for the record.

i am alive.

we didnt have any internet in italy which means no blogging, but that doesn't mean that i haven't been writing. i have, in fact, been writing. and i will share it soon.

i am in spain right now, we leave tomorrow for america. but im trying not to think of such things. for the record. madrid is crazy right now. so proud of my futbol boys.

love love love.

thunder thunder.

it's 5:06am. i leave marias home in about an hour, and i leave madrid in 4. i still haven't been to sleep.

i just said goodbye to periko about 30 minutes ago. it was hard. really hard.

it's thundering outside. it's the perfect sort of thunder, too. gentle but still strong.

instead of sleeping, i'm sitting. reading. waiting. and i read something from a poetry book that i was given last summer at the farm that my friend joy wrote. i want to share it. because it's absolutely perfect.

actually, before i came to spain, and when i was questioning whether or not i should come, we were talking about poetry in my small group. so i made everyone get up on a table and read something. i chose this poem, not even really thinking about it. and by the end of the poem, i was crying..in front of everyone..completely unexpected. but now i understand why. thanks, holy spirit.

under the spanish sun

her heart began to breathe

of legendary fairytales

and wildly tossed blue seas

under the spanish sun

her hope was brought to life

of paths that led through forests

and faintly lit dark nights

under the spanish sun

her dream was rising new

of undetermined footprints

and thoughts that danced in few

under the spanish sun

she loved herself again.

-joy collins.

(thanks joy. love you.)

adiossssss. :)

next time i write to you, i will be italian.

-brooke.

packing day.

i am the worst packer in the world.

i have about 50 million things i would like to leave in spain...

also, i have 4 bottles of wine, all of which were given to me for free might i add, that are causing me quite a dilemma. i can't mail them..unless i want to be a felon...and i can't put them in my bag..unless i want to pay extra money for having a 50 million pound bag.

rats.

i'll figure something out. mostly because i want to have dreamy nights with my friends drinking wine on my porch, eating brooke-cooked meals, and looking at my mountain. soaking in the beauty of the Lord.

i leave at 6:30 am. we're about to spend quality time with maria. then we're going to an amusement park with periko. i thought that today would be really really hard. but it's been okay so far.

the Lord is good. so good and kind. I'm incredibly thankful for every moment, every heart, and every breath of this season. he's intentional, guys. so intentional. i love that about Him.

-iva

ps. just in case you missed it yesterday... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqUsAHTUPTU

here it comes.

it hit me today.

i'm leaving friday. i'm leaving maria. i'm leaving juan. i'm leaving my 3 baylor girls. i'm leaving my daily unconventional spanish life lesson sessions with juan. i'm leaving eating all of my meals on the terrace of my dreams. our favorite spanish friend and maybe one of the most incredible guys i've ever met, periko. the peace of this home. my corner nook bed. being 20 minutes late to school everyday and having maria and juan laugh us out the door. i'm leaving the home i've made here. and i'm sad. i'm really, really sad.

i usually don't cry about leaving somewhere before the day that i leave, but this afternoon, monique and i said goodbye to a lot of the kids in our program who fly out in the morning. it started then i guess. it's weird because even though i'm leaving madrid, i'm still not going "home home". but i'm going to italy which will be so good, i know it. but moral of the story is, i walked around the royal palace this afternoon with my friends and tried my best to take it all in. i came home with monique and napped some, and i woke up and ate dinner with maria. i haven't stopped crying since. i'm a big baby. lets just be honest. i can't handle this.

it's crazy how quickly a month has flown by.


and it's even crazier how much i've fallen in love with spain.

spain has given me the most beautiful space to live my life without any pressure or any expectation of who i'm supposed to be or what i'm supposed to be doing. it's been really really good for me. because believe it or not, i put a lot of pressure on myself when it just comes to simple living. and that's ridiculous. but i'm learning. and i'm moving. everyday i get a little taller and a little freer. and i like that. i'm thankful.

someone told me something last summer that still continues to rock my life even to this day.

"the thumbprint of the enemy is pressure"

holy crap. yes. is that true, or is that true? just saying. if you don't get anything out of what i write at all, remember that.

i don't really know what to blog about anymore. i've kind of been a lame writer. but the past 2 weeks have been the biggest whirlwind. in the best sense. we went to a place called Cadiz and layed on the most beautiful beach imaginable. then monique and i discotecha'd it up until 6:30am the other weekend. that was a for sure life highlight for me. it's a pretty normal spain thing, but it's generally not a normal brooke thing. i like it though. i like dancing ridiculously.

i made a new spanish boyfriend. i don't really remember his name. it was faudio or fabio or something..probably faudio. but he came up to me in the discotecha and yelled "shakira! shakira!" at me and bowed in front of me. it was one of the more wonderful, hilarious moments of my life..mostly because i dance like an idiot 100 percent of the time. he found of that my name was Iva, prounounced as Eva in spanish, like Eve in the bible, and he told me that I was Eve..the definition of a woman. this was one of the more uncomfortable awkward hilarious moments in my life. but due to the fact that he was not a creeper, 5 inches shorter than me, and i could have crushed him, he gained spanish boyfriend status.

anyway, i have to go i have to go i have to go! i have much more to say. many life lessons to share. sorry i'm a lame blog writer. but i gave you this at least.

love you friends.

brooke.

ps. song of the day. makes me cry and shows me the face of the Lord everytime.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqUsAHTUPTU

i am riding a moto tonight.


dream come true. dream come true. dream come true. dream come true. dream come true.

hey friends.

short, quick update.

