Esh una Fieshta!

This week was the ultimate manifestation of Spanish holidays. Monday was a holiday called Lunes de Aguas (to be explained later), Thursday was Dia de Castilla y Leon. Friday wasn't a holiday, but the entire province decided that they had already taken two days off this week, that they might as well take a third, so they did.

Lunes de Aguas is a holiday in Salamanca that celebrated t he traditonal date of when the prostitutes were allowed to return to the city. Back in the day (i don't actually know how long ago), the Catholic church would kick all of the prostitutes out of the city for Lent so that all the students would concentrate on tehir studies and be good during Lent. The second Monday after Lent, they were allowed back into the city. Everyone in the city celebrates this tradition by taking a picnic of hornazo (a meat pie with chorizo, bacon, and lomo) down to the river to welcome the prostitute back to this side of the river. All in all, it's a wholesome-family friently holiday! haha, in all serousness, though, the picnic was really fun!

The rest of the week and our time here has mostly been us trying to sieze the day. We have just two weeks left, and want to leave here with no regrets!

(the picture is of 3 of us napping at the Lunes de Aguas picnic)

Semana Santa

Last weekend, we all returned from Spring Break. In Spain, and in most of Europe, Spring Break is taken during Holy Week. For the first half of the break, I went on a mission trip with a group of students from En Vivo. We went to a town called Braga in Portugal to work on a house for Habitat for Humanity. The entire experience was great-- the hospitality, the food, the work, and the gratefulness of the family to receive the house. Most of the work we did was to put up cement to smooth out the interior walls. Our group of 15 was the next to last group to come work on the house. There's one more group of students that is coming from the States to work on the house again and finish it up in time for the dedication on April 24th. All of the food was delicious (and super cheap!). The best, though, might have been “learning” a little bit of Portuguese. It's really similar to Spanish, but with more “sh” sounds. On-site, we learned phrases like bom dia (good day), mais rapido (faster, faster), and mais masa (more cement mix-- used as a question like 'Is there any more cement mixed?' or as a command 'Put more cement here'). All Portuguese was accompanied by lots of repeating, hand motions, and attempts at translating into Spanish or English. At the end of the three days, though, we had gotten more work done than they expected us to complete! Success!
For the second part of Semana Santa, I went to the beach in Valencia with Cassie, one of my roommates and Whitney and Ansley, two of the girls on staff at En Vivo. That was a super relaxing trip-- we cooked in the kitchen of the condo we rented, went to the beach, slept in late, played Phase10, and watched a lot of movies on the couch. Our last day, we went into the city center and met up with an old En Vivo student who's from the area. She showed us around a little bit, and went with us to Starbucks (a special treat, since Salamanca doesn't have one) and to eat lunch. I thought it wa really cool to see how much the staff were still connected with students and former students even after they leave Ssalamanca-- it's like proof that the hard work that gets done at En Vivo really does pay off, and these students really are being invested in and being built up.
Since coming back from all of our trips, we've hit the ground running with all of our normal events, and we've even tried to plan some extras to make the most of the time we have left here! Last night, some of the girls in the ministry taught us how to make sushi. It was delicious, and super easy! We followed dinner up with a dance party in the basement on someone's i Pod, and a game of Sardines. These are the kinds of things that really make memories.


(The first picture is of me and Cassie on the beach in Valencia. The second two are of our group on the worksite, and one is with the family who will receive the house. If the whole picture doesn't show up, just click on it, and it should bring up the whole thing!)

Barcelona

Last weekend, I had the wonderful chance to travel to Barcelona! Barcelona is on the coast of Spain, near France. From Salamanca, unfortunately the cheapest way to get there is on an 11 hour train ride. Which actually wasn't all that bad. We got to see a lot of Spanish countryside, and took some pretty long siestas!

In Barcelona, we shopped some, drank some Starbucks (a privilege we don't get in Salamanca), walked on the beach, ate some really great food, and saw a lot of Gaudí architecture. He designed the famous Parque Guell, La Sagrada Familia, as well as two houses (really, they're more like apartment buildings). La Sagrada Familia was my favorite. It is a cathedral, but is really unique because it's still under construction. I found it really cool, too, because all of Gaudí's inspiration came from science and nature (the columns are all designed to look like tree trunks and branches).

At En Vivo, the staff are starting to pose some hard questions of the students. This Thursday, we talked about truth. What is it? Where do we find it? How do we discern for certain what IS really true? At our Tertulia charla series, the staff have been talking about the world. What does the world need from us as a privileged people? What does it need from Christians? Why does it even matter that there is suffering in the world? The goal is to pose all of these questions to students, make them think, and show them that the Bible can help them find answers, and that faith can lead them to truth and meaning in life.

