One Week Down

So since my last post I've definitely become more comfortable with being here. I've taken a few pictures of my house so you can see where I'm staying.
I'm staying in a really nice neighborhood it seems from what I've seen. There is a gate with guards as you come in and I had to go meet them so they would recognize me. This is my street.

(In case you didn't know... Mexico City is in a big valley and there are mountains everywhere. At night the lights are awesome. I'll take a pic of it asap.)

This is the whole house where the three of us live. It's a normal sized and layed out house. Which from what I can tell so far is not the norm but isn't abnormal.


This is my little guest house. I have my own bedroom and bathroom which is nice and weird all at once. Last night was the first night I wasn't freaking out a little bit on the inside when I walked out the back door of the main house to my own room by myself. I'm never by myself at night haha or usually ever so it's been an adjustment.


And this is inside my room.


So here's a little more about what I've been doing since I got here.

Last week on Thursday I went out to La Raza again (where I'll be working Monday through Friday. Monday through Wednesday the street Chavos (not kids... but what they call them... Basically between kids and adults haha). Thursday they have a church service and Friday they go and talk to people in the streets to spread word that they are there. They don't have a sign or really anything that lets people know that they are there. I might try and talk them into letting me paint something on the front of their building or make a sign that they can at least put out front on Thursdays so that people know. They've been at this church for about a year and they still don't have many people coming to their service. Thursday night there were only 5 people including 3 kids. I feel like it would be fairly obvious that a sign would be needed, but we'll see how it goes.

We went to a couple houses near the church and talked with a few of the families that hadn't been in a while. La Raza is one of the sketchier and poorer parts of the city and it was crazy how this family was living. They were living in a sliver of a building and there were tons of people in there. I really don't know how many. I sat there on an old mattress and listened as the couple I was with talked to the family members. I sat there listening and trying to look around as much as I could without being rude. I wasn't surprised necessarily, I just really didn't know what to think.

Everything here is made out of concrete and lots of the time it isn't painted or anything and the floors don't necessarily have any kind of finishing. Everything is dirty. There is trash everywhere. A few times when I've been on the bus I have seen a whole section of a building (like what used to be a store in a downtown looking area where there are different store fronts) that has caved in and there are just piles of trash and junk in it's place. It's hard to understand how they can live like that. I haven't taken my camera with me much yet, but I will this week so you can all see a little more of the city and understand what I'm talking about. I haven't felt like I'm unsafe or in danger and all of the Mexicans I'm working with guard me (not really the right word but what can you do) and definitely look out for me.

Friday I went to where some of the chavos live and was surprised. They were in the center of the city where a lot of the more legitimate shops are. It looks more like a normal city that you would think of. They had some old nasty mattresses and some tarps propped up like tents all a long on of the sidewalks. They all had a wad of stuff in their hands and were sniffing it every 30 seconds or so. From what I understood it's some kind of cleaning supply that's really cheap and really common among them. All I know is that we all went and washed our hands after every group of people we went to talk to. All of them were asking me where I was from and if I had a boyfriend which was kind of funny. I kept telling them that they need to come down to the center and I'll teach them some English. That might have helped a little bit, but we'll see what happens tomorrow.

I've had some really interesting conversations in both Spanish and English since I've been here with all kinds of people.

The people here are wonderful and so welcoming and patient. It's been way easier to meet people here than it was in Spain for sure. The problem is that everything is so far away. Once I get home from work its like 7pm (I have 3hrs worth of bus rides every day) and its too late to do anything because you don't want to be on the buses after 10 which means you have time to go somewhere and get right back lol. The city is absolutely enormous. I'm working on getting a map so I can actually figure out how far I go in my hour and a half commute. Traffic is absolutely awful here.

Anyways... that's probably way too much to write in a day, but I hope you are all doing marvelously!!!

First Impressions

My goodness Mexico. I still don't know what I think about it yet. Everyone keeps asking me, "Do you like it here in Mexico?" and I keep saying "I've only been here for 2 days and barely that." haha

I got here and was hit with some altitude sickness that I didn't even think about but apparently when you increase 7000 feet in altitude, dizziness and headaches are bound to follow. But today I am feeling much better so I am thankful for that!

