Today, I ate an orange. Also, jazz and bridges.

Yes, yes, I know you've probably been hearing about this from several reputable sources, so I figure I might as well clear things up: I did, in fact, eat an orange. Not just any orange, but one off of a Sevillian tree, quite similar to the one or two you see below and those you have seen in past posts.



"Well??" you say. "¿Te gustó?"

Pues, my host parents were right. It was sour. Super sour. But I ate the whole thing, promise. In addition to having a pH of 0.1, it was super seedy too (as in having a lot of seeds, not other colloquial definitions of that word).

Anyhow, I am slightly behind on bloggering, blogging, bling, blogando, whatever you'd like to call it, as you can see by looking at the date of my last post. My goal in this next several hundred words of your life is to catch you up on what's gone on in the last nine days, so let's see if we can do that. Chances are, these next paragraphs will not be at all chronological. Think of them more as stand-alone anecdotes that have happened sometime in the past week or so.

This isn't very exciting for most, but I feel like several of you chapel band and orchestra folk will enjoy this. The other day, during lunch, we were watching TV (surprise surprise). The theme song to the show we were watching was playing at the same time as Victor was putting a plate down on the table. The plate hit my cup, full of water, and...no, it didn't spill. But the pitch of the glass was the root of the theme song! It was pretty sweet. Speaking of noises, today I found out that if you hit the metal handrail in the elevator of our apartment building with your keys, it rings really loud(ly) for a good five or six seconds. Speaking of more noises, Kane taught me how to do the "hand ocarina," as he calls it, the other day. We decided that in Spanish it'd be called "la manocarina." Also, I hit the third harmonic on a Coke bottle for the first time ever (Brad and Daniel, I think you'll appreciate that one). I've probably had more Coke in the last two weeks than I've had in the past year.



Last week, I showed Stephanie and Kane my neighborhood and we stopped at a confitería and talked about Spanish literature (well, I mostly listened). It felt like a very European thing to do.



This is what we ate.

I finally asked Victor and Maricarmen who the guy yelling outside was and why he always yelled. Turns out it's the gas guy, and he's yelling "butano." My guesses were "claro" or "Marco" (a little egotistic, I know). Anyways, it's a daily occurrence, along with the sound of them banging the butane tanks against the side of their delivery truck. Apparently it's to show that they're full?

It seems there are quite a few words now that I'm reading in Spanish before ever knowing them in English. I'm starting a list. Here are the first ones: secuela, onomastic, libertine. More to come later.

A few days ago, we got offered hashish by a older guy hanging out by a playground. Why a playground?? No idea. Anyhow, it was way too much for the poor quality...jajaja just kidding. It was a good price. I mean...uuhhhhh. Anyways...

On to something super cool.



Last Thursday night, Kane and I went to the jazz cafe we found during the scavenger hunt. We got there around 10:30 to find an extremely crowded cafe with drums, a bass, and a guitar setup in the corner. We shoved our way through the crowd (as politely as we could, of course) to see if we could find any musicians. I asked a guy who looked like a musician if he played music, and I'm pretty sure his response was, "I try to play music." Such a jazz musician.

And yes, Hannah, they have the poster. THE poster. For everyone who hasn't ever stepped into the band room at San Marcos High School, the poster that you see in the bottom right hangs in our high school band room as well. It also hangs in a small off-the-beaten-path restaurant in Venice. Go figure.

The music started about ten minutes later. In addition to the rhythm section (composed of middle age men), there was an incredible alto sax (I'm guessing he's 20-24 years old) and a man who we would come to know as Manuel Calleja playing the melodica. I KNOW. How awesome. It actually turns out that Kane's host mom's friend is Manuel's sister. So we have a connection to an amazing Spanish jazz pianist. And he plays bass and melodica, as you can see in the picture. Later, a random non-Spanish-looking (I talked to him later and found out he's from Copenhagen) trumpet player asked if he could play with the aforementioned bros. He was really good too.

In summary, I got to greet my birthday listening to Night in Tunisia played by a jazz quintet. Stoked.

To continue our jazz adventures, on Sunday night we went to another jazz cafe (Manuel told us about it on Thursday) to listen to another open jam. This place had a piano, which made it even better. We watched the end of the Sevilla-Málaga game there and once it was over watched the jazz set. I hoping maybe in the coming weeks I'll be able to step in for a song or two on piano! Manuel tried to get me to play because I mentioned I play piano, but I definitely need to brush up on my standards before going up. All these guys have the standards memorized. Intense.

