La Reunion de Domingo

Another early morning! We got up early because we had no idea how we were going to get to the meeting room! The numbers Natalie was given were not working! At first we were a little worried, a little frustrated, and with only three hours of sleep, a LOT tired (due to our lovely hostal lady-we blame everything that went wrong on her!). Leanne and Cheryl were ok with getting up early because of the great motivater, Starbucks, right down the street. Problem, when you have a city that stays up till four in the morning, they aren´t exactly ready for business at eight! We had a solution, walk up the street a couple more blocks and hit the next Starbucks. Yeah, no. Not working for us! So turning around, we pasted smiles on our faces, and marched back in high heels to meet the other girls who were still trying to contact the meeting people. So what were we going to do? We had a brilliant idea! Hop on the metro and just go find it! We all know how good we are at finding things! So we had a vote. It turned out that this was probably not our best option. So a few trans-atlantic cell phone calls later (we would appreciate any donations towards that bill!), Cheryl´s Uncle Bob phones at only about three in the morning his time. Pretty eager to help us out, he arranged for us to be picked up and taken care of before we knew what was happening! Thanks Uncle Bob! We love you and want to forgive you for making us haul 60 pounds of Bibles around Europe! JK, we actually really appreciate the biceps we have developed!
Anyhow, we were picked up at the metro stop by a very nice man, Gaston. We hadn´t yet been exposed to the European greeting (double cheek air kiss) and were a little shocked at first! We followed Gaston around the corner to his house and met his wife, Milca, who had prepared a huge breakfast for us! Cheryl and I finally got our coffee!!!!!!!! They even had comfort food such as cocoa puffs! As well as this most amazing cheese. We safely delivered the bibles and calendars to Gaston and the extra weight was totally worth it when we saw the look on his face. He was thrilled! Apparently SUVs and mini vans are pretty much non-existent in Europe so they had to shuttle us to meeting in several different cars. We met a ton of wonderful people (there´s about 20 or so in the Madrid meeting) and got a ton more double cheek air kisses. With all the cheek contact, we started wondering exactly how these people keep such beautiful skin! Meeting was interesting. Amanda and Leanne understood pretty much nothing, but Cheryl, Char and Natalie were able to pick up quite a bit. They have a 30 min Sunday School, launch right into Breaking of Bread for an hour, followed immediatly by a 30 min Gospel meeting. This was a little hard to pick up with the lack of spanish skills but we managed it. For Breaking of Bread we got to talk in meeting. Well we actually just read our own names in our letters of commendation because the brother was having some difficulties with it.
Anyway this will be continued soon as we have much more to tell you and this day was not over yet. Photos are arriving soon! We promise!!!!!

Tension!!!

Hey everybody! We are a little behind in our blogging but are going to give you an quick update of Saturday, the 29th. Our day started out as usual....overslept and fell out of bed running. After our experience with the car the day before, we needed to arrive back in Algerias with plenty of time before siesta. Today we were going to take NO chances of missing our train or not being able to return our car. We grabbed a quick bite of breakfast consisting of fresh hot waffles smothered in chocolate, (which Leanne and char's stomachs regretted later) a croissant for Amanda, Chorizo sandwhich for Natalie, and nothing for Cheryl which was a BAD IDEA!!!!!! Things were going smoothly and everyone was getting along on the hour ride back until arriving at the car rental return and Char remembering that she was missing something... Her spanish/english Bible! (And no Cheryl the one sitting on your dad's shelf is not the same!) Can you guess who was not real thrilled about driving back? BY the way Cheryl was an AMAZING driver in the chaotic windy roads and insane traffic. Seeing how important her Bible was to her, we decided to take the HUGE risk of missing our train etc. and drove back to get the Bible. You could have cut the air it was so thick with tension! But, as always we made it by the skin of our teeth! The five hour train ride seemed to calm us all down and we were thrilled to be back in Madrid for even though we had trouble finding our hostal again. Amanda screemed and Leanne was psyched when she thought we had found it. Even better than our hostal, STARBUCKS!!!!! Life was good again and we found our hostal shortly after. Our happiness was short lived. Seems the lady lost our reservations for that night. Poor Natalie had to argue back and forth with the LOCO lady and translate for the Korean girls who didn't speak a work of spanish or english, while the blabber talked so fast none of us could understand. Two hours later we finally had rooms for the night. Oh did we mention that we later found out the lady spoke english? Leanne and Amanda put her in her place the next day. Only took 5 Minutes of saying to the lady "No comprendo, you can yell at us all you want in spanish but we can't understand you." She was an angel to us two the rest of the time! After throwing our bags into our room, we hop scotched down the three flights of stairs and got some much needed food and of course starbucks and ice cream. Our night ended around 3:30 a.m. and we continue to feel the effects of the lack of sleep.
Speaking of lack of sleep, its exactly 3:00 a.m. and we are calling it a night. HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Amanda and Char

