From Mississippi to Missionary

Dear Friends and Family,

As some of you may know, I´ve been ministering in one of the greatest cities in the world, Barcelona, Spain, (behind the great cities of Bude, Star, and Bogue Chitto, MS of course) since the end of June. I had the privilege of living here last year for around 11 months being an English teacher. To be brief, I absolutely fell in love with this city and the people that live here. At first, I thought that it was only because I loved the culture here but little did I know, God was calling me to a huge mission field. I was blessed to go on a youth camp this summer with the church that finally nailed down my calling to follow my Dad´s incredible ministry with teenagers. If I can make half the impact that my Dad has made in the states here in Barcelona then this will become a radically changed city!

I returned to Mississippi last December because I thought that I had gotten my travel bug out of me. I took a worship leading job at FBC Jackson and worked at a coffee shop during the week. Trust me when I tell you that I tried my darndest (you can take the boy out of Mississippi but not the Mississippi out of the boy) to fit back into Mississippi culture, work in a church and be the minister that I feel like most people wanted me to be. However, it was very obvious that it was not God´s plan for my life.

As much as I love a nice glass of Sweet Iced Tea, God was calling me to get back to Barcelona. He has put a compassion for the people of this city, especially for teenagers, that I´ve never felt in any other place I´ve ever lived. He´s given me a desire to see the people of this city come to know the grace and love that I underservingly receive every day.

So some of you may be wondering exactly what I do here in Barcelona specifically. I get the privilege to work in various areas of a church called El Lokal (The Local) with a pair of wonderful pastors. (Curtis and Patti Clewett) They are 2 Americans that have been living here in Barcelona for over 20 years and it´s great to see their ministry flourish here.

I have been given the opportunity to start a youth ministry from scratch. And when I say scratch I mean that on a great day we have 3 students! It´s a blessing to love on the kids here. This church is very geared towards young people and God has given me such a fire for the young people of this country.

Secondly, I help with the worship band in the church. And you may be thinking, Josh why aren´t you leading the worship band? I tell you that there are such talented musicians in our church with such incredible hearts that it is just a blessing to just be apart of their worship ministry. Another way I help is that I am doing all the finances of the church. (Yes Mom, all of those Dave Ramsey radio telecasts you listened to in the car are finally paying off!)
Also, I am very involved in the culture outside of the church here in Barcelona. Every Thursday, I started a language exchange in a very famous area of the city called Gracia. Basically we meet 2 hours every Thursday (1 hour of English and 1 hour of Spanish) and it´s a really great way to minister to the people in a very non-churchy way. I get to invite some of our church members to come meet people and share the love of Christ without people having to come to a church building. It´s been a really neat way to minister to people in this city! So to say the least, I have my hands full with different ministries in the church but it´s such a blessing to finally get my hands dirty doing the Lord´s work!

God is ready to do major things in this area and I can see it so clearly now. I have committed to being here for another 2 years and it´s so exciting. I want to invite you to join me in this wonderful adventure to spread the love of Christ in a city that is desperately in need of it. I want to ask you to remember the people of this incredible place in your prayers and to pray about supporting me here. I will be home for Christmas for a few weeks and I would love to meet with anyone over a coffee or come to your church to speak more about the ministry here. Also, feel free to ask me any questions through email here. I´d love to stay in touch with you all. God bless from across the world and I hope the sweet tea is still as sweet as I remember! Muchimas gracias!

KKI

After a full month of being back in this crazy place called Barcelona, I finally have a little free time to write. It´s been literally non-stop since I got here. Mrs. Patti C. picked me up from the airport and dropped me off at the church to help with this wacky thing called King´s Kids International.

Since the first of July, I´ve been involved with a Christian camp for kids and teenagers from all over the world. We spent a week in Tianna (town on the outskirts of Barcelona). It was more or less a week for all of the campers to get to know each other and connect with God before they headed out to their various destinations. Here are some photos of the camp in Tianna.

