Tomorrow we will be helping clean in a local church. We will be preparing for some activities this weekend with youth and children, and beginning a busy few weeks of service. I am excited for what is to come and the work God will be doing in our lives and what He has planned for us. My friend, Tucker who is traveling with me is out of the U.S.A. for the first time so it has been a blessing to see him leave his comfort zone and have the opportunity to experience so may new things about the amazing culture here. I am confident the God will do amazing things through him as his willingness to serve and learn is so great.

Please be praying for our safety and effectiveness while we are here, and that we would be sensitive to the guidance of God.

I should be able to make regular updates so please check back to see more about everything going on down here.

Adios,
David

I am currently studying in the U.S.A. and researching my study abroad options so I can get back Spain soon!

All of my trips to Mexico, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Spain finally helped me decide what to start studying and I am enjoying it so much. I am taking foreign languages and linguistics courses this semester and loving every minute of class.

The feeling of studying something I enjoy is awesome, and I learn so much every day. I know the passion for language that I have comes from God and he expects me to use it responsibly and as a tool to glorify Him. I am so thankful for the opportunity and capacity He has given me to learn languages and use them in all of the ways that He has permitted so far.

I am looking forward to a nice trip to Costa Rica this summer with my best friend, and being able to serve the Lord there while teaching and learning.

Awesome things to come!

It has been a while since my last post…

…so much for trying to be consistent.

Since I returned to the U.S. I have been working on gathering everything necessary to apply as a full-time  student to the University of Deusto. Trying to get all of the needed paperwork completed has been super frustrating, not because the process is difficult, but rather the details about what needs to be done are annoyingly evasive. I tried for weeks to find information online about the process called homologación, which in this case is essentially having diplomas and other educational records validated and accepted into another schooling system.

Now that I have my hands on the applications I can easily fill out the three partial pages and send everything in to be processed, but the difficult thing was finding these forms, and instructions on what to do with them. I live in Georgia so throughout this process I have to work with the Spanish Consulate, and Office of Education in Miami. I imagine the process is the same regardless of which region you live in.

After quite a few weeks of frustration searching for this information online, and no luck finding results in Spanish or English regarding the exact process, I decided to call the Spanish Consulate in Miami. Once I was on the phone with the operator, I quickly explained my situation, what I was looking for, and asked if he could help. He gave me the number to the Office of Education, which is also in Miami, and wished me a good afternoon.

I called the Office of Education and once again explained my situation, and what information I was trying to find, and the woman quickly asked for my email address and explained that she would send me a link with all of the information I needed. After getting off the phone I waited a few seconds and the email appeared in my inbox. When I clicked on the link I smiled as it opened a page I had never seen before. A page which finally had instructions, links to applications, and everything I had been looking for for the past 2 months!

So I decided as I go through this process, as long and unexciting as it may be, I will be documenting it, so anyone else in the same situation has things a bit easier.

-One thing that has been confirmed by all of my calls to this consulate, as well as stories from friends, is that no one will answer the phone if the English line is dialed, and the operator will only speak in Spanish.

-The link they gave me was: http://www.educacion.es/exterior/usa/es/homconv/eeuu.shtml

-The link to the list of certified translators is broken but I have emailed asking for a copy of the list, which I will post or make available once I receive it.

If you have any questions, leave a comment and make sure to include your email address so I can respond.

-Woz

Bilbao has the benefits of a large city but the feel of a small town, The people I have met here are all friendly and are genuinely interested in what I am doing here, always offering help, advice, and a few good laughs.

I leave tomorrow in the early afternoon, so today is my packing day. I will be trying to pack everything that I have accumulated, and also checking out hotels in Barcelona to make my reservation for the two nights I am staying there.

I don’t know how to choose my hotel.

I want to stay relatively close to the airport because I don’t think I will be venturing into Barcelona much. I also have plans to meet my cousin for coffee one day, so I want to stay closer to her side of town so I don’t have to travel across the universe to see her. I have quite a few hotels to look through, I guess I will just read ratings, and check out their pages well.

I found my hotel, and reserved my two nights, so that is one major thing out of the way. One of my main requirements was to have internet. The other two hotels I have stayed in did not include internet and that is super inconvenient for making travel plans, keeping in contact with everyone, and having access to all of my travel information, reservations, tickets, and making sure I have all of the directions and addresses I need as I travel.

I am looking forward to heading back home on Thursday, to see family, friends, and be back in my own bed.

Talk to you soon.

