Lagos and Granada

Alrighty, so 7 of us rented a car and headed to Lagos for the weekend. I hadn't had enough of Portugal's beaches so I went back for more. This is us crammed in our little car. There really was no space for luggage, but we made due. And just to say it now before I get the comments, no I didn't wear a shirt on this trip...ever.
Best story of the trip: On our way to Portugal we needed to get gas. This is what our car said when we finally found a gas station, that's right, 2 km until we run out of gas. At this point in time we were way hidden back in the countryside, cause we got so lost trying to find a gas station. We were almost in deep, deep trouble. We rolled up to the gas station in this tiny town shouting in triumph that we hadn't run out of gas, which honestly was a miracle. Then when we got out, the cap had been screwed on wrong and wouldn't come off! We basically tried for 10 minutes to get it off with no success. Then while we were deciding whether or not to just break it off, one of our guys tried again and just pushed and pulled superhard, and pulled it off. So we finally got some gas and made it out of there.
This is the beach in Lagos. It was incredibly beautiful
The group of the 7 of us. We had a great little appartment with 3 rooms, 2 bathrooms, and a nice kitchen. So we made our own meals and just had a great time. Good work Blake on centering your beer in the middle of the picture...
Blake and I doing dishes after the meal. Pretty standard.
This is one of the huge rocks that jutted out into the ocean. Tyler and I climbed it, and it really hurt the feet.
Closeup of us on top of the beast.
We had to swim out into the ocean and climb up part of the back side of this rock, then try to edge our way around the outside of the rock, which was basically razor sharp, just so we could jump from this high and not land on huge rocks.
This is our little beach, and us playing volleyball, we did a lot of that.
Coolest part of the trip: In that big rock on the right there is a little cave. We swam to it and walked through it and it led us to another beach. Then we swam out and through another cave, and another and it led us right out into the ocean amidst these huge rocks and arches and stuff. It was incredible! And of course to end the trip we had a bonfire on the beach. I had even found and bought some marshmallows in Sevilla and took them with me so we could have smores. Good times. Beautiful beaches. Fun people.

GRANADA
So Carine, Hayley, Micah and myself (yes that's an all JBU trip) decided Monday morning that we should skip a day of school this week and go to Granada to see the Al Hambra cause we didn't want to have to spend one of our last two weekends after we get back from our Feria break travelling to Granada. So we planned on skipping Wednesday. Then during our 1st break in classes we found out that our school was taking a daytrip to the ruins of Italica on Wednesday. Well we weren't gonna miss a daytrip, so we decided, hey let's just leave today. So we booked a hostal for Monday night, hopped a train at 4 that afternoon, and went to Granada. We just chilled that night and saw a few sights, even enjoyed some pizza hut pizza. Then the next morning we woke up and went to the Al Hambra. We had heard that you had to wait awhile, so as we approached we saw this...
I started to think to myself, "Aw that's not that...
..aww dang." and the line wrapped around that back wall too... But after an hour and a half we got in.
Micah showing his excitement for his coffee and my pepsi while we were waiting in line. We played presidents while standing and moving in line to pass the time:)
The gardens in the Al Hambra are incredible. So we took a bunch of pictures of flowers:)
Well here we are. This is the ole, set the camera on a ledge with the timer and hope it gets us all in the picture. Worked pretty well.
Someone didn't know how to use the flash on my camera...anyway, me in one of the courtyards.
micah and I being studs
The four happy JBUers just chilling on a bench. Really we're just happy to not be in school.
Most annoying thing: The famous Patio de los leones (patio of the lions) didn't have any leones...Yay they took them out to restore them. That was sad. Overall it was awesome though. It was good to see stuff that we had studied for weeks in our Spanish art class.
This is the Al Hambra from a lookout point accross the city. Those are the Sierra Nevada mountains in the background.

Well those were my two trips this past week. Tomorrow I leave for London/Dublin/St. Andrews! I'm super excited. I'll be in London 4-5 days, possibly hit up Cambridge for a day, definitely planning on seeing Les Mis and maybe another show. Dublin should be awesome. And it'll be a blast to stay with DnA and see their place in Scotland and finally get to see their world. Well that's it. Time to go deal with a bunch of screaming children in a convent:)

