...Montañosa.

So, there are all these great mountains surrounding Murcia. I barely even noticed them with the buildings in the way :-( A few of our friends told us about a path you could take up one of the mountains (it's actually probably more like a giant hill; is there an actual height requirement for something to be a mountain?) to see a big Jesus statue. We didn't have school Thursday because it was St. Thomas Aquinas day (he's the patron saint of students), so we decided to climb it. Thursday was our favorite day of this adventure so far, and what's really great is that I don't think I will need to be all that verbose in my description of it cuz we have pictures that get the point across much better... So... that's the mountain from below. After we found the path we started climbing up and very soon got a beautiful view of the city.

Suddenly, there was a break in the stairs. They continued about eight feet over our heads. Tracy was the first to climb the rocks to get to them (we had been about to give up); Rachael and Chris followed. The other three of us stayed behind for various reasons. I for one am scared of climbing... trees, rocks... anything. But they went all the way to the top. Here are a few pictures from that part of the adventure.

Elisabet

...Linda.

On Friday we went to the “grupo de jovenes” at the church and made some friends! We sang some songs (one of which I knew!), did a Bible study, prayed, had tea and cookies, played some ping pong(!), and just talked (in Spanish!). It is so satisfying to see and hear and understand and speak Spanish! I am soaking up every moment of it. It was late, so we decided we should head back to our apartment, but then we found out that someone was on their way to give us and another girl a ride home. I'm so glad we went!!! They are very sweet people. There was about 15 of us altogether; the youngest was probably 16 and the oldest 30. We saw them again this morning before going to Mary's apartment again for another absolutely delicious lunch.

Being blonde, it's not uncommon to for people here to stare at me, give me funny looks, or assume I don't speak Spanish. That's why I like Zergio, a little boy we met at the heladería in our barrio (neighborhood) the other day at lunchtime. We were paying for a delicious four-cheese pizza we had just consumed, and Zergio was sitting on a stool by the counter. He didn't stare at us like we were aliens, he just started talking to us like it was completely normal. I appreciated that.

In other news, we got to go out on the roof of our apartment the other day! It might have been just a lucky chance that the door was unlocked, but it was a lovely view.


And today, while in the barrio of San Anton, we saw a procession in the street. The “feast day” of San Anton is January 17th, so they have been celebrating this week.


We also went to Plaza Flores the other day and got pasteles de carne. It's really pretty there.


Hasta luego!
♥Tracy

...Divertida

Some more pictures.....

As Betty mentioned, we went to the Museo de Bellas Artes. This is a painting by Murillo:



El Río Segura!



Have I mentioned yet that there are orange trees like everywhere??



Here's a shot from the tapeo. Live music, and you can see a glimpse of the alitos de pollo (chicken). Sorry I don't have a better shot of our delicious meal.



La Catedral is beautiful at night:



We got helado as well. Again, kind of hard to see, but delicious!



We made sponge cake for Rachael's birthday...



It was really foggy yesterday morning! When the sun began to rise, the sky was lit up in gold.



We played futbol with our amigos at a park by the campus of Merced. It is adorable.




Must go help make potato soup, hasta luego!
♥Tracy

...Como una fiesta.

Two good stories and two bad ones. Here goes...

Friday afternoon we wanted to buy lunch somewhere. We thought we would try out a mesón, which is basically like a restaurant. It is special because they serve some local specialties, it is cheaper than a restaurant, and there are many courses. It took a while to actually make the decision to go in one. We finally did. They didn't have a menu, so the guy just gave us the daily meal or whatever. It was really awkward... when we first walked in, he was like, "Are you looking for someplace else?" Anyway, we had a salad and bread and coke and bean and sausage soup and tuna and relish and dessert and coke all for 10 Euros. So, it was a lot of food and a good price. It didn't taste too good though. Well, the desert and the bread and the sausage were good. And Tracy liked it all! I don't know. This is one of the "bad" stories, but it wasn't bad really, just awkward. Murcia is not at all a popular place for tourists, so it is weird to see us around I guess.

