10 minutes

I just opened a dark chocolate almond Dove Promise with a little "fortune" inside. It said: "Steal 5 minutes for yourself today."

"The first thing I'll do with my five minutes," I thought to myself, "is eat another dark chocolate almond Dove Promise."

And guess what this fortune said:

"Steal 5 minutes for yourself today."

So now I have a nice 10 minutes stolen all for myself.

I'm going to go read some Confucius. :)

Wedding at Gramma's House

This weekend the whole family, brothers-in-laws included, caravaned up to Maryland for our cousin Sarah's east coast wedding reception. Sarah's always dreamed of getting married at our gramma's house--an early 19th century big, white farmhouse with as much character as one of Dorothea Lange's migrants' faces. We drove in the dark to get there--honked our horn along the windy road named after my ancestors--more out of respect for the past than the fear of oncoming traffic. Stepping out of the car I smelled, really for the first time, the outside of Gramma's house. It was a combination of fresh, green leaves and the musky house--only Gramma's yard. My aunt Leila's done a beautiful job restoring the house--but it still retains its muskiness, and immediately floods my family's minds with memories. Sarah made sure to fill the top drawer of the dining room bureau with York peppermint patties and assorted Hershey's bars--she knew we'd have to check at some point.

What we all mostly remember about Gramma's house is rummaging--hours and hours spent trying out the old typewriter upstairs, inspecting 1940s LIFE magazines, discovering photos of Dad growing up, or Granddad in his army days, my sisters and I admiring ourselves in oversized flapper dresses, sometimes finding real treasures and asking Gramma if we could keep them. I didn't realize till we visited her gravestone than Gramma died 10 years ago. I think time is catching up with me, now that I'm a 24-year-old. Most people want to live longer but don't mind that they weren't born a few years earlier, but I'm a little dissappointed I don't have as many memories with my Gramma as some of my sisters and cousins do.

I'm reading "The Wisdom of Confucius" these days :) (that's so trendy, I know). Listen to this:

"The superior man, while his parents are alive, reverently nourishes them; and, when they are dead, reverently sacrifices to them. His thought to the end of his life is how not to disgrace them. The saying that a superior man mourns all his life for his parents has reference to the day of their death. That he does not do his ordinary work on that day does not mean that it would be unpropitious to do so; it means that on that day his thoughts are occupied with them, and he does not dare to occupy himself, as on other days, with his private and personal affairs."

It seems very human to revere the dead--to still respect them. Your ancestors you never knew--to listen to their stories and stand amazed that their genes still live in you. To carefully place new flowers on their grave and bless them still.

Home/school

I thought I should update to say I'm HOME! It's so nice getting to hang out with my parents, Alice, Leah, Jessica, sometimes Anna, Seth, Ellen, and Rebekah whenever I want to! Well, the honeymoon stage ended quickly, though: Alice and I have already had a few little tiffs about sharing the car again. I miss public transportation! I do miss Madrid and, gosh, I think it was pretty unreal I lived there for a year. What a cool city. I miss my friends there and Sunday afternoons in parks. I miss not having homework hanging over my head on weekends: I've just started classes (some PA school pre-reqs) at Greenville Tech. I need to work, too--maybe at a hospital to get some medical experience. We'll see.

The farm in Italy with Hannah was really fun, even though it was maybe a little cult-y? The people were some of the nicest ever. And, gosh, I miss Hannah! I can't even begin to describe how much fun we have together, talking about everything under the sun while baking under the sun.

More later. Maybe some pictures? No promises soon, though.

I hqte foreign keyboqrds11

"Moments to cherish" from the last 3 weeks of traveling with my amazing sisters:

-Hiking in the heart of the Swiss Alps (the most beautiful place I've been, I think). We hiked from Gimmewald (a remote town full of Rick Steves disciples) to the top of Mt. Stilthorn, a mile in elevation change, in 3.5 hours, Alice and me IN OUR CROCS! We are so proud of ourselves, accomplishing the impossible, to the shock of our naysayers. We're still sore.

