interesting weekend

This weekend was very unexpectedly fun. I had nothing planned, but plans made themselves.

Friday night I went with some friends to a big music festival held in Granada anually. What an event! Upon first entering the festival, it appeared more like a fair than a music concert. There was cotton candy, churros and chocolate, and bumper cars. It seemed almost like I was at a fair in the U.S. but much smaller. In another section, accross a parking lot, was the music stage with a huge crowed of people gathered around it. It was crazy! Apparently this isn't the kind of festival you go to sober. This became apparent as I walked to the stage, through a parking lot full of small groups of people getting so drunk and high they didn't know what was going on. Needless to say, it was an interesting experience. I pushed through the crowd to get somewhat close to the stage, but feared getting beer spilled on me if I went too far into the crowed. Angela and I only stayed there for about 10 minutes and decided maybe we should come back when we're drunk (which means never). In spite of this, I'm really glad I got to experience the biggest music festival in Granada. The music sounded awesome, so I wish I would have been able to enjoy it more.

The next day we slept in late and then made random plans with some Spaniards Andrea had met at a kareoke (sp?) bar a few nights before. Angela, Andrea and I got coffee with them so we could practice spanish with them and help them with their english. They invited us to play soccer in the Sierra Nevadas afterward so we couldn't pass this up! We were the only girls, and all of us were horrible at soccer but it was a fun adventure! The mountains were beautiful and we stayed up there until sunset. It was a fun day and a great opportunity to practice Spanish and learn more colloquial language. My name that day was 'Karla,' because 'Kyla' is too hard for Spaniards to pronounce!

That night ee planned on going to a bar to watch the OSU football game at 2 am, but after everything we were too tired! So I still don't know who won...

This morning the 3 of us went to an evangelical church close to our house. We had no idea what it would be like, but we had happened to see it the first week we came and decided to check it out. I'm glad we did because we had an amazing time there! Everyone was so nice and so welcoming. It was a very small and intimate atmosphere, with a congregation of about 150 people. Worship was lively and fun, and we sang some familiar songs from church at home (which were fun to hear in Spanish), and some that I had never heard of. After worship all the guests had to stand up and introduce themselves to the whole congregation! It wasn't too intimidating since there were about 10 other new people. We met a few students from the U.S. and some other Spaniards our age who go there. After today, I already feel like this church is a home to me. It was so easy to talk to the people and we hung out with them for a while after the service. Every Sunday a lot of the youth have lunch together, so I'm looking forward to getting to know people better through that. I feel so blessed to make my home there and I'm praying that all three of us will be able to become active and contributing members of the church while we're here.

This is all I have time to write not, but I could really go on forever. My time here has been amazing so far and I'm looking forward to everything that is to come.