 

We had 3 differetnt groups that went to England, Galicia, and the best of all, Murcia. I had the priviledge of being apart of the Murcia group. Murcia is a city in the Southeastern part of Spain. We spent a week basically leading a Christian camp for younger people. We took a group of 12 and there were around 40 in all at the camp. We kicked it Mississippi style with tents and as my Papaw would say, ´we were roughing it.´We slept on basically a field of rocks and the heat was tough even for a MS boy. However, the Lord really worked in the lifes of all of the people in Murcia. We saw some big changes and it was such a blessing to see our group of teenagers ministering to Murcia.

Well, we thought we had control…

Forgot to mention that we were only a 3 minute walk from the beach…

So then we headed back to Barcelona for what we would realize to be our hardest week of the camp. We were involved with an English camp that El Lokal (the church) was putting on, we served meals to the homeless and held Noches de Sotano (nights for young kids to come play games, worship and what not) at the church. We found it very difficult to motivate the group when they were back on their home soil but in the end they really caught a passion for their city. It was brilliant to see them ministering to their people here and we hope to keep that compassion going throughout the year.

English camp

Drama/theater

Through the rocky desert and heat of Murcia to the trek back to Barcelona, I have survived my first KKI camp experience. It was one that I was so blessed to be apart of and hope to one day get the chance to do it again.

On a slightly more profound note, God has called me to a ministry with chavales (teenagers). I´ve ran from it for so long being Mike Brister´s son but I´m so excited to see what God has in store for me in the area of teenagers and I´m now open to his calling. I hope everyone is surviving the heat back home. Thank you all for your prayers and support!

From MS to Modelling

Every person from small town Mississippi to China has 1 or 2 incredible personal stories to tell. True, some may be a bit more extravagant than others but they are our go-to stories nonetheless. These are normally the stories that us guys try to tell cute girls. For example, my Papaw, or ´Big Perch Luke´, has about a hundred involving fish the size of whales that he has caught in the Reservoir. He could tell the same story a hundred times and it never gets old. About 2 months ago, I might have caught the biggest ¨fish¨of my life.

My big whopper began 5 or 6 months ago. I was sitting in my favorite plaza (Plaza del Sol) waiting on 2 friends to have a coffee. This 20 something girl walks up to me and says ‘eres perfecto!’ (you are perfect) and of course I was a little taken off guard seeing as I haven´t heard that from too many women other than my Mother. I had never had a random woman tell me something like that and so I said que dices? (what did you say). She went on to tell me that she worked for a modeling agency and that she was looking for people to feature in a commercial. She took me off to the side and took 5 or so photos of me, got my info and told me she’d call me the next day. Long story short, I went to a casting call for Mailbu rum. I was casting for the American role and basically I had to dance in front of a camera for 30 seconds to a song called ‘Boom Boom.’ He told me to dance in whatever way I thought would be similar to a ‘Boom Boom’ dance. You can only imagine how that went.
 
Of course I left that place laughing at myself and thinking, well, that was fun but that’s the last I’ll hear of that. I knew I was no model and definitely no ‘Boom Boom’ dancer. 3 months passed and I was sitting in a different plaza with my roommate, Mike. We were discussing how in the world I was going to afford the 775 euro flight home for xmas. We talked about it for an hour or so and came up with no better idea than going into debt. I’ve never been in debt in my life and I was pretty bummed about the fact that I was about to have to.
 
On the sad walk back to our flat, I received a call from a lady named Meteora. She tells me that she works for a modeling agency and she has a job for me. After my last experience, I said I’m sorry Maam but I’m just an English Professor and far from a model. She tells that a German photographer saw my photos and wants to do a shoot with me for OPEL cars (yeah, the OPEL car company). So I said, I don’t have to go to a casting or anything? The job is mine? She said yes, it is yours. She then told me that it would pay 800 euros for one day of work which was exactly what I needed for my flight. After I hung up, I about broke down right in the middle of my street. Mike was the most confused person I have ever seen (he doesn’t speak much Spanish and had no idea what the call was about).

