Music and Lyrics

Dear Reader, There is something that I have never shared with anyone. It is a type of pet-peeve I have. When people post on social media on the anniversary of their departure to or arrival from serving a full-time mission for the LDS Church. You have probably seen people who share things like, "Today marks 2 years since I got home from the best 2 years of my life!" or "Today is the year-mark of being back from my mission in [insert name of city or country here]." Before getting all up in arms, I want to tell you that it is certainly NOT a bad thing to celebrate these milestones. Don't worry, I will never think less of somebody for commemorating that monumental step in their life. It just stirs something inside me every time I see a post or comment to that effect. With that said, I am going to be a complete hypocrite and share that two years have passed since ending my full-time missionary service. "Wait a second, Gus. Doesn't that bother you when p...

Dear Reader, I just have to say, I like you. Even if I don't know you, you are an awesome person. Just so you know. This week is all about getting to know people better and finding what you like about them, apparently. Let me share more with you about our travels through Andalucia, Spain. It was a blast! La Alhambra in Granada, Spain.  After leaving Sevilla, we made it to Granada, home of the Alhambra . This is a city within a city. According to our wonderful tour guide, Ester, it has more than 8000 visitors every day. Even with that many tickets to sell, it is difficult to get them. We are lucky, indeed. The highlight for me was the Torre de la Vela.  Atop the tower is a bell with a romantic tradition. There is a celebration every year on January 2nd in the Alhambra, during which if a person rings the bell on top of this tower three times, they will fall in love and be married within the next year. Unfortunately it is not January, so none of us could ring the bell....

Dear Reader,  There are some things in life that are just unattainable in a lifetime. The culture of Flamenco dancing/music is one of those things. There are so many influences from different areas of the world that no one knows where it started really. It is kind of like milking a cow; no one really knows who the first person was to look at a cow’s utters and think, “Let’s drink what comes out of those!” It is something that is amazing but has little known about its origin. Anyway, that was a random tangent. Allow me to return to this week’s trip. The three dancers for the show (See below) We took a trip to Córdoba, Sevilla and Granada this week. Wednesday night was the highlight, possibly the best night of the entire program (There is still another month, so we will see if that holds true). The night consisted of a trip to the only Flamenco Museum in the world, which resides in Sevilla.   It was kind of an adventure getting there because the building is on a ...

Dear Reader, If you don't recognize that song title, it is from Guys and Dolls , the Musical. Sky, the protagonist, sings it to his girl as they arrive in New York City in the "wee small hours of the morning" (Bonus points to whoever can guess that reference). Sky talks about how much he loves the morning hours because of the beautiful sights and the stillness of the city. With that in mind, take a gander at this: Toledo Welcome to Toledo at 7 AM! It is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Now, this picture is brought to you via our awesome trip that started at 4:30 AM. Yes, that is right. We got up at 4, left for the train that left at 5:10 to Madrid. From there we took the Metro to the Bus station. For further emphasis, I love Alcalá de Henares and Madrid at those early morning hours as well. Taking a bus at 6:30, we arrived in Toledo and found this view on our way to our destination. Someday I will show it to you in person. The driveway(?) w...

Dear Reader, I'm surprised that this song by The Carpenters hasn't shown up on this blog yet. Despite that, here is a recap of our trip for this week! We visited El Escorial in Madrid and another castle on our day trip to Madrid, Spain. Study Abroad Group, Spain, Fall 2014 We are standing on the edge! The shot above is taken in front of the Santa Cruz del Valle de los Caidos . The church is in the mountains to the north of Madrid and is a monument to those who fell during the civil war of Spain. Just like almost every other monument we have visited, we were not allowed to take pictures inside. It was beautiful! When I say the church is in the mountain, I literally mean to say in, as in inside. If you have seen "Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring," you can compare it to the mines of Moria. There is one long hallway leading up the chapel that is at the middle of the mountain. The cupola looks flat, but it is actually a dome. Supposedly there is some ...

Dear Reader, When looking my Facebook timeline or at my twitter account, you can see that I haven't uploaded nearly as many pictures in the past couple of weeks as were posted during my first couple of weeks here in Spain. I have had an epiphany in the past week or so. To me it seems that the internet, selfies, videos, links, etc, are all meant for one thing: to share an experience with someone or multiple people who were not present for the original experience. The thought came to mind that the pictures I have posted have the purpose of sharing my great experiences with you, my friend. They say a picture says a thousand words. This is true. However, there is much more than that. For example, you can see that we are happy and enjoying ourselves in this picture in front of the great city of Toledo. However, I discovered that, unless you were there with us, you do not fully appreciate the view that was behind us. You do not fully appreciate that Liz has a fantastic smile de...

Dear Reader, Well, today is the day long talked about with the 400 challenge: blog post number 400! Here are the results of the survey about which challenge to take. Talk about a close race! For a good part of the survey period, the top three options were tied with the number of votes they had. Alas, it has come down to the challenge of telling 400 women that they are beautiful. I wanted to share a little bit about what the challenge will consist of. Of course I invite you to participate. To start off, here is a quick video that was inspired by the song "Enough" by the band The Mrs .  With that said and understood, my goal is to take a small amount of time to get to know these women who I'm going to talk to and know a little bit about the beauty they have. Hopefully it won't come across as really weird to those whom I talk to, but it will get better as we go along.  As stated earlier, I encourage you to participate. Here I will post pictures, storie...