All,
Take a second today to remember that it's Luke's 28th birthday. I miss that guy.
John's birthday is in two days, so you may want to send him a message too.
God has blessed us with a great family, and it's good to know that we've already got some good ones "on the other side" that are ready to party when we get there!
JDR
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Monday, March 19, 2007
David en Espana, Ole
Hello Family---This is an email from David updating us on his travels in Espana!
Dear Fam,
I know that this email is long overdue, and for that I am sorry. I have never been very good at updating those around me about my activities, but this email should help catch everyone up one what life has been like over here in España. Well, to begin, it has been an amazing and eye opening experience, and one that I would highly recommend to any of the other cousins who are in a position to undertake a similar journey. I would do it again in a heartbeat, and I wish that I had the time in my life to do it all over in another country and learn another language. Now for some specific info. I go to a branch campus of the University of Granada, El Centro de Lenguas Modernas (Center of Modern Languages), which is a facility dedicated, almost exclusively, to the study of languages. Although there are a lot of Americans, it is open to people from any country and so I have classes with Japanese, Swedish, Australian, French, English, Bulgarian, Belgian, and students from various other nationalities as well. The classes range from intensive language courses in eleven different languages to Spanish economics; it is quite an eclectic mix. I am currently in Spanish Grammar, History of Modern Latin America, a Spanish conversation class at the Superior B (one below Perfecto) level , and an English-Spanish translation class. As expected, I am learning a helluva lot of Spanish, which I consider to be the most important thing that I am taking out of this experience. In addition to this however, the fun times have been something that I couldnt even imagine possible. Granada is a city of 200,000, with a student population of 65,000. Needless to say, the night life here is amazing. The Spanish dont even begin to go out until at the very least 11:00, and always finish the nights with dancing at some discoteca or salsa spot, so I have spent many a late night imitating my brother Pat on the dance floor, hoping to smooch on some Spanish girl. I usually fail in this respect. One of the interesting things about being here is that you hang out with your friends all day every day, more so even than in normal college, and so I have grown incredibly close to a number of people in my relatively short time here. This is great for the day to day life, from just having a coffee in a plaza to playing soccer on one of the many brick courts to going to a discoteca, the group of friends that I have here has made an incredible difference. They are also great to travel with. Within two hours by public bus, we can be at almost any of the beaches on the Costa del Sol, and thanks to the practice among Spanish women of sunbathing topless, being at any beach around here is quite an awesome time. In addition to the beaches, I have traveled with my program to Seville, Madrid, Toledo, Cordoba, Gibraltar (to see the monkeys, absolutely amazing), Segovia, Escorial, and Almeria. I have also traveled with friends to Edinburgh, Scotland, and Amsterdam, Holland (great architecture and museums, but since I dont smoke or engage in carnal relations the city had limited appeal). In two weeks I am going to Kassel, Germany to visit Miso and his family and from there I will head into Switzerland to visit the Landtwings. I also might make a trip to Dublin to visit Sue and Aimee Johnson in the beginning of May, bank account permitting. In addition, I have traveled to Barcelona with my football team. Yes, American Football. I was playing American football with the "semi-pro" Granada Lions as their starting tight end. It was a great time, but my professional football career came to an early end when I fell on a piece of broken glass in the streets of Cadiz during Carnaval (while dressed as a gay ninja) and had to get 11 stitches from a male nurse in a Cadiz street clinic. I know what you are thinking, being nervous about Spanish medical care, but dont worry, he only broke two needles in my hand and only allowed me one beer and one hot dog while he was stitching me up. The clinic doctor was having coffee in the other room. Being a tight end, blocking one handed probably would not have been especially effective so I gave up my position. My hand is almost fully healed now, but I am going to let the guy who has been playing finish out the season for me. To wrap it up, I have two and a half more months here and my departure will be, without a doubt, a bittersweet thing. There will be so much to miss here in Granada, but I havent seen most of my friends or family for almost nine months, so the homecoming will be a great thing. I believe the Lisa Potter wedding is the day after I get home, so I expect to see all of you there and to speak in Spanish will all of my bilingual brethren. Much love and cant wait to see you all.