Fun facts;

• In Cataluñia, the province of which Barcelona is the capital, the language is Catalán. It's kind of a mix between Spanish and French.

• Spanish candy bars are better than their American counterparts because the Europeans put more cocoa in their chocolate than American companies do.

Hay tres cosas permenentes: la fe, la amor, y la esperenza

This was the theme for this weekend's Campamento (as long as you don't include the rivalry for the flamingo football game...). All of the talks this weekend were based off of this verse in Corinthians 13:13. The first was about love, and about how love is a choice, especially for people that are difficult for us to get along with. Hernan also talked a lot about how important it is for us to follow the call to love everyone, and what that means.
The second talk was about hope. In Spanish, there is only one verb for both English words, hope and wait. Hernan mostly talked about the waiting aspect, how life is a series of "waits" until we get to the end. In order to make it worth the wait,there has to be something at the end. For Hernan, and for Christians everywhere, that thing worth waiting for is Heaven, to be with and worship our creator for all eternity. To love and learn and know for all eternity. That is what makes life worth the "wait" and is what gives me hope. Espera y esperanza.
The third talk was a bout faith. I left this final group session with a realization of how intertwined these three things are. Without hope, faith and love are worthless. Without love, life is worthless and faith and hope are meaningless. Without faith, none of this life means anything. But, love is still the most important because it is what the world sees of us as Christian, of us as a people of faith and hope. They need to see that we can love.

This weekend was also filled with rousing games of Moose-Moose, star tipping, and the 4th annual Flamingo Football game. (Moose-Moose is a crazy group game with signs and sounds, and loads of laughter. Startipping is an esperience of spinning, flashlights, and falling. Flamingo football is a soccer game, boys vs. girls, in which the boys can only use one leg.) All in all, there was a lot of thinking, praying, worshiping, craziness, games, community building, and late nights filles with conversations and fun!

(The first picture is of all the girls getting ready for the Flamingo football game. WAAAACHA! The second two are of a group that climbes a little peak to get a better view of the surrounding mountians and rivers. I hope that you all can tell how beautiful it all was! If you can't see all of the picture, click on it, and you should be able to see the whole thing)

hacer galletas

My job at En Vivo is to make cookies for Tertulia (our lunch and chat event). Every week, I get a different student to help me out, hang out, and just talk. It's usually one of my favorite parts of the week. Since this is my job, though, I have learned a lot about the Spanish attitude towards cooking.
Spaniards typically live with their parents until they get married, because it's much more common to go to the university in your home town than it is in the states. Because of this, there are very few students that know how to cook. And there are even fewer that know how to make cookies or pastries. I think that this is because there are loads of pastry shops within walking distance, so no one has to learn how to make things like that.
Also, the culture here is much less focused on having a lot of friends over to your house for dinner. Everyone lives in small apartments, so there's not much room. For students, it's much more common for everyone to go out for a round of drinks at a bar and then go dancing. (This is what they do every night...). I think that this is one of the times that Americans do it better-- of having loads of people over to your house to hang out.

Also, in the life of En Vivo, our big Spring Retreat is coming up next weekend! I'm really excited about it, and we would definitely appreciate your prayers for this big event!

i'm gonna start a (bull) fight!

So, as the title would indicate, this post is going to be about bullfighting.
Well, not actually, because the corrida (bullfight) was canceled due to too many injuries in the encierro (running of the bulls).

Now, before I start on the story, I want you all to know that no one in our group was injured.

So, to start off, Meredith and I decided at midnight the night before that we were going to go to Carnival in Cuidad Rodrigo. Carnival is the Spanish celebration of Fat Tuesday-- a time of excess before going into Lent. Only thing is, that here, they celebrate it fro three weeks-- two before Ash Wednesday, and even into the weekend after!! Oh, Spain...
Cuidad Rodrigo is a tiny town about an hour away from here near the border of Portugal. There is basically nothing there, but it's the place to go in this part of the country for Carnival because of the encierro.

Now, for the story. So, in my culture class, we had talked about Carnival and encierros, but I had forgotten that there was going to be a running in Cuidad Rodrigo. So, first of all, it was a great surprise that there was going to be a run! First of all, we walked down towards the countryside near the start of the run and found places on the fence to sit and watch from what we thought was a safe distance. After we had waited for quite a bit past the appointed hour (as is customary in Spain), the run started. First, a group of men on horses started the run, and then there were two groups of bulls and horsemen running together, followed up by two more horsemen to keep the bulls on track. Everyone ran so close to us, even though we were up high enough to be safe.

