Well it has been an interesting past few days for me. I was able to more or less keep updated on the fires through messages from you guys and websites, www.sdcountyemergency.com is a good one, and thanks be to God that it seems like the worst is over for our neck of the woods but with only 1% containment who really knows. I guess all of our friends houses are fine and right now my parents are staying at home and watching the fires even though they technically should be evacuated. My Mom said that their only problem is they don´t have much to eat and can´t leave the house to get food because the cops won´t let them back in. I guess I feel weird because I feel like I should be doing more. I know that prayer is stronger, I'm sure much stronger than I know, but I still feel very helpless. It was nice to be able to help a bit during the Cedar Fire and it seems like one big problem is there aren´t enough men to fight the fire.
On a lighter note I am leaving tomorrow for London for the weekend. I´m going by myself which should offer some new experiences but it will be nice just doing what I want the whole time. The weather looked like rain which is too bad but I guess I´ll get the true experience. I am meeting up with my good friend Chrissie Mayer who just graduated from Westmont this past Spring and lives in London. She has kindly offered a home cooked meal which I am really excited for and it will be cool to see what her life back home is like.
Friday is also the 26th which may not mean much to you guys but it is the day that I worked all summer towards. Friday is when Bella comes out and its a shame that Southern California is a mess and probably won´t be feeling up to a movie for a little while. If you do feel like seeing it you can go to www.BellatheMovie.com and click on Find a Theater to see if its in your area. It might actually be a great way to get away from all the chaos for a few hours. I'm excited to see how well it does, if it really has sold more pre-sale tickets than any other movie in history then it should do pretty well I´m guessing. If you do see it be sure to let me know what you think. I´ll try to post pictures next week from my weekend, I am praying for everyone in San Diego, and for those of you around the world or in the states, I ask you to please do the same if you aren´t already.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Monday, October 22, 2007
“It tastes like Christmas”
After our Spanish final on Thursday a bunch of us guys from Westmont flew to Dublin for the weekend. One highlight of our trip was the amazing food we ate for dinner each night, within an hour of arriving in the city we had already found an awesome restaurant and promptly ordered hamburgers (something Spain isn’t too good at making) and it wasn’t long until our friendly Irish waiter brought out our big, warm, and juicy burgers made with real beef! (something Spain doesn’t use in their burgers). He also brought out a tray of condiments that were just what we’d use in the US, except one of the packets was ambiguously labeled, Brown Sauce, which led us to the obvious question of “I wonder what Brown Sauce tastes like?” Danny bravely gave her a try and immediately knew what the mystery substance was, “It tastes like Christmas” he says, which prompted the next obvious question of “I wonder what Christmas tastes like?” well, I then took a swipe of the sauce and by golly, it did taste like Christmas. The rest of the group quickly gave it a try; wanting to experience their favorite holiday in the form of a sauce, and the consensus was that Danny’s first classification was correct. Why? Well we don’t quite understand the mystery that is Brown Sauce; we think it might have been some sort of ginger or nutmeg or something.
That meal kicked off our Irish adventure, seven guys from Westmont attempting to see all the sites that the capitol of that little green country had to offer in 2 days. The next morning we hit the ground running from our hostel with plans to see a good amount of the place.
We first saw the Christ Church Cathedral and Dublin Castle which we’re cool I guess, pretty much your basic cathedral and castle. We ran around and played tag in a courtyard at the castle which had skinny lanes of brick running through the grass. The grass was of course hot lava and would melt you upon the slightest touch so you had to stay on the bricks while running around. It was fun and helped us get really tired at 9 in the morning which is a good thing to do when you have a big day of walking ahead. From there we stopped by St. Patrick’s Cathedral and then continued to the Guinness Storehouse where the world famous beer has been brewed since 1759. After we learned a little about the history of Guinness and how it’s brewed we made our way to the top of the building and enjoyed a complementary pint.
