It is foggy

I'm in the study room right now, looking out the window at the construction outside our school, and catching a glimpse of the tree covered hills in the background through the fog. The university I am studying at (University of the Basque Country) has beautiful surroundings, but the campus itself is pretty run down and dirty. There are cigarette butts all over the hallways and the stairs. People are smoking everywhere, which is not something that I am used to. I was just heading up the stairs a few minutes ago inside the building, and I could see my breath. That's kind of a crazy thing to see in the middle of the day when you are inside. Last night we got confirmation from the hostel we are going to stay at in Barcelona this upcoming weekend. We already booked the flights and now we've got to figure out what we want to do once we get there. We arrive Friday morning and leave Tuesday afternoon (we have Monday and Tuesday off school for Carnaval), so we have plenty of time. I hear great things about Barcelona so I'm pretty excited to have the chance to spend a pretty good amount of time there.

 

As for now, I have Operations Management in a half hour, then Fabrice, Evan and I are going to take the bus to downtown Bilbao and walk around the city for a while. Then we have Basque Folkdance tonight from 6-8. This all makes for a long day, but thats what this trip is about. I'm definitely being pushed and tested in ways that I never have before. Its not the classes this time that are the challenge, it is everything associated with being in a new place, surrounded by new people and with a totally different schedule. Recently, God has been making himself very present to me during all of this, letting me know that He follows me anywhere I could possibly go. When most of the things in your life that you have grown accustomed to get stripped away, you are left to deal with feeling isolated and sometimes pretty alone. But God has shown up here with such a passion to draw me near to Him that it more than makes up for any sense of uncertainty that I have.

 

That's it for now. My next post will tell many tales of Barcelona and hopefully will include some pretty sweet pictures. These pictures here I took this last weekend along the water in Getxo. Adios amigos!