i've been out of town for the weekend and we just got back last night...and i just woke up at 4:30pm. haha. in the past 24 hours:

i've been in 3 cities, 2 trains, layed out on the spanish shore, gotten surprisingly aggressive towards creepy men and rude old women, went to a discotecha until 6am, met a bunch of great italians who protected us from violadores on the dance floor, ate pizza for breakfast with them on the side of the road, played imaginary baseball, watched a full game of chess be hopped out, met a metro creeper who chased us around the metro train, finally lost him, got 2 new spanish boyfriends (one of which is the most precious gay men i've ever met, and the other was just precious), got called shakira on the dance floor all night (personal highlight) and finally ended it all at 8 am.

i love my life.

i'll give you a real update soon. that's just for your imagination to marinate on.

love you guys. it's good to be back at home in madrid.

brooke.

today.

today i stood in front of vincent van gogh and claude monet's original work and cried.

it was a really good day.

blending.

fact.

the other day i was walking down the street and a woman comes up to me and asks me in spanish if i lived here.

YES. I AM BLENDING.

it took everything inside of me to smile and say no. i can only wish for now.

but the good news is, i am blending. my future hopes of living in spain someday are looking bright. Praise God.

it's true though. i'm blending. i don't get heavily stared at as much on the metro, though it still happens. AND i can completely fend for myself in the H&M dressing room. that's really all that matters, right??

I have three pieces of really good news. well, four.

The first: today during our class break, i discovered paprika pringles. holy crap. reason enough for me to move back to spain. i like them even more than chicken nuggets. THIS IS A BIG DEAL.

second: i found out where the nun sweets are hidden, so today we are going to go buy sweets from nuns in plaza conde del miranda. i'm excited.

third: i have a new plan of action for riding a moto. i'm going to pick one that i like from the rows after rows of motos that i see parked on my way to school everyday, and leave my phone number on it. it's worth a shot, right? it has to happen.

but if it doesn't happen in spain it can happen in.........

ITALY!!!

that's right. breaking news piece number four. I'm going to italy. Monique and I are going when classes are done and are visiting her family for another week. so that means, dear boone and america, i won't see you until mid/late julyish.

sorry.

but i love you.

wish me luck on my nun sweets, moto, and kike adventures.

brooke.

(i don't have a song of the day yet, i'm still singing the cranberries. listen to it again.)

good morning, spain.

Today is another day. And today, oh so thankfully, is a new day.

I was sick again yesterday. Probably worse than I have been, but i think it's mostly because I'm dehydrated (or so my self-proclaimed MD skills have decided). I drank 9 bottles of water while we were walking around toledo on thursday, and drank a lot (so i thought) yesterday, but i realized last night after feeling like i was going to pass out all day, that i hadn't peed in two days. not at all. scary stuff. so needless to say, i drank jarros de agua after jarros de agua for dinner...and peed...a lot. joyfully cheering inside of myself each time as i walked to the bathroom.

today, i feel much better. though i still can't breathe.

I just came outside to the terrace to find a bird sitting on my laptop, just hanging out. he flew away when i came to sit down, but he's still lingering around some, here and there. i think he likes me. or my muffin that i'm eating..which would make much more sense..but i am going to let myself believe that he likes me. you know, my personal little spanish pet bird. i hope he sings me spanish love ballads.

On friday we went to a place called Toledo. It's in the south of spain, and it's absolutely beautiful. Super historical. Really intriguing. We visited some cathedrals, a monastery, and a synagogue. I'm learning so much. I am going to know everything about the history of spain by the time that this trip is over. i'm okay with that. i like spain.

i took yesterday to rest. i went and hung out in a coffee shop with my friend Chris, and wrote postcards. there's nothing like a starbucks in the middle of madrid. the sounds of ray lamontagne and boisterous spaniards laughing, while sitting in a sunwarmed cozy chair=so ideal. i am sure that many of you reading this will reap the fruits of yesterday, too. i wrote some killer postcards...just saying.

on a more personal note, yesterday was a pretty monumental day for me, on a really ridiculous level. judge me if you want, but i'm overcoming fear here.

all of us from our program were hanging out late on wednesday night because we didn't have classes the next day because it was a holiday (ptlptlptl). and as we all probably know, brooke (me) isn't the best going-outer because i don't really drink a lot. but since we're in spain, and since our motto right now is "cuando in espana" i went anyways, and decided in my heart that i was going to have fun. that i was going to love myself. and that i was going to enjoy being young and strikingly beautiful (ha! c:) while being sober. woooo!

i was successful. i had a really good time. i like being young. and i like being strikingly beautiful. and i like being sober. and that night, (get ready for it kim forren and jessica langevin!!!!) i met a boy.

(don't worry, mom.)

his name is enrique, kike (keekay) is his nickname. it's pretty much the standard spanish nickname for anyone named enrique in spain. he's really nice, about a foot or so taller than me, he speaks perfect english, spanish, and italian. and he's smart. like really smart. he's 25 and works as a psychologist, so i am sure that he was shrinking me for the entire hour that we talked. within the first five minutes of us talking, he found out that i came to madrid to study spanish, so from that point on, he refused to speak to me in english. so at this point, i was not only terrified because i was talking to a boy, but i was also terrified because i was talking to a boy...who is much smarter than me...in spanish.

but like the Lord told me on the plane over to madrid, I'm overcoming fear in a new language. literally now.

disclaimer break: i absolutely can't believe that i just wrote about a boy that i met on my blog. who am i? this is weird. for the record,

1. i am not in love. nor am i in like

2. he is not a creeper (praise God).

