Alejandro's Haircut :)

Esther and the children came over for lunch one day and Alejandro had a chunk of hair missing. Esther told me that another kid had cut it with scissors while the kids were making crafts. He was embarrassed about it so we messed with him a little bit. Later on, Lyndsey and I were sitting in my room when I heard some commotion in the family room so I started listening and apparently Alejandro had cut his own hair but told his mom another kid had done it since it was the 4th time he’s done it! Kids are so funny!

The picture is from the day it happened as he is hiding in my armoire

<3 Ashton

Daylight Savings

Daylight savings happens in Spain two weeks after the US which I found to be interesting and slightly confusing. Of course, I wasn’t the only one confused by the process. Lyndsey and I are awakened on Sunday morning during our last 30 min of sleep before time to get ready for church by someone ringing our doorbell for like 20 minutes. We don’t ever answer the door and so I figured Victoria wasn’t here until I hear Lyndsey go into her bedroom and ask her if she’s expecting anybody. Victoria tells her that it’s too early for anyone to be coming over, but she proceeds to get up and see who it is. I hear some laughing and apologies and then Victoria comes in and tells us that instead of setting her clocks forward an hour she had set them all back an hour. So she began the day two hours behind and missed her breakfast date with a friend. Oh Victoria! Her daughter would say “what a disaster she is!”