I'm still looking for a place to practice piano and trumpet. I met a girl at Iglesia Prosperidad that goes to the University of Sevilla and asked her, so she's going to ask her violinist friend (I'm imagining a Spanish version of Emily or Maddie) about practice rooms at the university.



On my birthday, Kane, Jon, and I went bridge watching (Lane had other more interesting engagements than viewing the marvels of 21st century engineering). We walked over three kilometers (one way) to see el Puente del Alamillo. The bridge has a 466 foot 142 meter-tall concrete and steel pylon angled at 68° supporting the bridge deck. Pretty cool, I'd venture to say.



Here is how it looks from my house, and then slightly closer.



On the bottom right you can see how the cables anchor into the bridge.



But wait, there's more! This isn't the only cool bridge in the area. Check out el Puente de la Barqueta on the bottom of this picture.



Promise this is my last bridge picture. For now, at least.



This was on our long walk back from the bridge. Some of you know that I'm a fan of trees. You may also know that I like things neat and organized. Now, what could be better than trees lined up in really straight lines?! :D



We interrupt this broadcast for a message from our sponsor, dog in the park.



Clouds.



Lastly, I figured I should unload the photos from my phone and show you my first tapas in Spain! I talked about these in the last blog post (I think). Since then, I've also added Jamón Ibérica, Queso Manchego, and Solomillos al Whisky to my tapas experience. Excited to try more! Speaking of food, the other day this was my lunch at home: lentejas, pulpo, y mejillones. That translates to: lentils, octopus, and mussels. Definitely one of the more "interesting" meals I've had.

In my next blog post, I'll fill you in on my classes and professors, the Andalucian accent, how much I miss Mexican food, our excursion last Saturday at the palace (for Stephanie's birthday!), and whatever else happens between now and then!

Also, it's Daniel's birthday already in China! Go tell him how much you appreciate him. Love ya guys and miss you.

Tsa luego! (that was a sneak preview of the accent)

The checkmark.

During our orientation at school, our program directors introduced the concept of the checkmark. In order to make the most of our time in Sevilla, they suggested we try to get at least one checkmark each day, meaning we do something worth remembering and attempt to experience new things (rather that just sitting on Facebook or something equally monotonous). The idea really resonated with me, so here are some of my "checkmarks" for the past couple days!



I went up the stairs to my apartment. Typically, going up stairs isn't a notable occasion, but I live on the 8th floor (which in Amurica would be called the 9th floor). You can see my window in the picture on the left: it's the second one from the top with the bars. It's to prevent the dangerous Sevilla monkeys from entering at night (they can smell Belarusians from miles kilometers away).



This, by the way, es mi cuarto (from the OCD desk to my camera backpack to my swanky pink towel [I promise I didn't bring it (wow, this feels like inputting something into Wolfram [shoot, I hope I didn't miss a bracket...])].



Here's a wider shot of the view from my room.



This is Alba! She's Victor and Maricarmen's daughter. Here she's eating pasta. Nay, starting to eat pasta, because once she was done the scene looked somewhat more red... pasta sauce everywhere. Yesterday she got a magnetic drawing board from some friends that came to visit (coincidentally, their names were José and María), so our activity this morning was seeing how fast we could fill the board up with the circle and triangle magnets. Then when the time came, I'd yell "borra lo!," Alba would erase, and then we'd start over. Definitely a checkmark!



Yesterday, we had a photo scavenger hunt. This, however, was no ordinary photo scavenger hunt (cue "Ordinary" by Wayne Brady and his brief smooth jazz career change). Anyhow, this scavenger hunt took all day. Above is a picture of the wonderful people I got to walk through probably around 10 miles 16 kilometers with. Smiling up top (he did win best smile in high school) is Aaron, below is Stephanie, then Katrina, después es Caprice, and then Kane at that bottom (he's a happy camper, don't let the mad face fool ya).



Here's a checkmark we got during the scavenger hunt. We were walking through one of the main streets near the center of town and all of a sudden (allusion to the Markan gospel, just for Danielsan) heard the sound of a clarinet sweetly playing the head of "All the Things You Are" floating down from farther up the street (click the link to hear Ella sing it). Definitely made my day. What's more, we talked to them for a bit and found out that there's an open jam session on Sunday nights on a street not ten minutes from my house by bike! And in addition to that, we stumbled across a place that has open jams on Thursday nights later that afternoon. I can hardly stop myself from typing IN ALL CAPS!!!