3. i generally try to use good judgement

4. i still fully believe with all of my heart that boys are trouble, so don't worry.

5. he was not drunk either (praise God again.)

6. this is really good for me. (I LOVE YOU MOM!)

so yeah, anyway, he and i just talked for an hour or so, in spanish, because according to him, if i'm here to learn spanish, i'm not allowed to speak english. hahaha, i think it's a really great philosophy. and then when my friends were ready to leave, i told him it was good to talk to him and started to walk away. but then, he stopped me, and asked if i wanted his number. i almost peed my pants (except, i haven't been peeing a lot here recently, luckily this time).

i've never ever taken a number from a boy.

i've never ever given my number to a boy.

especially in a foreign country.

but you know what they say...cuando en espana.....

so i said SURE, fully intending to never call him, only taking it to be polite. so he gave me his weird, 9 digit european phone number. and told me about 3 different times to call him.

whatever. brooke davis does not call boys.

but then yesterday, after my day of rest with starbucks, ray lamontagne, and postcards, i decided i wanted to call him. where this desire came from, i have no idea. but you know, i figured something.

it's time to stop being so afraid of other people.

so whether or not i called him because i wanted to see him or because i knew it was good for me to get over this fear, i'm not sure. either way. i had to do it.

cuando en espana, right?

so after about an hour of freaking out, stressing myself into having a near asthma attack, and convincing my roommate to call and pretend like she was me on the phone, i finally calmed down and called him. ha! this is a big deal people!!!!! he was great. super nice. super gentleman of the year award to kike. so i invited him to come hang out with some of my friends and i.

he said yes. HE SAID YES.

guys, you have no idea. it took an act of congress for me to press send on my phone.

so he did. he came and hung out. he was great. speaking spanish was great. all of that was great, don't get me wrong. but i must say, i was absolutely terrified the entire night. i am terrible at talking to boys. terrible. even if they like me. NO. especially if they like me.

however though kike is great, i can also say, that it may have been one of the most awkward nights of my life. long story short i learned quickly that 25 year old business professionals have much different interests than a large group of 20-21 year old students in spain from the united states. meaning that my friends and his friends weren't the easiest two groups to mix.

did i mention that it was awful?

i quickly became very apologetic.

so he and his friend left early, and brooke, having her nerves shot, left and went home shortly after.

ayekarumba.

this morning, sitting on my porch with the Lord, kind of reflecting on things, i realized something and decided some things.

i refuse to apologize for myself.

i refuse to apologize for the things that i love.

i refuse to compromise what i know and what i've learned from the Lord through living for anyone--spanish OR american.

i know who i am. i trust who i'm becoming.

yes i am young. yes i still have so much to learn, but i've already learned so much. part of humility is wisdom. and part of wisdom is humility. you can't have one without the other.

but now i can honestly say this. i am proud of myself for calling that boy. i'm proud of myself for choosing confidence and grace. yes, the night was awkward, but it wasn't my fault. i'm not going to apologize for that.

and to bring it all back in, i'll say this. the Lord is moving me forward. always moving me forward. always moving me forward. glory to glory. victory to victory. because that's what i was made for. to be victorious. to be fearless. to be humble. but to be wise. to love myself. and i do. i really really do.

so whether or not kike ever calls me ever again, whatever.

plus, we gotta learn to laugh at ourselves. we take ourselves tooooo seriously tooooo much.

seriously, whatever.

i'm just proud of myself. i refuse to be afraid.

He gives us a voice and something to proclaim every day.

plus, my husband is going to be super dreamy and super anointed and super chosen for me by the Lord. i aint scurred of no love!

that's all. thanks for reading this long rant. thanks for valuing it with me.

it took a lot for me to blog about a boy.

love you all. :)

brooke.

PS. SONG OF THE DAY:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlMWAl7tIro

i'm sorry feet.

hello world.

my feet hate me.

since being in madrid, i've walked everywhere, in really not great shoes. yes they're cute and perfect..but they're also perfect for giving me blisters. i have four blisters on each foot, right where my toes and the ball of my feet meet. it huuuuuuurts. i couldn't walk very well yesterday, and i tried to wear new heels out to match the spaniards, but that was a fail. the heel wearing didn't even make it down our nine flights of stairs.

but maybe tonight will be more successful. they're super cute. i have to push through.

today is saturday. i don't know what i'm going to do today. i think i want to go buy sweets from nuns. and spend some good quality time by myself and with the Lord. Spains been so beautiful, but it's been hard in the sense that i've gotten really little amounts of time to myself. but today, it's going to happen. it has to happen. because it's going to be a good, good day.

love you friends. :)

brooke

cuando en espana...

hola mundo.

i've been really bad at blogging lately. like really terribly bad. sorryyyy. i in fact though have had many life moments where i'm like dang. i need to write about this. anyway. im committing to doing this now before i go to sleep.

since i've been in madrid, i've been walking my little butt off. the balls of my feet are completely covered in blisters, in places i didn't even know it was possible to get blisters. my feet feel it. but i like it. i like walking. i'm a healthy girl now.

tomorrow we go to a place called toledo. it's in spain, the south of spain to be exact. it's going to be great. what is there, i am really not sure, but i am excited either way, and am sure that i'll have learned plenty to tell you all about in a day or so.

things in the Cortez/Dominguez household have been bueno lately. Maria and Juan are well. The other day, Juan told Monique and I that we were boring because we slept too much. He told us that all we did was sleep and eat, sleep and eat sleep and eat...and that in a week we would be dying from depression. hysterical. for the record, i am not depressed, and i am very busy as well. For a few days, things were maybe a little intense around the house. It's quite possibly because culturally men and women dynamics in the home are just a lot different. But we've been laughing a lot with Juan. Laughing a lot with maria. Acting like 5 year olds all together. It's perfect. I couldn't ask for a better household to keep me from the spanish "violadores" (creepers) and to ask me about how my spanish boyfriends are.