After the bulls ran by, everyone thought that that part of the run was over, and just got off the fence to go up toward the bars and the fair again. Turns out, however, that at least one of the bulls had a mind of it's own, and did not want to run toward the arena in the Plaza Mayor. Instead, it wanted to go back toward the farm. In doing so, it ran into the crowd. I have never seen a street clear faster than at that instant. Hundreds of people were out of the street and onto the fences in less than a second. Literally. It was increadible! Such an adrenaline rush!

So, that was the only time I actually ran from the bulls, on accident. The boys in our group ran on purpose, though. Silly boys...

But, because the bulls were so crazy, the encierro took over 3 hours to complete. Two of the horses that are supposed to keep the bulls under control were injured and our of commission. Also the bulls got separated from each other, so that's part of why it took so long. And because it took so long, there was more time for stupid Americans to get injured "playing" with the bulls. Because of this, all of the ambulances were full and the corrida was canceled because there were not any free amulances.

All in all, it was a good trip!!!

And Sevilla followed us here!

This past weekend, Meredith and I (one of the other En Vivo exchange students), traveled to Andalusia. Andalusia is a province in the southern part of Spain. We went to Sevilla and Granada, two cities in the province. The whole province used to be occupied by Muslims until they were evicted by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492. This makes for a really interesting mix of Moorish architecture and Christian symbolism along with symbols of the Catholic Kings (Isabel and Ferdinand). (I really love the geometric Muslim tilework that was in all of the palaces and churches that we visited).

The weather was beautiful and sunny and warm (like 22 degrees celsius!!), and there were orange trees everywhere. And there were old buildings, but they weren't all made of stone—a lot of them were painted bright colors, even! Now I understand why they say that people in the south of spain are much more cariñoso (that translates to carismatic, or open and kind-hearted) than those in the northern parts—because there's sun and warmth, and color in their world, and not just stone and cold wind. Don't get me wrong, I love Salamanca, but it's just a very different culture in the two different parts of the country.

It's great because this past week has been much sunnier and warmer than it has been the whole time we've been in Salamanca-- Sevilla came back with us!


This has also been a really good week to see the full circle of En Vivo! Last night at Bible Study, we were overflowing the space. What a great problem to have! Also, there were at least 5 students that came for the first time that we met through our English outreach events. This is exactally how En Vivo was designed to work, and it's beautiful to see it work right! Please keep praying over these students, that they will continue to learn from us and feel welcomed in this community!

En Vivo Blog

Also, check out our exchange student blog.

it's filenvivo.blogspot.com.

This is where you'll really be able to learn about ministry events and the team members. There will also be links to other team members' personal blogs that you can check out if you have a lot of free time!

Enjoy!

A little piece of home

To start this, I just want to say thanks to all of you who have given me any mail or other encouraging comment on facebook, etc. from home. That's an awesome piece of home-- just knowing that people care. To also go along with the title of this blog, I (well, all of the exchange students, I think) are starting to feel a little bit like Salamanca and En Vivo are home. Well, home until May, at least. Things are starting to become normal, and life's less and less unfamiliar. We now know that the grocery store has 2 floors, and even what we can buy on each floor. We even found a fresh market really close to our house that sells fresh meats, fruits, and veggies. We now know that our hot water heater cannot do 2 things at once, or even close after one another. We also know that it's not a good idea to leave clothes on the clothesline unattended-- even if it doesn't look like it will rain (because snow can and will come even when it looks sunny...). Today was actually the first time I have succeeded in drying my clothes on the clothesline, actually)

Before I came to Spain, I had always heard that Spaniards are generally reluctant to go out of their comfort zones-- mix social groups, try something new, etc. That's still what a lot of people say, I've heard it from my Spanish professors, former exchange students, and even some of the permanent En Vivo team. However, I feel like I've met quite a few people at the En Vivo campus house that came only because they saw a flyer in their residence hall or facultad building (school building divided up by major). These unexpected visitors are even some of my favorites to talk to! The Lord truly does work in mysterious ways!

As is traditional, here are some differences between my Spanish home and American home:

1. Yogurt is an acceptable dessert, especially for lunches.

2. When you go to the store to buy milk and eggs, neither are refrigerated. The milk is pasturized differently, and eggs don't actually have to be refrigerated for short periods of time. That's probably how they keep prices low-- by eliminating the refrigeration costs.

3. Sometimes, plane tickets are cheaper than a bus or train ticket to the same destination. Weird...

Are we human, or are we dancer?

