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.