July 4th

fireworks!!! it's funny. i generally wouldn't consider myself to be a very patriotic person and yet i am still an american and absolutely LOVED being in the US for the 4th of July. it was fun seeing people dressed up as abe lincoln and ben franklin (since it was abe's 200th bday and we were in philadelphia). it was fun visiting museums and thinking about way back when our founding fathers signed the declaration of the independence and such. and it was FABULOUS watching fireworks with thousands of others by the philadelphia art museum (or the steps rocky ran up).

and it was most definitely hilarious being with my brother and his girlfriend as he talked to my parents and literally gave them a play by play on the fireworks. they were at home watching fireworks on tv, but my parents LOVED getting to "be" with us thanks to my brother. he talked about the colors, where in the sky they were, how they exploded, he told them what we said, how we reacted,... everything. and while he was doing this his girlfriend and i were enjoying the fireworks and making fun of him (which he was fully aware of). eventually he passed the phone to me and i said bye to them, the fireworks continued, and then we made our way back - which definitely competes with the fireworks.

on the way to the fireworks, lauren and i took off from their house and then drew called when he got off work (yep, he worked on the 4th) and met us as we walked from the metro to the art museum. we were hoping to make it to the gazebo behind the art museum (which we later found was roped off and inaccessible) and had a ways to go and not much time. so my brother took off and we followed after. although it was humorous as lauren had to jog to keep up with us even though her legs are twice as long. ;-)

on the way back, drew shot out and then lauren competed as we expertly weaved in and out of the crowd. it was a race, not really between us, but between us and the crowd. and we were headed to the metro, which was a jaunt away, but it was partly the journey, partly the race that was what mattered. we were trying to see how many people we could pass, unbeknownst to them, of course. there was glass, empty beer cans, random people in random places. we weaved in and out, each of us with our own strategy, and yet trying to stay together in a crowd of thousands. crowd surfing at its finest. and amazingly when we got to the metro, while we had a little line to wait to get through the turnstile, we didn't wait even a minute for the next train (and i was amazed, living in madrid, at how unpacked it was. my brother said it was because most of those on the train were tourists or suburbanites, not true locals). and as we took the train a few stops back to drew and lauren's apt, i eavesdropped the conversations of the latino family next to us (whom i'm sure had no idea that i understood them). good times.

My brother's show in Philly (Sat PM)

If you happen to be in Philadelphia tomorrow night, you should really go check out my brother at Green Line Cafe, playing stuff from his cd and other new tunes. By the way, you can also check out "assemble" on myspace at: http://www.myspace.com/assemblemusic

----

Tomorrow is the day!! assemble's first show:

Sat. July 26, 7:30pm
the new Green Line Cafe (45th and Locust)
w/ Upholstery and Gillian Grassie
$5 suggested donation

My set starts at 8:15pm in case you're coming from work.

Would love to see you there!!

-Drew

my flight back & my great brother

so, my flight back was incredible. it was clear that the Lord had gone before me and that he was caring for me the whole way along.

first, there was checking in... i weighed my bags on the scale at home, which i thought would be about right since the little calibrating thing showed that it was actually adding a few pounds. nope. i got to check in and both bags were over the 50 lb allotted. the lady was super nice and told me i had to take stuff out. i was prepared, so put it into a bag for my mom to take home. the lady noticed some of my heavy books and complimented me on my good taste. she then proceeded to tell me to just shove it all into my carry-on, which of course already surpassed any weight limit they might have. that was where the really heavy and/or important stuff i wanted to be sure not to loose. i told her that i thought it was probably already full and she said, actually go put it in the carry-on measuring thing to make sure it will fit. it didn't so i started to rearrange things there (and take out a couple books) to make it fit. when it did, she suggested i go across the hall to the shop with a sale on rolling duffle bags (so i could take everything i had just pulled out of the other bags). i asked if they were really going to allow me to have my carry-on plus this other bag the size of a normal big carry-on (basically) as my personal item (which i previously thought only included a purse or a laptop bag, or something a bit smaller). she assured me it would be fine and i went to get the extra bag (on which i saved a ton of money over having tried to get those books to me in madrid any other way).

