Song of the Day

Weird song that you listen to unashamedly hundreds of times while studying abroad in Spain:

Gotye - Somebody That I Used To Know

Also, check out the amazing acoustic cover of this song by Walk Off The Earth

Brad.

B-Side of the Day

Man painting a portrait at the gardens of the Alcázar Palace, Sevilla.

Brad.

Kansas City Pride

Gotta love Apple. "Where's the best BBQ in Kansas City?"

Answer - Oklahoma Joe's.

Brad.

The B-Sides

Right before departing for Spain, I bought an iPhone. iPhones are cool, particularly because they have applications that do cool things. Instragram is an app that takes pictures that you take, and make them cooler. I post some pictures to Instragram and my Twitter page, but realized that I have a lot more than have never been published. We'll call them the b-side pictures.

The b-side of the day is a view from the top of La Giralda, the beautiful tower connected to Sevilla's cathedral.

Brad.

Song of the Day

Song to Play While Scheming Your Ocean's Eleven-esque Plan in a Movie - "Reset" by MuteMath.

"Don't worry guys... I've got a plan."

Listen to it here (or right click to download) - MuteMath - Reset

Brad.

Today was a good day.

The highlights:

• I had the best night of sleep since arriving in Spain. Don't believe me? Check out this graph I obtained via my Sleep Cycle app on my iPhone. It was such a blessing, because I've been getting a little bit of a cold as of late.

• When I turned on the water to my shower, it was the perfect temp - no adjustment necessary!
• I got to the metro at the perfect time. No waiting whatsoever. I simply got on and read some Life of Pi. #ThugLife
• It was absolutely beautiful weather today. Sunny and 65.
• I only had one class today - International Business and Emerging Markets. My teacher is awesome, and let us out early.
• Gracia made paella with chicken for the first time since I've lived here. Paella is a very popular dish in Spain, and for good reason - it was delicious!
• During our lunch conversation, Gracia and I had the opportunity to talk deeper about my religious beliefs. I eventually got to share the Gospel with her (in very broken Spanish) and invited her to come to church with me next Sunday! At the end of our conversation, her words were "no hay nadie como Cristo", which means "there is no one like Christ". A very big sentence coming from a Sevillian - one of our Sevillian tour guides said that Spain was 99% Catholic, and Seville was 120% Catholic.
• I caved... I ate American food! I met up with a few of my friends around 7:45 p.m. (early in Spain's standards) and got a little appetizer at an American bar. We shared the best plate of loaded nachos.
• After dinner, I got to talk to the most wonderful girl in all of the world, Kathryn Hanson.
• My roommate, Alex, and I are continuing to bond. We laughed for a good 2 minutes about nonsense.

It's just one of those days...

Brad.

Granada.

My friends,

I may be in Europe, but I'm enjoying this beautiful Sunday with some homestyle roots. I met a friend who just got to Sevilla for the semester and had coffee with her for a few hours. We went to La Campana, a cafetería (coffee shop) and confitería (pastry shop) established in the late 1800's. Now I'm in a coffee shop, listening to the True Grit soundtrack and Americana music by Frank Fairchild, per recommendation of my cousin Joel. I may be living in Europe, but American pride is alive and well in my heart, folks - don't you worry.

Friday and Saturday, I went with my API program to the beautiful city of Granada. I didn't really know what to expect, except that it was supposed to be cold because it was so close to the Sierra Nevada mountains. I had such a good weekend full of so many fun experiences.

We started our day out with a tour of the Cathedral of Granada. It wasn't nearly as extravagant as some El Escorial or the Catedral de Sevilla, but was beautiful nonetheless. We were greeted to a pleasant surprise after the tour when our program took us out to get chocolate and churros on them! The chocolatería that we went to was probably the coolest one I've been in yet, with a very old-fashioned and classic atmosphere. When I asked the bartender for a glass of tap water, he said "this is the water of the Sierra Nevada Mountains - the best in the world". It was hard to disagree with him, y'all.

After eating a complimentary all-you-can-eat buffet at our 4-star hotel (seriously, who am I?!), the group ventured out for the night to our next adventure - seeing Flamenco in a cave! After a long and rigorous walk, we got to the cave. The room barely fit the 60 of us API students, and often I was nervous that the dancers would actually run into us! There were two different sets of performers, consisting of about 4 dancers, a singer, and a guitarist in each set. The second set also featured a very good cajón player. The dancers would sometimes all dance at once, or one woman would dance while another one would go out and change costumes. When the people wouldn't be dancing, they would always be clapping along to the song with different beats. It truly was an art form.

This was my second time seeing flamenco in Spain, and third time in my life. Each experience has been very different. In Florida, I witnessed a very large production of flamenco. In Sevilla, a very simple and stripped-down 3-person show, and then now this show. Without a doubt, the performance in Granada was my favorite, and possibly one of the best memories I've had so far in Spain (I mean come on, it was in a cave!)

Later that night, I went with around 20 other people to a tea and hookah lounge. It was a very relaxing environment - we all sat on pillows and cushions around table, drank tea, and just talked until around 3 in the morning. I realized at that point how thankful I was for having a solid community of people and for allowing us all to be so comfortable around each other.

Saturday, we went and toured La Alhambra. La Alhambra is basically the most popular and iconic site in all of Granada. So rich in history that I would butcher even trying to explain it all, the combination of this palace's Islamic and Christian influence amongst the Sierra Nevada mountains was truly a site to be seen. So, I took a few pictures!

I'm so glad that I decided to do my study abroad through API. It's been such a blessing so have so many cool friends, and to make new ones every day!

Next weekend I'm headed to the city of Cádiz for the day before reuniting with a good friend, Knox Schroller. #Flare

Brad.

P.S. In case my blog isn't interesting enough, this sign in Granada made me smile.