This week was the first completely jam-packed week of En Vivo! Mondays, my job is to make cookies to give out to our first-time visitors at our Tuesday lunch called Tertulia. It's pretty exciting because one of the first timers to Tertulia returned to come to Café Inglés on Wednesday, and to En Vivo Bible study on Thursday night, and she's going to come by the house on Monday to help me make cookies for next week's first timers! It's so exciting to see that new people feel so welcome and loved in this place, and that we get the privilege to show them how much they are loved, both by us, and by Christ.

Bible Study was great this week, I loved worshiping in Spanish, and watching some of the students' reactions to worship and to the charla (literally, a talk or chat, but here it's like a sermon-like talk). My favorite student's reaction was a girl named Espe. Espe has been to every event at the ministry so far this semester, and has been involved for some time, I believe. On Thursday night, she had her digital camera out , and put it on video mode and recorded the entire night's activities—the worship, the funny skit, the charla, and the fun pop songs that get played at the beginning of he evening. Her earnest desire to remember everything that was said that night was amazing to me, and quite refreshing, really. Praise God for students like that!

Class this week was actually fun! We had a substitute one day, who is a lot more organized than our regular teacher, so I feel like I was actually able to learn a bit about the Subjunctive tense that day. And we played Scattegories in Spanish on Friday. My team almost won!!

More observations:

1-Hot chocolate is different here. The chocolate that you get with churros con chocolate is thick like brownie mix, and delicious. They also have something called Cola-Cao. It's more like American hot cocoa mix, but more delicous, and is always made with milk.

2- Siesta. This is a time of day, from about 2-5 where people generally go home for lunch with their family, take a short nap and relax. In theory, this is a great idea. However, in practice, it means that basically when I have free time, all the stores in town are closed (class in the morning and En Vivo activities almost every night). I do like the Spanish approach to life, though: live life slowly, and enjoy it!

the title of this blog is a line from one of the pop songs we sang thursday night at en vivo. no one actually knows what it means, but it's been stuck in my head all week

Off to a good start

Last night was the second Cafe Ingles event. It was really cool to get to talk to so many Spaniards in English and Spanish. Oh, by the way, the house flooded last night because of all the rain in the street. That was a fun clean-up project... Really put the Semester off to a good start!

And we got a new refrigerator in our apartment-- one that works! So exciting!

Some observations on Spain:

1- There are very few convince foods to be found here. No one bakes with cake mixes or frozen biscuit dough, or even condensed soup. In retrospect, it's probably a good thing for their health-- they probably consume a lot smaller quantity of sodium and preservatives, but it makes it harder to cook things that I'm familiar with.

2- Lights in the hallways of apartment buildings are not on all the time. They have switches in all the halls that when pushed, turn the lights on for two minutes or so, and then they go out again. I'm sure that keeping the lights on when not necessary saves the dueños (landlords) a lot of money on electrical bills.

3- Traffic rules and road construction are just different enough to be quite confusing. The highways here don't have exit ramps. Rather they have roundabouts, and the cars all go in the same direction, and exit the circle at the proper cross road. This makes it extremely difficult to sleep on the busses we take on our excursions with the language school. Also, the crosswalks aren't at the intersection of the roads, but back a little bit, so that there has to be a stoplight in the middle of a straight-a-way. That's one thing that I think makes much more sense that in America. Finally, the traffic signals make a beeping noise when it's time to walk. It's supposed to help blind people, but I've found it to be helpful when I zone out while waiting to cross the street.

4- A Spanish deck of cards is different than an American deck. The suits are: clubs, swords, cups, and coins. Also, the numbers go from 1-12. This might make it different to play any card game that I already know...

More observations to come!!

intercambios

I'm finally getting to be able to use some of my Spanish skills. The Spaniards are all pretty much done with finals and are starting up with their spring classes soon (or have already started them. I'm not sure that I really understand very well the Spanish University education system). Point is, that students are coming out of their study holes to come hang out at En Vivo, the CMF campus ministry here at University of Salamanca.
Last week, we hosted a finals breakfast type of event where we offered free pancakes and coffee to any and all hungry (or exhausted) university students seeking a break from studying. It was a really cool event for me because I ended up talking with one Spanish girl for about an hour! It was cool to run the gamut of conversation topics, and understand and be understood. I also got to join in on other conversations with some students who had never been to En Vivo before. Hopefully, they'll feel good about coming to one of the weekly events hosted by the ministry, and that we'll be able to build awesome friendships with some really cool Spanish students.
This weekend, Meredith and I were able to go on a day trip to Toledo. Toledo was beautiful,and we had beautiful weather (sunny, and up to 21 Celsius, although windy....). There was a lot of history in the city, it's where the painter El Greco lived when he moved to Spain. There was also a lot of patronage from the Royal family in the past, so the cathedral and monastery are gorgeous, and filled with extravagant symbolism that was mind-blowing to look at. Toledo is located in the province of Castilla y La Mancha, of Don Quixote fame. Meredith had the amazing idea to walk a bit out from the Plaza Mayor after our lunch break, and we ended up getting a fabulous view of La Mancha (the countryside). It was really cool to think that we were standing in some of the same places that inspired famous painters like El Greco and writers like Miguel de Cervantes.
This coming week, myself and all the other exchange students will be starting up our intercambios. An intercambio is a language partner, where they will help me speak better Spanish, and I will help them out with their English skills, all over coffee! Really, what could be better? Intercambios are also an important outreach tool for the En Vivo ministry, so I would really appreciate your prayers over my intercambio partners; that they would be willing to visit the campus house and get to know some of the amazing Spaniards and Americans that run the ministry.