In the past few days, monique and I have just gotten really really comfortable. Comfortable in spain, comfortable on the metro, comfortable with each other, with juan and maria, with the other girls in our casa, etc etc. So it's been good. because we've gotten past those initial uncomfortable moments of insecurity...thus bringing forth lots of laughter.

The other day in class, i made a list of some life lesson observations to blog about. They're importante, mostly.

1. Never judge by your first impressions.

Mother Teresa once said "If you judge someone, you have no time to love them". We must give everyone a chance. Never write anyone off..you might be very pleasantly, beautifully surprised.

2. Everyone--i mean EVERYONE, has a right to self-confidence. To living a life free from fear.

Everyone has a right to love themselves completely. And we must allow ourselves that rights.

This past weekend i went shopping with maria and monique. While trying on clothes i realized that i am a giant in the spanish world. Spanish girls are really tiny. And they wear clothing that is even more tiny than them. And walking down the streets with my incredibly beautiful friends, i'll admit that i had a couple of days of complete insecurity..dealing with stuff that i haven't dealt with in a long time. but then i decided this.

insecurity is completely ridiculous. and i chose to be confident. and i chose to love myself. because if i was fearfully and wonderfully made, then i can be sure that i wasn't made inferior to anyone. but so perfectly who i am.

plus, self confidence, in my opinion, is the most beautiful thing about a woman. period.

3. Our everyday experience can change our lives if we let them. we must be teachable. Goodness gracious, must we be teachable. If we lose the ability to learn, then we lose the ability to live. Something the Lord taught me a long time ago was this: "Wisdom is always learning". It is ALWAYS learning. We are given a choice in everything. To choose maturity or to choose to be immature. To choose maturity really does refine our hearts. To make us more whole, more full, more wise, more patient, and much more like children.

Isn't that the point? Following Jesus is as simple as our choices sometimes. To choose him is not to choose yourself. But him. To choose the Jesus inside of you. To choose to believe that you're no longer apart from him, but now one with him. And you have to honor that and get over yourself and just LOVE yourself. You HAVE to.

I love life lessons if you haven't noticed. Annnnd also, i love life. period.

Side note observations about spain:

1. they never sleep. nightlife starts at midnightish. People stay out til 6am when everything closes. this is crazy to me. but fun. also, clubs in spain are called discotecas. hows 80s, right? :)

2. spanish men are still very forward. i think i already said that once. but also, italian men are more forward. nooooooo bueno.

however, there's been some really redemptive things happening in that department. since being in spain, i've been stared at, yelled at, and asked really not okay things by men. fully frustrated and done with spanish strangers and never wanted to go anywhere monique and i made a friend. we met him last week when our friends were walking around madrid our first friday night trying to find something to do. our friends met his friends and the rest is history. since then, monique hung out with him a lot. he took us on a nice little walking guided native spaniard tour of madrid. he knows probably everything. he's probably the kindest guy i've ever met (other than the fact that he hates the police). he speaks no english, and never wants to learn to speak english, because he's fully convinced that spanish is better and that he never needs to go to the states because he doesn't think it necessary to ever leave europe. i think i fully agree with him. he's a lot of fun, and i'm glad he's spanish. everyone needs a good spanish best friend. thanks, Lord.

another random side note.

The other night while walking around el sol, which is like the hot spot in madrid, I saw prostitutes all up and down the street for the first time in my life. i know that i've seen prostitution in movies and statistics and stories, but to actually see the woman---to see the life---right in front of you, was completely different. my heart hurt. and it hurt really really bad. what made it worse was that they were on the same street as the police were just hanging out..maybe 25 yards away...doing nothing. it made me sick. the reality of that lifestyle became really real and really intense. i can't imagine having nothing or no one to come home to.

okay. sleep now. toledo in the morning. 100 million degree weather y mas blisters on my feets. for the record, i am feeling a lot better. i still can't breathe very well, but im trying. i've been trying to run in spain for the past couple of days. it's been successful.

k. love you all. besosssss

iva.

ps. 2 things.

first, everyone in spain calls me iva. i love that. it's mostly bc no one can pronounce brooke. but iva (or e-vah as they say) works beautifully for me.

second, go look up the song "he woke me up again" by sufjan stevens. RIGHT NOW. i've been singing it all day. thats all.

segovia.

hola amigos. :)

finally, a real post. sorry for the delay, because i know you've all been sweating to hear about my life. (jay kay, but not really.) it's tuesday afternoon and i came home sick from school today. i woke up, tired and grumpy and couldn't eat my breakfast. by the time i got to school, i was coughing my brains out. i took my inhaler like 7 times yesterday and 2 times today already and it's helped me none. this has never happened to me in america. que pasa, espana???

it's okay, because it's making for really good down time to rest and to process and to read and pray and be taken care of by maria. tuesdays are the days when she cleans the flat. i really think that woman has magic in her hands or something, because every thing that she touches becomes beautiful. seriously, monique and i have been trying to keep our room clean..for the most part...and we both thought that we were doing really well. until now when i just came home and it feels like an angel is among us. it's peaceful again in here.

so now i rest. and tell stories.

on thursday our class went to this place in spain called Segovia. it's an incredibly beautiful place. it's where the first (maybe first?) roman aqueduct is and it's HUGE. huge. far beyond my mind how human hands could build it. so then we walked around the city and explored a castle from the 1500s, you know, the norm.

