Costa Del Sol

So here we are nearly two months into our great adventure in Europe. And oh what an adventure we are having! This week was pretty mellow. We had the missionaries over for cinnamon rolls and peanut butter sandwiches. I love taking care of the missionaries and they just about passed out when I brought out the root-beer! We are helping them to find investigators and so far all they have is a full belly, but I hope that helps at least a little bit! We also booked all of our hostels for our big trip at the end of July. For those of you who don´t know, Tyler and I are going to tour around Europe for 20 days before we come back to the states. We are both really excited about the trip and are really excited at the amazing deals we got on all of our hostels!
This weekend we decided to take a beach vacation and relax. Well...we got exactly what we hoped for with a few minor gliches. The first of which is that we nearly missed our train! We got stuck in rush hour traffic in the early morning and literally had to run from metro station to metro station to make it on time. Second gliche...we forgot our camera!! No pictures for this weekend! But you can Google the city we stayed in and photo shop our pictures in for sure! Because we were there!
We arrived in Malaga, a city in the South of Spain on the Costa del Sol at about 11:30 on Friday morning. Then we took a smaller train to a city just outside Malaga called Fuengirola. It was a beautiful little beach town and we were planning to hit the beach for two days and then explore Malaga on Sunday. When we arrived at our hostel, we were impressed with how nice it was. There was air conditioning, cable TV, and a small refridgerator in every room! However, the problems began at check-in. For some reason the hostel´s card machine wouldn´t read Tyler´s credit card and we were not able to pay for our hostel for two nights. We tried EVERYTHING. We even went to the hostel´s bank and tried to pay with the card there, but it wouldn´t work. We were starting to get a little worried and found another hostel. We hoped the card would work there because we only brought one credit card and 50 Euros in cash. It was 40€ a night for us to stay in either of the two hostels. So after a 4:00am (Utah time) call to Tyler´s awesome parents, we found out the credit card which we had used to book our 10 hostels for our big trip was frozen because Zions was trying to ¨take care of us¨ Yeah, thanks for that. So we were able to pay in cash for one hostel one night and pay with Scott´s credit card for the other hostel the other night. Which left us with 10 Euros for three days of eating and entertainment. Luckily the beach is free and I packed a lot of sandwiches and snacks for us to have and even though we were starving on Sunday night when we got home, we survived and it was a blast. Fuengirola was an amazing city and the beach was awesome! There weren´t ¨big waves¨ which is Tyler´s response to how the beach was, but the water was refreshing and we both got a lot of sun. We love the Spanish riviera! The worst part of the whole trip would have to be our second hostel. Not because it was unclean or anything but because it was MURDEROUSLY hot inside. I don´t think I slept a full hour the whole night. On Sunday, we slept in, read books, and went home. It is nice to have lazy vacations every once in awhile...
Last night we watched the Eurocup final and I am happy to say SPAIN WON! I don´t even like soccer! It was exciting to be in Spain for the eurocup though and to see how excited people were to watch the game. Except a small part of me was hoping they would lose because when they won the semi-finals the people were out all night shooting fireworks and honking horns. Last night was action times ten of that! Not the best night sleep, but it was good enough! Better than Hostel Sante Fe for sure!
Well that is it for this week. We sure love all the emails and updates! Hope you all have a great fourth of July and we sure wish we could have gone to Sun Valley with the Rice Fam! We miss you guys!

We Sure Are Cute for Two Ugly People

Well this week the heat has been turned on here in Madrid! It has been so hot and I think the worst part for me is that our apartment doesn't have air conditioning so in order to stay cool we have to keep it dark during the day and open all the windows at night. Tyler is not a fan of opening the windows at night because of the bugs that come in. For me I would chose bugs over the heat any day, but Tyler doesn't concur. I think my favorite moment thus far was when we had a huge moth in our room for a couple of nights. It was driving Tyler insane and the fluttering of it was making me crazy too. So finally on the second or third night of this annoying moth, Tyler took action. Sometimes Tyler goes to bed earlier than I do and so he wears this really cute sleeping mask over his eyes. He hadn't fallen asleep quite yet and I told him the moth was out(it would go above our dresser where neither of us could get it and Tyler wanted me to tell him when it came out). He was mad and got up and moved the sleeping mask to his forehead. I said "Ty, I can get it, you go back to bed" and with total seriousness wearing only his garments and the blue shiny sleeping mask crooked across his forehead, he said "No Megan, this is a man's job" I was laughing so hard and wanted to take a picture but Tyler wouldn't let me. It was just one of those moments. 

