Morroco

Two weekends ago was when i went to Morrocco and it was good to have some time to chill, play with the Lydia and Dara, talk and compete with Carmen and Jason, and explore the city. Dara likes to play hide-and-seek and coloring, and Lydia enjoys wrestling, tickling, and testing out arabic and english words along with the occasional valiant effort to say my name. She's actually very good at it and can say it better than most Spaniards! ha ha. Carmen, Jason and I got in 3 games of Settlers. I believe Carmen won 2, Jason won 1, and i won the rest. however disappointing this was, i did manage to rack up 420 odd points (jason, do you remember?) playing scrabble. It was a very relaxing weekend, and you all were such good hosts. They fixed me pancakes and gravy, macarroni and cheese, artichokes, pizza, mashed potatoes, etc.... None of which i have had in Spain, so it was great to be able to eat some American food for once! we also went out one evening to take a tour of the city and we ate typical morroccan food at a restaurant. it was oh so good!
Here we are at the restaurant. we love each other (except when she's beating me at settlers :)
how could one be sad with all that tasty food looking at you. the smells were terriffic!
We also visited a granary, which was massive. Here we are in the middle of the massivity.

Last Couple of Weeks in My Life

Man, you know it's hard writing a post when you're following someone who's writing from Barcelona! I kinda feel sometimes like I haven't done anything extra special that I should blog about. So that's how I feel about what I've been doing lately except...

Mondays have been church-league volleyball night for the last couple of months, and it's been a lot of fun. We actually have not lost a match all season! Tournament is next weekend. We've never won a volleyball championship yet, but this may be the year. Maybe it has something to do with our awesome setter, Hannah Helmuth!

Tuesdays have come to be one of my favorite days of the week now because Micah and I have made that our day to get together in the evening. We meet at a basketball court when I get off work and play one-on-one (we'll be ready for you when you get back Dietrich! Watch out!). Then we go to his and Krista's little house out in country and have pizza dinner and talk/watch a movie/whatever. It's great to have this friend time to look forward to each week.

Wednesday evenings are still my absolute favorite though. Our Young Adults Fellowship (out of Dayton) is wonderful. It's what I have considered my real, solid church over the past two years, and it continues to be. Our discussions have been Christ-centered, powerful, vibrant, relevant, encouraging. We've been studying Blue Like Jazz along with the Bible over the past several months, which has been fun too, as anyone could guess who has read it. We've had our own conversations right along-side him about worship, relationships, money, love, etc...

Friday evenings are set aside for me and my little brother, Jeremy. One Friday we enjoyed racing at Fast Traxx in Waynesboro, a little race track. It reminded me of when we were younger and Dad would take us to those every once in a while. Fun stuff! This Friday we played dodge ball up and down the stairs for a little and then we went outside and I ran around while Jeremy tried to shoot me with his new little BB gun (it's not very powerful, and I was wearing my glasses) . He only got me once, stinging me a little on the neck just behind and below my ear :).

Today I attended a Changing Church Conference co-hosted by EMSeminary and VMMissions. Talk about dedicated...giving up a Saturday for a long discussion dialogue about the church--where it's come from and going. Yeah, I'm feeling a little self-righteous about that one...especially since Dad knew about it and didn't go :).

But this evening gave me a chance to chill; I went to a good, old-fashioned Harvest Party, hosted by my Eller friends up in Verona (some of you know them). Good times: reuniting with a bunch of good Bridgewater friends I hadn't seen in a long time; playing soccer with a mass of bodies ages 6 to 50; a hay ride singing songs and enjoying the sunset; watching kids go after a pinata; wassail; a praise and worship session with two guitars, a djembe, bongos, mandolin, and a shaky-shaky egg. It was good for my soul. I sang all the way back home.

waiting in line for a whack at the pinata
finally gets a chance
i actually caught the moment somehow! luck :)
Betsy is doing well. We continue to be in touch as often as we're allowed and the date is getting closer when she leaves for South Africa. I'll get to see her twice before she leaves, actually 2 weekends in a row. Commissioning is the weekend of Nov 17-18, then I'll go back out just after Thanksgiving to visit and say goodbye (she leaves that weekend). She continues to be a very exciting part of my life. I wish that she could meet Tom, Candice, Claire, Eliza, Jason, Carmen, Dara and Lydia. Hopefully someday.

