. learn better spanish.

5. read these 2 books that 2 dear friends gave me.

6. meet a bulgarian (simply because its a fun word to say).

7. try a new food item at least 4 times a week (this ones for all the friends that say im a picky eater).

8. learn to dress like those sassy spaniards.

9. real talk pillow talk with my roomie.

10. take cool pictures.

11. blog about my adventures for all the fam back home.

12. use the metro without fear.

13. find a cross for the collection (i collect crosses from countries around the world, just because they are always so unique)

14. love people, and love them well.

my number 14 goal is for real the most legit. the best way to share who christ is, is to love people the way he did. i wont be perfect at it whatsoever, but my goal here is to minister to people simply by loving them in ways that they could never imagine. its incredible that simple acts of showing people how worthy they are and loving on them can be used in awesome ways to glorify the lord. so yea. i want to love people. my roommate, zoey, my host family, my other classmates, and even my professors, praying they would just receive it and that it would open up opportunities :)

so thats all for now friends. more to come from the other side of the ocean!