Day 1 Paris

Well, we had an eventful time getting to Paris! Our flight from Nashville to Philly was half an hour late, which wouldn't have been a big deal if our layover had been more than an hour! And, of course, our connecting gate was literally the farthest one possible from our arriving gate! So we ran, and we ran, and we took the shuttle, and we ran some more - and we made it! Only to sit on the plane for an hour and a half while they straightened out a lighting issue! That's how life goes, huh?

When we arrived, we took a taxi to our guesthouse, and discovered it to be even more lovely than we imagined. Cecilia and Jean-Claude, the owners, have three studio apartments that they rent out, and keep an absolutely lovely garden filled with roses and green grass and a lovely pavillion from which to enjoy it all. When we arrived, Cecilia had fresh bread, butter and marmalade waiting for us to snack on, and had stocked the refrigerator with orange juice, yogurt, water, etc! Our room is small, but comfortable, and the bathroom is spacious by European standards. The decoration is very homey and kitch, very similar to what you would expect in an American B&B. Altogether it's a very welcoming and comfortable place - a nice change after all the hotels I've been in in the last month.

We were seriously jetlagged of course, so we took a nap and managed to oversleep by about three hours. We finally got out the door around 4:00 and successfully navigated the metro system and arrived at the Eiffel Tower! We walked around, took in the Eiffel Tower, and decided to eat before mustering the energy for the climb. We ate a simple but satisfying meal around the corner and made our way back to the tower. For some crazy reason we decided to go by stairs as opposed to the elevator, so 30 minutes and 500 steps later we were on the Eiffel Tower! I had no idea that they had little sandwich and snack places up there, or souvenier shops, etc. So we walked around, and enjoyed the view from up there, and finally took the elevator to get to the very top! By far, the scariest elevator ride of my life - all glass, and all you can see is what is below you, and very little of the superstructure holding you up. But we made it, and the view was spectacular.

There is a Champagne bar up on the top of the tower, so Daniel got us glasses of champagne and we toasted our one year anniversary overlooking beautiful Paris from the the top of the tower! Afterward, we walked along the river for a while, and finally made our way back to the guesthouse. One the way back we stopped and had a fantastic meal at an Asian restaurant near to it. It was delicious! Daniel had some sort of spicy beef dish, and I had chicken with curry, and stir-fried noodles with vegetables. It was all flavorful and well cooked. We also enjoyed a bottle of bordeaux and we had sorbet for dessert. I kid you not, this was the best sorbet I have ever had! Homemade, real ingredients - it was fantastic. Daniel had chocolate, and I had mango and coconut. I think we'll be going back there several times during our stay here . . .

So there was Day 1 in Paris. I'll try to update whenever I can, and with pictures eventually. Love you all!

Back from Greece, Leaving for France tomorrow.

This is the first time I've sat down to gather my thoughts about my experiences in the last month. Where to start? What to share? How to describe how it has changed me? I suppose a good place to start is by talking about Greece itself. We spent two weeks in Athens, and two weeks traveling on the mainland. Athens is dirty, noisy, crowded, shoddy, and altogether irresistible. There is something magical about being the high-end shopping district, looking into the windows of Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Fendi - and turning the corner only to stumble on a Byzantine church from the 12th century. Or getting a quick bite in some sketchy little neighborhood, and emerging to find yourself in full view of the Acropolis. The juxtaposition is jarring, and altogether wonderful. I can't tell you much about the people, other than the younger men will cat call an annoy any young woman to no end. But I can say that I met a few Greeks who I instantly connected with, and one whom I feel I could be friends with for the rest of my life. Yiota (our guide through the Athens Center, the organization who put the program together for us) and I had one long conversation over beers in a coastal town called Loutraki, and soon realized we were kindred souls. Similar music, similar movies, similar passion for good food, good company, beautiful places, and a certain knack for enjoying those things to the fullest. She is romantic in a purely beautiful and not at all sentimental way. She would never watch a chick-flick, but she understood the look I had sometimes at dinner or at a site, and would say, "There is nothing better than to see your love again."

The students can be described as a group of 12 people as unlike myself as you could imagine - athletes, economics and poli sci majors, all but one in fraternities and sororities, etc. I can say with confidence now, after this trip, that I can navigate almost any social situation, and make friends with any sort of person! I thoroughly enjoyed their company, and they kept me from feeling too lonely. I liked the short interlude into "normal" life - I had my first real glimpse of what it would have been like had I been social and well adjusted in college! :) But, there you have it - I had a month of it, and now I'm incredibly happy to be back in my own slightly dark, slightly off, and totally un-normal life with my husband who loves me for being just a little bit off.

Greece is breathtakingly beautiful, and so diverse in the kind of beauty it offers from one place to the next. I had gone to Greece only looking forward to the antiquities, the ancient buildings. But some of the most memorable, and heartbreakingly beautiful things I saw were Byzantine fortresses, overgrown with wildflowers, perched on high mountains overlooking green valleys. The Greek and Roman architecture was beautiful as well, but somehow not always as alive, as palpable, as I expected. Does that make sense? Or perhaps it was just the circumstances - we were rushed from site to site, pressed on all sides by tourists, tired and hot. Perhaps if I had had time, a few hours to sit and listen, to study how the temple interacts with its surroundings, take time to drink in the symmetry, the strength, the poetry of lines in those buildings ... But I didn't have time, and I was trying desperately to answer 12 students' questions with accuracy. Greece is a place that I will go back to, though. And I can't wait to share it with Daniel. He's not exactly a Classicist, but the beauty of ancient Greece would not be lost on him.