<3 Ashton

The Adventure of a Lifetime...Las Fallas

At the last minute a group of 7 girls decided to go to Valencia to see Las Fallas. Las Fallas is a festival in Valencia, Spain that takes place every year. These ornate statues/floats (they are very hard to describe) are built by different organizations and companies throughout the year. They display them for two weeks in the intersections and plazas all throughout the city and then on the last night they burn them. It is supposed to be symbolic for burning away the old and starting fresh for spring. A lot of the floats also have political or moral themes which is very interesting. We planned the whole trip the night before we left. We rented a van online and booked one of the only hotel rooms we could find. The hotel only had one room so we decided that some of us would make a palette on the floor. The next afternoon we all met at the hotel where our rental van was parked to embark on our journey. We knew that the van was stick shift because all cars here are, but what some of us didn’t know was that the only girl in the group who “knew” how to drive a manual, really didn’t. We had to pull out of the parallel parking spot and immediately go into a traffic circle. I watch as she sits there and starts to panic a little bit and then it hit me that we might be in for a bumpy ride. After a little encouragement, our fearless driver Samantha pulls out and enters the roundabout, but because she is afraid she will stall if she slows or stops she puts her hand up to the window and yells at the other cars to stop. I guess they took to the understood but unofficial rule that the bigger car has the right of way, and since we were in a van they actually stopped. Basically Samantha used this method to get us out of Granada (even with people at crosswalks), but not before turning the wrong way down a one way, one lane street. Luckily there were no oncoming cars in the time it took for us to lurch our way down the street and turn onto the first street we saw. This, however, turned out to be another problem because it just so happened to be the skinniest street in Granada with cars parked on both sides. Samantha didn’t think that the car would fit so we put on our flashers and Jackie gets out to direct her down the street and to turn in other cars’ side view mirrors. Somehow we managed to make it through and eventually made it onto the highway. SUCCESS! We knew that we were good for a while, since we wouldn’t need to change gears for a while. So we took the advantage of our time to get to know each other because I probably have not yet mentioned that it was a RANDOM group of girls who all ended up together. A lot of us didn’t really know each other so we told stories about our lives and talked about boyfriends (obviously). All was well until we needed to stop for a bathroom break. We saw a sign for bathrooms and so we exited the highway, but then there weren’t any more signs. So we drove around for a while in the middle of nowhere until we saw a charter bus. We assumed that it was probably going to the rest stop too so we followed it. It pulls into a gated parking lot with a lot of other buses so we follow it. There was a sign on the gate that said “STOP! Entry Prohibited” but we didn’t think much of it. Samantha pulls into the first space she sees after giving the stop sign to a bus trying to pull out. She gets out of the car without realizing that there are two large dogs beside the van: one chained, one not. All the girls start freaking out about these huge dogs, but I tell them not to worry because making friends with dogs is my specialty. So I get out of the car and start talking to the dogs and decided they weren’t mean. We don’t want to leave the car unattended so Samantha, Jackie, and I set out to find the bathrooms. The buses are unloading and there were a LOT of people filling the parking lot. There are also a lot of people coming out of the big building so we walk towards a trailer-type structure that we think might be a café or something (you never know if Spain). Samantha realizes that she has blocked somebody in so she runs back to the car to move it and Jackie and I walk into this building. I immediately read a sign in Spanish that says, “Respect you coworkers. Clean up your space.” It hit me like a tone of bricks that we were at a factory at midnight and all the people getting on and off the bus were changing shifts. So we take off back towards the car when upon further realization we realize that there are only men in the parking lot and that they are not even Spanish but Latin-American. We were starting to get some stares so I tell Jackie that we need to run. She thinks that it will draw more attention to us, but in that moment all I could think was that we needed to get back to the van FAST. So we run and jump in the van as Samantha is stalling out trying to back up. Somehow we get out of the parking lot and find an actual safe food establishment to use the bathroom. Whew! Just one of the many examples of God’s protection in Spain. While we were driving we passed a city called Benidorm that none of us had heard of. We found this strange since it was so big, but what was even weirder was the skyline. There were tons of skyscrapers, but instead of being clumped together they were all very spread out. This mixed with the fog gave a really eerie effect and just as someone said that it looked like an alien-city we see a huge disk like structure that looks just like a flying saucer has landed beside the highway. Jackie later looked it up and we learned that Benidorm is the only city in Spain that still has a law in effect that mandates a certain amount of green space for every building. We got to Valencia and got lost trying to find our hotel. After driving around for while we decided that we should get gas because running out while lost in a foreign country would be a real disaster. We pull into a gas station and the pump ends up eating my credit card. A few of us go to talk to the man inside but because it is so late he is locked inside and tells us we need to come back