Hello everybody. I just have a few thoughts before I turn this over to Eddie and let him talk to you for a while. I'm increasingly jealous of several members of our group who plan to stay here for a year. Rico even went so far as to only pay for a one-way ticket over. Now he will be graduating after finishing this fall semester and he is in the process of getting a license to teach English so our situations aren't quite the same. Maybe by December I'll be ready to come home; last night and part of today Eddie and I were genuinely bored for the first time since we've been here, aside from some of the time up in Segura de Leon. We'll see. I'm very proud of the work I'm doing with the Ashbrook program etc. etc. but I always wonder what it would feel like to be entirely untethered, just enough money in the bank not to worry and your life in a backpack. In my more lucid moments I know I romanticize such a life but I'm wired wrong for it. How does one find a gym when one is backpacking from place to place? I might be able to stomach it for a month or two at a time given the right part of the world to wander and the right traveling companion(s).
Lastly, the watch the stupidest sports over here. There's a channel called TDP, total deportes, that has 24/7 sports coverage. It is just laughable the stuff they cover. Their programming today was the Spanish handball league. All last night it was coverage of some kayaking competition, and most of last week it was coverage of some form of gymnastics/floor exercise competition I've never seen before. 'Gymnastics? Come on that's not too bad.' you might say. Oh, but this was not beams and rings and strength paired with balance and endurance. This was a bunch of women from Russia and former Soviet bloc countries dancing and spinning with rubber bouncy balls, hula hoops, streamers and batons. For four and five hours on end. I hesitate to say so but it made the WNBA look appealing, and I didn't think anything could do that. Anyways, here's Eddie:
Hello Horst family and friends, my name is Edward Lipsey or Eddie. I'll start by telling you what an outstanding person Silas is. He's a good friend to have. the first day i met Silas our host brother and me greeted him at the door. First Pablo said to him "Hola Silas" and he said to Pablo "Hola." Then I said to Silas, "Hola" and he ignored me. He thought I was a friend of Pablo. He later told me "Dude, i thought you were a friend of Pablo, and I thought to myself, why is this grown man hanging with my eleven year old brother?" Silas and I get along well, we share many of the same ideas and have pretty much the same perspective on life. He actually helped start working out again. I stopped last year when i quit my school's football team. He's a monster in the gym, and I have extreme difficulty keeping up with him, but I'm not complaining the results are great, the ladies love it. I really lucked out on getting Silas as my roommate, couldn't be any more content.
We are truly blessed to have this opportunity, I have gained so much in the month that I've been here. Not just not material from school, but about other cultures, religions, and how this melting pot can coexist with one another with seemingly no or little conflict. I can't thank God and my parents enough for letting me take the experience of a life time. One thing I've taken for granted or abused you could say is the ability to go out every night. Spain is very different from the states in a sense of going out and partying. Last week, i went out everyday and tried enjoying every moment as if it were my last. In a way, that's the right idea, but in large quantities, it's not. I was physically drained and couldn't function to well. Silas then kinda told me to take it easy and despite the fact we're in Spain we are also in school, but in more words. So now, I'm moderating pretty much everything I do. One thing I'm neither of us are getting enough of is interaction with Spanish women. the Spanish women are amazingly gorgeous and many are extroverts. They enjoy themselves and generally all who are associated with them at the time being are enjoying themselves as well. But for us, there is a hindrance, the language barrier. Silas can communicate a heck of a lot better than me, but we still struggle to understand. I really would like to get know a Spanish women and have her as a friend, but I'm nervous because of my lack of Spanish speaking abilities, and their beauty intimidates me, well, at times. Before this semester is over, I will accomplish interacting with Spanish women to perfection. I've actually met a young Spanish lady whom I can understand very well because she doesn't speak the slang of Sevilla. Her Spanish is well enunciated, concise, and clear. She lives in Alicante, Spain, which is a forty minute flight from where we are. Silas and I plan to go to Alicante at the end of October, more of the reason are the beaches, but we may pay her a visit.
The family is great. My birthday was September 11th. When Silas and I came home from running in park Maria Louisa, and Reme surprised me with an ice cream birthday cake, which was amazing. She is an awesome cook as well. It seems we have new meal or combination of a meal everyday. My favorite is probably the lasagna. It's peculiar, but i don't care I love it. All in all this trip will change my life forever and definitely influence new views and customs that I adopt into my philosophy on life. I hope all is well with you all, and God bless.
Eddie Lipsey
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