To make one of the craziest stories of my life short, one Sunday morning I met a team of Germans at a famous Hotel in Barcelona. They put makeup on my face (I told the woman she needed more than makeup to pull this off), dressed me in a musician’s outfit and I did a photo shoot playing a guitar on top of the roof of the hotel with this beautiful city in the background. It was one of most enjoyable experiences of my life but the best part is that I get to see my family for Christmas. I can’t describe to you how much I want to see them. It’s just another story in my life where I clearly see God taking care of me in ways (like this bearded ole’ MS boy being a model in big city Barcelona) I could never imagine in my wildest dreams. His providence has been so evident in my life and I can’t describe the joy he is daily giving me. I feel so unworthy of his blessings and his love.

Without more babbling, here they are. Please don´t download them because I don´t technically have the rights to them. Enjoy!

Vaca

It has been a minute since I last wrote and I am torn about where to begin. I guess I’ll start with ‘The Kingdom’.

After summer camp, I was more than generously offered to stay at my best friend’s studio flat. His name is Rabea Eltity and we met over 3 years ago in Alicante, Spain. We were both taking Spanish classes and immediately became good friends. Strangely enough, we ended up here in the same city and it was like we hadn’t lost a day. We play on the same futbolsala (5v5 indoor including goalies) team and hang out a good bit. He manages a hair salon here and does really well for himself. He and his wonderful German girlfriend Dina have been the biggest help to me here with everything including Spanish. Between the two of them, they speak over 7 languages. Ridiculous.

Like most people here, they decided to take a 20 day vacation through Spain and Portugal. Kindly, they allowed me to stay in their incredible flat, which we have donned, ‘The Kingdom’. It has an air conditioner (which is not normal for us broke professors), new appliances and a terrace.

The terrace was unbelievable. We grilled out numerous times and I will always cherish the great times that were had. Here are a few photos taken from the events.

The times we had at ‘The Kingdom’ will never be forgotten. Lately, I have been doing a lot of reading/writing and basically having chill time. I know that once I start working, things will become hectic again and I am milking my vacation for everything that it’s worth. And on vacation, I’m going to visit a very dear friend named Andy ‘Sideways’ Stubblefield in Budapest, Hungary for 3 days at the end of the month. I really couldn’t be more excited.

This past Sunday, Festa Major de Gracia (Grand Festival of Gracia) began. All of my Catalalunyan buddies have been raving about this festival for months now and I didn’t really think much of it. By far, it is the coolest festival I have ever been to. Basically, there are 15 different streets in the area of Gracia (really trendy/artistic part of BCN) that decorate their streets with a theme. At the end of the festival, one street is chosen to be the winner.

Also, every plaza is decorated and they all have stages with live music. There was a big parade on Sunday that was great and the past 2 days have just been fun. It’s more special that I have lived in this area so it has been cool to see the transformation of the streets that I pass everyday.  Enjoy!

It is a wonderful time to be a resident of this incredible city and I find myself more and more blessed everyday. God bless you all and I pray that we recognize the grace that abounds in all our lives. Un abrazo!

Mas Puig Franco

Back from camp and instead of running through all the details of how it went, I figured I would post one of my journal entries while I was there.

Today is the 10th day of Mas Puig Franco. I have had the privelege of teaching English (a language that I am constantly relearning myself so that I can be a semi-adequate professor) to around 20 Catalunyan saints (ha). They actually are wonderful kids. It is a 24 hour a day job ranging from horseback riding to trekking through the breathtaking Pyrenees mountains. Yesterday, we actually traversed through 7 different ones. For a six year old girl named Lulu, I’d say that’s a pretty hefty accomplishment.

Despite the long days and constant caretaking of the nenes, my time here has been truly inspiring. Two of the boys (Pol and Alex) left early yesterday to attend another camp. As they were leaving, they said their goodbyes to the monitors and it was in that moment that I sincerely believed I was able to make a small difference in their lives.

For this reason, I have fallen in love with the art of teaching. Knowing myself all too well, I’m not promising that it will last forever but for now I can’t remember the last time I was this passionate about a type of job. The life of a musician was one that I will always remember as some of the most enjoyable times I have ever had. Sadly it took me around 5 years to realize that it was only a hobby. Of course, it is a hobby that I expect to be apart of my life for some time. On the other hand, teaching is a passion that is growing stronger and stronger by the day.