-Arriving in Venice--the whole city really does look just like the pictures, with canals and old, colorful buildings! I couldn't take enough pictures!

-The Sistine Chapel. Mama mia. St. Peter's Basilica, too. Oh, and David.

-Seeing THE GERARD SISTERS (from our high school!) randomly in the Munich train station! That made our trip.

-Riding bikes all over the Netherlands with our unbelievable hostess Marleen; touring a cheese farm with her; eating a Dutch dinner with her and Mirjam from my church in Madrid.

-Alice and me embarrassing Jessica by breaking out in song, dancing to street music, just being our silly selves all over the continent.

-Reading Crime and Punishment on the train. Dostoevsky's a genius!

-Hanging out with JS in Paris today. Eating ham and cheese crepes for lunch!

-Meeting really great people everywhere we go. We probably won't stay in touch with most of them, even, but they've been influential in some way.

-Telling the people in our Mountain Hostel hot tub we hadn't showered in 3 days... oops.

-Oh, goodness! Gelato!

-Just being with my family--I LOVE them!

(written a couple days ago)

School's been out for about a week and, after a short trip to England to visit dear friends Simeon and Karin, Mom and Dad are here in Spain! We stayed in San Sebastian (in the heart of Basque country) in Northern Spain, day-tripping across the French border once. Now we're in Barcelona, gawking over Gaudi's architecture all over the city. Highlights of the trip thus far: the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao (get an audioguide for modern art museums--you'll be thankful later!); bad googlemaps directions leading us up a narrow mountain road in pitch dark to our hotel in San Sebastian; a great Vietnamese restaurant along the river in S. Sebastian; being overwhelmed with beauty driving into Barcelona--the most artistic city I've ever seen; Spain winning EUROCUP last night!!! the streets were full of rowdy young Spaniards singing "Ole, ole, ole, ole," and touting their country's flag; walking down Ramblas today by myself--as much as I love being around my parents 24/7, I do need a little alone time, sometimes. :)


_____________________________________

Since I wrote this Alice and Jessica have arrived! We're in Salamanca right now, staying up late chatting, breakfasting, shopping, and planning the next leg of our trip together. I think Mom and Dad are enjoying having their ears chatted off by us :). We wish they could join us on the rest of our Euro adventures together.

Stolen journal

Madrid's never had a big problem with hard crime, but right now, at least, it certainly has its share of soft crime--pick-pocketing on the metro, mostly. I've been keeping my wallet inside a zipped smaller purse which has lain at the bottom of my larger red purse, underneath a pile of books, notebooks, and sometimes my journal, which I like to write in going from place to place. Any pick-pocketer would have to be brilliant to get to my wallet, I thought. Maybe I was proud of myself for taking such uncharacteristic precautions. That is until last Sunday when I got robbed--of my entire purse. I met up with Biz, Tim and Helena (my new Swedish friend) for coffee at Starbucks. Helena and I had found the perfect table for the four of us--downstairs with four cushy chairs, right before the crowd hit. At some point before splitting a cheesecake and frappuccino with Elena I must have set my purse down on the floor next to my chair. I didn't realize it was missing till 30 minutes of laughter and good conversation. I am now missing a lot of freshly-withdrawn money, my five-year-old camera (with great pictures on it! but I can get those from other people) and my journal that I've kept for the past YEAR. My JOURNAL! I've kept a journal almost since I could write, and now there's a whole very important year MISSING! Oh, I am so sad. Can you imagine losing much more valuable than your camera and your journal? I was strangely comforted to hear of a woman who'd lost a $10,000 ring her dying husband had given to her before he passed away. She'd taken it off her finger to keep in safe in her purse. Yeah, that would probably be worse than this.

