i have a job. all of a sudden i have just what i've wanted for the past month. i thought i knew what would make everything alright -a secure position where i would be guaranteed a monthly paycheck. but suddenly i have it and i'm not so sure. maybe i should have run away to the orphanages of africa while i had a chance. now i'm committed. and don't get me wrong, i'm grateful. ever so grateful. it's just strange when you think you know what you want, and you get it only to find you want something else. while security is great, i'm finding there are much more important things. the picture in my head isn't black and white like it used to be -perhaps i need some new glasses. or maybe i should make an exchange for a blank picture with places for all the colors of the rainbow.

i think you might laugh if you could see me now. you'd at least wonder. i'm sitting crosslegged on a sleeping bag laid out on the kitchen floor. i feel like i'm playing boat, the wood floor is the ocean lapping up against the sides of my sturdy sea craft, the sleeping bag. i've got my laptop here, my book next to me, and a glass of water close by. what else do you need? seriously. it wasn't too long ago that this was enough for me. i'm not sure what happened, but suddenly i have credit card payments and loans to think about and a job to get so i can do more than just think about them. all of a sudden there are bigger things to worry about than what's for snack. when did that happen?

i'm reading a book. (surprise!) it's one that i've seen on my dad's shelf for a long time -ruthless trust, by brennan manning. somehow those words don't seem to go together, yet they fit without trying. ruthless -that sounds like a dangerous adventure. and trust -that sounds peaceful and secure. a peaceful, secure, dangerous adventure -that sounds too good to be true.

trust is not something i know very much about. it's not something i've ever been good at -and i try to avoid getting too involved with things i'm not good at. trust requires vulnerability. it requires you to let go of pride and independence and let go. let go? what? can you even imagine what would happen if i just let go? well, we may never know because my hands are clenched so tightly i can't tell where my fingers end and my cares begin.

in his book, manning tells a story of a man meeting mother theresa. when she asks him what he wants prayer for, he says, "clarity." she says she can't do that. she says, "clarity is the last thing you're clinging to and must let go of." (see, there it is -"let go.") the man comments that she always seems to have great clarity in her mission. she laughs and says, "i have never had clarity; what i have always had is trust."

i want to trust. believe me, i do. but it always seems like such bad timing. how about in a couple of years when my loans are all paid off -how about i let go and trust then? why don't you let me finish up here, get things squared away, then i'll be ready to do whatever you say. but what is trust if you have nothing to worry about? what good is letting go if you're not holding on to anything? what kind of trust says now that i have a safe, soft place to fall, i'll let you catch me?

that's not trust. there's certainly nothing ruthless or dangerous about giving up plans that are already carried out to a tee. there's nothing scary about stepping into a dark room when you've made sure a light will go on as soon as you have a doubt. that's not even wimpy trust. and it definitely doesn't make for much of an adventure. i want more.

europe: bagpipes and guiness

[wednesday, february 11th]
lizzie and i got up early[ier] wednesday morning and made frenchtoast in honor of our departure. jayne dropped us off at the train station at about 11am and after lots of hugs, we said goodbye to our dear friend and headed back into the scary world. we got the train to edinburgh and found our hostel, brodies, along the royal mile, without hardly a glitch. it was a beautiful afternoon so we took our sandwiches and walked down to a park near the sir walter scott monument.


we played with the pigeons, admired the flowers' valiant efforts, and imagined the park a few months down the road with spring in full bloom. after lunch we went to the national gallery of scotland and walked through color-era coordinated rooms until they closed and we had to leave before making it to the impressionists. but we did see some rembrandt and van gogh on our way out! on our way to the hostel we got to hear some bag pipes and my "scary thing for the day" was posing close to the musician for a picture.


we got pasta at a grocery store for dinner and found jade (our third roommate from oxford who is going to grad school in aberdeen) waiting for us at the hostel when we got back. roommate reunion!


we had dinner and tea and talked around the table before going back out into the night for a "tour of hanted edinburgh," a la jade. (she'd gone on an actual tour only a few months before, so she remembered most of the stories and facts). a full moon looked down as jade led us through dark cemeteries where we saw hume's grave and ghost faces on gravestones, over "suicide bridge," and up hills past a replica of the roman parthenon (that isn't finished), and we were entertained and scared (but only a little) by stories of grave robberies, the black plague, and the ghosts inhabiting places like mary king's close.


after enough scaring for one night, we went back to the hostel for tea and much more conversation before bed that night.

