So, recently you may have noticed that we haven't updated yet. How inconsiderate are we?! You must have been thinking; "Wow, they must be the most boring Americans in Spain", "Did someone steal their computers?" or "Did they DIE?! AHHHHHHHHHH!". I know, I know, and we will do better next time. The real reason is that we have been very busy. We're just doing what you all told us to do...and that is have a whole lotta fun! We are having fun in the expert level...the professional level... of course! So, where to begin....oh right we left off about 10 days ago where we just finnished our first weeks and were about to go to the mall. We went to the mall and they actually call it the Centro Commercial. First off, it is NOTHING like malls in America on the outside. It is in the middle of nowhere and has NO stores or movie theaters around it. No restauraunts just parking and a bus stop...YAY!! We rode the bus to the mall from Denia, it cost about $2 for the 15 minute ride. It looks like a place where boats would be sold or something...very circular and not much advertising on the outside. Very interesting!!!! Then we went shopping for about 2 hours and bought, you guessed it, NOTHING!!!! We were just checking everything out. There were a few American stores and that was neat, but everything was more expensive. Then the best thing happened...........wait for it.......we had McDonald's!!!!!!! We both had a Happy Meal and it came with more food than in America! It was so good and made me want a Big Mac!! That is it for the Centro Commercial now onto the rest of the weekend!!
On Sunday, we went to church as always. THEN we went to Xavi's family's house. Natalie, his mom, teaches a dance class on the weekend for the volunteers so she invited Jenn, me, and Ruben to their house for lunch. They also had their neighbors over for lunch and they were very intriguing!! Angelica, the neighbor, is American, BUT met her husband in Italy and then they moved to Germany and now they live in Spain. She was pretty awesome!! Natalie made Payaya, which is a typical Valencian dish. It is made in one pan with lots of rice AND shrimp, mussels, squid, and chicken. It was sooooo delicious!!! Jenn and I had NEVER eaten mussels and we had the WHOLE shrimp, we had to decapitate the shrimp and peel off the outer layer of stuff and then we ate the shrimp. We both enjoyed these things more than expected! All in all we had a great time with them!!! They were very nice and they have invited us to eat at their home again and they want to take us on a "tour" of Denia and surrounding areas!! We LOVE the people here!!!
Week 3 of work...nothing too exciting...lots of cleaning and lots of sweeping and helping in the English Class with the first graders....they are adorable and CRAZY!!!! We are really enjoying that because we like spending time with the kids! Pray for patience!!
Last weekend!
All the volunteers decided to have a "Bad Taste Party". This is where you dress in your best mistakes and get praised for looking the worst. We had dinner buffet style in the hall of where we live and had a disco room, a chill room, and a creative room. Thank goodness for that creative space...it really saved the party. Just kidding the dance room (which was my/jenn's room) was the BEST room! We had a canapy made out of a sheet and Chels' gave dance lessons comprising of soldier boy and the cupid shuffle. Basically we danced and chilled for 4 hours.
The next day we went to spend time with Surgio's family. First his dad took us to the beach and let us see these very BIG octopus and then told us they were small...I would like to take a moment and say that anything larger than my head is not small...it's big. These were big. [see picture] Then they took us to lunch at this place called Rokelin and it has a pig as it's symbol. We had a typical Spanish dish that is comprised of pork, ham, veggies and broth. They boil everything together and it creates this amazing broth. You eat the dish in two steps. First you have the broth with rice and limon. Once you're finished with that you move on to this amazing spread of all of the meat and veggies and you eat as much as you possibly can. I was mad at myself when i was finnished....why was I cursed with such a small stomach?!?!?! Why?! After lunch we went to their orange grove and we picked over 150 oranges. It was so fun and now we know the correct way to pick oranges! They gave them all to us! Isn't that just the bee's knees? We thought they were just going to give us a bag but they gave us 6 bags! After that we went to their beautiful apartment and talked for a while. It was such a great time :) we love our new family.
The people here are so great and other than having amazing adventures we have been getting to know them pretty well. We both really like learning about how devoted to the Lord they are and learning how they show love. Keep an eye out for our next blog! Love you all!
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Well,
ReplyDeleteit certainly sounds like ya'll are having quite the time over there! I can totally relate to your glee over discovering the McDonalds! :) I too had many a time while living overseas (and even when traveling) when I simply HAD to HAVE and AMERICAN MEAL!
I will continue to pray that God will open doors for you while your journey there. I truly believe this time has the greatest potential to affect your lives for many years to come! I have been more and more encouraged by the words of Paul in Philippians (ch. 3 today) about seeking after THE GOAL. And more and more as we seek after Christ, do we discover new, amazing, and wonderful things, if we are but humble and willing to accept them! So may we all in our lives whether here or there, in the mundane or dramatic, seek after Him!
For His Kingdom,
Joshua 1:9 (God is my Salvation)
Semper Fidelis