tomorrow. I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not, but I told him that we would not be leaving without the card and that he was going to have to get it out immediately. Meanwhile one of the girls finds tweezers in her luggage and they extract my card from the machine. Unbelievable! So we ask this guy for directions and he says tells us which direction to head and then tells us to ask somebody else when we get there. Jackie is very good with directions so we decided not to tell the other girls this last bit because we thought we knew the turn that was wrong on our MapQuest directions. We were right and we finally find the hotel, but not before seeing many hookers on the side of the highway. There would be one girl (wearing very little) on each side of the highway and then another group of them would be huddled around a fire that they had built in the median. I had never seen anything like this before. We had talked about all the possible scenarios for getting seven girls into one hotel room, but as soon as we saw the hotel we realized that we had a big problem. It was a very small hotel that locked a gate in front of the door at night so it was going to be very difficult to get seven girls past the desk attendant at 2 am. So two girls go to check in and scope out the situation. They call us and say that if you just walk up to the gate he will open it. So another group of three goes up and makes it in successfully. My friend Shaz and I wait about 15 minutes and then we go in without a problem. We could not believe it when we all made it into the room! Four girls slept sideways on the double bed and the other three of us made a bed on the floor.
Day 2 of this trip began with what sounded like bombs going off outside of out hotel. We would soon find out that Spanish people love fireworks and they don’t even care if they’re pretty as long as they make a LOUD sound. We got ready and left the hotel in shifts once again, but when we were all in the van we saw the maid pointing to our car so we were fairly certain that they were onto us. After taking coffee, we drove into Valencia and tried to find a place to park. We were driving around when my friend Maggie points out a guy crossing the street in front of us wearing a Clemson shirt. So I roll down the window, lean out and yell “YAY, CLEMSON!” He turned around and responded with a “GO TIGERS!” I was so excited to have seen a fellow Tiger in Valencia! Once we had decided that no actual parking spots were left we drove the van onto a sidewalk with part of it in the crosswalk and the other side of the van in the street. Basically it was illegal in three different ways, but I knew that the police had more important things to do than tow our van. We had brought a lot of our food for the trip so we set up a sandwich making station in the van and once we were done we set out to check out Las Fallas. I spent the first part of the day trying to get used to the fact that there were loud fireworks going off constantly, some of them near us. The strange thing was that you could not always identify who was setting them off. I have a theory that in the larger intersections there were machines mounted on the sides of buildings that would set one off every once in a while. After looking at the floats for a while we headed to the city center for what turned out to just be a noisemaker show. After lunch and a Starbucks break (where yet another way to spell my name was invented) we started shopping a little bit. Surprisingly it started to get cold and a few of us did not have jackets so we were looking for something to buy. I found one of the coolest scarves I’ve ever seen and thought that I could use it like a shawl for the night. I went over to the guy who was selling it off the street and picked it up. Right at that time, all the street vendors started grabbing their stuff because they had spotted two police officers. They took off running which was surprising to us since the vendors we’ve seen in Granada and other parts of Spain just pick up their stuff and cross a street or something until the officers leave. So we went in a few more stores, but I REALLY wanted this particular scarf so we decided to go back and see if they had set up again. They had and I walked over and picked up the scarf again and asked how much it cost. He told me and then I tried to bring him down a few Euros. I pulled the money out of my bag and once again the police show up so he grabbed the scarf once again and ran. This time the police chased all the guys and we waited a little while for them to come back but we never saw the one guy again :( Mission scarf-shawl had failed, but I bought some peacock earrings which turned out to be a big hit. We went inside the main cathedral for a little bit, and I was glad for the reprieve from all of the explosions. I thanked God for keeping us safe thus far and asked that he would continue to do so. After the cathedral visit Maureen and I still needed something warm to wear and I didn’t want to hold the group up looking for something. So the next store we saw I walked in picked out a purple shirt, tried it on, and then walked to the register wearing it all in a matter of 30 seconds. I have never spent so little time picking out an article of clothing but it ended up being a great purchase! We headed to see a parade that was supposed to bring “the fire” to the city and boy did it ever! The parade started with bands playing and then girls (presumably royalty) dressed up in traditional attire. They were followed by 300 demons and nothing could have prepared me for this. These demons had hoses that sprayed fire and they would sling them around and then spray them over the crowd! There were also stilt walkers sending off fireworks, not to mention all of the sparklers. I had to kneel down because I didn’t see how it was possible that we weren’t all going to get burned. Finally it ended though without any injuries. We went back to the van (which was luckily still there) and ate dinner. We then set out for dessert of churros and chocolate. Delicious! We tried pumpkin churros and