I'll Have a Number 8 With Extra Catch-up and a Large Blog on the Side

Hey, guess who's finally back. A lot has been happening, which is good, but that also means I have a lot to catch you guys up on.

The last blog was posted on Thursday, the 7th of March, so let's start there. My host mom had said that she wanted to hear/see my actually sing sometime, since I had mentioned some that I like singing and theatre. Well Thursday night I showed them a video of part of my performance in Les Miserables and they really enjoyed it, even though it was in English and they probably couldn't understand 97% of it. I then showed them a video of my family all singing together from our 2005 concert at Roxbury. Man, I was pretty little. Just so you know, you can check out the videos of the family concert as well if you want, at fickett.info. I love my family! :D

Friday (the 8th) was a pretty typical Friday. Our English Kids' Program was good, but the kids were still a bit rowdy and hard to keep focused, plus the stuff we had planned didn't fill the time so we had to do a bit of ad-libing. Afterwards I went again to help teach waltz to my friend's niece for her fifteenth birthday party. I ended up just using a choreography from a dance on YouTube because they wanted that dance and the simplicity of it. I did tweak it a bit. The time went pretty well, we got through the whole dance, but only with about half the couples because half the guys didn't show up. That was also actually my last lesson. I'm not really sure why, but the next week they didn't have lessons, and then this last week they said that my help was appreciated but my services weren't particularly needed any more. I'm not offended at all, I'm just a bit curious why. It's possible I was told why and I didn't catch it because it was in Spanish, but did they decide they had taken on a too large of task in too short a time, or that now that half the people knew it they could work it out themselves, or what? I will probably never know, but oh well. It was good to do the dancing I did, I've missed it so much, and at the same time teaching others to appreciate it that much more. I thought they were doing pretty well.

That evening I watched Mission Impossible IV, but in Spanish. I'm actually getting pretty good at following what's happening. I'd say I understand about 74% of movies. Pictures help.

Saturday, the 9th, I got to sleep in a bit. I love sleep :)

Ate breakfast, showered, and left to do some babysitting. Here they call it "being the kangaroo." Anyways, the Madrid church and the Hoyo church were having their annual get-together meeting and Reneé and I were doing the Kangarooing, Reneé in Madrid with the kids there and me staying here in Hoyo with kids whose parents went into Madrid for the meeting. I don't actually know really what the meeting was about since I was chillin' with the kids. It went well, but there were definitely times when my lack of Spanish was a hinderance, especially in trying to resolve conflicts. Also, one of the kids ended up throwing up after lunch because we were running around, luckily we were outside. His mom later told me that that is a not-too-uncommon occurrence with him. Which explains why he handled himself so well. I was like "kid, you throwin' up and you just standin' there with your legs apart like you all chill or somethin'. And then you just drink a little water, blow your nose and keep on running. Wha'!" Yeah, I think to myself in ghetto.

From there I was picked up by my host mom and host brother to go toad catching. Every year one of the guys in the area who I think is a wildlife biologist or something takes anyone who wants to go with him out to some ponds up in the mountains where the toads are starting to come out of hibernation. It was mostly a bunch of little kids running around in the dark and catching toads, showing it off, making a picture or two, then letting it go and doing it all over again. It was rather cute.

That evening when I got home I got to Skype mom and Seth. I always love seeing and hearing and talking with family. What a way to end a good day!

Random, here's a picture of my room if you'd like to see where I'm living.

Monday, the 11th, I went to do some tourism of Toledo with my host mom. Toledo used to be Spain's capital, and Madrid was just a little town out in the country used by the royals as a place to retreat to from the city. Somewhere along the line one of the kings liked Madrid so much that he declared it the new capital. So, Toledo has a lot of gorgeous view, magnificent, old buildings, and just a general old beauty to it. We first drove up above the city to look at some of the views, very pretty. We visited the Cathedral, the Synagog, the Alcázar (citadel), and basic walking around. Here are some pictures, but just so you know, most of the places we visited didn't allow flash, plus I'm not that great of a photographer, so these are casual photos, not epic photos.

Panorama taken with my iPhone. It was a very nice day.

The city gate. A bridge across the river with an arch on either end.

There's me in a picture with the city gate.

An arch I found pretty.

Looking back from the city to the city gate.

Lots of stairs. This is how we got up into the city.

A castle across the river on the opposite hill.

A farther away shot of the city gate(s) and the bridge.

Looking down on the lots of stairs.

El Ayuntamiento (the City Hall)

The Cathedral

More gorgeous and impressive arches and pillars and ceilings like in Segovia.

Lots of intricate and beautiful stained-glass windows.

All the art and gold and marble and designs and everything was done with so much intricacy and beauty and just all so impressive.