Dos besos,
David
Dear Fam,
I know that this email is long overdue, and for that I am sorry. I have never been very good at updating those around me about my activities, but this email should help catch everyone up one what life has been like over here in España. Well, to begin, it has been an amazing and eye opening experience, and one that I would highly recommend to any of the other cousins who are in a position to undertake a similar journey. I would do it again in a heartbeat, and I wish that I had the time in my life to do it all over in another country and learn another language. Now for some specific info. I go to a branch campus of the University of Granada, El Centro de Lenguas Modernas (Center of Modern Languages), which is a facility dedicated, almost exclusively, to the study of languages. Although there are a lot of Americans, it is open to people from any country and so I have classes with Japanese, Swedish, Australian, French, English, Bulgarian, Belgian, and students from various other nationalities as well. The classes range from intensive language courses in eleven different languages to Spanish economics; it is quite an eclectic mix. I am currently in Spanish Grammar, History of Modern Latin America, a Spanish conversation class at the Superior B (one below Perfecto) level , and an English-Spanish translation class. As expected, I am learning a helluva lot of Spanish, which I consider to be the most important thing that I am taking out of this experience. In addition to this however, the fun times have been something that I couldnt even imagine possible. Granada is a city of 200,000, with a student population of 65,000. Needless to say, the night life here is amazing. The Spanish dont even begin to go out until at the very least 11:00, and always finish the nights with dancing at some discoteca or salsa spot, so I have spent many a late night imitating my brother Pat on the dance floor, hoping to smooch on some Spanish girl. I usually fail in this respect. One of the interesting things about being here is that you hang out with your friends all day every day, more so even than in normal college, and so I have grown incredibly close to a number of people in my relatively short time here. This is great for the day to day life, from just having a coffee in a plaza to playing soccer on one of the many brick courts to going to a discoteca, the group of friends that I have here has made an incredible difference. They are also great to travel with. Within two hours by public bus, we can be at almost any of the beaches on the Costa del Sol, and thanks to the practice among Spanish women of sunbathing topless, being at any beach around here is quite an awesome time. In addition to the beaches, I have traveled with my program to Seville, Madrid, Toledo, Cordoba, Gibraltar (to see the monkeys, absolutely amazing), Segovia, Escorial, and Almeria. I have also traveled with friends to Edinburgh, Scotland, and Amsterdam, Holland (great architecture and museums, but since I dont smoke or engage in carnal relations the city had limited appeal). In two weeks I am going to Kassel, Germany to visit Miso and his family and from there I will head into Switzerland to visit the Landtwings. I also might make a trip to Dublin to visit Sue and Aimee Johnson in the beginning of May, bank account permitting. In addition, I have traveled to Barcelona with my football team. Yes, American Football. I was playing American football with the "semi-pro" Granada Lions as their starting tight end. It was a great time, but my professional football career came to an early end when I fell on a piece of broken glass in the streets of Cadiz during Carnaval (while dressed as a gay ninja) and had to get 11 stitches from a male nurse in a Cadiz street clinic. I know what you are thinking, being nervous about Spanish medical care, but dont worry, he only broke two needles in my hand and only allowed me one beer and one hot dog while he was stitching me up. The clinic doctor was having coffee in the other room. Being a tight end, blocking one handed probably would not have been especially effective so I gave up my position. My hand is almost fully healed now, but I am going to let the guy who has been playing finish out the season for me. To wrap it up, I have two and a half more months here and my departure will be, without a doubt, a bittersweet thing. There will be so much to miss here in Granada, but I havent seen most of my friends or family for almost nine months, so the homecoming will be a great thing. I believe the Lisa Potter wedding is the day after I get home, so I expect to see all of you there and to speak in Spanish will all of my bilingual brethren. Much love and cant wait to see you all.
Dos besos,
David
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Pug Love
All,
Sorry to follow up Son-dog's adventure blog with this one, but I think I am the first true pimp in the family! As we speak (or as I type) I am counting all $500 for my dog Wayne's service to one bitch (true term) named Maria.
