Highlights from Madrid

So... we're here. :) I guess year 3 in Thailand has been marked with not as many firsts; therefore, not as many new blog posts. I still have yet to really update the blog with Spain pictures though. So as not to overwhelm myself (or my readers) I thought I'd kind of go city by city and give you the highlights and a few favorite pics or collages to give you a snapshot of things we did.

We started and ended our trip in Madrid, staying with my high school friend Silvia, her bf Alex and their ginormous dog, Munch. Poor Silvia picked us up from the airport (1.5 hours from her flat) bright and early in the morning, only to realize that our flight had been delayed 3 hours in Beijing... she was a champ about it though and was still smiling when we walked off the plane. How nice it is to arrive in a new place and be greeted by a friendly and familiar face. Silvia had requested the day off, so we were able to spend the day catching up with her. Throughout the rest of our time in Madrid, Silvia and Alex had to work at varying times, so we would go off and explore during their work hours, and then meet up with them later.

Some of the things we saw and did in Madrid:

• Tapas
• Palacio Real (outside)
• Plaza Mayor
• El oso y el árbol
• Mercardo de Miguel Hernández
• Met an Asian dude at a small grocery store & talked to him in Spanish to find out where to buy stamps (Mike found this rather hilarious that 2 Asians were speaking speaking Spanish to each other.)
• Rose Garden
• Teleférico
• El Retiro
• Estadio Bernabéo Tour
• El Prado Museum
• Ate asado at an Argentine restaurant (and though of you, Fernando & Kelly)
• Plaza de toros
• Rented a car before making our way to Alicante

** As always, you can click on the collage/pic to see a bigger version of it. :)**

Plaza de toros

Around Madrid

Rose Garden

El Retiro

Estadio

Around Madrid

Precious friends

Next stop: Alicante (where I did my study abroad my junior year of high school).

Things that...

... make me laugh/smile:

• Q: If your name is on the board, what does that mean?
• A: You have make-up work to do or Mrs. Karly needs to talk to you about something.
• Student's answer: Mrs. Karly misses you a lot and wants to see you.
• Student wants to say "Never mind" and comes up with: "Nunca mente"and "Nunca cabeza"
• Student asks if the same word for oil (on the face) is petroleum.

...I love:

• Homemade Cinnamon Raisin bread by one of the parents at the school
• Ukulele lessons
• Thailand rainy season thunderstorms in the middle of the night
• Dear friendships
• Hearing my students speak in Spanish when it's not even Spanish class and saying, "It's so fun!"
• Having a student ask me, "Why was the quiz so hard? You should make it easier." Then telling him that I could be a hard teacher, push him, and have him learn a lot, or I could be an easier teacher, give him an easy A, and he probably wouldn't learn very much. When given the option, he said he'd rather have me be a harder teacher with an added comment of "Besides, Spanish class is so fun even when it's hard." ::sigh:: THIS is why I teach.

... I could do without:

• Waves of homesickness
• Spending my weekend correcting papers
• Having a class (or even a day) when your lesson plans blow up in your face and everything you planned goes nothing like how you envisioned (successfully).

... I wish happened magically without any of my help:

• New blog posts
• Learning Thai
• Correcting papers

I might be biased...

...but I think he's pretty stinkin' cute.

Welcome to the world, Bennett Davidson Aust!

Signs of life...

So.......... it's been like a month and a half since my last post.

[Sigh]. My excuse is that I know I should post pictures from Spain, but I just have no motivation to go through a bazillion pictures and wait for blogger to laboriously upload them at a snail's pace. My second excuse is that school is in full swing again. At the start of every school year, I always forget how time-consuming and tiring it is to be a teacher. I was just telling Mike the other day, "I forgot how dumpy our apartment gets when we are working & coaching full time again." It's easy to come home, dump our things on the counter or couch, and do nothing really productive since we've expended all our energy on our students during the day. Already in the past 2.5 weeks of school, I've gone to bed at 8PM several nights... and I FORCED myself to stay away that long; I could have easily gone to bed at 7PM if I had allowed myself to do so.