Hey folks,
We will be posting a blog soon! Haven´t had much time on our hands! But don´t worry, we are alive and well
-All of us

Tanger "The gates of Africa"

Hey everybody! Amanda here and Guess what? We got up when the alarm went off first try! We got ready ten minutes faster then yesterday, unfortunately that still put us late for the 45 minute drive to Tarifa. Amazingly enough we made it all the way there without getting lost!!! The problem was, we were already late for the ferry and parking was impossible! Finally we found a spot we thought we might have a chance at not getting towed in :) Running as fast as we could down a steep hill and through alleys Cheryl suddenly realized she was missing one minor little thing... HER PASSPORT!!!!! Back up the hill she ran while the rest of us waited at the bottom. Uggs turned out to be great running shoes for Amanda! ha! Running the rest of the way there (1\2 mile maybe???) we made it gasping for breath to find a long line. Apparently the ferry isn´t always real timely! We got our first passport stamp of the day and enjoyed the 45 minute ride over the Mediterranean sea to Tanger. Upon arriving we exited the ship soon to be escorted right back on the ship to get our passports stamped AGAIN! only problem was that the stamper guy was on an extended siesta break! We were sure we had missed our tour but the cute german guys (love at first sight!!! guess who...ok all of us!!!) and a few other people forgot to stamp their passports too so we were in luck! We toured the city in a big tour bus and now Char is here to tell you some facts that our guide shared with us.

Hey everyone! As the title states Tanger/Morocco is called the "Gates of Africa" seeing as it is the closest point to Europe. As we rode the bus through the city it was nothing like I had expected. For the most part it was very modern and there were women everywhere, not just men. Most of them women had headscarves on but not all and they usually weren´t accompanied. The city is divided into two parts, the old city (called Medina) and the new city. The old city has very narrow streets and can handle no cars at all. The new city is where we first drove through and it has very wide streets with tons of cars and people everywhere. We passed by beautiful mosques, flower beds and lots of cemetaries. Some of the cemetaries have above ground cement coffins just sitting there. That was kind of wierd to see. The women walking around in all white are widows. They must mourn and dress like that for 4 months and 10 days before they can go back to normal life. Another thing he told us about women is that they must wait 3 months after divorce to get remarried to make sure they are not with child from their first husband. I thought that was interesting, I can´t imagine anyone in the States even caring or thinking about that. The guide said they have three Sundays here.... Friday for the Muslims, Saturday for the Jews and Sundays for the Christians and everyone else. The majority of people here are Muslims but there are a few Jews, Christians and Catholics. We also drove by a street filled with rich peoples homes- rulers from Saudi Arabia and other places have their summer homes here. Natalie and I were excited to hand out the special tracts my Dad gave me but didn´t remember we had them until we were digging in our bags for our passports at time of departure. :( Sorry Dad. Ok, here´s Amanda again.

Our first stop was....camel rides, pictures, and crazy barter people! Cheryl was quickly overwhelmed by the crazy people and opted to run back onto the bus for safety and well being!!! Char, Amanda, and Leanne, and Natalie all took a quick camel ride and scored with some moroccan bracelets. After Amanda explained some bartering techniques to Cheryl, she became more at peace with the whole experience and became quite the expert herself by the end of the day :) After the Camel stop came lunch with a crazy moroccan band and interesting food to say in the least. We ended up learning some german from our cute german guys. Cheryl can now tell you how to ask for a guys phone number in german :) We also admitted to following them most of the day to avoid the more persistant freaks! Although some were offering us stuff for free we were so cute! Next stop the rug shop! Amanda was pretty sure it was a snake charmer place and Cheryl flipped out at that idea!!! hahah. just beautiful rugs. None of us could afford these so we moved on to the very "authentic" spice market. Here we viewed a demonstration of the many wonderful things they had to offer and cure everything. Yes we bought some.
Last stop, one more little shop. Here Char and Amanda were rushed upstairs to once again look at some rugs etc! We were able to barter enough to get some small decor to bring along with us. yay! Not to be rushed but we were once again late for the ferry! And...one minor detail...we lost the papers that allowed us back on the ship!!! freaking out we frantically searched through all of our belongings to thankfully find them. We made it through security again...another stamp and rode the ferry back. Getting off...oh wait...i know...lets go through security AGAIN! 4 stamps in our passports just to go to morocco for a day. wow. Next stop...Rock of Gibraltar. This is British territory so once again...more security! No stamps either. We were ticked! Quick driving tour to see the rock from the road and then an hour wait in the car to get back out....can you guess? security: Leanne and Char were feeling right at home due to the canadian border that they travel across on a regular basis. We were all starving at this point and Mc Donalds was just the place to fix this need. Can you say papas fritas? French fries tasted wonderful after the earlier Moroccan food. We finally got back to our temporary home and did some more shopping and a quick pizza stop. That leads up to now where we sit here eating ice cream. Cheryl and Amanda have officially claimed themselves food junkies :) who can resist tirimisu ice cream? Ok well thats all for now!
Amanda