then I got one covered in chocolate which was one of the best desserts I’ve EVER had! Once it got dark they started to burn the smaller fallas, but at midnight they start burning the huge ones. We got in the crowd to see one of these huge fallas burn and waited a long time because apparently it was midnight Spanish time which equaled 1:30 am. This falla was as big as the buildings surrounding it and when they set it on fire the flames rose higher than the buildings and the heat was intense and immediate even though we were behind the barricades. The whole thing burned in about 5 minutes and they say that they are engineered to collapse inward when they burn so that it doesn’t topple while going up in flames. I didn’t have a lot of confidence in this engineering but it turned out to be legit. After we watched it burn we walked to the next block to see the next one burn. This one was more volatile and kept catching a tree on fire. There are firemen and a fire truck at each of the burnings but this one was so close to one of the buildings and tree that they had to work to keep it under control. This one also had a lot of burning embers that the wind was blowing everywhere but it finally conceded and burned to the ground like the other one. The fallas are built of Styrofoam, wood and covered with wax and paint so the smell was very strong and toxic and I was surprised that they are allowed to burn these materials. Then again I’m surprised by a lot of things in Spain! I’m not sure if I mentioned that I really don’t like fireworks, loud sounds, or uncontrolled fire so the fact that I ended up in Valencia on this particular day is quite ironic. We were exhausted and so we found the car and headed back to the hotel. We decided to just go in two shifts to get into the hotel this time so the first group went and made it in. We waited and then four of us tried to go up. The other girls darted up the stairs but he was following us and asked us what room we were staying in. I legitimately didn’t remember the room number though and so I call to the girls who have run up the stairs and after some confusion this guy tells us that we cannot all 7 stay in the same room. Busted! He let us go upstairs for an hour though which was good because in that time 4 of us took showers and we packed up all the blankets and warm clothes we could find. We come up with a game plan to leave before 8 in the morning and drive to the beach. An hour later 5 of us walked out to the car to endure our fate: sleeping in the van. I really wasn’t worried about it since there were five of us and Shaz had brought a sharp knife for some reason so we had a weapon. We spent an hour talking and laughing about our situation before somehow falling asleep.
Day 3
The two girls that got to sleep in the hotel woke up and came down to the van while we were still sleeping and got pictures of us all asleep in the van. Hilarious! We drove to a beach near Alicante and when we got there I had to brush my teeth so I used a foot wash that explicitly said “do not drink.” Clearly my brain wasn’t functioning very well due to my restful night of sleep. We had coffee at a café where we took turns using the bathroom to change clothes. We needed to find a grocery store to buy lunch and snacks for the day but we couldn’t find it. So we see a buy walking down the sidewalk and decide to try and flag him down to give us directions. He, however, thinks that this van full of American girls is just hollering at him so he keeps walking with an added pep in his step and smile on his face. How ridiculous! We eventually found the Mercadona though (without help from the kid we now refer to as “Mercadona boy”). We found some great things: guacamole and chips, smoked salmon and cream cheese for sandwiches, carrots, etc. and then found a good beach spot for the day. The beach was beautiful and the water was so clear and blue. We had the best time snacking on guacamole and chatting. In the car on the way there I had boldly proclaimed that I would be going in the water so that I could check it off my ‘bucket list.’ However, once I put one toe in that water and realized how frigid it was I wasn’t so sure if it was going to happen. Somehow though we all talked one another into going in together; so all 7 of us held hands as we walked out into the Mediterranean and after a lot of shrieking we all went under at the same time. It was freezing but a fun experience nonetheless! Some teenage boys came and sat near us and tried so hard all day to get out attention so right before we left we were taking pictures and Samantha asked them to take our picture but they thought we wanted a picture with them! Haha! So we took a picture with them and it definitely made their day. We got back on the road when I had another ingenious idea: we should all learn how to drive stick while we have the rental car. So we found an empty parking lot behind a supermarket and spent at least an hour teaching three girls how to drive while doing a lot of lurching  I was worried that I was going to break the van and since we were several hours from home, I decided not to try. I definitely want to learn soon though. We talked all the way home and when we got back to Granada the streets were PACKED with people for the Spring Fiesta. We managed to pull into a gas station though without hitting any pedestrians and I departed for my apartment. Reflecting back on this trip, it is something that I NEVER would have done if I had known all of the craziness that was to come. However, I’m glad that I didn’t have any prior knowledge because I had the most amazing time with six amazing ladies and although I wouldn’t choose to do it again I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I think that it is very representative of life because we never know what is to come and nothing ever works out perfectly, but we have a choice on how to respond to everything that is thrown our way. If we choose to embrace life with a determination to find the joy in every situation, we will. Praise God for the joy he has brought to my life and the wisdom to recognize it!