[thursday, february 12th]
thursday morning dawned and we were greeted with -surprise -snow!! actually not really a surprise as snow followed us everywhere we went. not to be deterred, we bundled up and headed up the royal mile to edinburgh castle.


our labor was in vain though, as we found it closed due to the weather conditions. it was sad, but we determined to see some other sights and then check back with the castle later. we went to st. giles cathedral and stood in awe of yet another beautiful church (i keep wondering -what kind of places will we leave for future generations to admire?). after walking down the royal mile and back up again, we checked back at the castle and found it open -joy!


we sopped (literally) through the castle and saw st. mary's cathedral (the oldest part of the castle), the dog cemetery, the scottish crowned jewels, the dungeons, the prisoners of war quarters (where american pows were treated the worst, as they were assumed to be pirates), etc.


we had lunch at the castle tea rooms and even shared hot chocolate for a treat.


it was so much fun spending time with jade and walking around as the "threesome" we were at oxford.


we left the castle in the late afternoon and went back to the hostel to get our things and head for the train station (and jade to the bus station). after saying goodbye to jade we were just in time to get the 6pm train to glascow. we met my third cousin, donna clark and her husband at the glascow train station and they drove us through the stormy dark to their home right on the coast near the prestwick airport. the clarks are an amazing family with a huge 130 year old house they have been renovating. we were treated to delicious split pea soup (a homeschool home-ec project) and sandwiches and lovely hot showers and baths. once again we were spoiled by the hospitality of people we've never even met! anastasia, the 10 year old daughter, gave us her room for the night and we slept well, though not for long, only about 4 hours by the time we went to bed.

[friday, february 13th]
yep, friday the 13th! we made the most of it waking up at 4:30am to catch our super cheap (ryan air) 6:30am flights out of prestwick airport into dublin. the clarks were wonderful and made us bacon and toast for breakfast and sent us with sandwiches and cookies and apples for lunch -like i said -amazing hospitality. they left us at the airport running to catch our flight, but we got on without problem. we found ourselves in dublin before the tourist office opened, so we hung out in the lobby for awhile until we could buy bus passes to get into the city. we took the bus to a hostel only to find the prices they had advertised online were for male dorms only, (i'm not gonna lie, i felt like being a feminist) and since we weren't willing to pay more for the female dorms, we left in search of another hostel. we found avalon hostel and were glad we had continued our search as it was in the center of town, had free wireless, and had its own coffee shop! we made use of the coffee shop and wireless for the next several hours until we could get into our rooms at 2pm. at that point we were quite exhausted and couldn't imagine getting much out of walking around dublin, so we slept the afternoon away. that evening we went down to o'connel street, found a theatre, and saw "valkerie." we had seen it advertised since we started out in berlin, so we'd been wanting to see it for a long time. we had nutella sandwiches and carrots and hummus (surprise!) for dinner and went to bed pretty early, still exhausted from the early morning.

[saturday, february 14th]
we spent valentine's day roaming the streets of dublin along with all the other couples of the world. we started out with a guiness and a shot of jameson whiskey at temple bar. it was 1 o'clock and the famous bar was already crowded with people and live music. then we continued walking and went to trinity college where we saw the tail end of a football game (my team won) while eating our sandwiches. we thought about seeing the book of kells, but when we found out the display wasn't even the original, decided against it and admired it in gift shop book pictures, instead. we amused ourselves with oscar wilde quote books ("the only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself." so true.) and irish joke books (my favorite: secretary says to her boss, "mr. nobody is here to see you." boss says back, "tell him i can't see him." ha!) we left trinity college and got to st. stephen's gate just as they were closing it for the night, so we continued on. we stopped at marks and spencers on our way to the bus stop and scored on a chocolate fudge valentine's day cake. we got the bus to howth village, about 40 minutes from dublin, and walked a short bit to the home of marlene mccormick (the mother of a friend of a friend of my dad's -say that 10 times fast). she surprised us with dinner -fresh fish casserole. it was wonderful. we talked over chocolate cake and tea and planned out the next day before turning in for the night.

