News!

Ok, so it hasn’t quite been a month, but it’s been far too long. But the delay is for good reason—I’ve been busy in a wonderful way. First, a friend of Ellie and I’s from Samford came and visited us in Sevilla for 4 days. She’s studying in London this semester, and we saw her there earlier, so it was perfect that she got to pop over to Spain for the first part of her Spring break. We had so much fun exploring the city anew with her and just catching up. A highlight was definitely going to the Arab baths here in town, too. It was a splurge, to be certain, but Nancy, as a classics major, was really excited to experience a bath as close as possible to the Romans’ system. It was indeed fantastic and relaxing, and unlike anything I’ve ever done before. If I lived in Sevilla for good, it would be very tempting to go every once in a while. Which made me recall that my Spanish teacher for the first month of my stay here in Spain said she goes at least once a month. I believe it!

Next, my parents and Jeffrey came to visit! They showed up the very morning Nancy was headed out, so the touring and visiting just danced on happily. :) We had SO MUCH FUN while they were here. We traveled almost non-stop! I’m afraid I ran them a bit too ragged and hope they can recover this week. We started in Sevilla, took a train to Granada and enjoyed that lovely city (and also ended up scaling a mountain in the dark on a free night tour—not exactly what we expected, hoped for, or wanted…ha!), and then we headed to Barcelona for a few days. We also detoured to Montserrat from Barcelona, which is a truly magical mountain village based around a monastery with a legend and famous virgin statue that people take a pilgrimage to visit. We went on a sunrise hike to the highest peak of Montserrat, and goodness. It was absolutely incredible. I would go back there in a heartbeat, and I’ll store those fantastic memories away for life.

Also, I have other big news! It’s rather anti-climatic to snuggle this in with so much other stuff, but I don’t have much of a choice. I know where I’m headed with RUF! I’m headed to the University of South Florida in Tampa. It’s the 8^th largest single-campus University in the nation. Woah! It will be quite a change from Samford! I’m really excited and can’t wait to hear more about it and to get in touch with the campus minister there. It’s really happening—I’m really going to start being an RUF intern! Praise the Lord.

Welp, that’s all folks. ¡Abrazos from Spain!