<3 Ashton

Snazzy Sevilla

The day we left for Sevilla was Friday the 13th and I learned (from yahoo homepage) that there are three Friday the 13th’s in 2009 and that this only happens every 11 years. Then when we got to out hotel Lyndsey and I were in room 113! I wasn’t at all bothered by any of this because I actually like the number 13, but I thought it was interesting nonetheless. On our way to Sevilla thought we stopped at El Torcal for a hike. There were these huge rock structures everywhere and at the end of the hike we climbed up the highest rock. The view was AMAZING! We could see little towns and we were even higher than the clouds.
So there are all these discrepancies about who has the biggest church in the world. I had been told in Toledo and the Vatican that they had the biggest church in the world. Then we get to Sevilla and our guide tells me their cathedral is the biggest in the world. I was getting tired of people pulling my chain when the guide told me that they all measure it differently. Sevilla has the biggest cathedral in the world based on volume (she even showed us the Guinness world Record certificate posted inside the cathedral) and the Vatican has the largest area. Toledo claims to be the largest because they say that St. Peter’s is not technically a “cathedral.” I was glad to finally get the whole story. There were two huge organs inside the cathedral in Sevilla. They had a combined total of 7000 pipes! 2000 kg of gold was used to decorate the altar and to pay the people who worked on it. The style of the church was definitely gothic, but the Capilla Real was very different from the cathedral and was built in Plateresco style. This doesn’t translate to English because it is an exclusively Spanish style of architecture from the end of the 15th century. The cathedral only took 105 years to build which is record time compared to how long it usually took. This was due to continual financial support and lack of wars during the time of construction. Four bronze sculptures (representing the 4 kingdoms of Spain, historically) carry the remains of Christopher Columbus. Here we go with another dispute! His remains have been moved 5 times, but about a year and a half ago it was confirmed that his remains were actually inside the cathedral in Sevilla. They achieved this confirmation with DNA testing using the remains of his brother and an illegitimate child who is also buried inside the cathedral. Previously the Dominican Republic had argued that they had his remains, but after a 100% match I guess Sevilla wins! After our tour we decided to take a carriage ride through the city since there were so many pretty horses and carriages. It was so lovely! The weather was perfect and we saw a lot of beautiful architecture, the river, and we rode through Parque Maria Luisa which was breathtaking! We had been dreaming of Starbucks for weeks before we got to Sevilla because we don’t have one here in Granada. We also were on a mission to buy thermoses so that we could carry our coffee with us to school instead of having to inhale it all at once at 7:45 in the morning. During the course of the weekend we went in all five Starbucks that were in Sevilla looking for a certain Espana mug. Of course we enjoyed a few frappaccinos along the way as well ;), but we couldn’t find it until Lyndsey had resigned to buying some other random one when Kelley spotted two at checkout. SCORE! One of the coolest parts of the weekend was when we went on a bike ride through the city. We rode for like 3 hours, but it was SO fun! We had bells on our bike which we found every excuse to ring while enjoying the weather and the city. The last day that we were in Sevilla we went to the Alcazar which is a Moorish palace that reminded us a lot of a less impressive version of the Alhambra. While there our tour guide told us a super interesting fact. Apparently mythical legend says that Hercules pushed two pillars in order to separate Africa from Eurasia. The pillars with a blue ribbon (representing water) swirled around them is one of the Spanish coat of arms. She said that this is where our symbol for the dollar originated.

<3 Ashton

Santa Maria de la Encarnacion

One of the things I love about Europe is the cathedrals. Granted I’m not catholic and I sometimes wonder while I’m in one what God thinks of all the extravagance and icons of Mary, but I still always find solitude inside. My friend Ashley and I signed up together to take a tour of the Cathedral in Granada. She’s my friend here who appreciates art and architecture more than just looking at it and saying “that’s cool.” We learned that it took 212 years to build and so it has both Baroque and Renaissance influences. On the façade there are engravings of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John with their respective animals. The archangels Michelangelo and Rafael are on far sides and there are two girl angels (one holding the Ten Commandments to depict the Old Testament and the other depicting the New Testament). I pass by this cathedral everyday, but I had never seen the inside of it. It was bigger and more beautiful than I had expected. It was also a lot different than a lot of the cathedrals I’ve seen here. There were a lot of windows to let in natural light (representative of the Spiritual Awakening during the Renaissance) and the marble was painted white to refract it.

We also got to see the Capilla Real which is kind of attached externally to chapel. Quite honestly I didn’t know that this even existed. It was built to house King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella’s bodies, but it also contains their daughter Juana’s body and her husbands’. One of the coolest facts I’ve learned since being in Spain was that King Ferdinand actually denied Christopher Columbus’ request to finance his voyage. Queen Isabella, however, approved it and financed it by giving him her jewelry to sell in order to buy the ships. Isn’t that crazy? She didn’t have access to actual money or gold so she financed the whole thing with her jewelry!