Speaking of bikes, this is Sevici. Figured it's about time you see what the bikes/stations look like. This is the station right by my house. The guy on the left is checking out a bike (while all you ladies are checking him out...hahahgahghagagha).



Ay! I forgot to introduce you officially to our cats. This is Waka on the left and Chispa (evil evil evil) on the right. If the scratch on the back of my hand isn't proof enough, get this: When you walk into the house, Chispa is typically waiting right on the edge of the back of the couch in the living room. Interestingly enough, that's exactly 2 inches 5 centimeters from where your hand is to close the door. What does Chispa do? SWAT VICIOUSLY. THAT'S WHAT CHISPA DOES. Waka, however, just tries to chew things. Waka thinks he's/she's a dog (never was really interested in identifying cat genders).



Back to the scavenger hunt. More checkmark-worthy experiences were found by finding (well that sounds awkward) really cool architecture, like this bridge, which is two bridges up from the one I cross to get to school.



Here you can see the bottom of this awesome sculpture/building thing. It's pretty titanic (it's a shame that word has lost it's usage in everyday English). I'll have a picture of the whole thing up on Facebook sometime soon.



Near the end of the scavenger hunt, two police cars with a parade following them broke through the crowds. We still have no idea what it was for, but there were musicians and guys holding giant flags (they needed to wear harnesses to help hold them up and have a separate guy steering the top of the flag with a rope) and people dressed like the broseph you see above on the right. They were holding these wooden hedge-trimmer type things and pretending to cut people's legs off.



Doing something on Spanish time is also worthy of a checkmark. Here's us, lounging about for 25 minutes longer than planned. This is now typical. We're joined by Rebecca (on a rival team, but we still like her) on the right.



Another checkmark activity is lounging by the river. Kane, Jon, Tyler, and I did this the other day; it's as satisfying as it seems :)

Here are just a couple more things, though not accompanied by pictures. We went to a small evangelical church this morning and I talked to the electric guitar player after the service. Turns out he's been through Santa Barbara before!

Afterwards, I was walking home and decided to stop for a little at one of the tapas places down the street from my house. I want to get to know the people in the neighborhood and the employees at the tapas places, so I think I'm going to start frequenting the several that are right by me (in the picture with the Sevici bikes, you can see the tables to one of the places in the background). These tapas bars get super crowded during siesta time; It seems like the whole neighborhood comes out to eat. Today I ordered a coke and some bacon-wrapped prawns (the menu said "langostinas," which I though was little lobsters, but turns out it was a different sea creature altogether). They were super good, although they were served with olives (which some of you know I'm not a big fan of; Dal and Dean, I actually ate some of them, you'd be proud!). They also had "ensalada rusa" on the menu: Russian salad. Turns out there are some Russians here apparently! I was going to order the salad, but I asked the waitress and she said it was just potatoes and mayonaise. Figures.

On the way home from tapas, I made friends with Javier and Gonzalo (both age 9) and we kicked a soccer ball around in front of my apartment building for twenty minutes. Some of my first Spanish friends! :)

Oh, and yes, I did manage to find a Russian market:



See the sign in the upper right that says Acento? That's our school. Did you get that?? Our school is right by a Russian market. I'm buying хрен.

Okay, class starts tomorrow, I need to sleep. Good night!

Where to start?

#thatawkwardmomentwhen you have so much to write and don't know what to include/exclude.

Anyhow, I think I'll tell you about where I live. I'm on the ninth floor of an apartment flat about a 25 minute walk from the school. It's a bit of a ways, but I really like the area. Luckily, I got my Sevici card today (Sevici is a public bike service) so now the time to get to school is cut in half. I love biking around the city (Mark likes to ride his bike around? What?). Wow. Speaking in the third person feels kind of pretentious. Dang it, I used "pretentious" in the last blog post. I need more adjectives. I think I'm okay on the adverbs though ;)

I biked to Parque de los Príncipes today to practice trumpet. Not sure what was more awkward, practicing trumpet in a public Spanish place or seeing an old man urinate in a public Spanish place. Just kidding, playing trumpet was a lot more awkward.

I also got called "guapo" by an old grandma on the street. Scratch that off my list of life-long aspirations.

The keyboards at school don't have apostrophes (or at least I couldn't find one for the life of me), so you'd get: "The keyboards at school don´t have apostrophes (or at least I couldn´t find one for the life of me), so you´d get..." Whoa. That felt kind of like Inception.

