Quote of the Day

"You can continue to smoke the cigar as long as the flavour is agreeable. Every cigar has a turning point, after which the cigar loses its mild nature, and becomes somewhat obstinate. Then it is time to say farewell. Put it in an ashtray and allow it to extinguish of its own accord. Stubbing a cigar out is an ungrateful response to the pleasure you obtained from smoking it."

This is from the website of my favorite cigar store in the world - PGC Hajenius. Faith and I found this quote hilarious and share-worthy.

I discovered this store when I lived in Amsterdam more than 10 years ago, and their store brands are my favorite cigars. (self-disclosure: I have neither been to that many cigar stores around the world, nor tried that many brands. I did however decide I enjoyed their cigars more than the cuban cigars they sold.)Our friend Sarah is visiting Amsterdam, and I am so excited for her to bring some back for me that I can almost taste them right now.

Quick Visa Update

With the help of a neighbor Faith visited several offices to sift through what was needed to complete her Dad's visa. The process so far has been so typically 'Spanish' that I thought it would be good blog fodder.

Everything here requires a mountain of paperwork, and it's often not very clear why exactly any of it is necessary. You can guess, but are never sure. In this case, Faith and her friend visited the police office that the visa requirements specified, only to find out that that office was for Spaniards only. The office for foreigners (extranjeros) was the one that could help her with this particular letter. After arriving at the correct office, they discovered that in order to receive one simple letter of invitation from the government for her Dad to visit for 3 weeks she needed to provide the following:
1) photocopy of Faith's Spanish ID card
2) photocopy of her passport
3) photocopy of our rental contract
4) Certified copy of our registration with the local government
5) photocopy of Faith's birth certificate
6) photocopy of her dad's passport (since he is the one we are inviting)
7) 101 euros.

And the reward for jumping through all of these hoops? We would be awarded said requested letter of invitation from the police for Faith's dad in 1 month!! ("more or less")

Obviously Faith and our friend were sent into a panic at this. Which led to something else very Spanish - a way around all of this rediculousness...

In the original visa application, if you are visiting Spain as a tourist and staying at a hotel, all you need is a hotel reservation - no letter of invitation needed. It's only people who are visiting someone they know in Spain that need all the other stuff. So - instead of going through all that hassle for something that couldn't possibly be done in 8 days, we are just reserving a hotel, and that should be approved by the consulate, no problem.

Stay tuned :- ) And I know I said this would be short in the title - but like seemingly most everything else here in Spain, things just take longer to get done than you think they will :- )

Hasta Luego

Más barcos (more boats)

Still havn't outgrown my fascination with the little boats here. I walked Ryan to school today, and as Kathryn and I moseyed home I took a plethora of pictures along the way.



If you'd like to see larger images just click anywhere on the slideshow and you will be taken to our Picasa album(s).

So this is progress?

(this post was written late Tuesday nite, April 15 - HA! Tax day!!)

So, imagine that you went to the mechanic today because your only car died last Friday. Now - this mechanic doesn't speak your language, and you barely speak his. Yet, he shows you how totally jacked up your engine got when both of your belts broke. You understand the seriousness of the car's injury, and you understand his estimate that it will cost more than 1,000 euros to fix. Where would that fit into a ranking of things that happened to you today?

If your answer was "one of the best things," you might be living in a new culture. (or perhaps you really had an awfully crummy day.) For me, as I thought about this tonight, I think it is a sign of some progress that something like this would have been somewhat of a crisis several months ago, but was not the dominant issue of my day today.

My day started out with a complicated trip to my Spanish class. Complicated, you'll remember, because my car has all of it's important parts laid out on my mechanics workbench and was unavailable. We took a taxi to school which was far to expensive to take home. We walked part of the way home and took a bus the rest of the way - arriving home an hour and a half later than we do with the car. My reward for getting to class - a brutally difficult exam that made me feel both slow and dimwitted - despite the fact I knew exactly when the test would be, and what chapters of our textbook it covered.

After gathering the boys from their respective schools, making it through feeding time, and finally putting them down for their naps, I was looking forward to sitting on our couch, listening to some new CD's, and folding laundry. This moment of peace was interrupted by a call from my mechanic (who, to give him credit, did get out the english words "You... Come.... Now..." followed by whistling the our national anthem). So, after a confidence shattering encounter with the morning's exam, I boldly set forth to find out what exactly was wrong with my car, and how much it would cost to fix it. And as difficult as it was to communicate, I felt good in the end to discover I really had understood almost everything he was trying to communicate. Now, I did not understand even close to every word, nor could I even translate for you what he said - but I got all of the important parts non-the-less. Now, it was much harder for me to find words to communicate back to him - but I was able to call in the help of a friend to make sure we were all clear on the details.

The rest of my day included a cafe, a store named 'Bizaar Chino,' and a party for a newly minted 5-year old. On the whole these were also good things. We especially enjoy going to birthday parties - I may blog separately about that. By the time we returned home from an extremely full day, we were hungry, tired, and ready to make and eat dinner. This is when we learned that Faith's father had discovered that the Spanish Consulate in D.C. was asking for another letter before they would approve his visa.