For years, I have been telling people that Dead Poets Society is one of my alltime favorite movies and I feel I am just now coming to terms as to why that is. There has been this desire inside of me for as long as I can remember to inspire others. Looking back on it, leading worship was my avenue.

I loved being apart of something that I believed moved people. Unfortunately, as the years fly by, I become more reserved when it comes to the effectiveness of modern worship music. As I feel the stake being lit all around me, maybe I should elaborate.

Obviously, worshipping the God who freely gives me grace daily in the company of friends of family is a beautiful thing. I can’t describe in words how much I would love to have gone to church on Sunday with my family. It doesn’t hurt that I would probably have eaten a deep south meal that my Meemaw would have slaved over.

The issue I find myself struggling with is the dire importance church culture has placed upon worship services. In Barcelona I have found a home in a church called El Lokal. The pastor is an American who has been living in Spain for over 20 years. There, I am blessed to have found friends that have allowed me into their circles (which can be really difficult here). I attend a bible study every Thursday (partly for the free ice cream) but mainly because I have discovered so much meaning in my faith through these relationships.

I attend every service on Sunday mornings and I actually played electric guitar and sang  (in Spanish) the day before I left for camp. They are times that I look forward to but it is one small part of a faith that I feel has so many meaningful aspects. In my humble opinion, I find the 3 hour lunch with the church folks after the service to be of equal importance as the all-Spanish sermon that I struggle to understand.

Practicing my faith on a daily basis in the classroom is another part that I find myself always trying to get a grip on. Loving these kids is not hard because they are absolutely hilarious. From day one, I have been known by 2 names Xabi Alonso [Spanish footballer] and George (due to the fact that Spaniards can’t pronounce my name worth anything). Also, the love connections between 9 year olds is more entertaining than any TV soap opera that I’ve ever seen but I digress.

The hard part is teaching them the Christian values that I have been surrounded by my entire life (thanks to my family). If anyone has suggestions, I would be very appreciative. I don’t have a Euro to my name to pay you but maybe one day I can return the favor. Adios from a broke English professor striving to love these kids with the type of love that I have been shown. God bless and as John Keating (Robin Williams’ character in DPS) so adequately expressed…”carpe diem.”

Summer Camp

Hola todos. I hope everyone (mom) is doing well and I expect you all enjoyed the U.S. in the World Cup as much as I have. Even though we crashed out with Ghana, I couldn’t be more proud of our boys. Taking first place above England and having some of the most exciting matches of the tournament were more than I could have ever dreamed. Well done boys.

On life here, things are pretty much the same. Most of my classes are done for the summer and I’m trying to get by with just my private classes. My rough living situation (vampire romanian woman ) has finally finished. I asked them if I could stay for a few extra days before I left for my summer camp. Of course, they told me that I moved in on the 23rd and I had to leave on the 23rd. They tried charging me a ridiculous amount of money for gas, lights and water at the end but I got by without having to pay.

Luckily, I am overwhelmed with great friends here that are allowing me to sleep in their flat for a week before I leave for my summer camp. Then after I get back, my best friend here, Rabea, offered to let me stay in his incredible flat for 20 days. To say the least, I am beyond blessed.

A week from tomorrow I leave for Camprodon, Catalunya (province of Spain) which is on the border of France in the Pyrenees mountains. From the first day I arrived in Barcelona, one of my number one goals was to teach English and sports in a summer camp for kids. Fortunately, I got chosen to work for, in my opinion, one of the best camps in Spain.

The camp is really small with only 25 kids from 7-12 years old and we are sleeping in this manor style house in the mountains. There is one other English professor who took the same TEFL course as me but a month before. There are 2 Spanish monitors who speak English. Basically the camp is immersion English where we teach sports and such all in English. Check out some of the photos…

Football pitch in perfect condition

I am so excited to get paid really decent money to essentially hang out with kids for two weeks and speak my native language. Working hard for the money.

I hope this post finds you all well and now it’s time to sit back and watch La Furia Roja (The Red Fury, Spain) win the world cup. Have a great week and God bless.