That day i kind of was in a "i want to see segovia through my own two eyes and through my heart" type of mood so i kind of strayed away from the group some and took it all in. I got up to the top floor before we climbed the tower and i saw a huge window with a seat in it, overlooking the mountains and the city of segovia.

it took my breath away.

i've never been able to say that about anything that i've look at before, i don't believe. but it did. i just sat there, quiet. taking in the light. taking in all that my eyes could see. and really tried to feel. ha! oh did i. it was perfect.

completely random added tidbit: later that day, i was walking through the city, and i saw a girl in her wedding dress, running through the city with her groom. it was perfect. they'd just gotten married and they were practically floating. as if the day could get any more magical.

i have officially been her for 1 week today. i'm already sad that this journey is already a week over, but the Lord keeps assuring my heart that the best is yet to come. I believe that. i fully do.

sleep now. i know this isn't a lot. but i have to much to say! unfortunately, i have to sleep. HAVE to. maria beckons, and i can no longer breathe. pray that i get better! i want to be able to take it all in. literally.

love you all.

brooke.

also: just to let you into my mind a little more, there are 2 songs that are my life right now.

the first:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pDiBno4ZfQ

i sang this the entire day at segovia. i can't even describe to you how honest it is.

the second:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VIQ3Mo2x9w

because i'm in a redemptive season. and monique and i sing this every morning.

hi monday morning.

i survived my first weekend in madrid, with much laughter and integrity left to spare. i had many, many adventures, to be written about today.

but what you should know is that i have been laughing more than i have laughed in a really long time. like, good, hearty, joy laughter.

i'm never coming home..

escuela ahora!

brooke

dear wonderful, faithful blog readers,

i haven't forgotten about you. i promise. i'll post something really good with lots and lots to say.

it will be worth it. (maybe.)

love,

brooke

mas observaciones.

i'm sitting in my bed, about to sleep, and from the living room i hear "here comes the sun" in spanish, being sung from the tv in the living room.

i love that maria and juan stay up late to watch tv together.

the dynamics of marriage in spain are incredibly different than they are in the states. i learned today that it's definitely a lot less common for people in spain to marry. in fact, people that do marry, don't always take the name or don't always have rings. also, there's something else thats pretty common here called "las parejas de hecho"...where basically you have all of the rights to marriage without the intense commitment. es intersante, no?

but either way, i like to sit back and watch how maria and juan interact. how they're in love, and how it's not how you typically would picture love. yesterday during our politics/life/art conversation, juan started talking about maria. he spoke of her with such a deep value. it was so beautiful to see such a man as juan, well established and ridiculously strong and smart, become subtly just a bit softer when he spoke of his wife. i loved it.

it's possible that love doesn't always look like what we think. i love that about love.

today was an incredibly sleepy day. i slept for only about 4-5 hours, and when i woke up, juan immediately thought it necessary, and probably comical, to give an intense vocabulary/spanish language conceptual challenge to puffy, red-eyed, stumbling over her words, Brooke.

he kept explaining to me the concept of gossip and knowing everyone's business in the spanish culture, and was giving me really difficult words to learn and pronounce and to repeat and to use to speak to him, but i just couldn't get it. i couldn't. my brain wasn't there. Juan finally looked at me and said:

"Brooke, you keep saying 'si, si' to me, but you have no idea what i am talking about."

He couldn't have been more right. He then continued to grill my knowledge of the spanish language, without hesitation.

thanks, juan. i know i'll thank you for this morning one day.

needless to say, today was maybe the hardest ones i've had, spanish wise and life wise. my allergies were terrible, eyes completely swollen and red, and i was exhausted. i realized that when i don't sleep, the condition of my attitude shifts dramatically. sometimes in my head i'm really mean..and i know that it's then time for a nap. i remember thinking to myself at lunch and at dinner today, I JUST WANT TO SPEAK ENGLISH. i was tired. and speaking spanish, or english for that matter, became incredibly difficult.

thankfully, i got a really good siesta in. i felt a lot better afterwards, and had to let my love for spanish, and this adventure be renewed and redeemed. it just gets hard sometimes. it's a part of life, i'm sure. tomorrow will be better. it WILL be. i WILL be fluent. and i WILL like it.

on another note. i have a few observations/interesting nuggets to share with you.

1. the oldest mcdonalds in spain is in madrid. there they serve beer, and maybe wine. who doesn't love chicken nuggets and wine? shoot. that's a perfect first date. it's the little things, yalls.

2. today, monique and i got completely looked up and down by a nun. it was maybe the most terrifying moment of my life. even more terrifying than the moment i'm about to tell you about in number 3. we were walking home from school, and i was dressed like a normal human...long shorts and a normal, relatively modest shirt, bright red shoes, hair on top of my head, and monique was wearing here white shorts--not intensely short, but still shorts none the less. not only did we get looked up and down by this said nun, but everywhere we went today, people stared at our legs. apparently, according to maria, in spain it's weird to wear shorts if you arent at the beach. who knew? not us, clearly. hence the nun. and the many women who acted as if they'd never seen legs. ridiculous.