Blessings and love to you all. I promise I don't forget you; I think and pray about you all often, missing you all the while!

Philip

Your turn Philip - you better get on the ball while i'm gone!!

Another day, another week...

it's all moving by so fast. This past weekend I went with three friends to Tarragona, a town that has a lot of Roman ruins. it was very beautiful and it was a very relaxing day. We went because it was a holiday (Dia de Pilar). On Saturday, a friend and I explored a huge garden in the northern part of Barcelona - it was very beautiful and will probably go back for a good studying spot. On Sunday I went to an Evangelical church which had it's service at noon. The sermon was from a text in Isaiah in which God was telling them to leave and separate themselves from Babylon. There are a lot of challenges in a big city and I need to keep reminding myself that even though I am in the world I am not of the world. And so i should be careful about what i "touch" or what I involve myself with. That's what i learned anyways, but even if my spanish skills failed me in my translation, i still learned and thought. The people at the church were mostly elderly people but so very nice. One man just kind of took me around, introducing me to everyone. He also introduced me to (actually just told me about) two other students that attend their church. I call the three of us the "token young people." i don't really like the situation so i'm trying to get more BCA peeps to come with me next time. but i enjoyed the fellowship and will most likely return.
This weekend i'm heading to Morocco :) (okay, so the smiley face doesn't do justice to my feelings, but alas, it points in the right direction). I'm leaving on Thursday and i really cannot wait. It's been too long and i'll be glad to talk face to face. i have a slight aversion to talking with a time delay and a mic that is semi-functional (legitimate word?). I'm also slightly disappointed :( (reference to above parenthetical ^) that i have no camera. i just wish that i had a way to share my experiences with you all, my family, besides writing. i guess we are in an image-oriented world nowadays and the blog would be much more fun with them...alas... ´ñ) (think picasso). so, i'm going to eat lunch now because it's 2:40 and i'm hungry. another update upon my return...
Diech

So, i'm in Spain...

Okay, so from now on there may be less photographs for my blogs because of the lack of camera to take the aforementioned photographs with. Alas, i'll just have to describe it. And i certainly don't have any pictures to match up to Philip's. Okay, so life is pretty normal around here. Here's the schedule, just in case you wanted to know (if you don't want to know just skip down a paragraph):
Mondays: 12:30 - History of Spain and then 3:30 - History of Spanish Art
Tuesday: 10:00 - Morfosintaxis I and then 12:30 History of Spain
Wednesday: 5:00 - History of Spanish Art (isn't that great - i get to sleep in 'till five!!)
Thursday: 10:00 - Morfosintaxis I and then 12:00 - Metafísicas I and then at 4:00 there is a class that i'm auditing called Historia de la filosofía antigua
Friday: Same as Thursday except without Morfosintaxis I
Saturday: no classes
Sunday: need to find a church to go to

And it seems as if there is a holiday every other week (there happens to be one this weekend)

...and there you have it

Breakfast consists of some tostadas (cookie-like things) and muffins with strong coffee. it's pretty piddly but i'm getting used to it. Lunch varies: if i'm going to be at the university, my host-mom, Marta, fixes me a picnic (she says it like, "peekneek") consisting of two sandwiches and some fruit. When i'm at home during lunch she usually fixes me a full-blown meal which usually has at least two courses. I prefer the packed lunch because having a big lunch and a big supper can be quite overwhelming. Supper is usually the same as dinner. Breakfast is whenever i wake up, lunch is between 2-3 and supper is between 8-10. pretty different. it's weird going to bed right after one eats, so i usually don't. the food is good.