So here's a quick synopsis of the past month and a half:

• Got back to Bkk after an amazing trip to Spain
• Had 2 weeks of freedom before school meetings began on Aug. 1
• Did a lot of work setting up my new classroom
• Mike was busy taking a class, trying to get as much finished before the start of the school year
• A lot of new teachers this year... which has been fun, but also a hard adjustment since they have replaced the positions of a lot of our dear friends that have left ICS.
• School started Aug. 9
• Had a three-day weekend for the Queen's birthday and went to Koh Samed with our great friends, Grant and Carolyn
• Roof started leaking in our apartment, just as the rainy season started ramping up.
• BTS skytrain FINALLY opened and comes all the way out to Bangna now (Wahoo!! We've only been waiting 1.5 years!!)
• Roof finally got fixed... yay for no more loud dripping sounds & holes in our ceiling.
• Became Uncle Mike & Auntie Karly to Bennett Davidson Aust (Thanks Ben & Emily)
• Found out that my brother Pete & gf Sarah will be our X-mas 2012 visitors

Prayer Requests

• Health: Mike's a bit under the weather right now. I don't think I ever went back and blogged about why he was wearing a boot during our trip to Vietnam either... Mike was wearing the boot because he was having trouble with his foot, namely his toe. The Dr. thought it would do him some good to stay off his foot for several weeks, which actually didn't help the problem at all because in the end he was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis. Arthritis... quite the news/diagnosis for a young, otherwise healthy, extremely athletic person to swallow, but he's been a champ and has been taking it in stride. Psoriatic arthritis affects tendons and joints particularly in the hands, feet, and lower back, which explains all the years of low back pain for which no MRI could ever detect cause. It's actually an autoimmune disease, which means that his body's immune system works against him and actually attacks his tissue, instead of efficiently attacking infections. So basically when he gets sick, his immune system goes into overdrive to ward off infection, but ends up attacking his tissue even more too. Because of the psoriatic arthritis, his white blood cell count is naturally lower, which also means that he is more likely to get sick, which results in his bad immune system kicking in and... well, as you can see, it's a viscous cycle.
• Contentment: It's hard to be away from MN with new changes to the family... we certainly would love to be an uncle and auntie that can hold their new little nephew.
• Peace & Rest: The school year & sports season is always a crazy-busy time. Pray that we would find down-time to bask in His goodness even during these busy times.
• Light: That we would be Jesus' hands and feet here in Thailand; that our students and the people of Thailand would know His love and their need for a Savior.
• Friendships: That new friendships would be formed with new teachers & that older ones would be strengthened despite distance and time.

It's been a whirl-o-wind month and a half... well, it's actually been a whirl-o-wind past 2 years here in Thailand! God has been so gracious to us & we can't wait to see all the amazing things He has in store for us this year in Thailand and at ICS. Thanks for your support & prayers.

Spain Sneak Peak...

I'm overwhelmed by how many awesome pictures from our trip to Spain I have to choose from!

Here are a few collages to appease our parents readers. More pictures and details to come...

**Remember that you can click on the collage to see a bigger version of it!

Awesome "Feria de Toros" that we got to go to in Pamplona during San Fermín (The Running of the Bulls)

Some of my favorite pictures of us during the trip. The guy in the red sweatshirt in the second picture is Txema. He was so kind and helpful, and became a dear friend to us during a short time in Pamplona.

Some of the amazing food that we got to experience in Spain and Portugal.

Treasured friendships

What a great week and a half it has been in Spain. We spent 3 days in Madrid with Silvia. 4 days in Alicante with David (and were fortunate enough to spend a significant amount of time with Melina, Ana, Marga, Irene, Esther, Manolo, Vero (M´s gf), Natalia (David´s gf), Damian & Francis. What a treasure to be able to catch up with some wonderful friends after 11 years!

Alicante is in a time of fiesta right now. They are celebrating Hogueras de San Juan (Bonfires of St. John), which is a very young tradition of only 83 years. Similar to Las Fallas in Valencia, huge monuments are created by the 91 different precincts & judged for first prize. Then on June 24, all of the monuments are burned during la cremada. During the week, there is much fiesta, including many parades, las mascletas (fireworks & rhythmic explosions), as well as going out in the evening. Mike got has gotten a taste of Spanish life, staying up until 4 in the morning and then sleeping until 12 noon. :)