After we were nice and full from a tall glass of Guinness we decided to skip lunch and stop by the Museum of Modern Art and the National Museum of Ireland neither of
which were very interesting and we didn’t stay long. We headed to the Old Jameson Distillery which wasn’t nearly as big as Guinness had been but still very interesting and we all enjoyed our complimentary glass of Jameson whisky at the end.
We then continued to the National Irish Gallery which I enjoyed very much as it was my first time seeing paintings from a lot of famous artists such as Monet, Picasso, Rembrandt, and Michelangelo.
With all of those places checked off the list we tiredly walked back to our hostel and after a quick nap were back out to dinner, which was even better than the night before. We all got double cheese burgers which were amazingly delicious; I’m making myself hungry just thinking about them, if only I could go back. We hung around the Temple Bar which is the most famous bar in Dublin and a center for restaura
nts, pubs, and street performers. There was a guy who had messed with the steering of his bike, when you would turn the handlebars left the wheel would go right, and vice-versa. For 4€ you had 5 tries to ride the reverse-steering bike about 20 yards. I really wanted to give it a go but didn’t feel like spending the money and I think the genius part of the whole thing is that its way harder than it looks. It would be fun to make a similar bike and take it to IV or State St. I’m sure you could make some decent money.
The morning of our departure we went to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells which is one of the oldest Bible’s in the world from 800ad. It was interesting learning about its long history but my favorite part of the college is the Long Room which is an enormous room that holds 200,000 of the library’s oldest books. As you walk down past the books that are stacked from floor to ceiling you’re watched by busts of literary greats such as Plato, Socrates, Homer, Demosthenes and Newton who almost seem enjoy seeing you in awe of such a massive collection of famous texts.
It was a whirlwind trip but we got a good look at the city and I would love to be able to go back someday and see more of the countryside. It was a nice vacation from Spain and one thing I really enjoyed was the people who always gave a warm welcome and offered a good time. It was really nice to be able to speak a lot of English again and I am really looking forward to going to London next weekend.
That meal kicked off our Irish adventure, seven guys from Westmont attempting to see all the sites that the capitol of that little green country had to offer in 2 days. The next morning we hit the ground running from our hostel with plans to see a good amount of the place.
We first saw the Christ Church Cathedral and Dublin Castle which we’re cool I guess, pretty much your basic cathedral and castle. We ran around and played tag in a courtyard at the castle which had skinny lanes of brick running through the grass. The grass was of course hot lava and would melt you upon the slightest touch so you had to stay on the bricks while running around. It was fun and helped us get really tired at 9 in the morning which is a good thing to do when you have a big day of walking ahead. From there we stopped by St. Patrick’s Cathedral and then continued to the Guinness Storehouse where the world famous beer has been brewed since 1759. After we learned a little about the history of Guinness and how it’s brewed we made our way to the top of the building and enjoyed a complementary pint.
After we were nice and full from a tall glass of Guinness we decided to skip lunch and stop by the Museum of Modern Art and the National Museum of Ireland neither of
which were very interesting and we didn’t stay long. We headed to the Old Jameson Distillery which wasn’t nearly as big as Guinness had been but still very interesting and we all enjoyed our complimentary glass of Jameson whisky at the end. **Ok the picture on the left is a story in itself. We wanted a group shot of us in front of the gate but with no passers by I set up my sweet mini tripod in the middle of the road, turned on the 10sec timer and ran into position. Right as I got to the gate a huge semi-truck turned onto the street and I was like, "Oh gosh...hurry camera, take the pic, take the pic" but the dumb thing wasn´t and the truck was still coming and ah jeez I had to run for it. So you can see the timer finally went off right as I was reaching down to take my precious camera to safety.