It is time

With the excitement of the world cup actually realized, I thought I would make a new post. Life here is incredible and I finally feel like I am fully here. I joined a gym two weeks ago, I have a bank account and a set group of friends that have treated me better than I could have ever imagined. 

I don´t get out of my area called Gracia that I live in very often other than to work or to go to the beach. It´s so great that everything I have is only two or three blocks away. The people in this trendy area are so friendly and I have built relationships with pretty much everyone that works in the small stores that I frequent.

It´s so funny how I go to three or four different stores for food. They have big grocery stores here but I´m trying to support the small businesses close to me. I buy my fruit and veggies at one store (mainly cuz the girl that works there is beautiful and friendly). Also, I get all of my normal grocery needs at a small hole in the wall store from a Catalonian guy and we always seem to have hilarious conversations. He reminds me of my papaw. Then I buy all my meat at a meat store where the butcher seems like he hasn´t bathed in a month but man the ham is unbelievable.

I have a restaurant where I go hang out with 4 or 5 Catalan (Barcelona is in the province of Catalunya in Spain) guys. The chef´s mother also works at the restaurant and she treats me like a son. Everyone at the place calls her Mama. She is a jewel. She has cooked for me and she lives right across the street. It´s great to have my entourage here and to know that I have people that would do anything to help me.

Enough about the lovey dovey stuff but a couple weeks ago I got to visit Montserrat with two friends. It was the best hike I´ve ever been on and I can´t describe how beautiful it was. Here are some photos to tell the tale.

Other than this, it´s pretty much the same ole same ole over here. I have three or four language exchanges each week where we speak an hour in English then an hour in Spanish. It´s very exciting how much I´m progressing but I can´t tell you how far I have to go. I hope all is well for you few that will read this but  I really only have one thing to say.

VENGA ESTADOS UNIDOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Herrera Del Duque

Since my arrival in the wonderful city of Barcelona, I have not had the privilege to do any real traveling. I have been outside the city to incredible beach towns like Sitges and visited friends in the surrounding areas. So when I was presented the opportunity to go see one of the greatest men on the planet in Nick Tazik, I had to jump on the chance.

I have been blessed to know Nick for around 6 to 7 years. While I was at MTSU, he was also in school at Belmont in Nashville. He’s just one of those people who you can go 3 years without seeing and when the reunion happens, it’s always as he puts it “the stuff of legend.” He has been teaching English in Herrera Del Duque which is south of Madrid since the fall and our experiences have been polar opposites.

He lives in a pueblo of only 4,000 people (the Noxapater of Spain). Since he has been in Spain, his Spanish has become quite good and it was a big encouragement to see how far someone can get with the language in 9 months.

With this trip, I decided to go the cheap route due to the fact I don’t have any money. I opted with the torture and utter hell that is Ryanair. I will give you my itinerary that will shed some light on why Ryanair is so cheap (32 euro roundtrip flight). Thursday morning I took a bus from Barcelona at 3:30 am (yes am) headed to Girona airport. The bus ride was around an hour and my flight left at 6:25 am. I arrived in Madrid around 7:30 then headed to my next bus station. I took another bus at 3 pm in Madrid headed to Herrera Del Duque and arrived around 7 pm (4 hour bus ride). It was around 16 hours of tough travel. Here are some photos of the COUNTRYside headed to the Duque.

Look familiar? When my trip was finally finished, it was so great to see the face of a longtime friend (seeing as my PIC left me). There was no time for lollygagging. We went straight to a cafe where all of his professor friends were hanging out. From that moment on, we hung out until around 3 in the morning (entirely in Spanish) and they were some truly incredible people. We watched the Liverpool v Atletico Madrid game and I was the only one in the pub for Liverpool (of course we lost).

On Friday, we had a wonderful lunch that Nick prepared. We ate eggplant parmesan and I was incredibly impressed with his skills with the oven.

We took a light 1-hour nap to recharge the engine. The next task was to tackle the Castle in the Duque. We had one of his students drive us halfway up the hill and after crossing through barb wired fences and other treachery, we arrived at one of the most unique castles I’ve ever been too.