Moving on...

I talked to a guy on a fixie the other day (he was on the fixie, not me, just to clarify). Just want you guys to know that hipsters exist in Europe. Surprising, right? He had a tripod and a Lowepro bag, so I asked him what kind of stuff he shot, and he said rollerbladers. Definitely hip. He probably shot rollerblading before shooting rollerblading was big.

Hmmm, what else? I had hot dogs for dinner with my host family yesterday. Spanish food is fine, but the hot dogs were definitely a welcome treat. Another day I had this lasagna with what I'm pretty sure was liver pate inside. Along with a side of toast with what I'm sure was liver pate on it. Today we had a potato/some kind of sea food that I know isn't clams but is rather similar/mushroom soup. They're definitely big on sea food here in Spain. On liver lasagna day, I had bread left over after I finished the meal, so I asked if I could have some jam to finish off my bread. My host mom thought having jam (they call it marmalade, but it's definitely jam) after lunch was the strangest thing ever. I guess that's just a breakfast thing to eat. I wonder how they would feel about brinner...

My family is awesome. I live with Victor, Maricarmen, their adorable 2-year-old daughter Alba, Waka the cat, and Chispa the evil cat. I brought Alba a Tangled coloring book and a set of markers (washable; good advice Alison... they got all over Alba's hands within the first minute :) but she insisted on going to sleep in her crib with the markers.

Vale, how about some pictures.



This is right by my house. I walk down this street to get to the Sevici station/my school every day. The Sevici bicis are parked a tiny bit past that green kiosk.



I go down either big main streets or tiny one-way streets like this to get to school. The one-ways are awkward because the sidewalks are two narrow to allow a bike and a pedestrian by each other, but if you're in the road a lot of times your going against the flow of the automobile traffic.



This is Plaza de Cuba. It's right next to the river and our school is right over the bridge that connects to this roundabout.



On the right is Torre del Oro, reflecting en el río Guadalquivir.



The obligatory "I went to Europe and saw a red Vespa" shot.



These orange trees are everywhere.



Literally.



As well as mopeds/scooters/whatever Rafa wants you to call them.



A view of the cathedral from near the city center. The top is getting restored right now.

Speaking of restoration, my brain/feet need some of that. Good night!

Traveling, as captured by iPhone.

LAX. There are some mega-renovations happening in the Tom Bradley Terminal.



The obligatory airport bathroom picture.



More pictures of the renovations, this time via airplane window. The flight was supposed to leave at 4:30, but right before we started taxiing there was a split-second power outage in the plane's electronics that apparently was somewhat serious (weird, right?). We waited until about 6:00 to lift off (yes, I know the watch says 7:00). Thanks to Collin Hill for the watch. I'm finally getting used to wearing it all the time!



Airplane food. This meal was surprisingly a lot better than I expected. In the words of some food columnist, "British Airlines Sous Chef strikes again, with a tender curry chicken in long rice, reminiscent of the dishes introduced to London in the 1960s by famed chef Rakesh Advani." Anyhow, going on: the salad vegetables tasted real! And the banana bread cake thing was AMAZING. Seriously. And while we're on the topic of foods, the bottom right is a picture of my pretentiously self-centered breakfast.



Good morning! I woke up to an incredible view of a sunrise at 40,000+ feet. Also in attendance were a small smattering of ice flakes. I was able to sleep for about 8 hours of my flight, which was a huge blessing because I'm not too jet-lagged now that I'm here. And yes mom and dad, I was able to sleep that long because I didn't sleep much the night before :) It worked!



I wanted to post this because both Turkey and Lithuania are on this map! Please be in prayer for all our friends on those programs, as well as Danielsan in China, Alison in Ecuador, Kristin in Tanzania, and everyone else that is about and about.



A glimpse of Birmingham, England, through the break in the clouds.



Good bye 747. You can see my window a couple of windows back from the 2nd to last door.



Welcome to Heathrow (said of course in an authentic British accent)! I love big airports because of the incredible architecture that is inevitably present. One of the things on my bucket list is to help design an airport someday. Also, I almost missed my second flight because of this Starbucks.



Flying to Madrid...



See what I mean?! Increíble. This is Madrid's aeropuerto. Also, I met an awesome older couple from Norway who spoke perfect English in the airport and struck up a conversation. I found out after the wife bought me food (she insisted) and let me use her phone to call my parents internationally that they're Christians! Meeting them was definitely a God-sent gift. And they're place in Málaga has an organic avocado orchard. Que chévere.