It's a pretty funny sight to see. Any Pasco folks can come by today for a laugh. I'll have her until 8PM. I don't know if either one will be able to breathe by the end of the day!
If successful, I am going to quit the Engineering field and just pimp out male dogs!
JDR
Friday, March 09, 2007
Two months in Mexico
I think my dad might have sent this around on email, but I wanted to post it here too, man the blog is lacking these days!!!...Miss and love you all.
-------------------------------
I've been in Mexico for over two months now so it's probably about time I wrote something to share with you all. I've been adding to this letter for a couple weeks now, so hopefully you'll get two months worth of news.
To start off I feel so so lucky to be here. I'm having more fun than I've ever had and learning more at the same time. I've never felt so relaxed and carefree and happy-- and I wish I could write this whole thing in Espanol so that you can see how much I've improved! I've gotten really comfortable speaking--once you get that part it's much easier to get better..but the more I learn the more questions I have, but isn't that the case with everything in life...
Contrary to popular belief of many people in the US, English is definitely one of the easiest languages on the planet. We don't have two verbs for "to be" (ser, estar), two words for "for" (por, para), formals and informals, masculine and feminine, a different verb form for each person, and all of this subjunctive and imperfect subjunctive verb business. Despite all of that I am getting the hang of it, time and practice is all it takes. Another thing I've noticed about the language is that a lot of things, especially questions, seem much more abrupt. Example, instead of asking, "Could I have a piece of gum?" they just say, "Dame chicle"..."Gimme gum," and rarely with a please. But I guess that's just what happens with our weird-English-polite-question-word-order. Also what they say about forgetting your native tongue is true. Difficult words especially, but at times I have to think for a bit about how to say simple words too (i.e. traffic light...that was the other day...ha). They also have two (or many more!) words for one thing (one masculine, one feminine), while we sometimes use one word sound for a few different things but spell it differently. What I do love is that they only have one vowel sound for each vowel. At least I can be sure I am pronoucing it right even if I have no idea what I'm saying. I could go on about the language for hours......moving on:
My family here is incredibly nice and my mom, Licha, makes the best food--gorditas, chilaquiles, cemitas, sopas, and eggs, frijoles and tortillas for breakfast always with fresh-squeezed orange juice.
In the university we have a profesora mexicana, Martha. She is really clear with her words and the readings she chooses always provoke interesting conversations. We can talk about any topic that comes up but only in Spanish-- we've had discussions on the Zapatista movement in the state of Chiapas, the "indigenous problem" in Mexico, socialism and NAFTA. Last week we talked about gender roles of males and females in Mexico vs. the US and how changing attitudes toward women being independent and having their own careers is a more recent movement here than in the US. We also touched on how homosexuality differs here than in the US. What surprised me is that homosexuality is more naturally accepted in smaller towns and shunned in the bigger cities in Mexico, which is exactly the opposite of the US, where there exists more homophobia in the more conservative smaller towns than in the more liberal, bigger cities.
This week we've been learning about Latin American women, like SorJuana Ines de le Cruz, a 16th-century nun and poet, Isabel Allende, the Chilean novelist, Eva Peron, the Argentinian political icon (Evita), and of course, Frida Kahlo. Today I gave a presentation in class about Frida and Martha told me that Eamonn talked about the same topic when he was in the program last year...weird....well I guess we are brother and sister, and we've got the same artsy mama.
About a month ago I went to Mexico City for a week. I went with my class to Teotihuacan, an ancient city with two gigantic and majestic pyramids among countless other ruins. We went to the house of Frida Kahlo, the Palace of Fine Arts, The Zocalo and Cathedral and Templo Mayor (Ruins of an old Aztec Temple), Chapultepec Park, The National Anthropology Museum, and the Museum of History... After that I was ready to spend some time NOT doing anything important, so I spent four more days in the city alone... walking, eating and riding the metro to random destinations just because I could.