sunday, february 15th]
after breakfast sunday morning, marlene walked us down the coast to the howth sunday market at the pier. we admired jewelry, baked goods, vegetables, crafts, etc. and then spent a while reading on a bench out on the pier. when we were too cold to read anymore, we got the most delicious vegetable soup to share for lunch. for dessert we split a crepe, which should have been banana and nutella, but at the last second i ordered an interesting chocolate and marshmallow combination. it was good, but i'd go for banana and nutella any day. after lunch we got the bus back into dublin and continued our tour of the city with st. stephen's green. it was a beautiful sunday afternoon for a walk through the parks and we weren't the only ones who thought so. there were families and couples and friends strolling, feeding the ducks, and generally enjoying the sun. we did the same. at about 2:30pm we started walking in a round about way toward st. patrick's cathedral. we got there just in time for the afternoon service and got to enjoy the cathedral not only as a beautiful building, but as a place of worship (and by attending the service we bypassed the 6.50 entrance fee). after the service we took our time wandering through the cathedral and saw where jonathan swift (gulliver's travels) is buried. we left the cathedral and started out in the direction of the guiness brewery, without which our tour of dublin would not be complete, of course. along the way we passed by what we think were some of the famous "colored doors" of dublin. we didn't actually pay to go inside the guiness brewery, but we took a picture outside and called it good. we also found st. james gate and lizzie got her picture, though sadly she wasn't wearing her "st. james" shirt that day. we got the bus back to o'connel street and after saying goodbye to dublin, we got another bus back to howth. marlene made a lovely dinner that night and we even made it back in time to enjoy it with her. we were treated to bread pudding with fresh rhubarb -fabulous! -and after more tea, we went to bed for the last time in europe (for now) full and happy with the promise of a full irish breakfast in the morning.

[monday, february 16th]
marlene didn't disappoint -we enjoyed a full irish breakfast with all the fixins', including black pudding, on monday morning. we had packed up the night before, so we got our things together pretty quickly and were ready to head for the airport by 9:30am. before taking us to the airport, marlene took us up the cliffs at howth to see the spectacular ocean view. we took pictures and then she took us to howth castle (which has recently opened up as a culinary school) where there is a beautiful golf course and another great view of the ocean and coast line. it was gorgeous and green and lizzie and i decided again that we must come back to ireland to see more of the countryside and actually spend a decent amount of time there. marlene dropped us off at the airport in plenty of time for our flight and we said goodbye to her and the trip of a lifetime. we got on our flight for chicago at 2:30pm and spent the next hours watching movies and playing word games. we finished our books in the chicago airport, so we spent our connecting flight to seattle trying to sleep and failing miserably. thank God for sudoku! our parents were there to greet us at the bottom of the escalator in seattle and with our dads carrying our backpacks, we felt rather naked.

it's a bittersweet thing, coming back from a trip. it's wonderful to be home and we were more than ready to be done living out of a backpack for awhile, but it also meant driving off in opposite directions and waking up without the excitement of wondering what adventures will be had that day. but there are adventures at home, too -just normally not so exciting as backpacking across europe.

and with that, my europe journals are complete. thanks for reading along and joining in my adventures!

europe: new castles, walls, and lakes

[saturday, february 7th]
saturday rolled around and we were up and out earlier than we've been the whole trip -possibly. we got a train from york and then on to newcastle where we met jayne who had arrived in the UK only a few hours earlier. jayne's brother, gary, who had cancer all last year, had just died that previous week, so jayne had flown back from korea for the funeral and to be with her family. that evening we went to jayne's house and got to meet her parents, elizabeth and fred, who met every expectation of british hosts by serving us tea and cookies and calling us "pets." we spent the night at jayne's friend's house. eugene and sanet are a couple from south africa who have a lovely house and are some of the nicest, most hospitable people i've ever met. eugene is a fabulous cook who showed off his skilled by making us dinner each night we stayed at their home. that first night was jayne's pick -rack of lamb served with potatoes, broccoli, and mixed vegetables. amazing! we went to bed tired and happy.


