Retreat!

I know what you are thinking... I'm already in a beautiful place right on the water and I'm living in Europe and having a crazy time..but yes we still went on retreat. Out of everything that I've done so far, retreat has to be one of my favorite experiences since I've been in Europe!
Our trip started early around 6am to packed up the cars and drive to the other side of the island. It was about an hour and a half to drive, then a two hour hike to get to the house. When we started the hike it was EXTREMELY windy and the wave were huge! But it was all worth it to come to our own little house.

The house is not near anything so we pretty much had out own private beach!!

The house also did not have any electricity so at night we would all hang out around the fire. It was a great way to bond with everyone.

One of the biggest highlights was the food that we ate. One of the students just happens to be a chef so we had some incredible meals!

Other activities we did were a volleyball tournament, playing cards, hiking, swimming, and playing man hunt!

I also had the privilege to spend my birthday during this trip. Who could ask for a better birthday on a their own private beach with all their friends. It was certainly a birthday I don't think I will ever forget.

They wrote Happy Birthday Jaime in rocks on the beach!!

There was no city near us so at night we were able to see more stars than I have in a very long time! We saw a couple small shooting stars, then I decided to say a little prayer. I prayed for a big shooting star to go across the entire sky. Maybe about 20 seconds after I prayed, a star shot horizontally across the sky. Even though it was a small thing, it was a great way to be reminded that God hears us when we pray and cares about the little things in our lives.

The hike back was much more pleasant because the weather was so nice. The water was crystal clear! I only wish that I could go back.

Extreme Hike!

Every semester they always take this hike through a valley on the Island. They call it the Extreme Hike! We start up high and then travel down through the valley and make our way to the sea and that is where we get picked up.

This semester they were considering not having the hike because we had a lot of rain just days before the hike, so a lot of the valley was flooded with freezing cold water. But after a while they decided to have the hike anyway but made sure that we knew that it was going to be hard. I was definitely thinking about not going on the hike but I knew I would regret it if I stayed, so I decided to go.

All of us ready to hike!

They were not kidding when they said that it was Extreme!! Being a smaller person it made it quite a bit harder because jumps were further and steps were longer. But thanks to my friends at our school I had a lot of help. I think I would have died if it weren't for their help. Haha

The hike was about 6 hours long. Usually it would never take this long, but because of the water that we ran into it took a lot longer. Our pastor Raf and leader of the hike did not expect any of the water to be that deep and only expected to run into water in one or two places. But we ran into water at least 5 times. Most of it was over our heads. (All of it was over my head) At first we would try to walk through in our swimming gear holding our packing above our heads. But by the time we got to the third flooded area we all went in with our shoes and clothes on so we would not have to deal with the hassle of changing. 

In the very deep areas was when we became a team and formed an assembly line to pass our packs across the water. This was very difficult!

It was a real team hike, we all had to rely on each other, if we didn't we would not have been able to get through it. It was a team forming and group bonding experience. It was an amazing feeling of accomplishment when we got to the end. When we saw the sea it was a sign of victory! It was beautiful by the way, and a great reminder that we made it!

We did it!!

Fun little Events in Spain

Back in Spain we have had a lot of fun hanging out as a group. The weather is not the best for swimming any more so we have had to find other things to do. Kira, another student, is very talented at planning events. She has planned so many fun little get togethers for all of us. First was an ice cream social. We set a theme to dress up as disney characters. None of us have much money to buy costumes so we had to get creative. In my opinion, it makes it a lot more fun when we had to put together a costumes out of things that we find. 

Playing I've never ever. Someone says something that they have never ever done. But if you have done that thing you have to get up and move.

We all had a blast dressing up, eating ice cream and playing games.

We had bunch of birthdays in a week and this time we planned a Birthday Iron Chef. We were all given different ingredients and 20 minutes to create a dessert. This was very difficult because one of our ingredients was egg plant. None of the desserts tasted very good, but they were a lot of fun to make.

Yum!

The Winners!

All of us girls went on a shopping trip before we went to Ireland. It was so much fun! It is little more of an effort to shop here because we can't just jump in our car and drive to the mall. But at least the bus ride is short. 

Porto Pi is the big shopping mall that is closest to us. Even though we haven't heard of most of the shops, we still enjoyed looking around and finding new clothes. 

They did have a Disney Store though! It made me very happy!!

This mall is where I got Dunkin Donuts Coffee! It is the best coffee I've had since I've been in Europe!

One things that we did before the weather got cooler was a BBQ! Some wonderful people at the church, had all of us students over for dinner. They have the students come every semester. We had amazing food and fellowship! They had a beautiful house and yard. It was a lot of fun! 

All these events are a little out of order but they are all big highlights. I will post again tomorrow  and maybe the next day and hopefully I will be caught up then! Thanks for reading.

Ireland

I have realized that I haven't posted on my blog in weeks! It is very hard to find time. So much has happened since my last post! Last month we went on a mission trip to Dublin, Ireland. We went to help with the first ever Calvary Chapel Conference in Ireland. It was a privilege to be apart of. 

Ireland has always been a place I wanted to visit, but our time there was limited and we really didn't get any time to see Dublin. Even though we would have liked to see Dublin, I still feel like I was able to experience Ireland. The Conference was held in a manor that was over 250 years old. I felt like I just walked into Pride and Prejudice. 