Saturday night (well, Saturday during the day we went to an art museum and then walked along the river and checked out a flea market that wasn't really open all the way yet.), we went out for tapas!!! There were eight of us, which was a good number. It took a while to find the place... that is a common theme here... but it was amazing food. Here are some of the things we ordered (we shared them all):
Zarangollo - this was the only one that we hadn't the slightest idea what it was when we ordered it... adventure... it turned out to be this weird combination of egg, shrimp, mushrooms, and some other stuff. Yeah, that sounded gross right, and it looked even worse, but it was actually pretty good with the crackers they gave us.
Revuelto de verduras - it was like the zarangollo, only with vegetables instead of the shrimp, quite good.
Alitas de pollo - probably the most delicious food I have ever had anywhere. They are little chicken wings. I'm not sure what was in the sauce, but it was incredible.
Rollitos del salmón - a salmon sandwhich sort of thing.
Queso de cabra y tomate - goat cheese with really sweet tomato sauce which was also delicious on crackers.
Tiburón - shark. I don't know who ordered this, but we all ate it before we knew what it was. It was fried, so hey... We all really liked it. It just tasted like really delicious fish!
There were a few more, but that's all I remember. After the tapas, we went to a different place for dessert. Most people got churros y chocolate (they are like donuts with really thick hot chocolate to dip them in), but Tracy, Rachael, and I had tried them at a different place that morning, so we got gelato. It was really expensive, but obviously delicious. Btw, the tapas were a good price. Ok, I just wrote waaay too much about food. Moving on to church on Sunday...

We walked over an hour to get there, but that was only because we didn't know where it was. We had to meet our friends in another part of the city to take us there. They didn't know that we lived so close. I promise, we are finding more points of reference and shortcuts. It will only take about fifteen minutes to walk there next Sunday. There were about seventy five ish people at the church. We sang first (singing in Spanish is amazing!!!), and then there was a prayer, sermon (which was about death, but not in a scary hellfire and damnation way. It was like... are you prepared for death? You know, you can't take anything with you... it was good), announcements, offering... oh, and they made us stand up and introduce ourselves... Afterwards, there was some snackage, which consisted of goldfish and some really good fudge. Weird. Then... we went over to the house of the missionary couple who founded the church. Anyway, they have four daughters. The two older ones are at school in the US. The younger ones were there though. There are actually their nieces, but they are adopted as daughters. They all speak English, which was disappointing, cuz that's all we did, but the girls were really excited that we spoke English. Hopefully next week we can speak Spanish with them. They fed us an amazing lunch. Enchiladas, green bean cassorole, corn, salad... and we had apple kuchen with coffee for dessert. !!!!!!!!!!! After lunch, the lady, whose name was Mary, narrated like their whole lives for us. That was probably the most awesome thing that has happened since we have been here... hearing their story.

Here's the other sad story. We accidentally bought laundry detergent with bleach in it. We didn't know the Spanish for bleach; we just bought the cheapest kind. It is lejía... not a cognate at all. So... Rachael and I have some interesting stains on a few of our clothes now :-( but at least we figured out the problem, and it won't happen anymore.

Betty

...Deliciosa.

It is our one-week anniversary since we got here. :) Tonight, we made latkas. Random? perhaps. Tasty? most definitely.



In other food news, here are the cookies we made for our delightful neighbors.



I am proud of our cooking skills. We've made stir fry, soup, french toast...Hopefully soon we'll work in some Spanish recipes. In the meantime, here's what we had at the café in Plaza de Santo Domingo last week.



And before I go to bed, some other pieces of our adventure thus far:








La Catedral!!!


Sunrise out my window.


...buenas noches!
♥Tracy

...Educativa.

We started school today! We caught the bus around 9:00 and got to campus in plenty of time for our class to start at 9:30. And if you have ever heard that Spanish people are relaxed about time... it's true. Our teacher today was named José. He teaches both Spanish and history. We will have a few different teachers throughout the semester. José is nice, and he is a good teacher. And we can understand him, which is the most important thing... We did some activities that helped us get to know people better. Those can be awkward and just annoying sometimes, but it was fun. We laughed a lot. We are with about twenty other American students for now. There are seven of us from Roberts, but everyone else is the only student from his/her college! They are all really awesome. Sorry I keep giving uncreative descriptions... he was nice... it was awesome... That's just how it is I guess! Later tonight we are going over to one of the other student's apartments for dinner. Most all of us are going to be there so it will be a good chance to get to know them better. Free meal!!! And friends!!! We are really excited about this :-) Ok, finishing up the description of our first day of school... after the introductory stuff, we had a coffee break. We didn't get coffee today, but we did buy a chocolate croissant! It's a big deal whenever we eat something sweet or whenever we eat meat... good stuff that we will have to remember to appreciate once we get back to the US. After the break we had class again. We did some basic Spanish. We got out at 1:30, so it was a pretty short school day.