Day 2 from LeAnne and Char

Ok all, LeAnne and Char would like to give their version of the day. :) Started out by setting our alarm for a quarter to 6 last night so we could wake up in time to catch our train to Algeciras since we had no idea what time it left, only that there were two going out that day. When it went off, Amanda kindly silenced it and gave us another half hour of sleep. We were planning on leaving at 6:30 and panicked when we woke up and realized we had 15 minutes. Cheryl says for now on to wake her when we say we are leaving since she now realizes we will have at least a half hour from that time. HAHA. After taking the Metro to the train station, we wandered around blabbering broken spanish to anyone who would listen (which wasn´t too many) asking how to get our rail passes validated and tickets reserved to Algeciras. We finally realized we were pronoucing Algeciras totally wrong which was why we hearing a lot of "No comprendo!!" LeAnne was in dire need of coffee (she still hasn´t found the local Starbucks) so we stopped at a cool little espresso stand for shots of espresso. We have quickly realized that "to go" coffee or anything for that matter is a completely american idea. Shots are served in mini china mugs while standing at the counter. After our daily fix we found the correct plaza for take off and boarded our train for a five hour ride through some beautiful spanish country side. Natalie and Char not-so-discreetly videotaped some of the scenery while receiving numerous weird glances. We are definitely tourists. After arriving in Algeciras, LeAnne, Char and Amanda were appointed guardians of the baggage while Cheryl and Nat went in search of the car. LeAnne and Amanda were starving due to the fact that they had eaten nothing all day and decided to try ordering from the local cafe. Big Mistake. After standing "unnoticed" for close to 10 minutes, the owner walked over to take their order. With lots of hand motions and garbled sounds, the girls made it known what they wanted to eat. After receiving their first take out order of the trip, they excitedly brought their foil wrapped parcels to show Char. Unwrapping them they were in for a great let down as they soon realized the spanish cuisine was merely hunks of cheese and egg stuck between pieces of stale bread with no dressing whatsoever. Suddenly Amanda wasn´t so hungry anymore. Which is why we later stopped at the local supermercado to buy such neccesities such as icecream, pringles and nutella. Once we were settled in our charming hostel we took our food outside by the beautiful fountain and courtyard to enjoy. The weather here is cool but beautiful except for the flash rain storms which only last 5-10 minutes. Our evening was spend wandering around the quaint cobblestone streets and taking lots of photos which we are not able to upload and show you at this time due to technical difficulties. :( Hasta Luego! Char and LeAnne

A note about PHOTOS...

I am so sorry but my laptop is not connecting to the Internet here in the cafe so we have been using the cafe computers and for this reason there are still no photos to show you! But we have been taking lots! Our apartment in Paris is supposed to have wireless internet and maybe then I will be able to post some. Thanks for your patience!!

Char

Driving in Spain

So as you know, we had quite the adventure aquiring the rental car! Believe me, the adventures didn´t stop there. I have officially decided that I do not like driving in Europe, especially a stick shift!! The girls have been very patient. The streets here were not created for cars, and they really need to work on posting street names!! It´s been pretty amazing. We haven´t gotten anywhere without getting pretty lost first, but in the end we always manage on getting there-it just takes us a few hours longer than we anticipated! So we finally got to the hostal tonight and were pleasantly surprised! It´s beautiful! I told Char that if I get the opportunity to build my own house, it´s going to be a replicate!
I am very thankful for all the prayers, of which we have definetly taken advantage! We have all decided that we may be moving here for a few months, good news eh?! Don´t worry we haven´t totally made a permenant decision yet! We still have to work on NOT looking like tourists! HAHA! don´t know if we will ever get that far! We kinda stick out here, but everyone has been very nice and helpful.
I speak for everyone when I say, ¨Morroco tomorrow¨ We are ready to start doing some bartering!! Love to all
Cheryl

day 2 lost in algeciras!!!!!

Today cheryl and I had the job of finding the car rental agency from the renfe train station. We decided it would be better for the others girls to wait with the luggage and it would only be about 20 minutes. Sadly, we did not return for over an hour and half!
Cheryl and I flaged down a cab and showed him the address. He dropped us off and we suddenly realized the car rental place was not anywhere. So we started asking random spanyards for help. They directed us all over the place until I spotted a car with eurocar rentals written on it. We ran to the car and although they looked at us like we were freaks we signaled them to roll down their window. They did and explained to us where the place was located. We started in that direction and made a few wrong turns ( spanish directions are not easy to follow) until we saw eurocar rentals!!! However, when we tryed to walk in we realized they were closed. However, they would open again after their siesta at 430. So we walked back to the train station, explained to the girls why we did not have a car and got some spanish food and at 430 we walked back and got the car.
Nat

A continuation on our first night in Madrid.