I am having a lot of fun learning about Tyler's personality. He is...picky isn't the right word...peculiar doesn't quite fit either...but he is so exact. For Ty, everything in the world has to follow a certain order otherwise the world simply cannot continue revolving. He makes me laugh when he says things like "That movie was good, but a little crude" or when he is finished washing dishes he goes into the bathroom to wash his hands to get the "spongy" smell off. I think my favorite thing is at night when he has his hearing aides out and tries to carry on conversations with me. Most of the time he just talks like he is talking to himself and I just happen to be there listening. I am sure Tyler has a list of things for me too...but luckily he is too nice to expose me for what I truly am.

So this week was good for us. Like I said, it is HOT here in Madrid. The week went by quickly. I went to the National Library one afternoon and Tyler and I went to the Prado one evening. The Prado is sort of the Louvre of Madrid. The major event of the week was the wedding of Max and Sandra. Max is the son of the lady we rent our room from and he is always super nice to us. I wanted to get him a copy of the proclamation to the family in spanish for a wedding present but like Paris, the distribution center by the temple hates me. I went there THREE different times on THREE different days and it was never opened. I made sure that I went when the posted hours said it would be open and nada...nothing. So maybe this week I will be able to go there even though there wedding is already over.

Max and Sandra's wedding was awesome! They weren't married in the temple, but they plan to be sealed in the temple in Ecuador next year. (Max is from Ecuador). They were married in a courthouse outside of Madrid and they had "the best wedding ever" according to Tyler. Don't take his word for it though because he says that about every wedding he likes. The wedding was quite the international affair. We were driven to the Spanish wedding in a French car, by a Romanian friend of Zuela's, who is married to a girl from Ecuador and were seated at the wedding dinner by a Venezuelan and a Columbian and my favorite part was the all you can drink American soda! What a party it was! First there were cocktails (no alcohol) and appetizers and gosh they were good! I kept eating them that by the time dinner was supposed to start I was almost full. Dinner was a full five course meal (which Tyler ate like he had never ate before--he loved it!). Our table had all members of the church and even though Max and Sandra are also members, they did serve alcohol for their guests at dinner. It was funny that whenever a drink was brought out, the entire table had a debate over whether it was alcoholic or not. The waitress would say no and then the waiter would say yes and then the bottle would be examined we all would agree that it didn't have alcohol until someone would try it and confirm that it did. We finally just stuck to our grape juice and water. Finally at 12:45am the dancing began. We got home at 3 in the morning! It was a fun night and we were glad to be apart of the event.

On Sunday we dragged ourselves out of bed to go and visit Elder Ott's ward. Elder Ott is in Tyler's parents ward and is serving here in Madrid. We got there at 10am only to find out that Elder Ott's ward starts at 12:00. No problem, we will just hang out for two hours feeling like we are hung over from the previous night...not really! We did get to see Elder Ott for a few minutes but he had a family of investigators there with him that day and he was really busy. So we went home after church and crashed for a few hours. So that brings us to the end of another week. This weekend we are going to Malaga for a beach vacation. 

Welcome home Jackson! Tyler is really excited to meet you! Hope you all are great. We love you and miss you!

A Love That Will Last

Ok all you chuckle-nuggets out there. Let's set the record straight. MEGAN IS NOT PREGNANT! Girls have built in pregnancy tests that come once a month and mine has come CONSISTENTLY this month and the months previous. So you can stop your speculating and gossiping. There is no Spanish bun in my oven. 

Now on to more important matters. This week was awesome for us. Tyler got to go the press briefing and he was asked to present an article! Wahoo! Tyler is awesome! I am always so proud of how great he is doing and how humble he is. We had family night again with the family we live with on Monday and we are glad to invite the spirit into this home every week. It brings not only Tyler and I closer together, but the family expresses how much they enjoy listening to Tyler's lessons (I haven't braved FHE in Spanish yet) and feel the spirit. The week was pretty mellow because we were preparing for our trip to Barcelona.