I filed a police report, but haven't heard any word, yet. Sometimes they find purses in garbage cans a month after the event. I shouldn't get my hopes up. But, really, well--any words of encouragement, consolation, false hope, straight-up lies? would probably be appreciated. :( :)

Drew said something about all this that made me thankful for friends like him: that journaling does something that is a lot more than the end result of a journal. All wasn't wasted. (thanks, buddy.)

Other than that, our dear friend Tim left this afternoon to go home. We'll miss him and his easy-goingness and good conversationalness (esp. Biz!). And his straight-up kindness: he helped me search for my purse in the garbage cans of Madrid. In vain, but, it was still so nice.

I've been taking evening walks--after I finish au-pairing but before it gets dark (around 10 pm these days). Tonight I walked to a place with a view of the mountains, which made my heart happy.

I started reading "A Severe Mercy" the other week (it was in my purse when it got stolen) and it got me thinking about L'Abri for next semester... I'm really leaning towards going there now. Maybe in Boston? :) Seth's thinking about it, too, which would be so nice, just to be in the same place, reading and discussing the same things. I'll keep you posted. And I'll keep you posted on the purse situation.

Un beso!

Home

Last week we had a holiday so I went HOME for the week! Well, I'd originally planned on changing my April 30 British Airways flight to a later date, but it was going to cost me almost as much as it would to buy a new ticket, so I just used the flight and bought another round-trip ticket here. All the sisters were reunited for the first time since Christmas at Anna's 30th birthday party. The party was definitely the highlight of the trip. As was hanging out with Ellen, bagel-shop-breakfasting with Dad, late-night-talking with Mom, and planning EuroTrip '08 with Jessica and Alice, those fun girls. :) Got any ideas of where we should go? I've heard Nice, Cinque Terra and a sweet mountain town in Switzerland are must-sees. Any tips would be appreciated.

I flew back to Madrid out of Boston so I got to spend a couple days seeing Seth, my good friend Lindsay from Yellowstone, Colleen, John, and, of course, Irene. Seth and I did dinner with Colleen, John and Irene (I keep thinking about that tiramisu) and Irene and Lindsay came to a concert Seth played in at his dorm. Seth and I introduced some of his friends to genuine cheese grits (really cheesy) the morning I left, so I'd say the trip was a success, overall. :) Yeah, it was just a lot of fun seeing everyone. I'm so happy at home. It was hard coming back here, but I'm ok now. :)

Actually, I'm nerdily excited right now. Besides having a holiday tomorrow (San Isidro's Day) and having a really nice weekend hanging out with Biz and friends, I just downloaded a bunch of FREE applications from Apple that I never knew existed (F-R-E-E!): a flash card program (iFlash), a memorize the world's countries/locations/capitals application (World of Where), a Spanish-English dictionary, a Spanish verbs quiz application (it's fun to play), and, most bizarre of all, this is actually really bizarre, a sleep recorder application. It's called Dream Recorder. And it's kind of creepy. :) I used it last night and woke up to its "dawn" effect this morning, then went back to sleep and woke up to my real alarm 45 minutes later. But, I just left my MacBook open all night and my camera took pictures of me every 10 minutes with the program's night vision technology (you can set it to take pictures every 2 minutes, or a video of the whole night). The program recorded every time I moved last night and if I made any noises--it recorded me talking in my sleep! That was the creepiest part. At 3:42 last night I said something that sounded kind of like French, but definitely wasn't. I waited to come to school to hear the rest of what I said--a dark room on a rainy morning was just too much. Too creepy. You should download it. It gives you this neat little graph of your movements and sounds and snores from the previous night, and the times they occurred. And, I didn't get to use this part of it last night, but it has an alarm that wakes you up when you're supposedly the best-rested. Isn't that amazing? I'll probably use it tonight and tell you how I feel in the morning. :)

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/home_learning/index4.html

(scroll down to the bottom hit download! btw, it's only a 30-day trial, I think.)

More later, alligator.