So, that being said, my new year’s resolution is to start writing again.

On Thursday, August 8, my mom called and told me I needed to come home because Dad wasn’t doing very well. I booked an open ended flight for the next day and got home on Saturday. Dad was in better condition then I thought, but it was still pretty bad. He was just so weak and wasn’t eating. For those of you who know my dad, him not eating is very very strange. So that set me off from there. We decided to take him to the James Cancer Center in Columbus and he ended up getting chemo, which I don’t think worked and made him so much weaker.  After battling out for a few weeks, Dad passed away on September 10.  This has been the most agonizing, heart wrenching thing to go through to see your Dad, your hero, go through such a battle to survive. It hurts even more to see your family and friends go through the grieving and the weeping along with you. My dad impacted a lot of people. There were over 700 people at his visitation, another 300 or at his funeral. The outpouring of support from our community, friends, family and CHURCH(!) were tremendous. We really have some great people who’ve come from that small town in northwestern Ohio and I’ve made the mistake of taking it for granted all these years (Hi, Rhonda, Terry & Marlene, Aunt Carol, Aunt Paula — I’m talking to YOU!)

I decided to stay back home for another couple weeks with Mom. We went shopping, to Shipshewana, all sorts of things to stay busy. It helps to stay busy. My mom went back to work on Monday and I left Friday afternoon, we had my uncle Mike come with us, he’s always game for going places. Speaking of going places:

Mom is coming to Poland for Christmas!!! And Uncle Mike is too!

I’m so excited to have them come visit… I want to show them everything and make them eat all the yummy food. We’re thinking about going somewhere while they’re here, but since it’s Christmas, things are expensive.  So we’ll play that by ear.

And in other news: My brother and Carrie got engaged and are getting married July 24th! It’s nice to have some good news in the midst of all of this.

Well, that’s where I’ve been the past two months, I usually don’t like filling my blog with sadness, but I felt like it was important to get that out there. I will be updating the ol’ blog more regularly now, so stay tuned.

Im going to try to post it to the side here, and you can vote from there. Thanks!

Here’s what I can say about Spain. 1. The culture is awesome. You wake up around 9, do the breakfast and lunch thing and whatever in between, in our case a tour of something, then go back and sleep a couple hours (the siesta!) then dinner late – like at 9 or 10, which mostly involves drinks and a few small things to eat. Then you do it all over again! It’s awesome! That was the thing I loved about Spain, the culture was unlike anything I’ve seen anywhere else. The people were friendly and fun, it was HOT (love that) and I got to use some of my Spanish skills, which are subpar for European standards, but if I got lost, I could ask for directions and I could hold a basic conversation. But it also meant that my Polish got thrown to the wayside and I’m fearing that I will not be able to recover. I can’t remember a lick of Polish now. Its bad.

So we were in Madrid for 3 nights, the first day we toured the Palacio Real, which was pretty cool. I can only imagine Kings and Queens living there. It’s so gaudy inside, gold everything. It’s truly a life of excess. Then the next day we went to Toledo, which was like a 30 minute bus ride and it was an awesome city. Exactly what you’d expect Spain to be like. It was like going to the old world and what you’d think Europe is really like. I loved Toledo.

Palacio Real Madrid

Derek on the balcony at Palacio Real

standing outside the palace w/ Derek's mom. Dont we look excited?

View from our apartment in Barcelona

Barcelona was really pretty, just what you’d expect from a coastal town. Lots of Palm trees, pretty boats and tourists. According to travel extrordinare Rick Steves, Las Ramblas in Barcelona was the place you’re most likely to get pick pocketed. I could see why, there are seas of people, loads and loads of people. Plus there are a lot of distractions. The human statues are really big here. Meaning people dress up as trees or the statue of liberty and they don’t move. I personally hate them. I want to make it my mission in life to knock them all down. What a waste of time/space. So once you get past those and the purse and jewelry hockers, Barcelona is a great time.

I was disappointed because we were only there for a couple days. Derek mentioned in a previous post that we saw the Tour de France, how cool is that?? I totally planned it that way… haha! But Derek and I really wanted to go to the beach. It had been in the upper 80s and lower 90s the majority of our vacation and we wanted to spend one day just hanging out on the beach relaxing. Unfortunately, it was 70 and rainy when we woke up the only full day we had there, so it was kind of disappointing.

Derek at the beach

Me at the beach

After a great trip, this was the end of the first leg. Spain was definitely a place I’d like to visit again. I loved the culture, LOVED it.  In my next post I’ll tell you about the train ride home from Warsaw, talk about crazy!