back from the junited estates

after a month´s hiatus due to finishing exams, traveling to the junited estates for christmas vacation and going to morocco, i´m back in madrid. today is the first day of class, and it looks like this semester is going to shape up a little less hectic than the last, the main reason being i won´t have that thesis qualifying paper hanging over my head and finding every spare moment to work on it. the weather is better, the routine easy to fall into, and i´m getting more involved with church, which means i´m very much more now than before a madrileño.

the week after exams was a chill week for me. my flatmate left that sunday, and since i wasn´t leaving until that thursday, i had a lot of time to sleep. i was planning on going to the gym that week, but between sleeping late and going to bed late (apparently i was pre-adjusting my body to the eastern u.s. time zone) and going out with friends, i had little time for that, though i still went running everyday. tuesday, i went to the mountains to see snow and had the absolute BEST hamburger EVER in a mountain lodge restaurant. it was so goooood. wednesday, i spent it with a good friend, aaron, who accompanied me to the latino store where i got food to make for community group that night. after community group, aaron came over and spent the night since he was also leaving for the junited estates the next day, and i live closer to the airport.

two weeks in the states seems like a whirlwind, but i had a relaxing and peaceful time. i had two weird feelings that i wasn´t anticipating: 1) familiarity with driving and 2) no reverse culture shock. everything was oddly familiar, though i´d been away for the past 6 months. apparently i was ready for a visit and realized i wasn´t "coming home".

i took a long weekend right before new year´s and visited my brother & family in west arkansas. i had such a terrific time seeing him be a father to his two beautiful girls and to see how he and his wife have matured in their marriage and in parenthood. i got to love on the oldest and incarnate that "crazy uncle" image her parents keep telling her about. :) apparently they weren´t too far off. after returning to georgia for a few days, it started to hit me that i wanted to stay a little longer--that perhaps i had made too short a trip.

two hours after arriving in madrid, i was a tour guide to some students from georgia who were passing through madrid to study in salamanca. it was a whirlwind weekend, but we had a great time, and though doing touristy things, i got to see some exhibits in the art museums that i hadn´t seen last semester, so i was glad to show them around. besides, i like to take eating tours through cities, and my tours are, too. :)

a week in morocco was so much more than i had anticipated, and i´m so glad i had the chance to go. looking back now at the start of the trip, i had no idea what i was getting into, but it turned out to be an amazing time of making new friends and discovering how to listen to the Spirit more. besides, it was incredible to see the atlantic close up on this side and to have it in the background. this is even more spectacular since i live in the very center of spain.

i was gone for 3 short weeks, and it seems like not much has happened without me. i´m glad to be back home, glad to be with people who are my family here and make me appreciative of my family in the junited estates.