This was a huge marble and gold piece of incredible beauty. But there was one sad bit in all of this, the fact that it was all dedicated to Mary. They lift her higher than Jesus. Isn't the point that she was just an Average Jane who God was able to use for more than average things? Jesus is our savior, not Mary. Jesus is the Mediator, not Mary. It's all so close, so beautiful, and yet so incredibly far and a tainted beauty.

I love intricate ceilings :)

Painted ceiling.

Absolutely incredible

Old cloth and robes.

The choir loft. Above, behind, on, and around each seat were individual carvings and statues. All so incredible.

Organs :)

All gold, silver, and precious gems. So intricate, gorgeous, and impressive (I think I've used those words a lot).

This is a bible from the 1200s that is completely illustrated. It took up a lot of books, I think it says a total of 987 copies (there are some more in other museums and churches).

Just a tapestry of the city that was in the Cathedral gift shop.

I think this was a church, not quite sure.

This is the synagog.

A monastery.

And in the midst of this hustling and bustling tourist city here are some regular kids enjoying regular life. It's the little things.

The Alcázar

I very much liked this because it had all sorts of armaments and fun armor and all that fun medieval stuff I love.

Such big, puffy shorts, those would be so uncomfortable.

I decided to join the ranks :)

Check out my big guns.

Me and my big guns, jeje.

Some more just basic city shots.

On the way out, pretty much same photo as before, but this time down by the river.

My host mom and I, aren't we just precious.

Tuesday, the 12th, I had a nice morning walk with Reneé for about two hours which included some good team talk. And it was a nice day weather wise too, so that made it all the better.

That evening I had my first rehearsal for the dance I choreographed for Easter Sunday. It's with three other people, and it was my first time actually doing choreography to something like that, but I think it went pretty well.

Wednesday's Kids' Program went to much better. The kids listened, payed attention, participated. Things went so well I didn't even have to use Simeon Says as a time filler. It was just so nice to have it go great for once :)

Reneé and I then left directly from there to go to Madrid to have a STEP team meeting with our leaders. And from that we went to the Spain Team meeting with everyone. It was good to catch up and hear what was going on with everyone since we haven't been as involved with them in Madrid since we're now here in Hoyo de Manzanares.

Spent the night in Madrid with the Bdys.

Thursday morning Reneé and I went with B. to trade in his old minivan for a new one and from there he gave us a ride back to Hoyo. I didn't really do anything that day until 6:00 when we had another dance rehearsal for the Easter dance.

Friday was such a happy day! :D

Started out normal. In the afternoon the Kids' Program went well again. But the best part was when I got a call from the states saying that I had become an uncle. Tracey had little Isaac Brasen Fickett on Friday the 15th. I was so jumping-out-of-my-skin excited. I cannot wait to meet him, and I'm sure he feels the same way since we are going to be best friends. I mean, of course he wants to meet his favorite uncle :)

That night I watched "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel," yes, in Spanish, but this time with English subtitles. So much easier.

And then to make it even better, Micah and Tracey hosted a Google Hangout so that everyone could meet the newest member of the family, Isaac. So stinkin' cute!

It's just all so exciting and cute and precious and God-is-just-too-amazing.

Sunday I went to Madrid in the morning to be part of the church there and then also came back to Hoyo in the evening for church here. In both places we had a mini celebration for El Día del Padre (Fathers' day) which was on Tuesday. Both included food :)

Trying to take a panorama of moving people...

Monday (now to the 18th of March) I had volunteered to kangaroo with C. and K.'s baby since my host mom works her restaurants on holidays and C. and K. had off since it was a holiday, so I figured I could have a blast with the baby and give them a chance to have some complete time off. Win-win situation. I love babies! He ended up sleeping for the first hour or so, but he woke up happy and smiling and we had a blast. We're pretty much best friends :)

Wednesday (the 20th) I got to Skype my teammates in Asia, that was nice.

The Kids' program went well. It was our last class for a week and a half because of Easter break (so we had off that week Friday, and both Wednesday and Friday of the following week, also known as this week).

Thursday we had another dance practice, things are going well.

That evening I taught my host family Dutch Blitz and they loved it, especially my host brother. We've been playing it rather frequently now. Good hit with that one.

Friday Reneé and I were able to get back into a structured Spanish class, which is really nice because it gives me something to focus on when trying to study Spanish. It's with our American friend, "Carl," who's been here for quite a while and also studied Spanish in college. It went rather nicely.

This is where I'm going to end this one for now, because I have more photos from the next couple of days, but I don't have those loaded onto my computer yet. So, you can expect another post bringing you fully up to speed hopefully in the next day or two.

Thank you for your patience. You know the drill, and if not you can read the last paragraph of just about any of my blog posts :)

Misses and Loves,

Adios, amigos

~Asher Fickett~