Porch-you-gull

Wow! what a trip! This past week was Semana Santa (holy week) here in SEvilla. Which basically means huge religious parades and processions of monks and brothers who are dressed up in robes with hats that seriously look just like the KKK. Kinda scary, but it's what they all wear. So we had the week off school. I went with four friends to a beach on the coast in Albufeira Portugal. It was incredible. Here's our beach
Adam Van Gelder...cool name, I'm jealous...and myself chilling on the beach. We got pretty darn tan.
Perhaps my favorite picture of all time. I was just goofing around and took this. It turned out really cool.
Mike and Adam trying to juggle a volleyball. We juggled a lot, and peppered a lot. It was pretty darn sweet. The sand was just incredibly fine. It was so nice.
Action shot! Sometime while we were peppering. So the ocean was freezing, so I never actually got in it more than up to my knees. Every day it was about 75 degrees, with a little wind. If the wind was blowing a bit it was nice. Without the wind it was a bit toasty. It was the perfect weather for a week on the beach. We were at the beach literally at least 4 hours a day for 5 straight days.
We stayed in this great little 3 star hotel. We put 5 people in a 4 person room, and it cost us a whole 8.66 euros per night. Incredibly cheap. Our room had a little kitchenette, so we bought all of our own food at the grocery store and cooked. It was super cheap and a lot of fun. You can see the worst ketchup of all time on the table. We bought it at some little store where all the food was labeled in greek...still can't figure that one out. That pot is a bot of potatoes that we fried in a pan with some oil. They were good.
This is me cooking French toast. The kitchen area was actually really dark. There wasn't a light in that part of the room. The only light was that little stove light. So I wore my little headlight so I could see when the french toast was done. It tasted incredible. We could've eaten that every day and been content, if we hadn't run out of syrup on our 3rd day. It was so good I would've just eaten the spatula.
Adam, Carine, and Hayley chilling in our kitchen area. Probably cooking rice or something. We had rice one meal. Hayley had this great idea to cook the whole bag. Holy cow that was a ton of rice. After Adam and I ate 3 helpings each, and the others each ate a good ammount, there was still half the pot left. Adam tried to snack on it throughout the night but couldn't make a dent. So we left it on the counter for the next few days and occasionally picked at it. Eventually we gave in and threw it away.
Ya we decided to go take modelling pictures on this huge rock. So this is Adam and I being hot.
The ole wink...

There were these really cool rocks that jutted out into the ocean. So Adam and I climbed up them and hung out for a little while. So this is me striking the Stuck pose. Good times...
And on the last night, to top the week off, we had a bonfire on the beach. Had a hilariously great conversation complete with the classic questions about if you were stranded on a desert island what would take, and if you could have one super power what would it be. We tried to roast some little hot dogs, but their hot dogs here suck and theyre tiny, so it didn't work well. We sat around and talked for 4 hours, til the fire died, then headed back to the hotel for some sleep before we headed out.

Funniest story of the trip: One night we were playing the card game presidents until about 3. Well then we had the idea, 'hey let's just stay up all night and watch the sunrise.' So I looked it up online and it said 'sunrise 7:15am.' We still thought it was a good idea. So we played presidents for another 4 hours, straight, not as good of an idea. So come 7am we strolled down to the beach to see the sun rise. Well if you noticed in the above pictures, the beach is kinda walled in by really tall rocks all the way down the coast. And our beach didn't face east, it faced south. So the sun rose, and it was probably beautiful, we just couldn't see a thing cause there were huge cliffs between us and the eastern horizon. We went to bed a bit cranky at 8am.

Frustration of the trip: My credit card company placed a hold on my card cause my parents had called on my behalf trying to set up a PIN number so I can take money out of an ATM here. Well the credit card company thought it sounded fishy. So they thought a third party had my card and put a hold on my account. Even after I got on my online banking and sent them messages they refused to pull the hold off my account, so I had ZERO euros for the trip. Thankfully Carine loaned me money, and a lot of it. It was frustrating.

Overall it was incredible. We relaxed on the beach the whole week, got some great tans, ate some good food, and played a lot of cards. 6 nights at a hotel, and meals for 7 days, + bus tickets and little souvenirs, all totalled 110 euros. Absolutely fantastic. Now I just have to survive 11 days, before I head to London, Dublin, and St Andrews for 10 days!

Good Friday

In honor of Good Friday, I'm going to post a poem. Enjoy, and remember the pain, suffering and love that this day represents.
(i actually wrote this as a concrete poem in the form of a cross, but after spending over two hours today trying to put it on here in the form of a cross, I gave up. So use your imagination for now:)


The grain of the wood grinds against his bones
He winces in pain as another splinter embeds itself
in his already torn and ragged flesh.
He sways, tilting his head upward
bringing into his blurry, stinging vision the outline of a hill.
“This will be impossible” muttered the man on the other side of the beam.
But he was a man of impossibility.
He staggered forward, his footsteps quick and panicked
as he tried to steady himself.
He sucked in deeply and heaved forward,
placing one foot squarely in front of him.
Another two steps left him gasping for breath.
He swayed back and forth in place
as he tried to wipe the blood and sweat from his eyes,
succeeding only in wiping some sweat away
but replenishing the streaks of deep, red blood around his eyes and in his eyebrows.
He tried to rehoist the beam of wood on his back
with the help of the man on the other side.
It landed with a soft thud between his shoulder and neck
drawing forth gasps of breath.
With determination he started to lift his foot again
Unable to take another step up the hill,
He stammered, shifted off balance
then was dragged backward by the unbearable weight of the cross.
The man on the other side of the beam called to a few nearby for help.
“This is impossible” the man said to two men who helped them to their feet.
But he stood, and started again with determination
for he was a man of impossibility.
He had known it would come.
He had come for this reason.
The time had come.
He was bearing the cross.
He was bearing the sins of the world.