-Me

Guggenheim Bilbao is an enormous building, the architecture inside and out is incredible. The design is so unique and varied that you could spend hours just looking at the building itself before even beginning to observe the art contained within.

Guggenheim Bilbao- The back of the museum which faces the river.

The first floor has permanent exhibits which are a part of the history of the museum, and are an integral part of the design of the building.

The second and third floors house various galleries which are changed periodically throughout the year. Currently the second floor galleries all contain exhibits pertaining to the work of Frank Lloyd Wright. The many displays show different stages of his upbringing, education, completed projects, and his unbuilt work.

The immense scale of the architectural projects he worked on is mind blowing, and his advanced and futuristic style, design, and methods are still complex in comparison with our “modern” architecture designs. Frank Lloyd Wright also had a very anti large city mindset, so all of his plans which included office space, high rise apartments, and other city-like elements, were spread out over thousands of acres to ensure that there was still an abundance of nature throughout the hustle-and-bustle of a city.

The third level is currently home to various collections from artists past and present, which are part of the other Guggenheim collections. There is also a particularly interesting exhibit by a Brazilian artist, whose name, at the moment, I cannot recall.

The entrance to the museum.

The Matter of Time by Richard Serra

An anonymous artist's contribution to the area surroundng the Guggenheim

The experience at the Guggenheim was great, and if I have the chance to visit any of the other Guggenheim museums I will definitely do so.

Below is the link to the Guggenheim Bilbao website for more information, or to see pictures of the exhibits, and explore the museum online.

http://www.guggenheim-bilbao.es/

I leave Bilbao December 1st in the afternoon, so I will be back in Barcelona at about 2PM on Tuesday. I need to do a few things to figure out where I will be staying, and get in touch with my cousin about meeting her for coffee or something before I head home.

I fly out of Barcelona December 3rd, and should arrive home just after 3PM. I am glad to be heading home soon, and I feel confident that I have completed my goal of checking out the schools here, and getting the information I needed to be able to apply for next year. I have also had the opportunity to meet many great people, learn new things about the culture everywhere I have stayed, and to visit Spain and Andrra for the first time.

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving, and I will see you all soon.

-Me

Hotel les Fonts

I still have not really shared anything specific about my time in Andorra. I was in in the capital, Andorra la Vella, for about a week. During that week I learned a fair share about hospitality. I am obviously not a tourism expert, nor a hospitality expert, but there are always things you see differently when you observe from outside of a situation. This applies to all facets of life, and especially to my time in Andorra.

I stayed at a humble, yet clean hotel right in the heart of the main tourist and shopping district of Andorra la Vella. The owner of the hotel, like the majority of the other residents of Andorra, is a foreigner. He from Andorra’s northern border-buddy, France, of course not saying anything bad about the French, but in this particular case, the language barrier was part of the issue.

The owner spoke French, some English, and had a great hold of Spanish, the problem was that his thick french accent impeded his efficient communication in any language other than his native tongue. Whenever I needed to speak with someone I preferred speaking with his son, who speaks Spanish, French, and English, all three quite fluently.

I made my reservation online before heading to Andorra, but when I arrived, the reservation didn’t show up in their system, luckily they had plenty of rooms available. The next morning, the owner mentioned how I had a reservation online, even though they only checked me in for one night originally. I mentioned to him, casually, that I may not be staying there the rest of my trip, to which he responded quickly, reminding me I had a reservation, which if I wanted to cancel, needed to be done 24 hours in advance. I told him to go ahead and and keep me in the system for the full stay, I didn’t really have much of a choice. After we finished our wonderful conversation, he walked three steps the other direction, took a seat behind the counter, and explained to his wife, in heavily accented Spanish, the whole situation, almost like a play by play, which heavily favored his logic. I guess he forgot that every time I spoke to him I spoke to him in Spanish, because it was the only language I semi-understood him in. Maybe he just didn’t care, either way, that isn’t the best way to make a customer feel welcome in your establishment.

Later that day I was walking down the street in front of the hotel, the owned called me over and told me they were moving me to a different room. The first night they put me in a room for three, it was quite large, but I paid the same rate as for a single bed. This was not as profitable for them, obviously, so they moved me to a double room. Then he told me he wanted me to pay then for the rest of the stay. This is the first hotel I have ever paid before I actually stayed there. I really don’t think that is too common, and I didn’t really like that. I also didn’t like the way he called me over as I was walking down the street, to change my room, charge me, and to complain that in the morning I was still in my room when they needed to clean. I guess I was just one big problem for them.