Skiles in Spain

For those of you unfamiliar with Skiles walkway, it is one of the more heavily traversed walkways on Georgia Tech's campus, and is often lined with people passing out fliers or free snacks to advertise for their club's events. Well, that's what the exchange students have been doing all this week-- taking turns passing out free coffee and fliers to advertise for one of the events, Café Inglés, that happens weekly at the En Vivo campus ministry house. This is an awesome event because it's set up like a coffee house and all of the exchange students and ministry staff get to help people learn English. Anyways, apparently the concept of free food and drink is more than a little foreign to Spaniards. Almost all of the students were reluctant to even talk to us, much less take a free café con leche and a flier.

After the coffee passing-out, en vivo hosted a welcome-back party for some of the staff that had been gone the previous semester. This was the first event that the campus house hosted that the exchange students were a part of. It was really cool to get to talk to Spaniards. I've found that once I start talking to them, it's not too hard to keep up a conversation in Spanish!

first day of school....

So far, we've had two days of class. I have 4 hours of class from 9-1. It's not bad. I even understand everything that my professors are saying! The only thing is, is that I have 9 am's 5 days a week, and it's FREEZING cold here. Literally, it's like -2 degrees Celsius every day here.

So, another story about us getting lost... Today, we went to the Carrefour (like a Spanish Wal-Mart), and on our way back, we tried to take a bus back to our apartment, but alas we ended up on one that goes to an industrial park across the river from where we live. Luckily, the driver told us at the last stop before the industrial park which bus to get on. awesome. not at all... Oh, well. that's life. full of little adventures, that usually involve us being lost and carrying lots of stuff...

a second chrsitmas

So, after a few (much more successful days in Madrid), the four of us girls, along with jared, one of the guys on our En Vivo team, travelled to Salamanca via a bus. I slept most of the way, wich was good because i was super tired after being lost in Madrid for 2 and a half days, besides, the countryside wasn't really interesting-- everything's really flat and cold. blah
Anyways, once we got to Madrid, we met one of the campus ministers, and another of the staff. Today is Three King's Day, or Dia de los Tres Reyes, which is when all the Spanish children recieve all of thier Christmas presents. Anyways, last night there was a big parade in the Plaza Mayor, with floats and children throwing candy, and fireworks and balloons! two christmasses this year!

Our address here is:
Rebecca Gray, c/o En Vivo
Calle Placentinos 3 Bajo
Salamanca, Spain 37008

I expect to recieve quite a bit of mail from you guys!!
can't wiat to hear from you

ps- my new skype address is rgray3. i'll try to get on as often as possible!

toto, i don't think we're in kansas anymore...

So, first things first. We've all arrived safely in Madrid, and after some interesting maneuvering of the streets of Madrid, we finally got to our hotel. I say, some interesting maneuvering because we were given some incorrect directions by the people making our hotel reservations. The hotel building WAS NOT right across the street from a metro station bearing the same name. Rather, it was a couple of blocks down. And by down , mean slightly uphill. with three girls with two huge suitcases each plus carry ons and an electric violin (just to liven things up...). So to get there, we asked a nun who then argued with another older lady who then asked the metro police who pointed around a corner and laughed as we tried to get our 6 bags, 3 carry ons, and electric violin up 2 flights of stairs. From there, we walked and chose to ignore the drivers laughing at us from their cars, and ask a newspaper stand owner how to get there. Well, we crossed the street at the wrong crosswalk, and so we missed the hotel, and received advice from a young woman, an old man, and a taxi driver to tell us to cross again and go back half a block. 

So, long story short, we are now in a land where our hotel door keys turn on lights, and you have to open elevator doors with handles. 

no, toto, we're not in kansas anymore. (no, christina, that was really not meant to be a kansas joke at all.)