AHHHHH it is so great to be here!! Natalie and I keep pinching ourselves to make sure this is really happening. After making our way thru the crazy streets of madrid filled with hundreds of people, LeAnne and I are not sure which is the lesser evil...our huge hiking packs that are killing us already (should have listened to my Aunty Keren) or a suitcase like Natalie´s that gets stuck on the cobblestones and is a pain to drag up and down stairs while rushing to catch the metro. i will for sure be strong enough to try out for fire fighting when i get back to the states. i´ll let you know by the end of 3 weeks what seems to be the better option but at this moment i am ready to throw everything i own into the nearest dump and survive with one outfit!!! you never know, there´s a first time for everything!!! :) Our hostel felt like a palace once we finally reached it, 5 single beds and a bathroom. But first you must climb a very long and windy staircase. After depositing our bags we roamed the streets in search of some true spanish food and settled for a cafe selling wraps and sandwiches which were covered in a yummy sauce and totally delicious. After that we made our way to another cafe to have some famous thick, hot chocolate and churros. I´m surprised at how many spanish words i remember but we are so so so glad natalie is here to do all the talking for us!!! tomorrow we have to leave around 6 a.m. to find the train station and catch one to the ferry port that will take us to Morroco the next day. Well it costs us 1 Euro to use the internet for an hour here and it looks like our time is up. Adios amigos!!
Char

Arrived Safely!

Well just a quick update to to let everyone know how we are doing. We arrived safely in Madrid at about 5.30 pm after 18 plus hours in the airplane/airport. And we pretty much do not want to see the inside of another plane again for a very long time. We flew Lufthansa and just as a side note, this is a very good airline to fly. If you are in first class, you get reclining seats with tons of leg room and your own personal TV. If you are in regular class like we were, it is still nice but minus the reclining seats, tons of leg room and personal TV. Okay so it pretty much is like every other airline but they are really nice and gave us heated baby wipes when we first got on the plane. This is a definite plus since I can honestly say I have never had a heated baby wipe. We even got hot dinners! For your dining pleasure this evening they had our choice of pasta or turkey. After our lovely souped up TV dinner they played a movie. The only thing my sound thingy worked and Cheryl´s didn´t. So after repeated attempts to fix it (and numerous German flight attendants checking on us) they offered the solution to reset our whole section. Except after that, neither of our sound systems worked. The flight attendant had the brillant idea of borrowing the sockets from the couple in front of us since they were sleeping but when he tried to plug our headphones in the couple woke up and decided that they wanted to watch the movie themselves. So we read magazines instead. We had about an hour layover in Munich, Germany and met this cute little German girl named Maria. She was about 4 and spoke German and Spanish and laughed when we tried out our Spanish on her. After a two hour flight we arrived safely in Madrid and met up with Amanda. We got lost trying to fnd the baggage claim and got locked out of the section we had to be in. We ended up following an older guy who was on our flight and happened to be wearing some sweet red shoes (ahem dad?) and he got us thru. We finally found the baggage area in time to claim all of our luggage. Nothing was lost for which we are very thankful for. Even the suitcase load of bibles Cheryl is delivering. Although if it got lost we hope that someone would open up the suitcase and start reading and get saved. But this didn´t happen because we didn´t lose anything. So then we had to find the metro station to catch the subway to our hostel. We bought these cards that give us 10 rides for like 7 euros except that I paid 11 euros because I pushed the wrong button. I´m sure my ride will be nicer than the others, you know say about 4 euros nicer. We had to take about 3 different subways to get to our stop and then got completely lost trying to find our hostel. But on the bright side we did end up seeing a lot of downtown Madrid and did find our hostel eventually. Ok my fingers are tired of typing now.
LeAnne

Before we go...

This is a big hello to all of our fans out there who are cheering us on as we explore a bit of Europe!! You can see our itinerary below. If anything goes wrong the whole trip will be thrown off kilter! ahh well, nothing better than a bit of excitement. We are leaving tomorrow at 4:30pm!!!!!


December 26: Arrive in Madrid, Spain
December 27-28: Algeciras, Spain/Morocco
December 29-31: Madrid, Spain
January 1-2: Barcelona, Spain
January 2-6 Paris, France
January 6-9 Menen, Belgium
January 9-11: London, England
January 11-14 Athens, Greece
January 14-15 Milan, Italy
January 15-16: Venice, Italy
January 16-17: Rome, Italy