My last flight for the trip over. Sevilla to Madrid. The flight attendant got mad at me because she thought my carry-on was too big. My favorite part was that she found it necessary to point to everyone else's bag in the surrounding vicinity and point out how their bags were okay. I think that was my first insight into the bluntness of Spanish culture :) Next time I going to bring carrion as my carry-on and see if she's any happier. Mwahahaha.

In the aisle seat of my row (the middle seat was empty) sat a women that definitely seemed Spanish, and for the first thirty minutes of the flight I tried mustering up the courage to ask her something in Spanish. It seemed like she was trying to fall asleep but wasn't able to, so I finally asked her, "¿Estás cansada?" I don't remember what she said (whoops) but the question managed to break the ice (thank goodness, that could've been awkward). We ended up talking for the rest of the flight and she was able to answer some of my questions in a mix of Spanish and English (albeit with an accent probably as heavy as mine when talking Spanish), such as what to do in Sevilla, where the best beaches are, etc. Her name was Consolación (she goes by Conso) and was flying from Madrid because her boyfriend lives there. Moral of the story (a.k.a. generalization alert): although Spanish people don't always look friendly from the outside, they're super friendly once you break the ice.

Anyhow, 24ish hours after departing Santa Barbara, I made it to my host family's home in Sevilla. More on them later!

p.s. I'm listening to Bart Millard's album Hymned Again right now. Super good, especially for jazz lovers. Lots of dixie-like instrumentations. And yes, the Spotify ads are now in Spanish.

Vale. Adios. ¡Que tenaís un buen día/tarde/noche!

Packing.

Well, the hour is almost near. In less than 6 hours I'll be on a plane headed towards my new home for four months. Couple interesting facts:

It would take 4 times the amount of ALL the oil produced worldwide since 1850 to fill Spain 1 meter high with oil.

However, a lake of oil of that magnitude (and for that matter, any lake of oil) isn't a very comforting image so how about we turn all of that hypothetical oil into 2% milk. Such a magnitude of promised-land-victuals (minus the honey...and I'm pretty sure whole milk is biblical, and not 2%) would contain quite a lot of calories, which would be energetically equivalent to 1/9th of the total energy from the sun that hits the earth in 1 minute.

A minute has 60 seconds.

An hour has 60 minutes.

A day has 23.9345 hours.

If sidereal (don't worry, I just learned this word too) hours occupied a 24 hour day, their slogan would be "We are the 99.727%."

Here is the luggage that I am going to try to not lose (hopefully the airline will have the same aspirations) before I get to my host family. Unfortunately, British Airways doesn't let you take an avalanche rescue pack into the cabin*...they're definitely not living up to their initials.



In regards to my host family, I'll be staying with a young couple, Victor and María, and their daughter, Alba, who is in kindergarten. The other night the Bancrofts prayed for my travels and time abroad when I was bidding my farewell to them, and part of Seth's prayer for me was "Thank you God that Mark will have a family." Jajaja. Oh Seffers.

Speaking of prayers, I would really appreciate all your support through prayer in the coming months. Mainly: that travels would be safe and without any complications, that I would develop lifelong friendships between my host family, students on the SIS program, and the friends I will make in Sevilla, that communication between Spain, the states, and Ecuador :) would work out well (I really hope I can find free WiFi...), that I would be quickly plugged in to a vibrant church community, and that I would be able to learn Spain's Spanish quickly!

*really, it's on their website...

Cookies.

Okay. You're right. I'm not even in Spain yet. However, I still wanted to post this. What follows this brief and banal paragragh is the result of the first official culinary collaboration between my sister and I. She does the baking, I do the eating. We didn't have too much going on tonight (despite the fact that I haven't packed a single thing in my suitcase yet), so my sister decided to bake (I believe they're pecan butterscotch chocolate chip cookies) and I decided I wanted to take pictures of cookies. Taisa loves making delicious baked goods, and I love taking pictures. Win win.







For those interested in the photo details, the lighting setup is shown right above. The umbrella in the back (concealing a Nikon SB-24 and a Cactus V2s trigger) served as the key light; backlighting just seems to be the thing in food photography these days. The umbrella in front (SB-600) served as the fill, and the strobe on the side (SB-600, firing through a honeycomb grid set to 16°, I believe) just brought out some detail in different parts of the frame for some of the shots (I didn't use it for every shot).