I am living with 2 missionaries here who are with OMS. They're from the US but have lived here for 15 yrs + so they've been really helpful. There are also two other girls my age... one from Ireland and the other from Illinois... that have been here for a couple months already. It's definitely a blessing that they are here because they have welcomed me and made me feel much more at home than if I was with all older people or Mexicans. Not that I don't love them as well, it's just nice to have that here too. All of the people at OMS call us the Ninas Poderosas which the English speaking missionaries have translated into the Powderpuff Girls haha

I went to work for the first time today and the street "kids" I am going to be working with are more my age than younger kids. A lot of them have been in and out of the US and are back here in gangs and on drugs and come into the center to take showers and have food and have a bible study during the week. I'm working with 2 mexican couples and they are truly amazing. They also do church planting in that area and have some of the biggest hearts for leading people to God that I have ever seen. This is their job and passion full time and you can tell by the way they work with and pray for the kids. It is definitely going to be a stretch for me in almost every way but hopefully I will be picking up Spanish really quickly and will be able to relate with them and serve them in some way to point them towards God. I'm definitely glad that I will be working with them because it is forcing me to live in Spanish during the day. A few of the "kids" know some English but for the most part I'm going to have to do the talking. I can't really do anything if I can't talk with them.

So... I'm still not exactly sure what's going on after two days, but I have a small glimpse of what I'll be doing and I'm excited about it for sure. I'm just hoping and praying that God uses me as I'm working with these kids as also as I'm living with the missionaries here. Hopefully I'll be an encouragement to them and give them some relief from their work while I'm here.

Also... random comment... I will never ever drive in Mexico. It is the craziest thing I've ever seen... not to mention the "speed bumps" that are almost bigger than the cars every 100 ft. Insane. That is all I have to say.

Love you all!

Time for a New Adventure

So all year since I returned from Spain I've been itching to get out of the country again. I hear someone speaking Spanish and turn into a stalker following them around a store trying to figure out what they're talking about... at a distance of course.

I went to the library last week and I think every book I checked out has something to do with another country or some kind of adventure. I didn't realize it until I got home and looked through all of the books I'd picked up. I think that is telling me something.

Luckily, I'm about to leave on my next venture out of the country- Mexico here I come. I got the Initiative Grant from Asbury which is paying for my entire trip (awesome deal) and now I'm just counting the days until I leave- there are 12. Luckily 9 of these days will be at the beach or on the way to the beach with my family and the others will be spent packing. I can't wait to see what I'll be doing for the 8 weeks I'm there!!!

O yeah, I'M HOME!

The trip home went well!!! So nice being back in my own bed, house and with my family.

Next time you get a free refill in a restaurant think about how lucky we are here in the US :)

WOW Italy!

So I have officially found my favorite country :)

I mean how can you go wrong with icecream for meals... really?

Florence was gorgeous. I´m pretty sure every city in Europe is on water or has a river running through the middle or something like that. It was so much fun. We went and watched the sunset on this hill that overlooks the entire city. It was gorgeous! We ended up going back the next night also. There are so many shops and museums, we couldn´t do it all, so we went to the Academia which has all kinds of Michealangelo stuff including the David which is actually really neat. Huge and so life like... I can explain more if you want, but I dont want to bore anyone on here. It was just a fun couple days with talking to random Spanish speakers that we would run into and walking around and seeing the town. So nice. I felt more like I was on a movie set than that people actually live there. So many more stories... but they are so much better in person so I´ll tell you when I see you!

Then we were off to Venice. (I think we need trains in the US. Apparently we have them and I never knew, but I think we need to use them.) We walked around and around the island and that was all you need to do. When people say that you should just try to get lost and that that is the fun of it, it´s completely true. And you don´t really even have to try. It was a nice last stop because it was so chill. Walk around, get a gelato, sit in a plaza, walk around, sit with your feet dangling in the water, walk around, etc. 2 days of that. Can´t complain. We didn´t do the whole hard core gondola ride (it´s sooo expensive) but there are places along the Grand Canal that you can take a Gondola across for like a dollar. It´s seriously a 2 minute ride, but so worth it. We were thinking about just going back and forth and back and forth, but didn´t :). It´s a gorgeous little town and Laura and I had a great time.

Finally, it came time for us to part, she was going back to Madrid and I had to come back to Sevilla so I got the train to Pisa. I spent the night in Pisa and got up early to see the tower before my flight (we´re talking 5am) and I walked over. The gates were closed when I got there but there were a bunch of British guys who had jumped the fence to get better pictures with the tower. They were telling me that I can´t come to the tower of Pisa just to get a picture through the fence and helped me jump it (foot in a boot, a little more difficult). Right after I got over, a security guard pulls up. OH NO! Luckily one of the British guys knew Italian and sweet talked us out of it using me as the excuse for everyone being over there lol. I´m not going to lie that I was a bit scared though. Can´t miss my flight because I´m in an Italian jail. I just kept saying, really, I never jump fences hahaha. But nothing happened, they just opened the gate for us. Weren´t even mad I guess. And although I had an invite to go the the European Cup soccer game with them in Rome, I turned it down and now I´m in Sevilla again.

