Bruselas + TACOS!

On Sunday afternoon I returned to Valladolid from Brussels, Belgium with about 15 pounds of chocolate. YUM! It was quite the adventure, let me tell you.
First, I forgot our airline tickets. Cool. Good thing we had a little bit of time before our flight! We took the taxi ride of our lives back to Valladolid to print our tickets off Sarah's USB and then back to the airport to run to our gate. Whew. Once we got to the Brussels airport, we realized the language barrier we were about to have because in Brussels they speak French and Dutch. Thankfully, many people also spoke English and we got directions to the bus that takes us from the airport to the city. We must have taken the wrong bus because it only took us to the Charleroi train station.
However, we met a really nice Italian man on our way who plays American football in his hometown and speaks English. His name is Fabio pahahahaha! So, we bought train tickets and got on the train with Fabio. Then our train broke down. We transferred to another train that was full, so we stood between the cars and prayed that we would know what stop we should get off at.

When we finally arrived at our stop, we were clueless as to where to go from there. Thankfully, we found a woman who spoke English and asked her for directions. She knew exactly how to get to our hotel, down to every last turn! We checked into our hotel around 9pm, making the trip about 9 hours total from Valla to Brussels. Whew.

We were pleasantly surprised to find a personal kitchen in our cheap hotel room, so we decided to make some macaroni and cheese that some lovely friends of mine from home sent me a few weeks ago :) Buenisimo! We decided to stay in that night because it was raining pretty hard and it was dark so we couldn't see anything anyway.

In the morning we got up early to make the most of our day. As we were walking down to Grand Place we decided to take a picture next to these statues. Then these guys in suits jumped in the picture. Oooookay. Hahahaha they were super nice and invited us to go out with them that night, but we were exhausted by the time we got back to our hotel so we didn't actually hang out with them at all.

We got to Grand Place and stopped some kids with some waffles to find out where they got them. Turned out they were doing some sort of school project where they had to trade hard boiled eggs for anything people were willing to give them. We gave them some American change and headed out to find some Belgian waffles.

We stopped at The Waffle Factory and met our new friend Oosed. Don't really know if that's how you spell it. Probably not. BUT he was super funny and gave us lots of recommendations of what to do and see in Brussels. We walked down to Mannekin Pis and then took the metro to the Atomium and toured that bad boy, buying lots of chocolate along the way, as well as some yummy Belgian "frites". We returned to our hotel exhausted and hungry, dropped off some shopping bags, and headed to "Volle-Gas" for some mussels and other Belgian delicacies. Oh, I almost forgot! We tried some escargots too! There was a street vendor right by Mannekin Pis that was selling them and we had to try them while we had the chance! They were authentic! Sarah and Alyssa both ended up spitting them out, but I ate a few. They were alright.

The next morning we traveled back to Valladolid and rested for a bit before we caught an autobus to Laguna (a pueblo) to make tacos at Rut's house (a girl from my Bible study). A bit exhausting after a weekend trip to another country, but muy fabuloso! There were about fifteen of us there sharing quesadillas, tacos, and nachos for dinner. I don't know if you guys understand how much I have CRAVED Mexican food since I have been here. Thank goodness I could find almost everything I needed to make them. What a fix.

Well, there we are, friends. 

Adventures,

adventures,

adventures!!!!

March Adventures

Ok so I'm really sucking at this whole updating my blog regularly thing. This month has just been crazy for me. Let's see here... I went to Barcelona last month. That was fun. I did all the things I said I was going to do in that blog I posted before I went, surprise, surprise! Then, let's see here, what did I do? The first weekend of this month we had a four day weekend because it was Carnaval. Carnaval is celebrated throughout Spain and most of Europe right before Lent. They go crazy before they have to give up meat or something. Idk. I guess that's how Mardi Gras started too? Anyway, I got two days off school so it was cool. My friend Lindsay and I weren't crazy about being part of the Carnaval festivities, so we hiked part of the Camino de Santiago (The Way of St. James). It is one of the biggest Christian pilgrimages and it ends in the north of Spain in Galicia (which I heard was the most beautiful part of Spain). Plus, I heard that I get to go to heaven if I do part of the camino and we all know it's not about Jesus forgiving your sins to go to heaven, but what you do to earn it. (Sarcasm, friends).