3. spain care more about saving energy than they do about saving my life. last night when monique and i came back the flat at around 2 am, all of the lights were off in the building. ALL of them. monique refuses to take the elevator, so we had to climb 9 flights of stairs, in the complete pitch dark. all that i could think at the top of each flight was "oh no oh no un violador! a killer! they're going to kill me. i'm going to die". each time i nearly pooped my pants from fear. this is no bueno. however, we learned this morning that there were automatic light switches we could have used. sheesh. all of that fear for nothing. kory and mom: i remembered your safety talks. you wouldn't have approved of this situation.

4. apparently, i don't look american.

5. spanish men really like redheads. this makes life uncomfortable sometimes. today i wore a fake wedding ring (although as learned previously in this post, wedding rings are sometimes irrelevant en espana). kory and mom: i remembered your safety talks here too. i will never talk to men. ever.

6. i am perfectly capable at conquering a metro in a foreign country. YES.

now that i've shared with you my many nuggets of spanish wisdom, i sleep. we have a day trip to segovia tomorrow. and i need to want to speak spanish. it will be a good day. it will be a much, much better day...si dios quieres. :)

goodnight my friends.

love to you all.

brooke.

el primero dia....mas oficial.

hey peoples.

this just in. i realized that i always want to start my blogs saying something like "holy craps". but since i'm trying to be creative and trying to expand my writing skills, i'll try to refrain from doing so as much as possible, except for when completely necessary (like in the case of the muffins). so from this point on, if i don't say it. assume that i'm saying it in my heart. holy craps.

i'm thinking in spanish. what is happening? i'm talking to my american roommate and my classmates solo en espanol. i am journaliing with the Lord in spanish.

so. much. spanish.

it's really good though. it's why i came to spain. to perfect it. to live it. to embrace it all.

anyway, today we had a 2 hour orientation telling us about our classes that we're taking and our weekend trips, etc. while i'm here i'm taking advance conversation and art in spain. ART IN SPAIN. do i need to say anything else about that?

when we met the rest of the kids in our program, and they told us all of these stories about how their families only gave them one cup for the entire month or how they were served hard fish with eyes or how their families just weren't kind. monique and i just looked at eachother in complete disbelief. Juan and Maria are perfect. Completely warm and generous. Maria calls me her "angelita". It's honestly nothing more than the hand of the Lord that our family here in Madrid is so fantastic. Call me crazy, but He completely knew how much my heart needed to know Maria. And i am so incredibly thankful to be in this home everyday.

There are 3 other girls staying in our flat that arrived today. They go to Baylor in Texas so it's a fun house full of lots of girls...and Juan. It's always lively and fun. Today we sat outside with Maria and discovered that this already perfect penthouse terrace had another level to it, so we climbed up twisted stairs covered in Jasmine and saw the most beautiful view of Madrid imaginable. Breathtaking moment for sure.

I came home from school today fully dreaming of the siesta that waited me after lunch. Lunch was great, I can definitely get used to having it be my main meal, and not eating dinner until 10 or 11. Lunch was followed by an hour and a half long conversation with Juan about politics in spain and in america, the economy, racism, and all of the ranchos that he owns in portugal and espana. Juan is hands down one of the most intelligent men i have ever met.

I finally got my siesta at around 4:30, and got up around 6. I went out of my room to find maria watching novelas (soap operas) on tv and sat with her for a while while watching them. novelas are absolutely maybe the most ridiculous thing i've ever seen . but people honestly eat them up. are american soap operas this bad, too? i've never noticed, but it's possibly because i'm american. either way, i surely hope not.

later this evening, i finally got some sweet downtime. really, really sweet. and this is where the good stuff enters my blog:

i read this today.

"Immitate trees. Let go. Cut off the excess. Prune. Wait. Watch. Grow deep and high to see the sea."

-May Sarton

So i did. I sat there. Tried to quiet my mind and my heart. I closed my eyes and breathed and asked the Lord to come. I just wanted to know that he was there.

After waiting, I stood up to go inside, but something inside me stopped. I looked at the sky and saw birds flying over this building, and heard the Lord say

"Give yourself to this moment."

so i did. i stopped, sat back down, and waited. i felt a confidence return to my heart that hadn't been there in a while. i felt an assurance. a deep, deep peace.

"See. Breathe. Feel. Know me. Don't just go through the motions anymore. Give yourself to this moment, give yourself to me, because I long to be seen and to be known. I am under the spanish sun too. And I'm fully alive...waiting to be discovered, waiting to love, waiting to be loved. Waiting for you to find my voice, to find my life"

and let me just follow that by saying this, especially if you're reading this and don't know me very well, or don't know where i am coming from. i am not crazy, nor do i hear voices, nor am i super spiritual. but i honestly believe that God has a certain way of perfectly communicating with our hearts, whether or not you're walking with him or even believe in him. He's alive. and He is the perfect communicator. And what is so beautiful about him is the way that he completely meets you where you're at, whether or not you even intend to acknowledge him. Pay a little more attention to the peace or joy that fills you in certain moments..whether while looking at the sunrise, or holding a baby, or eating a thousand spanish muffins...chances are, it's him. Completely joyful and intentional in his speaking to you. He's not holding ridiculous impossible expectations over your head. He just wants to love you.

Anyway, I could talk about all day. Because it's true.

But back to the main point. The main point is that in that moment, when I saw the sky and i heard the Lord, everything stopped. Here in spain, I'm learning how to live slowly again. How to value everything--people, conversation, the smell of jasmine, the taste of all of the foods i've been too afraid to eat until now, the evening breeze....you know. Living slowly...living with the intention to fully value something. Because if we don't value what we are given, what is our life? And this is really important for two reasons.