Another weekend I went to Veracruz with a bunch of other exchange students (from Germany, Brasil, Austria, the US, Mexico and Greece) for Carnaval. It was quite the spectacle...with mainly lots and lots of drunk and/or otherwise influenced people. It was cold and windy, so the next day we went to a beach called Chachalacas and hung out in the sun for hours--it was a really typical small town beach on the Gulf of Mexico (the water wasn't too pretty).
I just got back from Oaxaca on Sunday after a long weekend there and I loved it. It's smaller than Puebla, really relaxed and they produce the most beautiful textiles...and a lot of Mezcal (alcohol made from the same plant (agave) as tequila). We went to the ancient ruins at Monte Alban just outside the city too, which aren't as impressive as Teotihuacan in an architectural sense but it is built on top of a mountain which makes the view incredible. Also went to a mezcal factory where we threw back the worms from the agave plant along with the mezcal, yummmm.
The food here is my biggest downfall...you won't be able to recognize me when I come home because I've probably gained at least 30 pounds. Not (well, we'll see when June comes around), but the tacos are more numerous and delicious than any taco truck in Pasco (I hope an obvious fact? No offense to Pasco). And now I understand why Christian and Eamonn came back from Mexico liking hot sauce...I'm liking all the spicy food more and more and I can eat spicier than my Mexican sister...ha!
Speaking of my Mexican sister, she is 33 years old and still lives in the house. She is finishing her masters in textile design and doesn't work-- it's something really different from the US, but I'm not totally opposed to it, I mean why figure out how to pay your own bills until you actually have to? Haha, Dad's probably cringing at that idea. But anyway, it's really common here; lots of the young adults keep living with their parents throughout college and until they get married, and if they don't get hitched, they just keep on livin' there. The speed bumps and the dogs are another big difference...they are both everywhere...stray dogs own the streets and speed bumps occupy them...every 20 yards or so it seems. It's probably good though cause the drivers are kind of nuts, but you probably would be too if you didn't have to take a class or a test.
Everything is relaxed, nothing's on time (except my homework!), it's a constant fiesta. That's all I have for now. Next week is my spring break, then one more week after that ends, my mom and Uncle Peter arrive!!! Hope all is well with all of you and that it's not too chilly up north.
Besos, Tacos, Paz y Amor,
sonja
-------------------------------
I've been in Mexico for over two months now so it's probably about time I wrote something to share with you all. I've been adding to this letter for a couple weeks now, so hopefully you'll get two months worth of news.
To start off I feel so so lucky to be here. I'm having more fun than I've ever had and learning more at the same time. I've never felt so relaxed and carefree and happy-- and I wish I could write this whole thing in Espanol so that you can see how much I've improved! I've gotten really comfortable speaking--once you get that part it's much easier to get better..but the more I learn the more questions I have, but isn't that the case with everything in life...
Contrary to popular belief of many people in the US, English is definitely one of the easiest languages on the planet. We don't have two verbs for "to be" (ser, estar), two words for "for" (por, para), formals and informals, masculine and feminine, a different verb form for each person, and all of this subjunctive and imperfect subjunctive verb business. Despite all of that I am getting the hang of it, time and practice is all it takes. Another thing I've noticed about the language is that a lot of things, especially questions, seem much more abrupt. Example, instead of asking, "Could I have a piece of gum?" they just say, "Dame chicle"..."Gimme gum," and rarely with a please. But I guess that's just what happens with our weird-English-polite-question-word-order. Also what they say about forgetting your native tongue is true. Difficult words especially, but at times I have to think for a bit about how to say simple words too (i.e. traffic light...that was the other day...ha). They also have two (or many more!) words for one thing (one masculine, one feminine), while we sometimes use one word sound for a few different things but spell it differently. What I do love is that they only have one vowel sound for each vowel. At least I can be sure I am pronoucing it right even if I have no idea what I'm saying. I could go on about the language for hours......moving on:
My family here is incredibly nice and my mom, Licha, makes the best food--gorditas, chilaquiles, cemitas, sopas, and eggs, frijoles and tortillas for breakfast always with fresh-squeezed orange juice.