We were there to work but we did have lots of fun! We were able to meet so many awesome people. Probably the craziest thing that happened was when the people from the conference pulled out their bag pipes and fiddles and a ceili broke out. (A ceili is an Irish dance, where they are all in a circle and spinning around and clap their hands) I thought to myself, "This would be crazy to miss!" So I stood in the back and watched. However this was not a bright idea, after a few minutes I found myself being physically carried into the crowd. Although my face was probably as red as a tomato, it was a lot of fun. I wish I had pictures of everyone dancing but it was all kinda crazy I didn't find a moment to grab my camera. 

                I am Irish by the way, and I guess that it is true when they talk about the luck of the Irish. 

I will post in a day or so to try and catch up. It might take me a few days but I will make a sincere effort.

Spaghetti Ice Cream!!

So last week we finished up Philippians and had an end of the block party. We made hamburgers and dessert and hung out as a group and watched a movie. I really enjoy being with everyone! We are all very different but God can bring us all together and enjoy our time in fellowship. 

                                                                                      Last Philippians class

Over the weekend we went and did what we do best; swimming and cliff jumping!!! We justify it by saying that the cold weather is coming and we have to enjoy it while it lasts....so we did!

On Monday, it was rainy and a tad bit cold. The plan was to go to get spaghetti ice cream and hopefully swim if the rain stopped. Alex our trusty tour guide (up to this point) had told us that it was a 20 minute walk to get this long awaited ice cream. Once we started walking we realized that its been a half hour.  So we asked how much further and he told us, “See those buildings way over there? That is where we get ice cream.” Keep in mind that it is still raining. So after the longest 20 minute walk ever we finally arrive, about 45 minutes later, no longer wanting ice cream but food!! We got some pizza and were able to get out of the rain for a while and then we were ready to get Spaghetti Ice Cream! 

Arriving in Paguera ready for ice cream!

So if you are wondering what spaghetti ice cream is, I will tell you. (and you thought I was going to leave you hangin) But no, it is NOT spaghetti flavored ice cream, for those of you that were wondering. Basically it is vanilla ice cream squeezed through this container to look like pasta. They added strawberry topping to look like tomato sauce and then sprinkle white chocolate shavings on top to look like cheese. It looked amazing and tasted even better! 

We sat there and enjoyed our ice cream while we tried to get dry and then we remembered that we have a long walk home and now the rain is coming down even harder! We were very tempted to call Paster Raf to come pick us up. But we decided to be big kids and walk home. 

Alex came up with a bright idea to take the a shorter way back and cut through the trees and dirt. Even though the majority disagreed, we had to follow Alex, because we like him, and he was the only one who knew where he was going. We walked through the dirt or the mud by this time, and we were slipping around in our flip flops so we had to take them off. After a while we came to find that Alex didn’t know where he was going. We walking around bare foot in the rain and in the mud for about an hour or so till we found our way home. This is an experience I don’t think I will ever forget.

Sorry I don't have any picture of our journey back I was trying too hard to stay alive! Just kidding but with everything said we had fun and it was an amazingly crazy day.

First Week of Classes

Ok so my mom has told me I don't write enough about what's going on here. So I am attempting to make my posts a little longer. For those of you who don't care.... there will still be pictures. This post will probably be a tad bit longer than what I plan on posting from now on, mostly because I haven't posted in a while.
Last Tuesday classes began with a somewhat bumpy start. But we are reminded that God is in control. We had to fly out a teacher from England to teach Philippians class because of some unexpected events. We are kinda powering through the book with some; four to six hour classes a day, and also classes on the weekends, in order to get classes done in eight days altogether. As crazy as it seems it has still been a blessing.
Monday before classes began we decided to get in as much summer fun as we could. We started off with a little cliff jumping and snorkeling.

Took a break and got some ice cream for only a euro a scoop then moved on to the more popular beach where all the tourists were. We swam out to a floating platform and dove in the water and hang out for a while. This is my least favorite beach because 1. There is so many people everywhere and for 2. Half of those people are topless.  I guess it is just a cultural thing, but it is still hard to get use to.

Anyways we moved on from there to a more rocky beach near the guys flats. 

This was a little more interesting. It still had a lot of people there but it was a lot of fun!

                                    The beach by the guys flats

So after an exciting day like this, we were well prepared for a long week of classes.

During the week we still fit in some things such as shopping at a festival nearby and seeing the fireworks. Things might seem a little dull after the summer season is over and all the tourist go home, ok well maybe not. I am still in Spain.

                                    The Festival

On Saturday we were able to take a break from classes and school altogether and took a day trip to some old Spanish villages called Soller and Valdemossa.  This was a lot of fun! It was about an hour drive from our school. It was such a beautiful place! It was exactly how I always pictured Spain being. 

We went into a pub for lunch and Raf ordered for us. He ordered us Pamb oli which is basically a stale piece of bread with tomatoes, melted cheese and ham on top and olives on the side. It is very Spanish and may sound gross but I actually enjoyed it, once I picked the tomatoes off of course.

 We walked around a little bit and got some ice cream, we get a lot of ice cream here! We then drove to another little town, by the way the drive was amazing, and made a little pit stop and took some pictures by this look out spot that overlooked the ocean.  

We finally made it to Valdemossa and I walked around with a couple other girls. We looked in some shops, got some coffee and made our way home.

The second week of classes started again today, Philippians ends on Thursday. After that I think it will be a little less intense. But as for now I am enjoying it and just trying to take it all in.
I could go on and on but if you would like to know more about our time here, you can message me.