1. we have to learn how to value the Lord.

yes we can serve him. yes we can follow him. yes our life can be full of incredible deeds. but unless we fully grasp, or at least try to grasp, what it means to value the Lord, our hearts, lives, and ministries will be terribly lacking. We have to value the sound of his voice. The weight of his presence. The joy. The intentionality. Not just in a religious, stiff, "i'm honoring you because it's what i need to do with my life" sort of way, but in a father-child way. in a beautiful friendship way. in the most intimate of ways. He's the author of intimacy and the author of value. Don't you think he created it to be shared? Not just with each other. But also with him. Because he likes it. And he's completely full of life. Jesus came, died, and made a way for us to have complete access to the fullness of our father. TO THE FULLNESS OF OUR FATHER. Holy CRAPS people. The fullness of our father. I don't know what else i can say. but we have to let our hearts feel again, so that we can really know him.

2. Unless we can fully understand the concept of value, our lives, our ministries, our hearts, our good deeds, with just be stone cold. Value gives flavor to everything. When we take the time to let ourselves get lost in something, walls are broken down, and we become, little by little, more alive...more alive to the Lord, more alive to Love and life.

Value. I'm learning to live slow. Es muy bien. I'm really thankful. I won't apologize but I hope that wasn't too ridiculous of a rant to read. Thanks.

and in final news, it's 4:30 am. we explored madrid tonight some, got lost some, but had lots of fun. and I discovered a few less spiritual things about spain tonight, but they're to be saved to be shared tomorrow.

thank you Jesus.

sleep now. tengo clase en la manana! hay. que loco.

thanks for reading friends. sorry if this was a little more scattered than usual. i can't function after 2am.

hasta luegeo, si dios quieres.

(una frase que juan me enseño. es importante.)

brooke.

muffins.

holy crap.

i can't stop eating these muffins. i had breakfast with the muffins, and great lunch, and now it's my siesta time and i can't stop eating these muffins maria gave us and left in our room.

don't worry. i'm smuggling them all back to the united states.

that's all. it's siesta time.

hasta luego :)

en el sol de espana

hola :)

in case any of you were wondering, i love spain. i arrived in madrid at about 11 this morning. sweet andres met me in the airport and put me in a cab with my roommate, monique. this may have been my favorite cab experience ever. we tried to sit quietly in the back, but it didn't happen, clearly. we proceeded to become best friends with our cabdriver. he was great and super patient with our spanish. i asked him the correct way to say "sometimes when i speak spanish, i get so scared that i want to poop my pants". it was a really great moment.

then he dropped monique and i off on this side street in the middle of madrid, where apparently our host family lived. they did, in fact, live there, but finding them was another adventure in itself. we went into this apartment building, pressed a lot of buttons, climbed a lot of stairs, and took the smallest elevator i've ever seen. we rode the elevator to the eighth floor, and climbed one more flight of stairs to the atico, knocked on the door, and was met by one of the most beautiful women i've ever seen.

maria. maria is my host mom. perfectly kind and wonderful. i have felt so loved from the second that i came into her home.

then we met juan. juan is her husband, my host dad, he's really tall and really really intelligent. he speaks spanish, french, portuguese, and italian, but has broken english because he told me that he doesn't really care about english. i love juan. he's so kind..and hilarious. he's also completely adamant about me learning to speak spain spanish correctly. so far, he's already given me a few talks on the correct language for computers, cell phones, and terraces.

juan also just made me the best hot choccolate of my life as i was writing that.

i really can't believe i'm here. i'm living in a penthouse apartment overlooking madrid. with the most beautiful terrace complete with the most incredible view of the city. and my bedroom? lets just say my vintage love meets ikea. phew!

i'm sold. not coming back. romping forever.

anyway, that's the quick update. everything is perfecto.

love you guys! :)

24 May 2010.

In the words of Max, “LET THE WILD ROMPUS BEGIN”.

Praise God. I’m finally on my flight to Madrid, after a thrilling seven hour layover in the New York City airport, full of mullets, three dollar packs of gum, changing many dollars into euros. And guess what else? I’m typing this on an AIRPLANE. I didn’t even know you could use computers on airplanes. Iberian Airlines, you have advanced technology. But hang on just one second. I’m flying with Iberian Airlines to Spain (yeah, I hadn’t heard of it either) and after I booked, I decided to read google reviews on it. I nearly peed my pants. Let’s just say I’m relieved not to be flying in a cardboard box. But you know, PROPS TO YOU, IBERIAN AIRLINES. I don’t care what those angry reviews say. YOU HAVE ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY.

Anyway, bring it back down. The point is, I have nothing to blog about because this rompus has only just begun. But due to the fact that I have seven hours left on this flight, I am going to darn well find something interesting to blog about. So for starters, I’ll set the scene of my life as of late for you:

Iberian Airlines, flight 6252

Seat 32 C

Chewing black gum that cost me three bucks, much to my dismay.

Freshly reddened hair.

Yoga pants with the big hole in the back--yes, I am actually wearing them in public. Sometimes (most times) I just want to do what I want.

Today I made 4 new friends.

The man in front of me is practically laying in my lap. I think he’s enjoying sitting his seat directly upright, only to crush my knees and shock my nerves 10 seconds later. It’s a cruel joke. The things people do for fun these days are totally and completely outrageous.

In other news: I am happy to report that the Asian population in the New York airport is very high, particularly attractive/indie asian men. This is surely something to be thankful for.