But really, we haven´t just been partying it up. We went to the beach, visited the castle of St. Barbara, got a tour of a bodega, visited and archeology museum, and have had a lot of great conversations over delicious food with some generous & hospitable friends. :) 

I´ve been slowly losing my English, particularly in Alicante where I´ve felt a little bit more in-between worlds than ever-- hearing Spanish in one ear, English in the other & having to translate one way or the other. It´s been good for me to be immersed so deeply again. In fact, as I write this, I find myself translating from Spanish to English in my head, and my dreams are all in Spanish again...that´s when you know you´re in deep. My friends have been patient, explaining and teaching me unknown words that I hear or read. I have a book that is full of words and definitions. Glorious. David teases me saying that he feels used for his Spanish... I´ll take advantage of him all I can. :)

On Wednesday morning we headed off to Granada to see La Alhambra. We had already pre-ordered tickets for Thursday morning and needed to make sure that we got there. However, we changed our plans and instead of going to Malaga & Gibraltar, we´ll be heading back to Alicante for Friday & Saturday to celebrate la cremada of the hogueras. Despite wanting to be go to those two places, I am grateful for more precious time with my friends & also some more amazing pictures of Hogueras to be able to show my students. From there, we´re off to Seville for some famous flamenco & more yummy tapas (of course). :)

Anyway, all this to say that we´re having an amazing time. I´m so grateful for the opportunity to share this with Mike, to be able to live life with my Spanish friends again, and to experience new things. It´s been a fun adventure and wonderful to be in a country where I can actually speak the language (despite wanting to speak a little bit of Thai every now and and again). 

Pictures forthcoming. 

Dear friends

We love you guys. You will be dearly missed.

Worlds Collide

Real conversations:

Californians: Have you guys ever gone ice blocking?
Minnesotans: Ice blocking? What's ice blocking?
Californians: You go to the store, buy a big block of ice and then go sliding down a grassy hill while sitting on the ice block.
Minnesotans: Yeah... we call that sledding.

*Google ice blocking and you'll find all sorts of information & youtube videos! :D


German: I stayed in a wood house. It was made all out of wood and it was in the middle of the woods.
Minnesotan: Uhm... that's called a cabin.

Market Run

On Saturday mornings, a few of us ladies would run about 3 miles to the market to pick up fresh (and cheaper than the grocery store) fruits, vegetables, juice, flowers, and whatever food tickled our fancy that morning. Tuan & Mike started to get into the habit of playing games on Saturday morning and then driving to the market to meet us & find some yummy food too.

It took a long time for me to finally want to join in on this routine because I kind of covet my Saturday mornings and enjoy sleeping in past 6:30 on a Saturday morning, but time with great friends, a quick little run, and the market drew me in.

Squinty-squint

At the fruit vendor

Yei... 15 baht orchids (and yummy, fresh-squeezed passion fruit juice... delightful!)

Nothing beats fried bananas & pretty flowers

Cute dimpled lady that sells pork & red sticky rice... so so good!

Half Marathon

4 of us ladies rocked the "Hua Hin Heavy Half Marathon" at the end of May. It was quite the feat, as "heavy" indicated ridiculously steep hills for about 1 km. K-dub placed first in under 2 hours (Crazy girl! I swear she's built like a gazelle). Krista trained it up hardcore beforehand and finished in about 2.5 hours (plus she ran about an extra km in the wrong direction and had to turn around!) And Gaby and I stuck together and trotted in at just under 2:45... neither of us did (hardly) any training, which probably was quite unwise, but we accomplished our goal of finishing while simultaneously not dying. I can check a 1/2 marathon off my bucket list now.

Extremely real  fear... what have we just signed ourselves up for?!

The ride up to the top of the massive hill where the half begins

Starbucks reward for finishing, thanks Tuan & Mike

I definitely don't look as tired as I felt... I was just happy to be done.

Yei!! We finished!

Happy to be done... and now, cue the 3-day soreness over SALT trip for Kdub & me, where stairs were our greatest enemy.

Gazelle-girl

Kdub won this massively heavy trophy & a microwave.

Success!

The shirts they gave us were ridiculously ugly... so Gaby and I bought new ones that better represented us. Unfortunately, as it was the end of the year and everyone is busy returning home for the summer, we didn't get a picture of the four of us together in our new shirts, sorry Krista!

OMG, you're hardcore!