Sentimental birthday reflections

So I turned 20 two days ago, and if I were at school Aaron Schaffer would've congratulated me "for escaping teen pregnancy!" Praise the Lord! Let's be honest the birthday day wasn't the best of days: I woke up feeling sick, had to go to classes, couldn't talk to my mom and bro who tried to call because the phones were messing up, and my internet went out right when i tried to Skype my girlfriend. Consider it all pure joy though right! Well there were a couple highlights to my bday: one of my friends here gave me a shoebox wrapped in newspaper with gummy candy and a postcard inside, and another friend wrote me a rather humorous birthday poem. My bday night we went out dancing and had a jolley old time as always, even after we got last for 45 minutes trying to get there. And my birthday present to myself was skipping classes on friday and sleeping all day cause i felt like crap when i woke up:) One of my friends wrote me a note encouraging me to take the day to really examine my life and give thanks for all the blessings etc, that God has given me over my 20 years of life. Well I thought that was a pretty good idea, so here are some birthday reflections.
One of the great parts of my bday was the massive amount of facebook wall posts and emails that I got. Granted some of them were a day or two late (ya you know who you are:) and I didn't really know 1/3 of the people on facebook who wished me a happy bday, but it was still very heartwarming to be 1000 miles away, but still feel like people cared about me on my bday. It was great to get messages from people who I knew in elementary school, or from people who i just met 4 weeks ago and have spent the last month with here in Spain. Of course the most meaningful notes were from those with whom i have shared my life. To those friends who I have known since diapers, those who i have grown up with, played soccer with, gone on trips with, sung with, acted with, and just hung out with, thank you for filling my life with joy. Thank you for molding and "sharpening" me into the man who I am today. Thank you for laughing with and at me. Thank you for calling me out when I needed it. To you I say thanks.
Then there are those who I often forget but have had a great impact on my life. I.E. my past teachers, or parents of my best friends. I got some great emails from a past chem teacher, some young man named ralphie, and a couple others. Thanks for all the direct, but also indirect impact you have had on my life. Who knows where I'd be without you all!
Well that's enough sentimentality for now. Back to Spain. This week I bought my plane tickets to go to London, Dublin and St Andrews at the end of April. Plans for this trip include seeing Les Mis and possibly Wicked or Phantom on broadway in London, going to some pubs and hopefully a soccer game in Ireland, and checking out the world famous old course in St Andrews and chilling with the sister and brother-in-law. I'm super excited about Dad, and DnA coming to Sevilla in 2 weeks. That will definitely be a party! I'm already trying to figure out what all we should do. It's a really tough job, trying to decide what to do and where to go when they will only be here for 4-7days. But it is going to be a blast.
My friend Adam and I have officially kicked off what we call "hobo Jueves" (Jueves means Thursday in Spanish but what kind of a name is hobo thursday? no ring to it...oh by the way you pronounce J like an H in Spanish.) Last Thursday we took sandwich stuff and some cookies and stuff around to people who live on the streets just to give them some food and try to talk to them a little while to show them God's love. This Thursday we went and found a lady who was sitting on the street, so we went and bought food and sat and ate with her. She was from Romania and had only lived here for 4 months so she didn't understand much spanish, but we still tried just to hang out with her. This week afterwards Adam and I went to a little cafe and had a little 3 hour theological debate. It was great. I totally miss having those great talks, and i'm sure you'll hear more about our topics of discussion in later posts as I try to think in writing about what we discuss. We have some very very different theological views but he is a great guy and we have a great time talking.
Life is good. Last night about 15 of us from the program ended up in the same salsa bar. Well we were all dancing and having a great time. We were there from about 12:30-3:30, and micah and I topped off the night with a couple cigars in the upstairs room. And as we stood there relaxing, we could only look at each other and say, "life is good." The weather here is either incredibly beautiful, or incredibly wet. It pretty much alternates every day. Today it was about 75 and sunny. Yesterday it rained half the day and was dark and cold (cold here being 50 degrees). It has pretty much been one of those two every day for the past two weeks. But today was beautiful, we definitely got a little view of what the next couple months will be like here, and it was beautiful.
Next week we are back to having a four day week. Next Friday we have a school trip to Toledo. We are going up there on Friday, spending the night in a 3 star hotel, and coming back Saturday night. Our school trips here rock. it's gonna be a good way to end February cause during March we have a bunch of 5 day weeks (which is really rare for study abroad programs) and we have a lot of tests and projects in March. And I will be going crazy cause I won't be able to see ANY March madness. Which means I will be on ESPN.com all day long hitting 'refresh, refresh' which will actually say 'recarga, recarga.'
Well this is a pretty darn long post, so I'll end it here. So from Spain, I say adieu....ya i went there...