I´m staying with an English girl that I met while I was here and she is hilarious. I´m at the school right now and have said hi and bye to everyone for the last time. I´m having dinner with Maria Louisa and Miguel tonight and then tomorrow, after all day in the air, I´ll finally get back to the states.

I´m so ready to be back. Really just content. I´ve loved it here, but ready to be home. Ready to move on. It´s been amazing and I can´t wait to see you all!!!!

More in Italy

So I am now in Florence. We just got in today. It was a change of plans because we realized we had planned a lot of time in Cinque Terre.
But, backing up first, I finished up in Rome with a day of going to the Vatican. We went through the museum to see the Sistine Chapel and St Peters Basilica. And let me just say it is HUGE! Everything you hear about Rome being huge is one hundred percent completely true! Its huge! Statues, pillars, everything: Huge!! I was kind of surprised as we walked through the Sistine Chapel because it wasnt what I expected. You are shoulder to shoulder with people in there, everyone craining their neck and looking up to see the ceiling. And then the guards all yelling, "NO PHOTOS." Kind of funny because everyone is just right out there flash and everything right in front of them. But... they do what they can I guess. In the Basilica, also absolutely humongous, hey have it all decked out. There is also a statue of Peter that has basically golden stubs for feet because people stand in lines to rub his foot (think the bull on Wall St). After that, we went into a neighborhood called the Trastevere, and this is the neighborhood that was my favorite. That and the part across the river from it that used to be the Jewish ghetto area. Its just a precious part of town. We were just wandering around, no real place to go for about 2 hours. Stopping in little shops, getting a gelato, and then we stumbled upon this plaza called the Campo de Fiori and it is my favorite place ever! (Maybe Plaza de Espana, that is in Sevilla, but its a tight competition. Hard to compare the two.) Its a plaza with restaurants and umbrellas and strands of lights and balconies with flowers and roofs with people eating and just amazingness all around. I just stood in the middle of the piazza turning around in a circle with a huge smile on my face taking it all in telling my friend, "Would you just look at where we are right now?!?!?"
The next day, she left for Paris and I left on a train to meet up with other friends in Cinque Terre. It is a national park north of Florence that has trails connecting 5 precious little towns that over look the ocean and vineyards and everything. Absolutely gorgeous! I liked it better than Greece definitely and Scotland too. All it was lacking was the waterfalls of Scotland, but it was absolutely stunning as you walked through these little towns in between your hike and saw laundry hanging out to dry, sunned on the rocks (kind of like turtles... there wasnt sand), jumped in the water. So much fun! We had a little apartment to our selves basically. It was awesome being able to cook and everything. The two other girls Im with are pretty much gourmet chefs so they just cooked away and we ate amazingly. (My contribution was the fruit salad haha)
We hiked the whole thing yesterday (we didnt rush or anything so it took us pretty much the whole day to hike it. And then we just sat under the stars on the rocks that night. One of the funnest things is talking to all of the random people along the way. Meeting people from all different countries. Fun fun!
Today we went to a little town between Cinque Terre and Florence called Lucca. It is a walled city that is again just precious. People riding bikes everywhere... gelaterias at every corner... just amazing!
So we arrived here in Florence tonight and just wandered a bit. Tomorrow we are planning and going to the Museum with the David statue in it. So Ive got to get going to bed, but I just wanted to give everyone an update. Hope you are all doing well!!! Home in a WEEK!

(Sorry there are no apostrophes in this entry. I have no idea how to get them on this keyboard... I tried to figure it out for about 5 minutes and finally gave up.)

Day 2 in Rome

Wow! I thought that Sevilla had a new suprise on every corner but it is nothing compared to Rome. As we were walking around today I was just snapping picture after picture. Every where you turn there is a new amazing plaza or statue or building. I love it!
We started off this morning near the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and Palatine hill. They are huge. It took us all morning walking around. Then we went wandering around a bit seeing the Pantheon, Piazza de Venezia (absolutely gorgeous), and some other fountains and piazzas that were just really neat. By 6 o'clock we were dead tired. We stopped in a park, sat for a long while, and decided we would come back to the hostel so that we can thoroughly enjoy tomorrow. The Vatican and the Catacombs are the two big things we want to see.
Right now my eye is twitching as I write this message, so I'm going to get to bed :)

Gelato is amazing!

Love you all!!