You may be thinking, isn’t it like 1pm and you’ve already had a pint and a whisky? Well yes, but you have to remember that we were in Ireland and we were just trying to fully experience the culture. We all were fine though, we were joking that we were feeling “inspired” because some of the Guinness ads around the city stated that’s what the beer will do to you.We then continued to the National Irish Gallery which I enjoyed very much as it was my first time seeing paintings from a lot of famous artists such as Monet, Picasso, Rembrandt, and Michelangelo.
With all of those places checked off the list we tiredly walked back to our hostel and after a quick nap were back out to dinner, which was even better than the night before. We all got double cheese burgers which were amazingly delicious; I’m making myself hungry just thinking about them, if only I could go back. We hung around the Temple Bar which is the most famous bar in Dublin and a center for restaura
nts, pubs, and street performers. There was a guy who had messed with the steering of his bike, when you would turn the handlebars left the wheel would go right, and vice-versa. For 4€ you had 5 tries to ride the reverse-steering bike about 20 yards. I really wanted to give it a go but didn’t feel like spending the money and I think the genius part of the whole thing is that its way harder than it looks. It would be fun to make a similar bike and take it to IV or State St. I’m sure you could make some decent money.The morning of our departure we went to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells which is one of the oldest Bible’s in the world from 800ad. It was interesting learning about its long history but my favorite part of the college is the Long Room which is an enormous room that holds 200,000 of the library’s oldest books. As you walk down past the books that are stacked from floor to ceiling you’re watched by busts of literary greats such as Plato, Socrates, Homer, Demosthenes and Newton who almost seem enjoy seeing you in awe of such a massive collection of famous texts.
It was a whirlwind trip but we got a good look at the city and I would love to be able to go back someday and see more of the countryside. It was a nice vacation from Spain and one thing I really enjoyed was the people who always gave a warm welcome and offered a good time. It was really nice to be able to speak a lot of English again and I am really looking forward to going to London next weekend.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Once again I have had a crazy/busy week that has flown by. This past weekend was great though, my family came on Friday and we were able to spend the whole weekend together. We had a great tour of Bilbao, the Guggenheim and whatnont, and we also drove East on Sunday to San Sebastian and Biarritz which is an awsome town in France. It was great having them here and looking back it all seems like a blur. They´re still in Spain right now and I could go down and meet them in Madrid for the weekend but I feel like Í´ve already seen Madrid so instead I leave in a few hours for Ireland.
Dublin should be a great mini vacation from the constant business of my life here and I´m excited to hang out with some of the other Westmont guys. We all had a pretty crazy week, the professors here love the schedule tests for the same week which makes things very fun for us. My first 2 tests weren´t bad, I´ve had enough econ and business classes at Westmont so this new stuff isn´t anything too tricky. I had to study a lot for my Spanish final though, but I think I did pretty good. Spanish classes here are either 2 semesters in 1 or if you´re feeling really ambitious you can take 4 semesters in 1. It´s nice to think that I´ve already finished 101 but then I remember that on Monday it all starts up again with 102. My spanish is definitely getting a lot better, I guess my previous knowledge from taking Spanish 1-2 twice in high school is paying off, and I´m excited to see myself improve even more in the next 2 months.
I will try and write a better post next week about my weekend and put up some pictures from the past few weeks so until then I hope you all are doing very well.
PS- I wanted to throw out a little shout out to my good friends Brooke and Tricia who sent me a very nice postcard yesterday, I never thought i´d get a card that talked about cannibalism, but it sure was nice. thanks girls!
Dublin should be a great mini vacation from the constant business of my life here and I´m excited to hang out with some of the other Westmont guys. We all had a pretty crazy week, the professors here love the schedule tests for the same week which makes things very fun for us. My first 2 tests weren´t bad, I´ve had enough econ and business classes at Westmont so this new stuff isn´t anything too tricky. I had to study a lot for my Spanish final though, but I think I did pretty good. Spanish classes here are either 2 semesters in 1 or if you´re feeling really ambitious you can take 4 semesters in 1. It´s nice to think that I´ve already finished 101 but then I remember that on Monday it all starts up again with 102. My spanish is definitely getting a lot better, I guess my previous knowledge from taking Spanish 1-2 twice in high school is paying off, and I´m excited to see myself improve even more in the next 2 months.