We left for Barcelona on the 6:00 am speed train on Friday morning. It was an adventure getting to the train station because we bought the earliest train ticket but didn't take into account that the metro doesn't open until 6:00 and our train was supposed to leave at 6:00. Luckily we found out there was a bus route that runs all night. The speed train was really nice and went 300 km per hour (That's about 186.3 miles for all of you who don't like the mental math thing) so it only took us about two and half hours to get to Barcelona. The night before Tyler and I were not really tired and stayed up most of the night reading and surfing the net. So when we arrived in Barcelona we only had a few hours of sleep under our belt and wanted to take a nap at our hostel before going out and seeing the sights. Plus it was only 9:00 am so we had plenty of time. When we got to our hostel, they told us that we couldn't check in until 1:00 pm! When we booked the hostels it didn't say anything about that! So we had to take our luggage and find a place to hang out for the next few hours. Well I was SUPER tired and SUPER grumpy so we walked in silence for about half an hour before finding a nice park and crashing for awhile. I felt a lot better after that nap and eating a sandwich. By then it was close to check in time so we went to our hostel and checked in. 

Our hostel was...interesting. It was called "Graffiti Hostel" and for the record, Tyler booked this one. The hostel was covered in, well, graffiti! It was actually pretty cool and we stayed in the "London" dorm (there was New York and I think Prague?). All the rooms had writing on them from the guests and I was sad that we forgot to sign our names on the wall when we left. We stayed in an 8 bedroom dorm and had to pay extra for clean sheets, which isn't totally uncommon, but Tyler wasn't totally convinced the sheets were actually clean. Plus, because we were staying in dorm on bunk-beds and the hostel was full, Tyler and I both had top bunks across the room for each other. It was fun to watch Ty in his first "Europe on a shoe-string" experience. Especially with the group of 26 Poles who were staying in our hostel and just seemed to be everywhere at once all the time. 

The rest of Friday we walked all around the city. First we went to a cathedral called "Sagrada Familia" or the Sacred Family which was designed by an architect named Gaudi, who had a huge influence on Barcelona. When Gaudi graduated from architectural school, his professor said he was either a nut or a genius and when you look at these buildings, you think the same thing! The buildings are just crazy! The Sagrada Familia was started in the late 1800's and will not be finished until 2022! Just because there are so many details and crazy little things that need to be done.

After the Sagrada Familia, we walked around Barcelona. We went everywhere! Barcelona is a very interesting city that has really funky buildings (from Gaudi), really old buildings (from Roman times), and really modern buildings (mostly from the Olympics in the early 90's). One of my favorite buildings was the Cathedral in the Old Town. The patron saint of Barcelona is buried there. Her name is Eulalia and she was tortured by Romans when she was 13 for being Christian and then killed. The church was beautiful and the picture of me drinking water from a fountain is in one of it's courtyards (The water was for drinking and it was holy! I had to try it! It came from an underground well). The cathedral was huge but there were buildings all around it, so you couldn't tell how big it was until you were inside. It took over 600 years to complete and was amazing! 

The old city was really beautiful. All the streets are really narrow and close together. The architecture is really unique and it was fun to get lost in the streets. Barcelona was originally rumored to be built by Hercules before Rome but more accurate records for sure have it settled by the Romans about 15 bc. It was a beautiful city. I wish that I felt as great in Paris as I did in Barcelona...but we can't have everything we want now can we?

The next day, we went to a city outside Barcelona that was supposed to have amazing beaches. Sitges, the name of the town, was awesome! It was a small resort town that we found out was a gay resort which was fine with us, but we did feel a little uncomfortable with the beach dress code. Let's just say Tyler's choice of wearing a swimsuit and not a speedo and my choice of not being topless put us as the two most overdressed people on the beach that day. Ah Europe! Never a dull moment! But we got some surf and sun in the sand and it was a really relaxing day. As I was laying on the sand, I had a small moment taking in how blessed I really am. I love traveling and I have been able to do so much of it. I have Tyler in my life and he is really my best friend. We laugh and talk and I love to hang out with him. Laying in the sun of the Spanish Riviera will be a memory that will last us a lifetime!

