Ok now it's just getting a little silly

Well today the Lord took my wallet from me. Somehow it fell out of my pocket while I was on the bus. I looked everywhere and talked to the driver but it's gone.

Fortunately I only had 20 euros in cash, but it still stinks because I had a lot of other important stuff in there including my checking card, insurance cards and everything else that normally is in a wallet. I think that God is teaching me a lesson about my stuff. First my luggage got lost (technically it's not lost, but I haven't seen it in 4 weeks and I haven't heard from the airline in 8 days.) But not only are all of my clothes probably gone forever, my wallet is gone too.

It's cool though. I am starting to realize that money isn't all that important. And what better way to learn that than to get stranded in Europe with no clothes or money?

Oh so soon

I went to Morocco last weekend and it was an awesome time. So I want to tell you all about it. But at this point I don't have the time to sit down and write something good because we are in the middle of a prayer conference right now and the days packed. I will try to write something soon and I am uploading my pictures now. flickr.com/photos/zaysmallman.

Viva Espana!

Well Spain just won their semi-final match in the EuroCup against Russia. The score was 3-0

Lets just say it was nuts. I just got home from the game and even while I sit here in my room I can hear horns honking and fire works going off all over the place. Football is life here and when your team wins it shows.

The bar was PACKED with people, all cheering for Spain (obviously) and after every goal people went crazy. Jumping up and down, deafening noise, high fives and hugs all around. But that was only the beginning. After they won we left the bar and started walking home. We encountered several large groups of people all chanting and thought, wow this is great. But then I reached one of the main plazas downtown. There were probably about 9-10 thousand people crowded into the plaza. People were climbing on the gigantic fountain, waving Spanish flags, shooting off huge fireworks and chanting.

I stopped in the Plaza for a while and partied with "the people" then started for home. As I walked, every car that passed was either honking its horn or waving a Spanish flag out the window or both. Even on the little scooters people were waving flags and screaming.

I have never experienced anything like this. The people I saw were all different ages, men and women. Some of them were even old. There is just nothing like this in the states. And this was only the semi-finals. What if they win the cup?

Today I go to Morcco

Today I am going to Morocco. This is pretty exciting because I have always heard that it is a pretty cool place but also I have never really had a chance to see any of the third world as they like to call it. So this should be a cool new experience for me.

I will write more if I get a chance while I'm there. If I don't get internet there I will write when I get back. Also I will take lots of pictures and put them on my flickr.

I was born a poor black child

Last night I watched The Jerk. It's really funny

Yesterday I went to the supermarket with a friend to get food. For the most part it was just like any store we have in the states. But then we go to the meat section and it was like a whole new world. In the states everything is always cleaned and pre-packaged, but here the meat section is like a real butcher shop.

There are huge hunks of all different kinds of meat just sitting in the window. If you want something you ask the person to cut you some of it and boom there it is. The coolest thing though was the rabbits. They had whole de-furred rabbits.

At first I couldn't tell what they were, but I noticed the long ears and it hit me. These used to be cut little things jumping around in someones yard. I wish that American stores had cooler meat sections...

Ok I guess I will write on my Blog

Well for a while I didn't feel like writing on my blog. But I thought about it, and even if no one reads this, it will still be really good exercise for me. So to all of you faithful readers [and I know there are many of you] I am back. I will try to write about some interesting stuff.

Speaking of interesting...I went to Madrid the other day [it was totally last minute] to meet up with Ford Quarterman and his Spanish friend. I was there for two days [you can see pictures on at Flickr

The trip was great blah blah blah. But the interesting thing happened late the second night when I missed my 1:35 am bus back to Granada. Originally I was on a really tight budget because I had to pay for two nights at a hostel, food and I only had 90 euros to do it because my bank card was frozen. Once the money was gone it was gone. But when I met up with Ford, his friend said I could stay with him. So I thought, "Hey I can spend all the money I want." I did a bunch of unnecessary stuff like tour the Real Madrid stadium etc. and by the end of the night I only had about 14 euros left. But I was taking the bus home and I already had a ticket so I was fine.

When I missed the bus I said to myself, "crap, I don't have anywhere to go and the next bus isn't until 10:30 tomorrow morning." So I started walking. Little did I know I was walking in the wrong direction and I ended up in a really scary part of southern Madrid that was poorly lit, and empty except for the lines and lines of prostitutes who chased me down every time I had to walk by. Needless to say I was a little worried. I didn't know where I was. I had two expensive cameras with me and I had no where to sleep. After about 3 hours of walking I made it back to center city and found a bench to sleep on. After a pretty un-restful hour of sleep I got up and read for another couple hours till the subway stations opened.
What I was reading was "The Bonfire of the Vanities" which is a book by Tom Wolfe about New York in the 1980's. It spends a lot of time discussing "the ghetto" and the plot is centered around a hairy encounter in The Bronx.

At around 6 the subway opened and everything was fine and I slept on the subway until my bus was ready to go. I had survived "the jungle" to put it in the words of one of Tom Wolfe. And it was time to back to Granada.

Last night when I got home I watched Spain play soccer and then came up to my room. I couldn't decide if I wanted to go to bed or go out and do something. But as I sat here at my computer I started to get really lonely. I thought about how much fun all my friends at home must be having with out me, how I can barely even talk to my friends here and how much I didn't really want to be here in the first place.

I went out on my little 2X4 terrace and smoked a cigarette. When I was done I came back in, crawled onto my hot bed and eventually fell asleep. This morning I woke up after about 13 hours of sleep [I guess I was tired since I didn't really sleep the night before] and thought about my thoughts from the night before and I realized that (1) it is a huge privilege to be here. Most people don't get to just go out of the country for two months... (2) I realized that I didn't come here for vacation. I came to serve other people for a change, and to taught things by the people that I meet as well as by God.

So that was good.

Granada is Cash Money

I just arrived in Granda about two hours ago and it is already awesome. I flew in over the Sierra Nevada mountains and took a cab to my new home.

The first thing that we did was go out for tapas. In Granada the tapas restaurants give you a free tapas with every drink that you buy. Which is great because the drinks only cost like 1.5 Euros.

I will write more about what it is like here later and post some pictures to my Flickr when I get some more time.