I will try and write a better post next week about my weekend and put up some pictures from the past few weeks so until then I hope you all are doing very well.
PS- I wanted to throw out a little shout out to my good friends Brooke and Tricia who sent me a very nice postcard yesterday, I never thought i´d get a card that talked about cannibalism, but it sure was nice. thanks girls!
Monday, October 8, 2007
¿Como estoy?
I was thinking that I more or less have been keeping you updated on what i´ve been doing but haven´t really told you how i´m doing. It´s so easy to just quickly reply "good" when asked that frequent question but I think that at least in my case, the sum of all the events and thoughts affecting my life at the moment plus my feelings and physical health, usually add up to a more complicated answer than "good". So if you have things to do right now and need to run, Spain is good, and I am good. But if you have a minute or two I will try to go more in depth.
My time here has been very interesting and different from anything I´ve ever done before. I wrote before that this semester is my first for a lot of things; living on my own, living outside the US in a country that doens´t really speak English... But it is also the first time, since high school when I didn´t really have Christian friends, that the strong support, fellowship and fun that I get from them (I can probably just say from you) is gone or at least very far off. This is also the case with my family and church whom I find myself appreciating a lot more than I did at home (not that I don´t love you family, you know what I mean).
So far it has been a growing experience for me, one that I definitely think is for the best, and even though I haven´t been able to enjoy relationships with my friends and family, I am mas o menos (more or less) very content with life.
A little history which you may or may not know but it was my Senior year in high school when I got "serious" about my faith and was baptized the following summer. Since then I have had an amazing time being surrounded by awesome Christian friends and family whether I am in Santa Barbara or San Diego. I look at my time here in Spain as God kinda taking all that away and making sure I can stand on my own. It was hard at first but I can honestly say that I feel closer to God, in a more personal one-on-one way than I ever have before. Every time I open my Bible to read I know that at that moment He is speaking to me alone and I know that everytime I pop in my headphones and sing, I alone am praising Him.
I just finished reading Robinson Crusoe which you all should know this but if not, is about a guy (Robinson) who is the only survivor of a shipwreck and lives alone on an island for years. The movie Cast Away was loosely based on it. Anyways he is able to salvage a bunch of handy stuff from the ship before it is demolished by the waves, one of those handy things being a Bible, which he hadn´t really ever read before. A few years into his adventure he starts reading it and long story short becomes a Christian. With the Word and the Spirit as his only guide he goes on to completely turn around his life and live for Christ alone. He goes on to say that even though he is alone on a deserted island he is more content being their with God than being back in civilization without Him. This is kinda a stretched analogy but I more or less feel the same way and find myself only leaning on Christ here for support instead of my friends and family which I can so easily do back home.
2 Cor 12:9 "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness."
If you don´t mind please pray that I might have wisdom in how to engage the other people here. I am not exaggerating when I say that all they do is drink everynight and this obviously makes it hard for me to want to hang out with them. I am trying to balance, or juggle if you will, how to be a light and an example while at the same time not be surrounded by the things of the world.
Anyways, add all the above to the adventures and randomness that I have already written about and it equals a pretty good semester so far. Thank you for your prayers, you´re in mine.
My time here has been very interesting and different from anything I´ve ever done before. I wrote before that this semester is my first for a lot of things; living on my own, living outside the US in a country that doens´t really speak English... But it is also the first time, since high school when I didn´t really have Christian friends, that the strong support, fellowship and fun that I get from them (I can probably just say from you) is gone or at least very far off. This is also the case with my family and church whom I find myself appreciating a lot more than I did at home (not that I don´t love you family, you know what I mean).
