...We awoke
“early” and headed uptown to catch the 8:00 bus. I dozed off throughout the
whole trip occasionally awakening to see green hillsides spotted with rocks
passing by on one side and out the other window was the Mediterranean, cool as
a cucumber. France welcomed my program-mates and me with lots of wind, much
less inhabited streets than Barcelona, and a surprisingly high amount of
English spoken (music to my ears). I did feel foreign at times with the rapid French
being spoken all around me but I had to laugh to myself as I thought that as
crazy as it sounds to my ears, they could just simply be talking about last
nights re-run of their favorite TV series. Another familiarity found in France was
the meal times; it was a pleasure to return to 7:00 dinners, an absolute
delight. Haha! The French people love joking around with Americans and getting
a reaction out of them. This varied all the way from two ladies joking around
with me at a bakery and yelling ludacris profanity in English at the top of
their lungs as they fetched me my croissant (really funny), all the way to a
girl in our program nearly getting into a full blooded scuffle with one
particularly French, French man. Safe to say our hosts kept it interesting. France
offered some beautiful towns, awesome graffiti, some great garage sales, lots
of skipping stones at the beach, some windy late nights, and my personal
favorite was the bathtub in my hotel room, which I basked in the glory of quite
frequently. On my last morning there I woke up early, soaked in some scolding
hot water, and went for an extremely pleasant walk about through the floating
gardens near our hotel. It was a peaceful way to “slip out the door” and out of
France as I walked through the fog while the sun was still low in the sky.
After
a windy late night and of course a bath the next day I sat relaxing in the room
as Chad snoozed away on the bed next to mine. A quick knock got me to my feet
and I let our friend David into the room. As I closed the door he seemed to
make a beeline straight to where I had been sitting and he picked up the Bible
I had just put down. Not something your average study abroad student carries
around I guess. After asking if I was “religious” he followed it up with an
innocently curious, “why?”. It wasn’t that profound of a question and I should’ve
had an easy time having an obvious answer, right? Wrong. I couldn’t find one. I
just sputtered out what was on the edge of my conscious and what the first
thing my sleep deprived mind could come up with. I sleepily said/yawned-out something
along the lines of,
“It brings me peace and when I live the way that Jesus
instructed in here, (holding the bible) I end up better off than if I had gone
at it alone”.
That answer surprised me a bit, definitely not my average
response. Also not the answer that I would have written down if you hade given me
more time. That’s for sure. But it was undoubtedly, unmistakably the answer
straight from my heart.
My premeditated response was out the window and the truth just fumbled out of my mouth before I really thought about it. It was so refreshing being asked
that question when my guard was so low. What I realized is that I typically
hear sermons at chapel and church where I am spoon-fed the answer to these sorts
of questions. When they are asked I just pull that lecture from my back
pocket and I have a fail proof response. But from being away from the sermons and
other influences for so long, my answer was entirely based off the conversations
of my mind and my frequent reading about the stories of Jesus. Simple as that. As
David left later on I repeated that simple yet stumping question a bit more in
my head and I took it further… I literally believe I will live forever because
of what Jesus has done. I will be on this earth or with Jesus in heaven. One or
the other, but it is because of Jesus only that I get to live forever. That is
what I think Paul gets at when he states, “If you want to boast, boast only
about the Lord”…because anything we are… we are only able to be that because of Jesus.
For so many reasons I am extremely thankful for knowing Jesus and all the
people who have taught me about him. It’s the biggest and most life-changing
thing I have ever had in my life and I know it will continue to be…
We got a bit of rain today! Love walking in the rain.
Absolutely love it. Chads family is visiting and we walked and talked our way
around Montjuic and we were treated to many beautiful sights and sceneries. At
one point we were walking on a lower pass and some people from above decided to
lob rocks down at us. They crashed and cracked off the road in front of us… if
one of those had made contact with us stitches would have surely been necessary
but I’m sure they didn’t mean it. I put a rock in my pocket and took one in
hand for short measure as we headed to the top…. As the rain drizzled on and
off so did the appearance of rainbows over the ocean as if they couldn’t make
up their mind on whether they wanted to stay or not, I didn’t mind. The rest of
Barcelona seemed to glisten whenever the sun came back out and the shadowy
clouds combined with that made for some amazing looking skies. Although I was
kind of disappointed we didn’t see the rock throwers because I was curious to
see if my arm is still up to par from my pitching days. 
The city was truly mine as I skated home tonight, weaving
through the road however I fancied. The streets where empty of cars and my only
other company was the groups of night people here and there. I skated past a
wide array of stories as there were girls struggling to stay on their feet as
their friends carried them, all the way to the old dignified couples that
strolled through the night holding onto each others arms as their feet pitter
pattered through the lamp lighten streets. I hope I’m like the latter some day
just roaming the streets with my gal.