While sitting on planes and outside of gate 4 for large part of my day, many incredible things were witnessed. First, I made a lot of friends today. A girl name Deena. We met in Raleigh, and both bonded over our fear of Iberian Airlines. She is vacationing with her family but had to fly alone, and she just so happens to be on all of my flights. She’s a musician and is going to teach it one day. It’s been really fun to have a spontaneous travel buddy. And I’m really thankful for it! (Thanks Lord.) Then, there was a nameless boy who trekked with me throughout the entire airport to find our terminal. Both he and I had to wait in the same gate for the same flight but neither us, nor the people in the airport could tell us the right way to get there. So after braving many broken buses and airtrains, security for the second time (where they searched and researched my purse), rechecking in, and getting another new boarding pass from someone who only spoke spanish, we arrived at terminal seven. ptlptlptl. If it hadn’t been for him, I more than likely would have missed my flight--yes, even with a seven hour layover (you just don’t understand.)

Now for a list of more of the interesting things i saw today:

1. my dream asian man.
2. the best mustache i’ve ever seen. we’re talking, covering the cheeks, curling at the edges stuff. it was for real.
3. so. many. ethnic. babies. beautiful.
4. the ideal, classy British Family.
5. found a nook in the airport with great pastel colored seats and beautiful light. it made everything worth it.

Maybe the thing I’ve loved the most so far is the way that ever since I got to my gate, Spanish has been preferred over English, even though we were still in the United States. I loved hearing the flight attendants come on the loud speakers first in Spanish, then about five minutes later in English. It’s really refreshing to see how the rest of the world lives. I love spanish. I’ve been studying it for nine years---it’s about time i use it. Since I’ve been on the flight, everyone has addressed me in Spanish. Sometimes I forget that I speak Spanish, so when they do, I stare back at them dumbfounded, when in reality I know perfectly what they are talking about. Ha! It’s funny how that works. So I’m really thankful for this season to practice that. For a season of overcoming fear in a different language.

Ha. Guys, I just understood something in my heart when I wrote that i’m overcoming fear in a different language. Maybe, oh just maybe that’s prophetic. Yes. Yes to a new love. Yes to a new confidence in the Lord. Yes to overcoming fear in a different language. He is the most intentional person/God/being/youknowwhatimean I’ve ever met. I love that about Him.

Something comes to life inside of me when I speak Spanish. Something that I love very much.

So, if you’re in the business of praying for me, pray for just that. For a new confidence in myself and in the Lord. I’m growing up these days. Pray that for a grace to just enjoy myself and the Lord--to rest, to relax, to learn. And pray for me to have confidence in my Spanish speaking, and not to give up or quit when I fumble over words and pee in my pants because I know of nothing else to do with myself.

This blog may need intercession, too. Thanks for reading this far, friends. I love you all so much. Thanks for being so intentional in loving me. And I pray that the Lord would meet all of your hearts where you’re at TODAY. Because He wants to. Because He is intentional with you, because he’s called you and he loves you. And because that is nothing to be scared of.

So. Here’s to Spain, the Romper, and the beauty that’s so evidently alive in the Lord. May all of our hearts be awakened to the beauty that rests there---they beauty we were made for.

I arrive in Madrid at about 10:30am their time, which is about 4am our (your) time. From there, precious Dr. Fisher is putting me in a cab to my host family’s home. I cannot wait to meet them. This is literally a dream come true. Oh Juan and Maria, I’m going to love you!!!

hasta manana mis amigos con pollo.

con mas amor que las estrellas.

brooke. c:

ps. the man in front of me just his my knees again. just in time.

May 23. 4:05am. I am wide awake and coming to many conclusions. The first one being that I am on a terrible sleeping schedule. This is going to kick me in the butt when I’m under the Spanish sun. The second: I am terrible at packing. Why I need to bring 19 unnecessary pairs of underwear, or why I make many different piles of clothes separated by their importance to my Spanish wardrobe, I’ll probably never know. But at this rate, I should have started packing two weeks ago. Crap.

The spanish adventure starts soon, Monday, to be exact, and things are pretty similar to how they always are right before I go somewhere important: Me. By myself. Downstairs in the corner blue chair at my parent's house. Wee hours of the night. Packing. Distracted. Burning eyes. Excited heart. Some things just always happen by accident.

Almost one year ago exactly, I was preparing to go on another adventure to A Place for The Heart, where the Lord met me like never before, and I've never been the same since. It was a summer of healing--real, complete healing of my heart--community, creativity, and overcoming those things I’ve always been afraid of. It was as if He called me away for a season, just to lay me down and breath life back into my lungs. He gave me complete permission to really believe and live out those things I’ve always wanted to believe about the Lord and myself. From there He sent me into the most beautiful season of really finding my life. It was the year of a lot of firsts for me. First apartment, first independent and legit grocery shopping adventures, first big girl bills to pay, etc etc. And i liked it. I think I grew up this year a lot in really simple ways. I’m learning a lot about life, so much about the Lord, and still so much about myself.

So that brings us here. To the Spanish Romping. To being a Spanish Romper. What’s a romper? Well, I’m glad you asked...

romp·er   [rom-per]

–noun

1. a person or thing that romps.

2. one who frolics or plays boisterously

3. Usually, rompers. (used with a plural verb)

a. a loose, one-piece garment combining a shirt or blouse and short, bloomerlike pants, worn by young children.

b. a similar garment worn by women and girls for sports, leisure activity, etc.

yes. so here's to romping. here's to being a romper. as ridiculous as it sounds. it doesn't even matter. i'm ready for this adventure.