It was so great to see a friend from home - somebody who knows me, understands me, and now that he, too, is living internationally, somebody who can relate to living cross-culturally, learning a new language, and so many of the strange experiences that are so hard to describe unless you've "been there."
I had so much fun showing he and his mom my city. I love this city so much and want for everybody who comes here to have a great experience and fall in love with it as I have. That's why I'm starting to think I might enjoy becoming a tour guide. :) Something to think about for the future...
We also went to Toledo one day. And without knowing it, we went the day before a huge festival, the Corpus Cristi, when the city is packed. So we got to see the decorations and some of the pre-holiday festivities without the massive crowds.
One of the pre-holiday festivities involved marching these giants through the city. They were probably about 15-20 feet tall and dressed as men, women, old Spaniards, Moors, and various other characters. Check out the guy behind us scratching his belly:
The day that Tim and his mom left I went on a women's retreat with my local church. What a blessing! There were women of all ages - from 20 and 21 (or 24 like myself) all the way up to "señoras mayores", women who usually don't tell you how old they are. :) I loved getting to know more women from the church, learn from them, worship with them, and spend a weekend out of the city. I also made a new friend, Cristina, who's just as crazy as me, or maybe crazier:
Two days after the women's retreat I went with my friend Paola to the Fiesta de San Juan, the day of Saint John. When she invited me, I was expecting a late-night picnic, families, music, and other benign activities. What I found when I got there was much different:
In the park behind a large church hundreds upon hundreds of 20-somethings has set up bonfire after bonfire and were taking turns jumping through them. They explained to me that it was originally a Celtic pagan ritual, but when Catholicism took over they turned it into Saint John's day.
What Paola's friends told me is that you're supposed to write down the bad things that happened over the past year and throw them into the fire, and then jump over it. It's a rite of purification, a sort of "cleansing." Knowing that I'm a Christian, they asked me if I was going to jump. I told them that I've been cleansed by the blood of Jesus and I've got the fire of the Holy Spirit, so I'd already got it taken care of. We all had a good laugh, drank lemon Fanta (well...some of us), and watched people burn their leg hair jumping over completely un-safe bonfires. All the while a woman pushed her two year old child on a nearby swing despite the fact that it was nearly 1am.
Overall it was a great week - time with an old friend, making new friends, and getting to know better some recently made friends. :)
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