The menu:
Soups:
conglomeration of onions
conglomeration of mushrooms
conglomeration of various veggies
one that looks and tastes like split pea soup
chili (it tastes like it, anyways)

Meats:
Chorizo - really strong/rich semi-overpowering sausage - unique to spain i believe
some sort of beef patty (I think it's beef)
cow stomach (i think that's what she meant)
Fish Sticks

Sides:
sauteed veggies (peppers, eggplant, onions, etc...)
breaded calamari (squid)
chicken nuggets
Spanish Tortilla (it tastes exactly like your potato cakes, Dad)

Dessert:
Fruit (apples, nectarines, peaches, plums, other tropical fruit that i can't name, etc...)
cake
cheesecake (sometimes with melted swiss cheese on top)

I obviously don't have a choice what i'm having each day, but this is what i've had that i remember so far. I have enjoyed most of it with the exception of the "cow stomach" or whatever it is. My favorites are the spanish tortilla, paella (which i had at castelldefels. my host-mom hasn't made it yet). I also have eaten at other places. They have something called "tapas" which are like sides that you usually get and share a variety with friends. i have also eaten shwarma - i don't know why, but there are lots of little restaurants that have these. Shwarma, i think, is the most bang for your buck. And the more bang i can get the better because the dollar is weak and falling.

So that's what i eat. This blog is getting rather long. If you're reading this and haven't read philip's yet (the one below) - you should do that now and not forget. Because i eat so much i feel like i should go to the gym. and so i do. I go and get rather sweaty and nasty and then take a shower. recently the sports area of the gym was opened, so i'm getting to practice my basketball skills, which are probably deteriorating with lack of play. - and that's the PE part of my life.

Okay, so i got my bag stolen, right? and so, my keys were in there, right? so...my host-mom had to change the lock on the door which cost me 70€. hmmm... not too bad i guess. I just learned to carry my keys in my pocket from now on.

For anyone that cares and is still reading: I got to go to a Travis concert and it was absolutely free!!! It was a pretty awesome concert and I can still hear. I had to add this because i didn't want to end the blog on a not-so-high note. Philip - i got video of the songs "closer" and "sing" but, since they could not escape onto a computer, they were on my camera when it got stolen. shuckers. I kept yelling "sing, sing" so that they would sing "sing", and finally they did. I also got to see the most amazing fireworks of my life during the same festival (Mercé). It was at Montjuic and so the fountain was lit up and all as well. It was hilarious because the fireworks (which lasted all of about 30-40 minutes (guesstimation)) were synchronized with music. It was a pretty eclectic mix, ranging from Jimi Hendrix to Gnarls Barkley to RATM to Aerosmith, and so on and so forth. Oh, and also Outkast with the classic "hey ya". Ha ha, it was great. Anyhow...more later, maybe.

Love you all,
Diech

p.s. if you have access to facebook, some of my friends have posted pictures from the aforementioned events. If i can figure how to get them on here i will.

A Quick Weekend Trip to Ohio...

...because of this girl. :)
worth every minute of the five-and-a-half hour trip.
(it should've taken me six)
philip

hey yall, you can try this link to see more pictures...

http://community.webshots.com/user/diech2?vhost=community

my schedule is getting more fixed now that classes are starting up so that´s definitely a plus.

Everything is going well here in Barcelona... there was a festival over the weekend and so I´m trying to get rid of the hangovers and get back into study mode. I didn´t get any good pictures of the festivals, but i´m sure my friends have some. Anyhow, there were lots of concerts and festivities going on and i got in on a Travis concert and a fantastic fireworks display (both free).

Cathedral at Santiago de Compostela

Park at Santiago

Park Güell - Gaudi´s park - Barcelona´s not just city

La Sagrada Familia - i haven´t been inside yet

Park Güell again

I love you all and miss you!!!
-Diech

At the beginning of Las Ramblas


....at the end of Las Ramblas - it´s quite the walk.



This is a beach at our orientation spot which is called casteldelfels, or something like that



Yours truly with the city of Barcelona in the background

Hey, so i finally think i can add pictures....how´s this

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Laughing

After serving on the draft board two surly army generals scowl at the nosey journalist...
Hi, I found this clip of Brian Regan on Youtube that made me laugh so hard this week. If you've got 10 minutes, you should definitely check it out. The funniest part (to me) is halfway through when he starts talking about chess. Tell me what you think. Sorry the picture and sound quality aren't perfect, but for a digital cam, they did a pretty good job!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=qpSGSna0g5U

philip

First Time Rock Climbing

Hey family. There's a great place for rock climbing out near Hone Quarry. I went with some BC friends to try it for the first time yesterday.

the group.
(before Parla gets there=mostly being lost in the woods :)

(after Parla got there)
the challenge.
(called "Hidden Rocks")

my first climb.