That night was a very low-key night because all of the professors left the pueblo on the weekends. We had a great dinner and tried to get some sleep because “The Day of All Days” was soon to happen.

When Nick invited me to visit his pueblo and I picked my date, he informed me of a massive festival that all of the pueblos around the area attended. The best way I can describe the fiesta was a mix between tents in the grove and the Brookhaven Exchange Club Fair. We paid 25 euros into the pot of Nick’s friends and we had unlimited access to food and drinks for the whole day and night.

There were 2 unique auctions that happened throughout the day. One was a bake and pastry auction. Women of the church would auction off all of their prized cakes and goodies and the proceeds would go to the church. Whatever you have in your head of a bake auction is the exact opposite of what this was like. The highest selling goody went for 400 euros. Insanely, the woman that bought it gave Nick and I 2 pieces.

Then, they auctioned off a leg of ham and last year it went for 1000 euros (around 1300 dollars).

The next auction was the right to carry in the Saint. Most fiestas in Spain coincide with a Saint’s day. Here’s how it would go. One person would carry each handle (like a casket) and they would bid to carry each corner. Then, they would walk to the end of the area and pick up speed by running and try to barrel through the door of the church. If other people wanted to bid more then they would block the door like the Rebels front line. This process lasted for around an hour. The bids started off at 5 euros for each person. It ended up at 600 euros for the shoulders and 500 for the legs. Ridiculous.

As the night settled in, we headed back to our tent for more hang out time. We ended up playing football (soccer) and Nick and my team put it on ‘em. We had supper at 11:30 pm (lunch was at 4) and we ate so much it was painful. I thought the night was coming to a close with everyone seeming to be exhausted and ready to go home. As soon as I this thought ran through my mind, our dj called for everyone’s attention and announced that the party will now begin. He cranked dance music and everyone hopped up like his or her chair was on fire and began to dance the night away.

Throughout the night we played games like musical chairs, which I won and other games that I was clueless about. We listened to Johnny Cash, U2 and other great music. All in all, it was one of the best parties I have ever attended and they all invited me to come back next year before I return to the states.

To wrap the trip up, we had breakfast (masterful sunny side up eggs prepared by Nicko) at the home of one of Nick’s students. I said my goodbyes and headed back to Barcelona. “The stuff of legend” might be a terrible understatement. It was one of the most legendary weekends of my entire life and adding Nick Tazik to the pot made it all the better.

Life Recently

I apologize, mainly to my Mom and Adam, for the delay but the past few weeks have been very insane. It also doesn’t help that I can only get on the internet during a certain time. Plus the cost of internet starts to get annoying. I guess it is true what they say that you never know what you have ‘til it’s gone.

I’ll try to just stick to the highlights. Somehow, all of my classmates and myself managed to do well in what we all considered to be a very difficult course. I told myself I would never go back to school again and the night before the final I found myself with that same anxiety (or lack there of) that I experienced in college. It was nice to do well on the exam and my buddy Gabe and I got in the top 3 overall grades in our class. I’ve never been so excited about a B / Borderline A in my life.

After all of the moaning and groaning of school life, I am now a certified TEFL (Teach English as a Foreign Language) Teacher. The next difficulty has been actually finding a job. Obviously, it is very difficult for us to find established jobs due to the time frame we arrived. It is April, which is the middle of the school year here in Spain. It’s very similar to schools in America but school starts in mid to late September and lasts until June.

The day after we finished the course, Gabe and I went exploring through the beautiful Park Guell. It is a park that was designed by a very famous artist named Antoni Gaudi. The architecture throughout the park is simply spectacular. More importantly, it has one of the best views of the city at the top but the climb is not for the faint of heart. We ended up spending several hours celebrating having received our certificates and enjoying each other’s company with a tremendous view of our new home away from home (I’m coming back Mom).

Also, Justin and I visited the Picasso Museum a few days ago and it was a wonderful experience.