On Sunday we decided to hike a nearby mountain called Montjuic. Well we didn't really decide to hike, but we started walking up it and never really stopped until we were at the top! The thing about walking that really kills you is that it doesn't catch up to you until the day is over and you are on a train back to Madrid and so sore you can barely sit down! But we got to see the rest Barcelona had to offer us. My favorite thing about walking around is all the time I got to spend talking to Tyler. I learn new things about him all the time. He is so funny and so unique and just perfect for me. It is hard to talk about your marriage without sounding corny or mushy, but sometimes you can't help it. I like that Tyler and I can agree on most things and other things we simply agree to disagree. We have a love that will last!

We got home late Sunday night and were happy to be home in Madrid. I spent Monday doing all the laundry and by the time I had hung up the last of it outside on the line and we were eating dinner, a torrential downpour soaked it all. We just laughed and I guess our clothes will be extra clean this week! I also got to talk to the returned missionary, Joey on his way out the door to Florida and I was happy to hear he was doing so well. Tyler and I really miss you all and we hope that you are having a great summer! Keep writing!

Just Another Day in Paradise

Well this has been an eventful week and since I posted the Paris blog so late the week before, I didn't post a blog last week. So this blog is long and you might want to sit down as we give you the run down on our latest and greatest...Also, I know I have apologized for my grammatical madness in typing blogs. I can't apologize enough for the pain of reading my mistakes but I have to type as fast as I can because I never know when the internet connection will cut out. Just know it pains me far more than any of you to read this with mistakes...ha ha!

Last Friday, the 30th, we were invited to eat dinner at the Taylor's apartment. Dr. Taylor and his wife are here in Europe on a medical mission for the church and they are friends with the Tyler's family. They were so nice and dinner was so good. Ty and I are really starting to crave good home cooking! It was great to visit with them and to hear about what they are doing here in Spain.

On Saturday, we went shopping for the missionaries. Since the temple missionaries have been so nice to us, we told them we would help get them some things that they can't find here in Madrid. While shopping, I still wasn't feeling great from the previous week's adventures and my mysterious Parisian illness wasn't quite gone. So we went and delivered the groceries and went home.

Sunday we went to church and got another long list from the missionaries and then I went home still not feeling too great and Tyler went out to explore the city.

On Monday we had family home evening with the family we live with and it was great. They are really sweet people and are really nice to us. They help us out whenever they can and are always thanking us for our example.

Later in the week our internet was finally working and then the people we live with decided that they didn't want it anymore and cancelled it all together. So that means no steady Internet connection, just a random wireless connection whenever we can get one. They did sign up for some new cable though and we get a few American channels and you can even watch them in English!

On Wednesday it was Emily's big 24th birthday so I was excited to call her and talk to her. It was so fun to hear about how her life is going and I could hear baby Daniel giggling in the background and it made me a little homesick. That night, Tyler and I went to the Hard Rock Cafe to celebrate one month in Madrid! Can you believe we have been gone that long already? Even though it cost an arm and a leg, it was awesome food and this Hard Rock even had free refills on soda! Woot! Woot! (Free refills in Europe are rare and priceless).

The next exciting event was on Friday. We went shopping for the missionaries again and then Tyler and I were invited to a reception at the Ambassador's house that night to celebrate Latin American leaders and businessmen who have done great work in building opportunities for Latin American kids to further their education. We were both excited to go and hopefully meet the Ambassador too. Before telling you all about the night's events, let me mention a little side note. Tyler's boss, Judy has been so impressed with his work since he has arrived that she wanted to have him come to one of the daily press briefings that Tyler helps her prepare for. The meeting is with the Ambassador and all his counselors and is held daily. It is basically to update news and events and discuss what is being done about problems in Spain. Tyler's boss wanted Tyler to attend this event, but she didn't know if he could. To me that means that Tyler is the first intern she has had that has impressed her enough to grant an invitation to this very private meeting. I mean she had to ask how to get him permission to go! Well, for some reason or another having to do with security, she was told that he wouldn't be able to attend this meeting. However, Tyler never fails to impress and this past week she said that she was going to email the Ambassador himself to see if Ty could come to the meeting. We were still waiting to hear back on that information when we went to the reception.