Since Tracy wrote her blog there have been several awesome developments in the area of home life. Hot showers!! And... free wireless Internet. FREE. Here's what we did. We noticed that there were a bunch of networks in range, but they all needed passwords. So, once we had met our awesome neighbors, we wrote them a note asking if they would let us use their wireless if we payed them some money each month. Last night, the guy came over to give us their password, and he said that we didn't have to pay anything. We get five bars too! So life is more "normal" now. Hopefully we are learning to see "normal" as "exceptional." We are thankful for the things that we didn't have at first.

Almost all of our encounters with Spaniards have been wonderful, but today Rachael and I had some issues with the postal workers. We got one of those notes in our mailbox that means you have to go to the post office to pick something up. So we ran there and gave them the slip of paper. I showed him my passport and signed everything. When he gave us the paper that was addressed to us, we realized it was actually something that was supposed to go to the people who lived in the apartment before us! So I tried to explain that to the guy... it did not go well. "¡Madre de Dios! Las mujeres!" That was all we could understand of what he was saying because he was using a different dialect. It was obvious that he was mad, so eventually we just left... with the mail that wasn't ours.

Considering that would not be a good note to end on, I will write a little more. One of the things that I have really enjoyed here is cooking. We made some excellent stir fry the other night. And yesterday we had chicken, potatoes, and peppers! I am dying to try more Spanish food, but so far, we cook like Americans. Well, we are Americans. But hopefully soon there will be paella on the stove!

Betty

...Buenísima!!!

God is definitely present here in Murcia. I wish I could recount the details of the past few days so that you could see the amazing progression of it all. Quite frankly, I like it here. A lot. :) Granted, the first night was undeniably unnerving, as was my first night at college, but this was naturally more intense. Never before have I been separated by so many miles of water from so many people that I love! But familiarity began to kick in right away, and although I still think of you beautiful people back home, I am so stinkin excited for this adventure! Rachael, Betty, and I make an excellent team. Our personalities, strengths, and weaknesses balance so well, and I am so incredibly thankful for them. We've been getting more than our fair share of strange looks; we are such Americans, and very white. However, when we approach people and start talking in Spanish, they seem very pleasantly surprised and are very kind and willing to help us. It's hard to believe that it's only been, what, four days? So yeah, obviously I can't mention everything I would like to, but here are a few highlights:

Thursday: I must admit that I am pleased to say that I have been doing most of the talking here. :) - Whether it was our taxi driver, Juan, or our landlord, Francisco (except when he and Rachael started pulling out the French), or the unexpected sweet old woman who rang our doorbell at 9pm (That's another story). Talking in Spanish is so fun!! We had to do some shopping that night, and, long story short, our beds are now adorned with Spiderman, Powerpuff Girls, and baby Looney Toons fleece blankets. I myself broke my own lack-of-sleep record, being awake for virtually 33 hours. I caught maybe a half hour on a plane flight, and maybe 20 minutes when we camped out in the Madrid airport for 7 hours...it's not a habit I intend to develop.

Saturday: We got HOT WATER!!!! I will never again take it for granted. Or the internet. Or cell phones. Or heat. Or food. I got more. I mean, we still have to figure out how to get the hot water to the shower, but now we can wash dishes the proper way. This, by the way, is thanks to our amazing next-door neighbors, who have been an incredible help to us the past couple days. We are going to bake them cookies. There is no question. Saturday we also went to Plaza de Santo Domingo, where we got some cafés con leche and torta chocolate. Muy sabrosos. Then we went to la Catedral!!!! It is gorgeous and huge and I can't wait to go back! It also contains the biggest organ in all of Europe. Oh, earlier Saturday we also went to the Mercadona and did some substantial grocery shopping for only 28 euros! We had soup and a delicious loaf of 50-cent bread for dinner, as opposed to the frozen pizza and salad with hot sauce from the previous two nights. Life is good.

It is simply amazing to consider how many people are praying for us. Keep em coming. :) God has been proving his faithfulness from the very beginning. I can't wait to see what happens next. Love and miss you all, and hopefully we will eventually get internet access in our apartment so we can skype some of you! Pictures to come. Hasta la próxima...

♥Tracy