[sunday, february 8th]
on sunday, after sanet made us a lovely breakfast of crumpets with butter and cheese, jayne took lizzie and i on a tour of the area. first we went to durham and walked around and saw the university and cathedral.


to our great surprise, we found ourselves at the venerable st. bede's burial site there in durham cathedral. lizzie about busted her britches with excitement and went so far as to take an illegal picture. we walked along the river in the sunshine and grew even more jealous of jayne as she told us about how, as an elementary student, she used to go on fieldtrips there to sketch the durham landscape.


after leaving durham jayne drove us by a school (that i can't remember the name of) which was the/one of the models for the hogwarts of harry potter. we drove up the coast and stopped at the small town of seahouses where we sat on benches down by the beach and made the seagulls jealous with the most amazing fish and chips (and batter bits).


our next stop was bamburgh castle, an incredible castle set right out on the rocks at the coast.


we couldn't go inside, as it's still in use as a residence, but we got up close and took lots of jumping photos.


we walked and ran and fell through the dunes near the beach and made our way down to the shore where lizzie collected limpet shells, jayne took pictures, and i frolicked about giving jayne reasons to take pictures.


by then it was late afternoon and we started the drive back to south shields. but we had to take a bit of a detour, since ever since lizzie had found out that jayne lived near hadrian's wall, we'd known we'd have to see it if we ever came to see jayne -and there we were! we finally found his wall surrounded by other "walls" trying to fool us, and took lots of pictures standing on the wall, doing jumping jacks on the wall, sleeping on the wall, modeling on the wall, etc. etc.


when we'd run out of ideas, we got back in the car and were on our way home. that night eugene made roast chicken and mini potatoes and brussels sprouts (only like my second time having them ever -yum!!). of course, it was amazing.

[monday, february 9th]
on monday (also the day of gary's (jayne's brother) funeral) morning lizzie and i took the train to the grand old town of york, where we saw ten thousand men, and marched up to the top of the wall and then marched down again. in between, we went to trinity church and found a wall lined with plaques remembering "elizabeths" and even an "elizabeth jane," this was our first clue that we belonged in york.


our second clue was a shop across the street -"amanda's."


after finding that all the interesting ethnic food restaurants were closed on mondays, we had lunch (actually breakfast for lizzie -her first full english breakfast of the trip) at a cute little cafe and went through a large pot of tea all by ourselves (ok, we did spill a bit of it). throughout the day we walked through roman ruins, the york minster, the shambles (oldest street in york), clifford's tower, the castle (which we're still not sure we actually found, but we did go in the gift shop), and a chocolate shop (we knew not to go back to the house after a funeral without chocolate).


we got a bit lost finding our way back to the train station, but nothing too exciting, and got back to sanet and eugene's around 7:30pm. eugene outdid himself again with a wonderful meal of ginger salmon and brocolli and potatoes. it was a bit of a down night, being the day of the funeral and all, and there were lots of tears and hugs and "magic chocolate" before the night was over.

[tuesday, february 10th]
the next morning, tuesday, we were up and at 'em early to meet jayne's mom, elizabeth (but for the sake of this post, i'll call her "jayne's mom." for those of you who don't know, jayne's first/real name is elizabeth, so i was the odd manda out with three elizabeths! i didn't have any problems, it was just lizzie, jayne, and elizabeth to me. but there were more than a few times "elizabeth" was put out there and everybody looked. poor them.). with jayne's mom's trusty england road map in hand, we set off for the lake district. it was a gorgeous day -all sun and blue sky.


elizabeth and i had the best seats in the house as we drove through the countryside with our fabulous tour guide -jayne's mom -pointing out bits of hadrian's wall, a clearing where robinhood was filmed, and teaching us all kinds of english/scottish history. (for example, kilts didn't come into use until the victorian era when the scots wanted to wear something special to greet queen victoria at her birthday, thus, they created the kilt! so mel gibson in a kilt in braveheart -false.) we ran into a few detours along the way, and of course had to stop for a bite to eat at a roadside pub, but eventually made it to windermere.


it's no surprise this beautiful area gave birth (in a sense) to the talents of william wordsworth and beatrix potter. i'm sure i saw peter rabbit and mrs. tiggy winkle peering from behind some bushes and it's no wonder my heart with pleasure filled as i danced with the daffodils. we walked beside the lake at windermere and i made friends (or tried to) with a swan on the beach, then walked up through the narrow streets of the lakeside town.


we had a lovely time and got back in the car boasting only one mishap involving a very muddy hillside and a very white coat (i'm not giving anything away if i say it was elizabeth).


everyone was pretty tired as we drove home and lizzie and i again had the best seats as we were able to lay back and black out for awhile. thanks for driving jayne! we got back late, had pizza for dinner with sanet and eugene, and mourned our last (this trip at least) wonderful night in newcastle.