This was a stress-raising problem for several reasons. First of all, we thought we had resolved all of the necessary details for the visa 5 weeks prior by taking the time, effort, and euros to create a notarized letter of invitation. Secondly, this new request from the consulate came 8 days before Faith's parents are scheduled to come visit. Additional pressure is added because one of the reason they are coming to visit is to watch the kids while Faith and I attend an International Teams leadership conference in Manila. So there are 4 round-trip international airline tickets hanging on this visa approval.

This would be an example of some of the frustrations of making this cross-cultural life change. Paperwork is a way of life here - we've experienced it from the beginning. On the whole, nothing is truly urgent, because there seems to always be time to get something fixed. This is our first experience with something that has a concrete deadline and significant negative impact if it is not completed. It will be interesting to see how the system works from here.

A Walk in the Park

On Friday Faith and I had a date, and we went to our favorite local lighthouse. OK, it's really the only lighthouse I know of around here, but we love it, and we go pretty often. If you've seen any of our pictures from Spain, you've probably seen the lighthouse. It's very photogenic. Yesterday, we actually paid the two euros and climbed all 202 steps to the top for the scenic view.

This short slideshow (9 pics) are my favorite shots from our expedition. To see larger sized photos, or other random picasa albums, click on the slideshow.


We took a family excursion Thursday evening to another of our favorite spots. Faith posted quite a few fantastic pictures on her blog here.

What is your image of heaven?

Do you envision fluffy clouds and harps? Green meadows and mountains? Do you think of reuniting with loved ones? Theologian NT Wright was interviewed by TIME magazine about heaven. He explores what he sees are common misconceptions that many christians have about heaven. It is an interesting and fairly short read.

Mother Nature reminds us of her destructive power

The big news this week in La Coruña was a shockingly big wave that came ashore during a storm on Monday. It destroyed a part of the pedestrian walkway that is above a rather large beach, and flooded out the busy road that runs along the beach and some of the businesses. It is a place that we often have visited and I would have never thought it was possible. Some of the youtube videos are calling it a 10 or 20 meter wave. That is a big difference, but that probably puts the wave somewhere between 30 - 60 feet high. I'm not very good with gauging that kind of thing, but I do know it would take a huge wave to do this. Thankfully, there were no fatalities that I have heard of. But some were injured. It broke a solid cement fence and some rather large cement benches as well.

Here is a link to a short video of a Spanish news report about the wave.

10 Millones

In November US News and World Report published this article about Santiago de Compostela, and El Camino de Santiago. It is a nice, short, and informative read about the phenomena of the pilgrimage to Santiago.

One part of the article says this:

"A lot of people set out not being really sure what they are looking for," says Laurie Dennett, a former chairman of the London-based Confraternity of Saint James, which promotes knowledge of the Camino. Dennett says that, like many others, she didn't embark on her first pilgrimage 21 years ago as a religious undertaking.

I like this quote because it brings light to the fact that many travelers, backpackers, and pilgrims are looking for something. Many of these people recognize the reality that there is something missing in their lives that is worth searching for. And many don't know what they are looking for. It often reminds me of when Paul visited the Areopagus in Acts - he recognized that some in Athens were searching for something more than the numerous gods they worshiped. He used it as an opportunity to share the answer he had found in Christ. There is a tremendous opportunity in Galicia to reach out and help these pilgrims in their search for something more.

It also says that "some 10 million visitors are expected in Santiago for the 2010 Holy Year." That's a lot of visitors for a city with around 100,000 residents.

Faith and I took this picture in 2005 of the cathedral overlooking the rooftops in Santiago.

The picture at the top of this post was lifted from the linked article.

I Live Here

Today I am in awe of the beauty of this place. Brennan and I visited a park on top of a local mountain overlooking the city and the ocean. It was an absolutely perfect clear and sunny day that highlighted the beauty of creation, and by extension, of the creator. Somewhere inside this midwesterner, there is a voice that regularly states in disbelief, "I can't believe I live here... I can't believe I live HERE!!"

Note Brennan in the foreground moving lickety-split to the park. There might not be a playground on earth with a better view.

I have no words

Seriously.... I live here.

And I love it.

Stuff White People Like

There is something about satire done well that is just so... funny.

I ran across this blog entitled Stuff White People Like, and it had me snickering. Here is a short snippet from #11: Asian Girls.

"95% of white males have at one point in their lives, experienced yellow fever. Many factors have contributed to this phenomenon such as guilt from head taxes, internment camps, dropping the Nuclear bomb and the Viet Nam War . This exchange works both ways as asian girls have a tendency to go for white guys. (White girls never go for asian guys. Bruce Lee and Paul Kariya’s dad are the only recorded instances in modern history). Asian girls often to do this to get back at their strict traditional fathers. There is also the option of dating black guys, but they know deep down that this would give their non-english speaking grandmother(s) a heart attack."

Faith and I found that particular 'thing' (they have 81 and counting so far) pretty amusing. Of the posts I've read so far, my personal favorites are: Graduate School, Multilingual Children, Study Abroad, and Standing Still at Concerts.

It's good to not take yourself (or others) too seriously.