happenings

Buenos dias! I say ´good morning´ even though it is almost one o´clock in the afternoon. Spaniards would greet you with a ¨Buenos dias!¨ up until 2:00! From 2:00 – 9:00pm or so, one would use ¨Good afternoon!¨And it´s not until the sun has completely set for the day that you would use ¨Good evening,¨ anytime after 10pm. That´s when the night truly begins. People stay out very late here, even on weeknights. Coming home from spending time with friends at around 1 or 2 each night is normal (and also not so unreasonable when you remember that they don´t have to work the next morning until around 10am.) So when the weekend hits, you can be sure that the bars and restaurants will be alive with people until 5, 6, even 7 o´clock in the morning! Zach and I aren´t really accustomed to this type of night life, so we feel kinda lame. J One of these nights when Zach doesn´t have class the next morning we´ll have to try staying up all night with the locals!

Zachary´s first day of school is today! While he went to class, I stayed in bed and slept in for the first time past 8 o clock… it was awesome, sorry Zach. J After I slept in til about 11, Sandra showed me how to use the coffee maker, and I enjoyed some breakfast out on the balcony. This morning: un tostado con mermelada y un cafelito con leche (toast and jam with coffee). Sandra y Juan Lu see breakfast as the most important meal of the day, yet it is very simple. Lunch is the biggest meal at around 2 or 3pm (most of the time a 3-course deal!), and dinner isn´t until 9 or 10 and is very light. Doesn´t that make more sense than eating a big steak and potatoes meal right before bed? I really like this mealtime routine; it´s growing on me. There will definitely be some customs from Spain that Zach and I might have to adopt and bring back to our life in the States when we return!

Since I had some free time this morning, I explored the shops in our neighborhood a bit. Walked around a  “chino,” which is like a dollar store typically run by Asians, hence the name. J Bought some tweezers and gum. Walked by a bread store, jewelry store, fruit and vegetable market, and finally… a candy shop! Oh goodness, I was overjoyed to stumble upon this. The candy here is pretty amazing. Greta, if you are reading this, you know my (our) love for gummies and they have a lot of those!! YUM

After a successful morning of exploring the streets and speaking in Spanish with the locals by myself, I felt really happy in my heart. I think good, long sleep contributed to that too. Could not help smiling and walking with my chin up a little higher as I walked to pick Zach up from school. J

YESTERDAY

Was Sunday. Zach and I and our friends Jenna and Hannah had our first experience riding the metro to a church we wanted to try about 40 minutes away. We got confused as to which stop was ours, so we spent quite a bit of time walking around looking for it and asking people on the street where we could find the church. After finally discovering the beautiful Bautista Iglesia Evangelista, we went inside and were warmly greeted and led upstairs to a Sunday School class for college age students. It felt very much like a Sunday School class back home, and I was excited to learn that the youth pastor, Marcos, spoke very clear Spanish. The class was excellent—very meaningful and Biblical. Marcos was very welcoming to us and he wasn’t superficial, but instead genuine. As were the others in the class. We are probably going to return next Sunday!

After lunch with Sandra y Juan Lu at home, Zach and I took a short siesta (of course) and decided to ride bikes to El Centro to get ice cream. Left our one and only really nice water bottle (a wedding gift L) in the basket of one of the bikes. (The bicycle renting system here is called Sevici: you pay for 4 months and can ride them all over the city and park them at different stations. Super fun but they bikes are kinda big and clanky—also kind of a challenge to maneuver them around the streets full of people!)

We ended Sunday filling our souls with more quality time with dear Sandra y Juan Lu. We just love these two and feel sooo blessed to have been paired with them this semester. More and more we get to see who they really are, the passions they have, the interactions they demonstrate with each other, what makes them laugh, what makes them sad… I’ll have to write more about them in a later post, as this one’s getting long.

Much love from Zach and Kristen, until next time…! xoxo