Tag!

My dear friend Amanda tagged me on her blog, Hoi Polloi, so hear are some fun facts about Cassidy Diane Shearrer. The rules:

1. Link your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

1. If I could be a superhero, my power would be communication. If I could live forever, I would learn every language in the world. I like to talk.
2. I love God and believe the Bible. I've also been rejected by Christian friends and disgusted by evangelists. Living in Europe amidst the Catholic church history makes me queasy. My closest friends don't share my beliefs but also never judge me. The mistakes of the church make me very sad.
3. Creating is my favorite thing to do by myself. Having left behind my sewing machine and film camera in the states, I've been really into cooking here. Learned how to make my own pizza crust yesterday!
4. I have an unhealthy attachement to my laptop. Celebrity gossip sites, illegally downloaded TV shows & facebook are my biggest vices right now. The celebrity obsession began when Mary-Kate Olsen started dressing weird-people.com was a fashion consultation site for me. Now the Olsens have better security and my taste for fashion has devolved into perezhilton.com.
5. Living in a this new culture has made vegetarian resturants the freaking mecca of all establishments. Found one last week in La Latina, Viva la Vida. Holy scheiße.
6. I want to live in a big city, but I really don't want to be a suit. I would be content to serve coffee for the rest of my life.
7. I always wanted to be in the boy scouts. I am still angry that I'm not an expert fire builder. Survival stories were my favorite as a kid! I wish I could say with 100% certainty that I could make it on one of those deserted islands (unfortunately, I am pretty sure they've all been bought up, so I may never get a chance to prove myself).

Though I barely know 7 people with blogs, I will tag Anna, David, Marta, La Revolutonista, and Cafe Con Soja.

Boredom strikes: Cass blogs.

Going to see Iron Man tonight with friends. The last movie I watched was crap, so my expectations are pretty low. Vamos a ver.

Today I cleaned the bathroom (so exciting!) and took a bath while listening to a sermon from The Crossing. I am so glad they podcast their sermons!

Florian has been teaching me German. So far the only thing I can say with any confidence is "ich mag dich auch sehr, hübsche" which basically means "I really like you too, cutie." I think I'm going to have to take lessons if I'm going to learn anything useful.

Hippie comeback

Tonight Anna and I went to a book study through an English-speaking church in Madrid called Oasis. The book: Irresistible Revolution. We showed up a half an hour late and I hadn't read any of the book. Just another day in Madrid for me, only tonight I enjoyed the lonely confusion in my own language.

The small group reminded me of Amanda's church in Santa Monica and I found myself thinking about God for the first time in a few days and it felt so good. One of the girls from the study loaned Anna and I her copy of the book. I am now 4 chapters in and very nervous that my life is about to change.

The author makes his own clothes and has dreadlocks. That's the least of it, so far, he's renounced Christian culture and made friends with lepers in Calcutta. I've got butterflies.

The tapa thing is finally starting to work out.

Last night Anna and I had plans to meet friends in Sol (center of Madrid) to go to a jazz club. But we had two hours to kill before the show, so we took our time walking to Sol. Anna convinced me to go to a mass! The church was incredible. It was huge-with all sorts of crazy decorations and statues everywhere. It seemed a bit kitschy to me, but still way cool. The building itself was incredible. The mass was awesome. We missed about half of it (literally, verbally I missed 95% of it because I was too busy gawking at the building to try to understand the Spanish), but Anna kept explaining everything to me. I didn't go to church last week because I am tired of getting homesick everytime I go, so my heart was really read to hear some scripture. Or at least talk about peace.

Afterwards we went to this café that is known for the huge amount of free food they give out with drinks. We had wine and talked about our amazing families and friends. The café lived up to its reputation. For 9 euros worth of drinks, we got 2 pinchos (servings) of Spanish tortilla, 2 small baguettes and a huge plate of olives. When we were full, our waiter came over and asked if we wanted another dish. Dang!

Then we walked to Sol and listened to some amazing blues music, and went out for even more tapas at El Tigre! At El Tigre I think Anna and I both fell in love with all of our Erasmus friends who were with us. Adam, from the Czech Republic, knew all of my favorite American movies. Vincent, from France, was clearly only there for the tapas and kept getting everyone to order more beer so he could eat more. The other three were entertaining in their own ways. I think we're going to have a movie night together to share some cultural things. And so I can be a hostess and cook for people.