Hola de nuevo,
The long-awaited (or at least somewhat-anticipated) blog is finally here! Keep an eye out for the expansion of the photo gallery and bonus updates in the upcoming days. Thanks everyone for your patience while I dealt with some health and technical difficulties that have prevented me from getting the blog up and running. The good news is I believe I have solved the technical issues, and future posts should publish smoothly every Sunday. I found out Thursday that my lingering cold is in fact Bronchitis. Thankfully, I was able to get a doctor’s appointment relatively easily. It was probably the quickest visit of my life, I was in and out with a prescription for antibiotics and orders to return in a week if I wasn’t feeling better. I’m already starting to feel a bit better, although it will probably take most of the next week to fully recover. Presumably due to the bronchitis I didn’t have a lot of energy this week, so this might be a shorter update. The highlights were the start of my dance class at the university, my first proper ultimate practice with Q+D Ultimate, and a CEA day trip to Segovia on Saturday.
Monday was supposed to be the first day of the latin dance class that I signed up for through the university. Conveniently for me, it is right after my Spanish class, so I headed to the university gym and tried to find the correct room. Several other students showed up who said they were there for the latin dance class, but 15 minutes after it was supposed to start, there was still no instructor. When it became clear nobody was coming, a few of the students who had taken the class the previous semester tried to start teaching a few basic steps. One of them said he would contact the instructor, and thankful on Wednesday she showed up. We started to learn the basics of salsa, now with proper instruction. The class is all in Spanish, but it’s relatively easy to follow along by just watching, even though I don’t understand half of the explanations.
On Wednesday, I went to my first open Ultimate Frisbee practice with the Quixotes+Dulcineas team. You may remember I tried to attend a practice a couple weeks ago, but the lights wouldn’t turn on so it was kind of a bust. This week was much better, we got to run some drills, scrimmage, and more or less do everything you would expect from a scrimmage. The only thing missing for me was a pair of cleats, which I will definitely need to pick up if I continue to play. I even made a couple of new friends, Catalina and Jose, who are both Colombian but living and working in Madrid. Catalina was excited to have someone to practice her English with, it seems like she knows about as much English as I know Spanish. Jose is fluent in both and helped us translate a bit when we were struggling.
The highlight of this week was Saturday, when CEA (my exchange program provider) took us on a trip to Segovia. Segovia is about an hour (by bus) north of Madrid, located just past the mountains visible on the northern horizon of the Madrid skyline. The most noticeable thing upon entering Segovia is the aqueduct. The Romans constructed it to bring water from one of the nearby mountains, called the sleeping woman because of its profile against the sky, to the entire city. However, according to local legend the aqueduct was not built by the Romans, but by the devil himself in a single night. The story claims he overheard a young woman saying she would do anything for a drink of water, so he offered to bring her fresh water from the mountain in exchange for her soul. She agreed on the condition that he construct the aqueduct to bring it by the next day. With the deal made, the devil and his demons went to work carrying stones from the mountain to build the massive structure. As morning approached, the work was nearly completed and the young woman, realizing she was in danger of losing her soul, began to pray. The legend says God had mercy on her, and caused the sun to rise one minute early before the devil could place the very last stone. So the story ends with the devil leaving empty-handed, the young woman keeping her soul, and the Segovians getting their aqueduct. In recent years, someone made a statue of the devil taking a selfie on his way out of town, with the aqueduct in the background and the one missing stone at his feet.
This story, along with a dearth of other Segovian history and trivia, came courtesy of the tour guide CEA arranged. We split up into groups of 10-15 and went on a walking tour of Segovia with a variety of local tour guides. The tour took us through several main areas of Segovia: Past the old city gates, through the old jewish quarter, past gothic and romanesque cathedrals, and finally ending in the palace, which was the seat of the Spanish monarchy for hundreds of years until Madrid became the capital. I was struck by the sheer amount of history around every corner, buildings older than the United States everywhere, this ancient civil engineering marvel of an aqueduct. It makes me a little bit sad that there isn’t anywhere I can go in the US with that kind of history, but it also makes me even more grateful for the chance to be here and see so much incredible history firsthand. After seeing the palace, I got lunch with some new friends. Unfortunately, it was a holiday this weekend in Spain, so a lot of restaurants were packed with even more visitors than usual. We settled on a kebab place, and although I missed out on trying traditional Segovian cuisine, I suppose that just means I will have to go back another time.
In the afternoon, we got back on the bus to head to the Ilfondso palace gardens. I wish we had more time there, as they seemed to go on forever with beautiful fountains, and great up close views of the mountains. As the sun set, we gathered once more and loaded up on the bus back to Madrid. It was definitely a great trip, and I’m looking forward to the other CEA trips to Seville and Toledo in the coming months. That should wrap things up for this week, so as usual on to prayer requests.
Prayers
- Praise God for simplifying my issues with one of my flatmates. In his provision, that flatmate moved to a different apartment this week, which should alleviate the conflict between us.
- Continue to pray for my health, that the medication will work and I can recover from the bronchitis and be back to full health soon.
- Pray for God’s wisdom regarding my summer plans and how I can best use my time both in Europe and the US to serve him this summer.
- Pray for God’s Spirit and presence to be near to me here. The culture here is so highly secular, and it can feel like holding a heavy weight without my usual community to support me at times.
Atentamente,
Timo