A Few Pictures

I'll put up some pictures of me and mom in Edinburgh and Barcelona tomorrow. In the mean time, you get a quick update of my future adventures via photos. Mainly because I am excited, because I just bought all my plane tickets and have booked some of my hostels and everything. When I look at the weekends I will be spending traveling, I can hardly believe how little time I have left here. Don't get me wrong, there are still days when my heart literally aches for Christmas and snow and home. But now that that seems closer, I realize how quickly my time here will pass.

God is calling me to see his creation. For some very intentional reason, I am also going to all these places alone. I cannot wait to see what happens. Here are the pieces I get to see over the next eight weeks:

This week: Nothing too exciting. Exploring more of Madrid and attempting to study for mid-terms.

Next week: Mid-terms.

Then....

1. London, England. I'm heading here in about two weeks. I will be spending three days seeing London, drinking tea and enjoying the cold that doesn't seem to exist here in Spain. I am also taking a Jack-the-Ripper tour one evening. I may also take a Harry Potter tour. And you can bet I'm going to see Platform 9 3/4.

2. Amsterdam, Netherlands. I'm heading even farther north about three days after I get back from London. I was going to go for Thanksgiving, but my dates would have overlapped with a bit of the Cannabis Cup, and I do NOT want to be around for that. So, I'm heading to Amsterdam mid-November. I am hoping they will have it all decorated for Christmas like that ^^. Their Christmas is December 5th, so I'm thinking they'll probably be in full swing by mid-November.

Then Thanksgiving here in Madrid. My church will be hosting a big Thanksgiving dinner at someone's house, and I cannot wait. I love these people, and I love Thanksgiving. Win-win.

Then....

3. Rome, Italy. To Rome I go. First weekend of December, I'll be in one of the oldest cities in the world. So so so amazing. I've got three days to wander around and be that crazy foreign girl who has to ask people to take photos of her at touristy places. I am okay with this. I will be eating my fair share of tiramisu, also.

4. Dublin, Ireland. Last, but certainly not least. I'll have to spend at least a day sitting in a café somewhere studying, as I won't fly back to Madrid until the day before finals, but I think I can handle that.

And then, five days after I get back from Ireland, I fly home. Crazy. So far from now, and yet so very close. I wish I could explain how much I have learned already... Or how excited I am about the places I am so blessed to get to see before I go.

Can you tell that school is simply what I do between weekends? :)

How Studying Abroad Makes You Different

I bought a plane ticket to London yesterday. I leave November 8th, and will be spending four days in London. Who am I going with? No one. Why? Couldn't find anyone to go with? Nope. Didn't even ask. I want to go alone. I could not be more excited about getting to do whatever I feel like, whenever I feel like it. I can't wait to see the city and spend my evenings sitting in a pub somewhere, talking to locals or reading a book or whatever I feel like doing.

Why am I going to London? Because I can. Why am I going alone? Because I can. I'm going to Rome and maybe Amsterdam by myself, too. I have my hostel booked and a map and a list of some things I want to see. And we'll see what comes my way.

I have been learning a lot while studying abroad. One of the big things is: You don't need a reason to step outside your comfort zone.

I needed to study abroad for a semester before I realized that I didn't need to study abroad to come to Europe. I could have flown over here any time I felt like it. I didn't even need someone to go with me. I didn't need a reason. The world is out there... If you want to, you can just go.

Why is that so hard for us to understand? Why is it so hard to wrap our brains around the fact that things are significantly less complicated than we make them? More often than not, the only thing standing in our way is us.

Stepping outside your comfort zone is terrifying. It is unknown and it feels so unsafe. We do everything in our power to stay within our comfort zones, to justify staying where we are because the alternative would require more faith than we want to have. Coming to Europe was outside my comfort zone. Wandering around a foreign city all by my lonesome was definitely outside it, too. Sitting by myself in a coffee shop, in a country where no one does anything alone, with people looking at me funny because I am the weird foreign girl? That used to be uncomfortable for me, too.

We are too comfortable. We are comfortable in our habits, and are so unwilling to change them, to step outside them, that we can't even see what's out there. We can't see beyond the white picket fences of our lives. It has gotten to the point that we don't even realize we have comfort zones, or that stepping outside of them is even an option. We have become passive and uncaring and timid.

"For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline."
2 Timothy 1:7

Timidity is our comfort zone. It is only when we step outside of it that we embrace the power, love and self-discipline that we were intended for. Did you know that you don't need a reason to stop for a moment and talk to that co-worker that is having a bad day? Did you know that you don't need a reason to buy coffee for a stranger? Or to talk to the person on the street?

Those things you know you should do, but don't, because they make you uncomfortable? Or those things that you think, 'It's nice that they do that, but I could never do it myself?' This is where timidity comes in, by convincing us that someone else will do whatever makes us uncomfortable. By belittling what we are capable of.

Timidity promises comfort. Timidity keeps us paralyzed. And yet, it is timidity that we always regret in hindsight.

Our lives were never intended to be comfortable. In fact, we are promised that they will be difficult. But we are also promised that, in the giving up of life (of our vice grip on our comfortable lives,) we will find real life. A life of power and love and self-discipline.

Something I would challenge you to think about, as I consider it as well, is what is your comfort zone? What kinds of things challenge you to step outside of it? And what is your reaction when something threatens that comfort?

Love/Hate Relationship

Spain has been a love/hate relationship. I love some things, but I hate some things too.

Things I Hate About Madrid:

1. The noise. I live one block off of the "Broadway/5th Ave" of Madrid. Cool, right? Until it's 12:42 am and I have to get up in six hours for school but I can't sleep because I happen to live above a bar. A bar where people really enjoy standing outside and being loud and making it impossible for me to sleep.