so i was off and somehow just about everyone on the entire trip was extremely nice and helpful.

then i got to philly with the 6 hour layover, so i could hang out a bit with my brother (pictured above), my great brother. we went to his neighborhood in sw philly, which is by the way a very fun, artsy and ethnically diverse neighborhood with GREAT food, great architecture, great people, and fun things to do. (it also doesn't hurt that my brother lives there.) we had some good laosian food (kind of a mix between vietnamese & thai food - also where the country is located) and then went to his apartment, hung out with his cats, sat out on the back porch, and just enjoyed a couple hours together. unfortunately, six hours is a fairly short amount of time when you have to take up most of the later two back inside the airport.

(oh, by the way, my brother has a show in philly this saturday that you should DEFINITELY check out if you live or will be in the area. drew is a musician and a quite talented one at that. he's playing in a coffeehouse/bar which is somewhere around 48th street. let me know and i can get you the name. the name of his group is assemble, you can find it on myspace - although there are a few bands with the same name.)

then, i got back on a plane which fortunately had 2 empty seats between me and the girl on the other end. so we both got a decent rest and were able to actually LAY DOWN on the transcontinental flight. i did watch p.s. i love you, but was too tired to watch much else. i also got some good reading done in a fabulous book i recently picked up. it's a compilation of sermons on the sermon on the mount and is fabulous - Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, Dwight Martyn Lloyd-Jones. apparently he is quite well known. anyway, i currently think he's amazing.

i also LOVED hearing and speaking Spain spanish again. it was great! and the people around me were both nice & interesting.

well, after sleeping a bit on and off for several hours, i was awakened by the breakfast cart bumping my feet. i laid back down, eventually got some juice & coffee, and eventually arrived safely to madrid almost an hour early - 7am. i got a taxi (since i brought back way too much stuff) and ended up paying about 10-15 euros less than i had expected! amazing! on the ride home a friend called to see if he could pick me up from the airport, which was really a nice bonus (even though i was in the taxi already).

i walked in the door to an amazingly clean apartment, thanks to my new roommate chery! such a blessing! unfortunately the internet isn't working and thus the vonage phone isn't either (but today i found a wifi line from the neighbors that works on and off, so at least i have something). later a friend helped me put together my new bed (which is SOOO nice).

as you can imagine, i am still getting used to the time change (7 hours) and am still a bit jetlagged, which is why it is now (wow) 3 am and i am wide awake. and in the morning, i am a complete zombie. at least i have a couple days before i have to fully engage with the normal world (sat/sun) - when i head up to galicia (nw spain) for the western european new staff training with ágape. in the meantime, i should probably get some shuteye.

note: this picture of my brother cracks me up. it looks like everyone is either amazed or horrified by drew's crazy dance moves. in actuality he is just knealing down to talk to vance jr., or buddy, my cousin's son. :-D jejeje. it really is hilarious if you look at drew and think that he is dancing. :-D

brothers... my brother

My brother Drew recently came to visit. It had been a year and a half since I last had seen him and he came to visit for about a week. It definitely took a bit of adjusting, but it was the best possible present someone could have gotten me. And he came at one of the strangest times of the year for me, after Christmas, but while students are busy studying for finals, so all the more it was both timely and a huge blessing.

What I appreciate about my brother, to name a few things, are that he knows me from the time he was born until now, toda la vida. which is really nice particularly considering that no one (who knows me well) in Spain has known me for more than two and a half years and some of them just the past year. Secondly, because Drew is my brother he is able to both say things that mean the world to me (like that he is proud of me or really impressed by something) and that have much insight into my life. The downside is that I can also assume that he understands me at any given moment better than he actually does and that I can both be meaner to and more easily irritated by him than to/by virtually anyone else.

One of the good things about this visit (in addition to learning a TON about Spanish wines (unbeknownst to me my brother is REALLY a Spanish wine expert, even though according to him he knows a lot less about Spanish wine than other types) and exploring some really fun places to watch jazz, flamenco, and eat great food), was that I was reminded of who I am, who I am independent of a hard year and independent of my surroundings and circumstances. There is something about someone who has known you your whole life and who cares about you, at least for me, that reminds me of both good moments and things God has done in my life, powerful things.