Whenever the owner spoke to me he switched languages, and more than once he asked me, after he spewed out a long string of barely understandable English, if I speak English. I guess the confused look on my face was enough for him to need to ask that, but he had seen my American passport, and if he had any doubt about me being an English speaking American, he could have spoken in Spanish, because that was our common strong language.

Everything the hotel advertised showed that they had Wi-Fi. I was so relieved to know that I would be able to stay connected throughout my time there. My illusion soon disappeared once I realized that after I paid 1.5 Euros, for all of the internet I needed, that the signal did not even reach my room. I had to make the long journey to the lobby to use internet, to find that they also disconnect the router at night, right about the time all of my friends and family in the states are getting off of school, work, and able to talk. About halfway into my stay I got a stern look and English I didn’t understand from the owner, which once repeated I still didn’t understand what he was talking about. Supposedly he told me the day before that I was using too much internet, because I paid 1.5 Euros for an hour, and I was using it way mor than an hour.

I had never spoken to him about it before, and his adult son, who checked me in to the hotel, told me the 1.5 Euros was for the password and I could use as much time as I wanted. This was a great conflict, and quite annoying too. So I decided to avoid any more awkward situations, because one of my pet peeves is strangers getting mad at me, especially with the burden of the misunderstanding being on him. I never used internet at the hotel again, and instead used it where Wi-Fi was available for paying customers in cafes around the city. I would go enjoy a café con leche, a pastry, and a glass of apple juice, while I worked on my blog, photos, school research, or talked to friends and family back home. Never one complaint, only smiles and great service.

After the owner got mad at me about the internet, he stopped greeting me when I would come and go, and wouldn’t even look at me when I asked a question. I think that is the ultimate insult, and definitely not the way to treat people who are paying to stay in your hotel. That was pretty much the straw that broke the camels back as far as my decision to never return to that hotel, and to never recommend it to anyone. Unfortunately for them, the hotel was clean, central, and comfortable, but the service made all the difference.

So, from my short stay in Andorra, I learned quite a few things about how to treat customers, and people in general. I can definitely apply what I learned to every day situations, as well as business relations. I feel I gained a great deal of experience during that time, it is just unfortunate they didn’t realized I am documenting all of this, and they should be a bit more careful with their other customers.

I was looking for some pictures of my room, I know I took some, but I cannot find them at the moment.

Shopping

In Andorra, when there is no snow, and you have no desire to go to Europe’s largest spa, there isn’t much to do besides shop. I am not one who enjoys shopping. If I need something I will go buy it, but just to go shop is really quite boring. While I was in Andorra I did go to a few stores and buy some things for family, and a few clothing items for me. There truly are hundreds of stores in the main shopping district, and they were always full, they’re was some desire to buy, buy, buy, that everyone had, and I am sure the low prices and duty free shopping helped to encourage that. It was interesting observing the frenzy of people going from store to store, picking out cloths, trying them on, buying, and moving on to repeat the same thing. All. Day. Long.

In Andorra, because the city is in a valley, surrounded by tall mountains, there is not much daylight. The sun comes up and starts to really shine at 9 or 10, and goes down at around 5PM, but people stay out shopping and eating until midnight or later.

I am trying to be more intentional about each update, so there is a better focus. I think it will help me update more by not trying to squeeze multiple days into one update, and rather just update as things happen, so more frequently, and hopefully more focused and interesting.

I also got a haircut in Andorra. I needed one, so I figured I should get one while in Andorra. It is a random fact, and I don’t know why, but I was excited about it.

Patricia and I just got back from the store, we bought some things we need for our Spanish-style Thanksgiving meal. I will let you know how it turns out. Hopefully nothing burns in our kitchen today.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

-Me

Here is a picture, poorly taken, horribly edited, that shows the bridge, the river, and two of the university buildings.

I got the information I needed about some of the programs I am interested in, and have a few things to follow up with. The campus, and all of the people I ended up talking with today were awesome. I am looking forward to moving forward with plans to study here. We will see what happens.

Today was a great day, I rested plenty, got a lot of things done, and enjoyed my time, and later today, since it is already the 26th, we are going to prepare a Thanksgiving feast to enjoy here. My first Spanish Thanksgiving, it should be a fun adventure. I hope everyone enjoys their Thanksgiving Day , and their time off.

Have a safe, fun, filling, Thanksgiving.

-Me

Here is a picture to hold you off until I get back and write my heart out tonight.

One of the last pictures I took in Andorra before that memory card filled up. Andorra was interesting, I will share more soon.

