Music and Lyrics

Dear Reader, Today I cheated. Instead of thinking of a song I knew about traveling or seeing the world, I searched for one. Yes, Google was my assistant. The result was finding this song by Dar Williams, " I Have Been Around the World ." I have never heard of her and I know nothing about her. The song was cool, so I decided to use the title. So sue me. I am going to change it to "I Have Been Around Spain." Because that is what our group has been doing. A lot. This past weekend we took a trip to Avila and Salamanca, returned to Madrid for a Futbol game, and then finished off the weekend with a farewell concert for a missionary couple on Temple Square in Madrid. It was quite an adventure. Of course I'll share some pictures with you! The majority of our group  This week's trip included stops in Ávila and Salamanca. We really couldn't have asked for a better weekend. Taking off from Madrid Friday morning, we spent the morning in Ávila looking at

Dear Reader What is love? Baby, don’t hurt me; don’t hurt me no more… That’s a pretty good song. That is a good question stated in the lyrics. Hopefully I can fully explain the insights I had while road-tripping to Barcelona and Tarragona this weekend with our International Studies group. We took time to see the Sacred Family in Barcelona, as well as a day at the beach in Tarragona. I have had some eye-opening thoughts and our group as a whole has learned a bit about communication and having fun. I will explain our trip with details while trying to explain the epiphany I had about love while in Zaragosa, Barcelona, Tarragona and Medinaceli.  Barcelona, Spain Welcome to Barcelona! After stopping in Zaragosa for a couple museums and food, we arrived in Barcelona on Wednesday evening. As a whole, Barcelona is pretty and there is lots of activity. It is a huge tourism city, which kind of takes away from the experience that we are having as we study. The other cities we h

Dear Reader, One short day in the [Segovia] City! It is a beautiful city, to be sure. As part of our study abroad program in Spain, our group takes various trips to different cities here in Spain to see museums, palaces and history from several different eras of humanity. Today it was a pleasure to travel to Segovia. We had several adventures while we were there. First off, we stopped off at the Palacio de la Granja (Palace of the Farm). It was an attempt to replicate the Palace of Versailles in France back in the 18th century. We weren't able to enter the palace itself, but we spent about an hour walking around the numerous gardens on the south side of the palace. The palace gardens awesome. The pictures taken here don't do it justice. The gardens stretched father than you can see and the statues were absolutely beautiful. They were representations of hunting on the grounds with dogs, Greek Gods, and other famous figures from the middle ages. However, despit

Dear Reader, I've always had a problem with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It simply didn't occur to me until today. It has always been there, but for some reason it became clear. "What? Dale, what are you talking about?!"  Calm down. I am not going to start shouting out blasphemy or come out wanting to leave the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Quite the contrary, actually. Notice how I said, " I've always had a problem with the Gospel of Jesus Christ"? The Gospel doesn't present problems, it provides solutions. Christ teaches us and gives us answers. No, the problem is my personality. I like to do things well. When singing or performing with a group, I do it to the best of my ability. When working, I give my hardest efforts. However, when I don't do things well, I don't do them. As I stated at the beginning, I want it all or I want nothing at all. When it comes to the Gospel, that is where I encounter my problem. Living g

Dear Reader, Welcome to Madrid! Here is a short update on what we have been doing the past few days here in Spain. Yesterday was exhausting because we took a trip to Madrid. Everyone in our group lives in a little suburb outside Madrid called Alcala de Henares. After our first day of classes yesterday, a few of us decided to take the time to start on homework for what may be the most amazing class ever: Madrid Walks. This class is great because all we have to do is walk around Madrid. That's it. Ok, we have to write about what we saw and did on our walks afterward, but who doesn't want to brag about walking around one of the oldest and most beautiful cities in Spain? Our director made some simple instructions that lead us on different routes to see museums, tourist attractions and historic sites. Yesterday we took a walk down the Paseo del Prado.  We started at the old train station in Madrid, which houses a large garden with small ponds around it. The ponds were