(the beginning)(the top("kiss the carabiner!"))

(repelling back down)

will's climb.

(i love this shot)

afterwards with my camera's silly little tripod :).

(fun times at dave's)

(happy)

Have a great week!

Love you. Philip

A Bunch of New Things

Hey, the two youngest Rhodes bros are still alive! woohoo!

Diech, I'm really looking forward to seeing those pics. I'm glad you thought of me...you may come to like it yet! Maybe the Spaniards will be able to finally break you/culture you/talk some sense into you! haha

I hope everyone is well. Thanks for the urges to update this; it's fun to write for people who appreciate that we are alive. :)

Life is good and busy for the last Rhodes bro at the homeplace. My position at VMM moved to half-time the same week I started taking a seminary class at EMS, so it's been a challenge getting used to a new schedule. Carmen talked about trying to regain her equilibrium in a new place, and while I know my experience doesn't even come close to the magnitude of change in her life, I feel a little bit of that too.

I'm excited about the class after a few sessions; I'm going to enjoy the interdisciplinariness of it and the different personalities and strengths of the three profs. So far it feels a little like a refresher of my major, but I hear it gets pretty intense, so here goes...

At work I've been trying to coordinate a team to London and to organize two teams to do local projects. In between these, I've been working on creating a manual for the leaders of our short-term teams. This will help me be (or at least feel) more organized in my work and it will help the communication too. I'm finally starting to understand my work in a more holistic way after a year+ of trying to figure out all the pieces of this bear and pull them together. Honestly, it makes it a whole lot more enjoyable. Also contacts have been happening a lot more naturally and I'm enjoying getting to know different people in other churches and in Mennonite leadership.

When Betsy was here, she used to pretty up my pictures so much; now you only get dull pictures of me. alas... :)
a recent mug (a very recent one, in fact...a few minutes old)

thinking about Dara who's starting school tomorrow!
Dara, I think this year of school is going to be really fun! You'll get to make lots of new friends and learn lots of new things. I'm praying for you right now and I'll pray for you on Wednesday too!

I love you all!
Philip

Barceloca

Pictures: coming soon... I only have maybe...six pictures at the most right now - and none of Barcelona. Soooo....tomorrow I´m going out with some friends and hopefully after this I will have lots of pictures (si rocorde llevar conmigo la camera). But until then...I can´t really describe the city. I´ve gotten lost at least three times already, but i really like all the little stores and huge buildings. On Sunday I got to see a fountain near the Plaza Espana. it was lighted and it changed with the classical music that was playing (Philip, i thought of you!!- i tried to appreciate the music) - it was pretty impressive. Classes start in a couple of weeks - the 19th of Sept I believe. Before that we have a little field trip (four days) to northwestern Spain as a part of our Art History class. Should be fun and I´ll try to remember to take lots of pictures. I´m still getting used to the language - but it´s getting easier.

- Diech

Big and Little in Washington DC

Monday Jeremy and I went to DC for the day before picking up a VMM PIM team coming back from Albania. We rode the metro, got free tickets for the Washington Monument (which we ended up not using), hit up McDonalds for brunch, the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and an IMAX film, then the Smithsonian National Gallery of Natural History. Lots of fun.

staying cool under the museum sprinklers

whoever this belongs to probably has some cool stories

got his wish to sit "in the very front"

Camping fun with the newbies

Here are some pics of the campout
- I really enjoyed the family singing and the 4 - square games - thanks David!!!!
Spending time with the family was awesome and it was fun getting to hang out with some new additions to the family including Elliot, Jared, David, and Betsy.

Dad, grillin' up some tasty burgers and corn

Lovely

Philip, trying to make Elliot make some noise

David graciously gathered and cut some logs

lovebirds

4-square

Uncle Rico

Philip & Betsy

several tries from a railroad track on the blue ridge parkway

at a dam :)
-Philip