<3 Ashton

Victoria Goes to the Hospital

One Monday as I was walking out the door to go to class I was met by Victoria’s daughter (Estelle) and son-in-law (Pedro). They proceeded to tell me Victoria was in the hospital. I wasn’t terribly surprised because she had been to the doctor a few days before and was told she had bronchitis. Not to mention that her grandchildren had been over the night before and every time the grandkids come over she complains of chest pains and anxiety. They told me that they thought it was something to do with her heart but that they didn’t really know yet. She also asked if Lyndsey and I would want to move houses. I promptly told her that we would love to stay with Victoria as long as she wanted us to because we loved it here but we didn’t want to be an inconvenience either. I ran off to school to inform Lyndsey of the news. After informing our program directors of the situation we headed back home where Estelle was going to meet us for lunch. We assured her that we would be fine staying by ourselves for a few nights and we came up with a telephone ringing system so that we would know when it was her calling and not one of the million other people who call incessantly. She also wrote her name and number down and it was then that we realized that her name is actually Esther not Estelle as we had thought for 2 months time. The next day we were told that Victoria was fine but they were running a lot of tests so she would be in the hospital for a week. The plan was for Esther to come cook lunch and something else for us to heat up at night. We were cool with it and ended up enjoying the freedom to eat and shower whenever we wanted as well as have friends over (gasp!). People really don’t hang out at other people’s houses here so we took the liberty of having a few movie nights. We also got to use the TV and watched several movies (Casablanca, Thirteen Days, Supersize Me, Notting Hill). Basically whatever we can find at the library or in Victoria’s collection. We also got to know Esther and her family very well which was fun. She would run (literally) through the house cooking and cleaning while Lyndsey and I talked to her sons and husband. One day she even brought their dog! Our friends’ Kelley and Ashley live with Victoria’s friend Maria Luisa and on Saturday we were invited over for lunch. This was a big deal and we were very excited. She made paella which was delicious, and we got to see their house. Afterwards we met Kelley’s parents who were visiting. They took us out for ice cream and we had a good time chatting. We then decided to go visit Victoria at the hospital. After getting lost (we don’t go anywhere new without getting lost) we finally found it. Victoria did NOT look good though. She was in a small room that did not have air conditioning with two other patients. At one point I had to step out of the room because I felt nauseas and thought I might faint. Luckily I didn’t because I did not want to end up in one of those rooms as a patient for ANY amount of time. We gathered as much that she was going to be there for several more days. A few days later Lyndsey and I stepped off the elevator for lunch when we smelled something horrendous. Usually we are greeted by a wonderful smell that is always coming from our apartment, but unfortunately this day it was the bad one that originated in our casa. We now refer to what we had for lunch that day as puke soup and it is the most accurate description. During the two weeks that Victoria ended up staying in the hospital we had a few questionable soups. Different neighbors and family members would cook things for us and needless to say their cooking paled in comparison to Victoria’s. On these days after Esther would leave I would proceed to flush them down the toilet since we don’t have a sink disposal system. We still don’t really know why Victoria was in the hospital and I’m convinced that the doctors weren’t so sure either because they first told us it was a near blockage in her heart, then they said it was a heart attack and lastly they said it was just bronchitis and no heart problem. They knew she had bronchitis from the beginning though so I’m not really sure what went on that two weeks while Victoria was in the hospital. We were glad though the day she finally walked through the front door.

<3 Ashton

Praise be to the God of ALL Nations!

We are still rocking out at the Baptist church in Granada! The first Sunday of the month is a praise service, which was a wonderful surprise. There was Bible readings, scripture memorization (a whole chapter from a 9 yr old!), prayers as well as music from the choir, ensembles and soloists. I sat beside a Japanese girl who told me it was the first time in her life that she had been to church! Every week during the service they ask first-time visitors to stand up and introduce themselves and tell where they are from. EVERY single week there are several people from South America and the US, and sometimes Asia or Europe, not to mention the people from Spain. It is such a vivid example of a multinational congregation coming together for the sake of the gospel. The church had a special English worship service this week so obviously we went and it was awesome! We always enjoy the music and we kind of enjoy the messages every week in Spanish, but it was so wonderful to worship and study the Word in ENGLISH!

<3 Ashton