The camino was BEAUTIFUL. Galicia reminded me so much of Wisconsin :) It was amazing how God provided for us on our trip too, from the very beginning to the very end. For example, the first night we arrived in Sarria around midnight not knowing that all the albergues (places to sleep while you hike the camino) closed at ten pm. Cool. So, we found this lady on the street who was walking around with a drunk man and she offered for us to stay at her house out in the country. We didn't really have any other options, so we got in her car. She was an angel. And what a great memory!

We started hiking early in the morning and by midday ran into a Spanish man from Barcelona who was super nice. We hiked with him the rest of the day and met up with his friend in the next town. They were such a blessing! I don't know if we would have made it to Santiago in time for our flight if it weren't for them. We didn't know how ignorant we were about everything camino until we met them... They taught us the best, cheapest places to stay and eat, and they were doing the five day trip in four days too so they knew how far we had to go each day to make it on time.

NOTE TO FUTURE PEREGRINOS: 

Give yourself enough time to do the camino. Don't try to cut it short. Trust me.

About the third day of our four day hike my knee started to feel like it was being sliced open. AWESOME. Long story short, it didn't go away, but the other knee even gave out the next day too. So, the last day we ended up walking around 50km (about 30 miles)... with both of my knees basically not functioning. I had to hook arms with Lindsay in order to keep going or my legs would give out. Eventually I became numb to the pain, so it was ok.

We walked for about nine hours that day and once we finally got to the cathedral at the end of the camino, we couldn't stay for long because we had to get to the airport and catch our plane back. It's a shame because, even though I'm not big on architecture or Catholic cathedrals, it was one of the most beautiful churches I have ever seen. Now, I don't know how much of that beauty was self imposed because I had been waiting in pain for so long to get to our destination, but I suppose we will never know.

So, we got our credentials and our certificate and then headed off to catch the bus to the airport. Little did we know, there was a Carnaval parade going on and the bus we went to catch was out of service because of the parade. Cool. So we walked even further to the next one and had to run to catch it. I don't even know how I did it. What was amazing is that the bus driver waited for us (bus drivers don't wait for anyone in Spain) and I'm not even sure how he saw us because you can't see out the back of the bus... Man, the Lord was looking out for us. While on the bus, we met this guy from Italy who happened to be getting on the same plane as us and while we were waiting for the gate to open he just turned around and threw two packets of Oreos at us. What? Haha it was so great! Then, we had to catch our bus from the airport in Madrid to Valladolid and that was a definite adventure, but we eventually made it. Actually Lindsay made it and then yelled at me to climb in because she had saved a seat for me. Whew! It was a super confusing situation. We did buy tickets, though, so don't go a-thinkin that we stole a bus ride back to Valla!

SO we FINALLY made it back to Valladolid at three am on Sunday night (Monday morning, rather) and walked home to collapse in our beds before class at 9:30am. Let me tell you, friends, it was an adventure from the beginning to the very end. All four days and 120km of it. And God was so good to us!

I can tell you that hiking the Camino de Santiago was probably the most fun trip I have ever been on, but also the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. I don't recommend it. I mean, maybe I would if you were giving yourself the alloted amount of time. But idk.

This past weekend I went to a conference in Madrid with GBU, which is the university Bible study that I am a part of. There was one Spanish girl from our group who went and four American girls, including myself. We had a lot of fun and met many new people. It was a great experience to have, but it was also a little tainted because it had a very evangelistic direction to it. At first I was starting to get worried because we didn't open our Bibles or pray once, nor did we do any worship. BUT, as I talked to one of the girls from Madrid, she explained to me the evangelistic nature of the conference. She assured me that at most conferences they would normally have worship and prayer and more digging into the Bible. That was a relief for me. And what an encouragement. God is working here in Spain, friends :)

Lastly, (I know this is super long, SORRYY!!) this weekend I am headed off to Brussels, Belgium to indulge myself in chocolate and waffles with two friends, Sarah and Alyssa. WE'RE REALLY EXCITED!! It should be a ton of fun, if I know us.

So there you are. Update on my life: complete :)