In the university we have a profesora mexicana, Martha. She is really clear with her words and the readings she chooses always provoke interesting conversations. We can talk about any topic that comes up but only in Spanish-- we've had discussions on the Zapatista movement in the state of Chiapas, the "indigenous problem" in Mexico, socialism and NAFTA. Last week we talked about gender roles of males and females in Mexico vs. the US and how changing attitudes toward women being independent and having their own careers is a more recent movement here than in the US. We also touched on how homosexuality differs here than in the US. What surprised me is that homosexuality is more naturally accepted in smaller towns and shunned in the bigger cities in Mexico, which is exactly the opposite of the US, where there exists more homophobia in the more conservative smaller towns than in the more liberal, bigger cities.
This week we've been learning about Latin American women, like SorJuana Ines de le Cruz, a 16th-century nun and poet, Isabel Allende, the Chilean novelist, Eva Peron, the Argentinian political icon (Evita), and of course, Frida Kahlo. Today I gave a presentation in class about Frida and Martha told me that Eamonn talked about the same topic when he was in the program last year...weird....well I guess we are brother and sister, and we've got the same artsy mama.
About a month ago I went to Mexico City for a week. I went with my class to Teotihuacan, an ancient city with two gigantic and majestic pyramids among countless other ruins. We went to the house of Frida Kahlo, the Palace of Fine Arts, The Zocalo and Cathedral and Templo Mayor (Ruins of an old Aztec Temple), Chapultepec Park, The National Anthropology Museum, and the Museum of History... After that I was ready to spend some time NOT doing anything important, so I spent four more days in the city alone... walking, eating and riding the metro to random destinations just because I could.
Another weekend I went to Veracruz with a bunch of other exchange students (from Germany, Brasil, Austria, the US, Mexico and Greece) for Carnaval. It was quite the spectacle...with mainly lots and lots of drunk and/or otherwise influenced people. It was cold and windy, so the next day we went to a beach called Chachalacas and hung out in the sun for hours--it was a really typical small town beach on the Gulf of Mexico (the water wasn't too pretty).
I just got back from Oaxaca on Sunday after a long weekend there and I loved it. It's smaller than Puebla, really relaxed and they produce the most beautiful textiles...and a lot of Mezcal (alcohol made from the same plant (agave) as tequila). We went to the ancient ruins at Monte Alban just outside the city too, which aren't as impressive as Teotihuacan in an architectural sense but it is built on top of a mountain which makes the view incredible. Also went to a mezcal factory where we threw back the worms from the agave plant along with the mezcal, yummmm.
The food here is my biggest downfall...you won't be able to recognize me when I come home because I've probably gained at least 30 pounds. Not (well, we'll see when June comes around), but the tacos are more numerous and delicious than any taco truck in Pasco (I hope an obvious fact? No offense to Pasco). And now I understand why Christian and Eamonn came back from Mexico liking hot sauce...I'm liking all the spicy food more and more and I can eat spicier than my Mexican sister...ha!
Speaking of my Mexican sister, she is 33 years old and still lives in the house. She is finishing her masters in textile design and doesn't work-- it's something really different from the US, but I'm not totally opposed to it, I mean why figure out how to pay your own bills until you actually have to? Haha, Dad's probably cringing at that idea. But anyway, it's really common here; lots of the young adults keep living with their parents throughout college and until they get married, and if they don't get hitched, they just keep on livin' there. The speed bumps and the dogs are another big difference...they are both everywhere...stray dogs own the streets and speed bumps occupy them...every 20 yards or so it seems. It's probably good though cause the drivers are kind of nuts, but you probably would be too if you didn't have to take a class or a test.
Everything is relaxed, nothing's on time (except my homework!), it's a constant fiesta. That's all I have for now. Next week is my spring break, then one more week after that ends, my mom and Uncle Peter arrive!!! Hope all is well with all of you and that it's not too chilly up north.
Besos, Tacos, Paz y Amor,
sonja
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