So far it has been a growing experience for me, one that I definitely think is for the best, and even though I haven´t been able to enjoy relationships with my friends and family, I am mas o menos (more or less) very content with life.
A little history which you may or may not know but it was my Senior year in high school when I got "serious" about my faith and was baptized the following summer. Since then I have had an amazing time being surrounded by awesome Christian friends and family whether I am in Santa Barbara or San Diego. I look at my time here in Spain as God kinda taking all that away and making sure I can stand on my own. It was hard at first but I can honestly say that I feel closer to God, in a more personal one-on-one way than I ever have before. Every time I open my Bible to read I know that at that moment He is speaking to me alone and I know that everytime I pop in my headphones and sing, I alone am praising Him.
I just finished reading Robinson Crusoe which you all should know this but if not, is about a guy (Robinson) who is the only survivor of a shipwreck and lives alone on an island for years. The movie Cast Away was loosely based on it. Anyways he is able to salvage a bunch of handy stuff from the ship before it is demolished by the waves, one of those handy things being a Bible, which he hadn´t really ever read before. A few years into his adventure he starts reading it and long story short becomes a Christian. With the Word and the Spirit as his only guide he goes on to completely turn around his life and live for Christ alone. He goes on to say that even though he is alone on a deserted island he is more content being their with God than being back in civilization without Him. This is kinda a stretched analogy but I more or less feel the same way and find myself only leaning on Christ here for support instead of my friends and family which I can so easily do back home.
2 Cor 12:9 "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness."
If you don´t mind please pray that I might have wisdom in how to engage the other people here. I am not exaggerating when I say that all they do is drink everynight and this obviously makes it hard for me to want to hang out with them. I am trying to balance, or juggle if you will, how to be a light and an example while at the same time not be surrounded by the things of the world.
Anyways, add all the above to the adventures and randomness that I have already written about and it equals a pretty good semester so far. Thank you for your prayers, you´re in mine.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Bella´s official trailer
Even though im not really interning with Bella anymore, I still manage their YouTube account. The other day when I signed on to the site I was pleasantly surprised to see our new trailer uploaded. I think its by far the best trailer we´ve had so far and am really excited for October 26th. I have been talking with some of the people I worked with and found out that right now Bella has sold more pre-sale tickets than any film in history. Pretty amazing and it sounds like all my work this summer has paid off.
Once again I have found myself too busy to post since last week or so, but this time I have a good excuse. So far this week I have had 3 mid-terms and 1 quiz plus gone to my new acrobatics and juggling class the past 2 nights. I won´t bore you with details of my tests but I do want to talk about juggling. As I have said before my town always seems to be having some sort of festival or exposition going on and this week is the Blogstival. Im not completely sure what the Blogstival is other than a festival about blogs, but I do know that part of it is offering a variety or seeming random classes for the community to take for a very low cost. My roommate Borja and I decided to take the juggling class which for 12 hours of instruction is only 5€. I have gone twice now and both times have been fun, and crazy, and left me pretty exhausted. It is taught in español by 3 guys from Latin America who were or are in the circus, im not really sure cuz i don´t speak spanish. But anyways they are very talented and can pretty much do anything with juggling or unicycling or acrobatics, or all three at the same time, that you would want.
So far I have been working on juggling 4 balls, which is pretty tough, but I have got down 3 rings pretty well and they were very impressed with my unicycle and balance board skills. Well this is a pretty random post but I thought I should write something while I can. You all know me pretty well and I think could understand how I would get excited for a class like this.
This weekend should be fun, tomorrow i´m going to the Billabong Pro in Mundaka, Saturday i´m going to Guernica (where the famous Picasso is from) and Sunday i´m going hiking in the Pyrenees with some adventure club. Should be good times, expect a post with pictures next week. Until then, agur! (Basque for goodbye
PS- It´s kinda creepy but I find it very cool, I put this thing on here that shows me where people are when they look at my blog. So far i´ve had views from 5 countries and different places in the States.
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