Right as we walked into the Ambassador's home, two of his counselors were there to meet the guests. We found out later that these two men were quite important to the Ambassador and the Embassy. Tyler introduced us and said he was an intern with Commercial Services, when the two men said, "Sure! You are the intern Judy has been raving about!" And then went on to tell him they were impressed by his reputation with his office and they were excited to have him come to the press briefing next week! Tyler was thrilled but because there were quite a few people behind us in the receiving line, we had to continue on into the reception without much more conversation. The reception was interesting and there were quite a few people there. Tyler was popular with his fellow interns and they were all nice to me. After the Ambassador had made his speech about the Latin American leaders, the formal part of the reception was over and we were able to just mingle and talk and try the many appetizers beings served.

The two counselors we had met previously were among the large throng of important people and I was so proud to say that each of them sought out Tyler to talk to him for a good 15-20 minutes. Furthermore, while visiting with one of these men, the Ambassador came over to ask him a question and we were able to meet him! The counselor said, "This is the intern Judy has been telling us about," and the Ambassador shook Tyler's hand and said that he was excited to have him come to the press meeting next week and he had heard all about him. I was beyond thrilled that the Ambassador of the United States of America, one of the most important figureheads for the U.S. in Spain, had personally heard about Tyler and was interested in seeing more of him. Tyler was deeply humbled by the experience and I was all the more impressed by him. He is such a genuine person, who works hard not to earn the prais of people around him, but because he knows it is the right thing to do. He is not a show off or a brown noser, but someone who deeply values hard work and is truly appreciative of this experience and wants to show is superiors that he respects them and this job. Gosh, I love him! After the reception was over, we walked around the city and stopped to have a local treat of churros with chocolate. It was a fun night to be out and see the city all lit up and to see Tyler lit up with events of the night was great too!

Saturday we went downtown and I was finally feeling better. It is good that I am only sick in the mornings and that even though I haven't been able to eat much, I am actually gaining weight...it is weird really. I am only kidding! My sister keeps teasing me about being pregnant...which I am not! Anyway, we bought tickets to Barcelona for next weekend and then walked around seeing all the sights of the city. My favorite part of the day was when we found a beautiful rose garden in a park downtown. It was such a peaceful place and all the different roses smelled heavenly! I love Madrid.

On Sunday we went to church and delivered the groceries to the missionaries. They were so appreciative of this little act of service and it made me feel really good to help them out. One of the couples invited us over for Sunday dinner and it was so good! We had roast and potatoes with gravy and vegetables and salad and rolls! It was just like Sunday dinner at home. I also talked to the bishop of our ward and have an interview on Wednesday so I can start working in the temple during my endless amounts of free time.

Finally this weekend we went to our first (and last) bull fight. I was nervous to go because I knew that they kill the bull, but I thought it would be a good cultural experience. It was awful! They start with tiring out the bull by having it run around the arena and then they have these two guys on horseback come out and the bull charges the horse (who is wearing some sort of weird shield) and the man on the back stabs the neck of the bull twice. Well, if the bull has put up a good fight until this point, the judges give a green flag and the bull is allowed to live. We saw six bulls in the arena and only one was able to live. The rest of the fight is just torture. I couldn't understand who the crowd was cheering for, the bull or the matador. Clearly a man who stands in a sand pit in a sparkly outfit with pink tights, waving a cape, dancing around like a ballerina, stabbing at his mooing counterpart has issues! Be ready for my next thesis...Bull fights: Is the Matador really stabbing the animal in front of him or the animal in himself? As for the spectators, well, we were among them so I can't judge too harshly. However, the worst part of this hamburger holocaust is after the bull is killed and they tie it up to three donkeys and drag it out of the arena and send it to the beef market. There is no respect for the animal who just put up a good fight and lost its life for the cause. Needless to say, after the fifth Big Mac fell, I was done and ready to join PETA. Honestly, they should have had a booth outside the arena or something. They would have got me to sign on the dotted line. Tyler found the whole thing "interesting" but I think he was just trying to find the good in the experience and a justification for the money we spent on the tickets. On a brighter note, now I can say I have had the experience of watching five innocent creatures be tortured and slain.

So that brings us to another eventful week in Madrid! We hope that you all are having a great time in sunny Utah and a big WELCOME HOME ELDER JOEY RICE will be in our hearts this week. Keep writing, we love your emails and your comments! We miss you tons and love you more!