Hasta Pronto

I posted some pictures of Andorra yesterday in my blog, and I plan to put some more up today, I just need to head out and take a minute to get some good shots. The views here are awesome, unfortunately it isn’t supposed to snow before I leave, but I am sure it looks incredible with snow on the mountains.

The hotel I am staying in is pretty nice, it is clean, central, and a great price. The fact that is is inexpensive helps a great deal, especially with the excange rate being so unfavorable for me right now. At the beginning of my trip I was paying about $1.65 per Euro. I just checked today and it is down to $1.50 per Euro, still unfavorable, but at least a bit more bearable.

Most of Andorra’s economy is based on tourism, and the rest on agriculture. Here is a link to some more information about Andorra’s economy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Andorra

Having an economy based mainly on tourism is reflected in the activities there are to do here. Most of the tourism is due to duty-free shopping here in Andorra, which attracts shoppers from all over the world. The attractive skii slopes attract many winter sport enthusiasts as well.

There are quite a few spas, luxury hotels, and a new large shopping mall which attract people as well. On the main street which runs through Andorra la Vella, the capital, is all stores. For anyone interested in “shop-till-you-drop” style shopping, this is the place to visit. There is virtually every store, from every country, from every designer. It is almost overwhelming the amount of shopping people do here.

Aside from skiing, shopping, or going to a spa, there is little to do here. Which leads to my predicament. I have not had much to do since I got here, even if I wanted to ski, I couldn’t because there is no snow right now, and I have no desire to visit a spa, so I guess I will take advantage of some duty free shopping and pick up a shirt or two, just to say I bought something in Andorra.

The people here are all very nice, they are respectful, and they are on a mission. Most of the people here have some goal in mind. If they are at a café, they are there to drink a coffee, and be on their way. If they are in a restaurant, they are there to eat and move on. The first night I was here I decided to head to McDonalds to see how it compared with our American McDonalds, and it was incredible. I do not know what the difference was, but the food tasted cleaner and less greasy, the service was faster, and it was more like a restaurant, than the typical fast-food idea I have of McDonalds from the States.

While I was at McDonalds I heard a couple from Andorra talking to an American family, explaining what the mentality here is, and that most people live  to work to buy the things that are in style. So much here is about presentation and aesthetics, that people dedicate their life just to be in style. It definatel shows in the day to day activities of the people here.

I am really glad I have the chance to stop and enjoy the awesome scenery, the great things Andorra has to offer, and relax while I am here.

Well I just finished a coffee and pastry ad a café here, so I will be moving on, heading out to see what I can find to do today.

-Me

One last note, most of the people here smoke, which is not something I am very fond of. It makes it difficult to enjoy a restaurant with people smoking right next to you. Now that my clothes smell like smoke, I am going to head out and hopefully take some exciting pictures without looking too much like a tourist. See you soon.

The capital, Andorra la Vella, is a tiny city, and there are many tourists all year long. The main street running through Andorra is all stores, most of them are brands we are familiar with in the U.S.A.

Everything here is very clean, the buildings are well-maintained, there is virtually no trash in the streets, and the air smells fresh and pure.

I have not taken any pictures of the city itself yet, but I did take some on the bus on the way in yesterday. It was difficult to take them through the window though. Here are a few of the scenery, and what I could manage to take as we drove in.

This is one of the buildings right on the river in Sant Julià de Lòria, the first city in Andorra that the highway passes through. The construction here is interesting because the amount of the mountain you see in the picture is only about 1/3 of the mountain. The cities here are all build in the valleys of the Pyrenees, so there is a neat contrast between the modern buildings and the rugged landscape. I will be sure to take some photos to show more of that soon.

As we passed the border I tried to snap a picture, I wasn’t quick enough, but I got most of the sign. The border is open with Spain to the south and France to the north, so we did not need to stop to cross through into Andorra.

This was part of the landscape in Spain before we crossed the border. Before entering the Pyrenees most of the land is farmland.

I took this photo from the bus and I really like it. This is one of the first pictures I took as we entered the Pyrenees Mountains and everything was so tranquil and undisturbed. It was wonderful to see such a pure part of God’s creation.

Tomorrow I have an appointment at the Universitat d’Andorra, to meet with someone from the School of Information and Management to see about studying here at the university. The University is a few minute bus ride away and my appointment is at 10:00AM so please keep that in your prayers.

Andorra is a great place, if you have the chance to visit it I suggest you do. The languages spoken here are Catalan, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and I believe most of the hotels have English speakers on staff.

I will add some pictures of the city soon, and let you know how everything goes tomorrow at the University.

-Me