2. The coffee. It's good coffee, for what it is. But it's espresso. And no other options exist. I like espresso, don't get me wrong. But I also enjoy holding the cup of coffee in my hands and walking around with it and sipping on it all day. I don't want a shot of coffee, I want a cup.

3. The coffee shops. They are almost all the same: cold. Not literally, of course. But there is nothing warm and cozy about them. They don't make you want to bring your bible and sit and sip coffee and work on homework. I miss the warm, comfy coffee shops I tend to spend all my time in back home.

4. The weather. I might be the only person in the world who hates the weather here. It is sunny and cloud-less and hot. ALL the TIME. I am a cool-weather, rainy, cloudy kind of girl. It's October. I need it to be cold. Now.

5. How this culture raises women who don't believe they deserve better than cat-calls and stares and being lusted after like trophies.


Things I Love About Madrid:

1. Siestas! They are the best thing ever. Naps, every day. Not that I actually nap, but it's still nice :)

2. Stores being open late. Doesn't really matter what time it is... the store is open and people are around.

3. Parque del Oeste. It is right across the street from my house and beautiful and I take my hammock there a lot to do homework and read. I love it. I spend a pretty large part of my life there.

4. My church. It has brought me some amazing friends, challenges me, stretches me and generally is pretty wonderful. So grateful for it.

5. The language. Even though it does frustrate me sometimes and I hate the vosotros form and the lisp and how fast they all talk, I do love Spanish.

Nostalgia

I have just spent the last week hanging out in Barcelona, Madrid, and Edinburgh with my mom. We ate a lot of good food, drank some good wine, and had a lot of good conversation. I'll post about that later. In the mean time... A fun, rather pointless list of songs that have specific memories attached to them. These are a few of those songs that, when they come up on my itunes shuffle, I immediately think of a specific person or moment in time.

1. Move Along by the All American Rejects: High school track. This always reminds me of taking the midnight bus home from track meets with my teammates, being exhausted and celebrating all the medals our team won.

2. Borrow Mine by Bebo Norman: Junior year of high school. Brand new Christian, dealing with more than crap than I realized life could dish out all at once... It reminds me of all the moments I despaired and was reminded how big my God is.

3. Dance with Me Baby by Ben Rector: This past Spring. Well, really, all Ben Rector songs remind me of last Spring. It was such a humbling, joyful time in my life full of sweet friends and community and challenges, preparing me for my next chapter in life. It was just what I needed, exactly when I needed it.

4. Soldier by Brandon Heath: This was on a cd given to me by my Younglife leader Carrie, just before she and Allison left for Summer Staff for a month. To my 15 year old self, this was the biggest deal ever, and this song reminds me of all that time it felt like they'd never come back, that I'd never figure this whole Christianity thing out, and that life was all just some big crazy mistake. A sweet reminder when I find my 20-year-old self thinking something is a really big deal when it really isn't.

5. Our God by Chris Tomlin: This one is more recent. I listen to this song when I walk home from school here. It's about an hour-long walk, and it is when some of my sweetest conversations with Jesus happen. This makes me think of sunshine on my face, a cool wind blowing, finding myself in a surreal place with a heart absolutely overflowing. I can't not smile. :)

6. Shake Me Like a Monkey by Dave Matthews Band: driving around Joshua Tree National Park with Kenny, Kate and Ben, windows down and this song blasting, looking for a good place to climb for the day. And trying to thaw out.

7. F*ck You by Cee-Lo Green: Driving to Chattanooga with Kenny in the middle of the night, sleeping for a few hours, driving to Atlanta, getting sick in the back of a itty-bitty Cessna because a crazy man let Kenny attempt to land our plane, driving back to Chattanooga, hiking T-wall in the hottest sun ever, and then leading my first trad route ever. One of the most ridiculous days of my entire life.

8. No Reins by Rascal Flatts: No idea why, but this song makes me think of windows down on the highway in Saint Louis, of my best friend and my sister and going to Katy's house. All the things that used to give me a little bit of that freedom that, in high school, I was terrified I'd never have.

9. Slow Mo by Steve Moakler: this makes me think of the Beaman. It makes me think of the wall and spending all my time there... (Entirely too much, really.) It makes me think of Kaley and how this was always playing when she was there. This is one of those songs that I rarely listen to here in Spain, because it reminds me of a few people that I miss more than I can stand.

10. Come, Ye Sinners: This one is kind of a dead give-away. It's tattooed to my arm. It's an old hymn, and the moment I first heard it is the moment I knew God was more than an angry Grandpa/Santa Clause in the sky. When I hear it, when I see it on my wrist, I am instantly taken back to that moment: more heartbroken, lonely and angry than I thought possible, with an inkling that I might be loved more than I could possibly understand.

Un Pedacito de Mí

This is my favorite view of Spain so far. And the best part? I run past it every day. It's in the park right across the street from my house. Love.

This is the park:


This is also in that park. Actually, the view above is from the other side of this. It's called the Temple of Debod, and was brought over brick by brick from Egypt. I also run past this every day. Love.


At the bottom of the park, behind a little gate that I'm still not really sure I was supposed to go through, I found these gardens. Amazing. There were all kinds of different flowers all over the place. It smelled so good.


And, in the midst of working on a project that I will tell you about later, I snapped this photo. I love it.

I have been learning so much here. I do not even have the words to describe it all. Learning to lean on the Lord for companionship, learning that every heart is searching for grace, learning the difference between strength through pride and strength through grace...And most recently? Re-defining beauty.

More on this later.