 

The week we finished school was Semana Santa, which is the equivalent to Holy week back in the States. It was really cool to see the way a different culture celebrates a very important time of my own religion. One of the most interesting aspects was the mood of the parades on Friday. It was very somber. I think many times we forget how difficult and brutal the crucifixion actually was. I was very impressed with the countenance of the Good Friday parades. Then, we got to see this great parade right next to where we live in Pubilla Cases.

 

THE DAY OF ALL DAYS

Last Saturday, Justin and I headed to our favorite pub that we always go to for the football (soccer) matches. We spend pretty much our entire weekends and weeknights watching football and that is one of the reasons I love this country. A random guy walks up to us and just starts chatting. Come to find out, his name is Jimmy and he is an Executive Supporter for Arsenal Football Club (which pretty much means he’s loaded).

 

He takes us out to lunch and we eat like kings. We had every type of seafood and Spanish cuisine that you could possibly imagine. At first glance, you could tell Jimmy had money with his clothes and his general desire to pay for everything and everyone. However, when he paid for our lunch with his BLACK CARD, I knew we were in the company of a very rich man.

As we were eating, he told us that he was going to the Barcelona v. Arsenal quarterfinal game (huge game). We told him how amazing that was and he just off the cuff said, “I can probably get you tickets if you’d like.” Of course we tried to play it off like it wasn’t that big of a deal but he told us that he would give us a call in the next day or two. After he got into his taxi, we jumped around like little schoolgirls with the mere possibility of getting to attend one of the biggest games of the year.

2 days later, it was around 6 pm on Monday and we had given up hope. Our dream of going to one of the biggest football games in Europe had passed. As soon as we said that, Jimmy called us and told us he had two tickets. He wanted to take us out for lunch again and we could get the tickets from him there. We met him at the St. Catarina market and we ate a feast again. The bill was over $200 Euros for the four of us but that´s no problem for ´Big Jim´. Then, he handed us the tickets and it was actually happening.

 

We left the restaurant and as soon as we were out of sight, we lost our minds. It was a dream come true. This was an experience I would and will be able to tell people about for the rest of my life. To make a long story short, it was one of the best days/nights of my life. We sat with the Arsenal supporters and even though they got beat, I will never forget it for the rest of my life. I feel like the photos can say so much more than my measly words ever could. Enjoy.

 

GOALLLLLLLLL

The First Two Weeks

Amsterdam

I had so many presumptions of Amsterdam and already had in mind exactly what I thought I would experience when we visited. However, it was one of the best 3 days of my life. The city is truly beautiful. It actually reminded me of a more commercial Venice. The canals and architecture are just stunning.

One of the stereotypes I was interested in were the amount of bike riders compared to cars. I´ve heard around 40% of all travel done in Amsterdam is on a bike. When I say that there are people everywhere on bikes, I mean that you can see a line of bikes for a country mile.

Also, they have no problem with running you over if you´re not paying attention. When you cross the street in Amsterdam, you have to go through 6 different lanes of traffic. The order goes: bike, car, tram, tram, car, then bike again. It feels like playing frogger.

Don´t ask me how, but after hours of searching the entire city of Amsterdam, we finally found out how to buy tickets for the USA vs Holland match. Strangely enough, we bought them for 40 euros at what seemed to be a 7-Eleven. Thanks to my good buddy Adam, he told us that he read that the Americans would be meeting up at a bar called Europub in Damm Square the afternoon of the game. Justin and I went not expecting much but were blown away when we walked in.

They had an American flag hanging outside the pub and the place was packed with Americans and a few brave Dutch men and women. We sang the star spangled banner and it was quite an experience. We all walked to the game together and although we got beat, it was an incredible experience.

Barca

2 days later, we headed to our home for a month. This is the third time I´ve  been to Barcelona and it is by far one of my most favorite cities in the entire world. No time to describe the city in detail. We arrived at the airport and as we walked out, my good buddy Nick Tazik was waiting. It was such a great time to see a familiar face. Nick has been teaching in a small pueblo south of Madrid since September so he was very valuable for us getting settled.

So we are two Mississippi boys living in a country where we can´t speak the language very well. We are taking teaching classes for a month and then the job hunt begins. Keep us in your prayers and God bless.