Our first long week on the road!
We’re a couple weeks late in providing an update on our visit to Pamplona and the rest of northern Spain – sorry for the cliffhanger in our last post . . . Monday morning after interviews with several of the missionaries serving in Pamplona we took a tour of the “Plaza de Toros” which is the stadium where the matadors and bulls face off – and also the ending point for the famous “running of the bulls” in July as part of the festival of San Fermin. Aly really wants to make the run, so we’ll have to see how that goes next year. For now, she can practice by running from the bronze bulls in the central square!
After the Plaza de Toros we stopped for lunch at a burger joint (Bryson eats mostly hamburgers and pizza in Spain – more on that below) and then walked through the central fortress in the middle of the city to catch some great views of the old walled citadel and skyline of the city. That afternoon we made our way to Vitoria-Gasteiz, the center of Basque country and the site of our next “zone conference” with about 30 missionaries serving in northeast and north central Spain. They are spread out over approximately 10 cities including San Sebastian in the far north near the border with Spain to Santander on the North Atlantic coast and down through the central mountains and plains.
We arrived in Vitoria just in time to join in playing some basketball with the missionaries and then grab dinner at the local kebab and pizza shop which is apparently a favorite of several of the local missionaries. I’m not sure why every kebab shop in Spain also serves pizza, since they really don’t seem to go together very well, but it was a hit for Bryson! He needed some help from the missionaries to finish . . .
During our zone conference session, which generally lasts most of the day, we focus on a variety of different training types: motivational and informative training which Trista and I usually present, as well as skills-based trainings on a variety of topics which we generally delegate to the missionaries to present under our supervision. We are impressed with how eager they are to learn and how quickly the adapt and implement the trainings provided.
We have a great group of missionaries in the Vitoria Zone and are also grateful for the help of one of our senior missionary couples, Bruce and Lisa King, who serve as our financial administrator, nurse, apartment coordinators and a hundred other unofficial duties!
The next day (Wednesday) we drove north to Bilbao, a beautiful city on the north coast of Spain and the capital of Basque culture in the region. It just so happened that we arrived in the middle of a cultural festival where families from the various cities in Basque country gathered for food and drinking, many of them wearing colorful scarves embroidered with the symbols of their local town. There were small marching bands and groups of older people who paraded through the streets with their drums and flutes and local markets for purchasing hand-made goods.
Shockingly, we didn’t get any pictures of the people in scarves or marching bands, but we did capture one with the tents set up along the riverbank running through the center of the city with different foods and handicrafts. We ate lunch at a small “island” cafe that tried to be like Duke’s in Malibu but didn’t quite make the grade.
From Bilbao we continued on to the coastal town of Gijón. We drove through a torrential rainstorm, but fortunately by the time we arrived it stopped for a brief time which let us check into our hotel without getting drenched. Despite the rain picking back up soon thereafter, Aly was overjoyed to be able to see the ocean from our hotel room window and we walked down to the beach where she got to run her toes through the sand and wade in the water for the first time since leaving California. It was a sweet moment for her.
On Thursday morning we left for A Coruña, a quaint town in the northwest corner of Spain nestled on the Atlantic coast. One fun fact is that A Coruña is home to the “Tower of Hercules” which is the oldest continuously operating lighthouse in the world built by the Romans in the 1st century A.D. and reconstructed in the 1700’s. We enjoyed walking through the harbor by the cruise ships and private boats – it reminded us of Marina del Rey and Long Beach all in one!
We finished our long week with a zone conference with the missionaries in A Coruña on Friday and a conference with the members of the church in northwest Spain on Saturday. Naturally, Trista and I were asked to speak at the conference. That’s three-for-three on speaking requests in the three weeks that we’ve been in Spain. Someday it will get easier to write and give talks in Spanish, but for now it is a bit of a challenge.
After the conference we drove back to Madrid on Sunday, arriving late in the evening in time to unpack our bags and then pack them again for our Monday morning flight to the Canary Islands. More to come on that shortly . . . In the meantime, here’s a map of our trip covering 20 hours of driving time and 1790 kilometers!
We LOVE reading your blog and updates. What an amazing experience for you and your kids.
I can only imagine how loved you are by your missionaries and those you’re serving with.They’re so lucky to have you! We love you and pray for you!