The most valuable thing I learned on this trip is my own desire and enthusiasm to share the knowledge I have gained. I led discussions once, often twice a week, and I was surprised by my own confidence, and my urgency to help these students understand antiquity. I think I had a taste of the joy of teaching. Of course, it's hard not to be excited when you're explaining the significance of a building or a vase or a sculpture when you and the student are standing right next to it!

I posted pictures of Greece on Facebook, for those who would like to see them. Daniel and I will hopefully be posting pictures of our trip while we're there, since we'll be bringing a computer along. That also means Skype, by the way! :)

Of Gardens, and the Things Which Mean Most to Us in Life . . .

One of the most precious times I had in Arizona during my trip was an afternoon at the Botanical Gardens with Grandma and Gordon. It was also a prayerful one - we had to get out of the house because we didn't want to sit around worrying about Rob being in the hospital. So, spur of the moment, we grabbed hats, water and found ourselves at the Gardens. We had no idea there was a Chihuli exhibit, and were so pleasantly surprised by these whimsical, fantastical creations of his. It was wonderful to walk around, enjoy each other's company in silence (I think we were each silently praying for our beloved Robbie!), and drinking in the sights. I think the sheer fun-ness and unexpectedness of these sights lifted our hearts.

And so today - a very rough day, I must say - I thought about our trip to the Botanical Garden as Daniel and I went to the Botanical Gardens here to cheer ourselves up and make the best of the day. If only I had a decent camera, because the grounds are just amazing. I took these pictures with my phone. But I can't help thinking of Grandma and Gordon when I'm there, because that pavilion you see pictured below - it's lined with thousands of pansies, and growing on the pavilion itself are ancient wisteria. They're not in bloom yet, but that's just something to look forward to, isn't it?

I think one of the best things about Cheekwood (the gardens) is going with Daniel and knowing that we're both enjoying it, and connecting over it. I love that my husband will get up on a Saturday morning and spend hours looking at flowers with me - and loving it just as much as I do! It's been a special place for me since we moved here, and I'm pretty sure it's my favorite place in all of Nashville.





But, sadly, I had to say good-bye to some of my favorite trees this week. Daniel and I have a route we take when walkig in our neighborhood, and it takes us by this house on the corner. And we had a small tornado rip through a few days ago. I remember hearing the tornado sirens, but not knowing what they are - Daniel and I were napping at the time, actually. When we woke up and went to get dinner, four or five beautiful trees had been ripped out of the ground in our apartment complex. No buildings were damaged close to us, but a few streets over, the wall of a Firestone collapsed onto all the cars in the parking lot! this tree in particular made me sad. I get attached to the trees on my walking route, and I'm going to miss this one!

Good News!!!

Well, family - I am ridiculously and undeservedly blessed. As I'm sure most of you know by now, I was accepted to the summer session at the American Academy in Rome. That will be from June 22-July 31ths, and will consist of making all sorts of trips all over Italy to see the material remains of Rome. It's going to be wonderful. Well, in ADDITION to that, one of my professors, Bronwen Wikkiser, has asked me to be her TA for the Maymester program she's teaching of Ancient Religion - in Greece! The program will consist of two weeks in Athens seeing the sights, and two weeks traveling all over the Peloponnese. Needless to say, I'm going! What is so great about this opportunity is that she is quite open to see me try my hand at lecturing if I want. And there will be quite a bit of material on early Christianity in the program. The interplay between Judaism and Christianity with the Greco-Roman world has really become the focus of my independent work this year, so it will be great for me. And a trip to Greece on Vandy's bill isn't so bad either. Bronwen really just wants someone to help the students feel comfortable in Athens - finding their way around, finding restaurants, banks, etc. - and someone to lead discussions. Leading discussions is a strong suit, as is having a lot of fun while traveling! :) I'm just so excited.

And while I'm not happy about two and a half months away from Daniel this summer, I am encouraged by the fact that he's so very genuinely excited for me and appreciates how unique these opportunities are. So I'll be gone the month of May, coming back to TN around June 1st, then Daniel and I will turn right back around to fly to Paris on the 3rd. We'll travel until my program starts on June 22nd. Brief itinerary:

June 4th (our one year anniversary!!!!) - 9th: Paris
June 9th - 12th: Innsbruck
June 12th - 16th: Vienna (with a day trip to Prague, methinks)
June 16th - 19th: Venice
June 19th - 21st: Rome

Daniel will leave on the 21st to go home. Then he has about two weeks before he leaves for Ukraine. He'll be going with a team from our church, Midtown Fellowship, to help out with Christian camps organized by Radooga Ministries. Our church has gone to Ukraine twice before, and last summer (the second trip), Radooga asked the team if they would be willing to put on a camp for an orphanage, and it was a great success. So this year's team will be doing the same thing. I would ask you all to pray along with us that Midtown's team gets permission to return to the orphanage they went to last year. The founder of Radooga, Oleg Vasilevsky, desperately wants to see consistency and follow-up in their orphanage programs. The gospel message is clearly presented, and they have many children come to know Christ, and he has a heart to see discipleship in these children's lives as well. So let's pray for these children - they told Daniel he wold be working with ages 10-17 - that those who don't know Christ yet would have hearts open to the gospel, and that those who have accepted Christ would be see the need for a growing, continuing relationship with Christ post-camp! And let's pray for strength and encouragement for Daniel. The team has very few men, so they were thrilled when Daniel decided to go. The team will have just tons of one-on-one time with the kids, and they are wonderfully supported by English translators. It's gonna be a great time, I think! I'm sad I can't go, but I have a feeling we might both be there next summer. :)

Sweet Thing

I really need to keep up on the blogging, don't I? Sorry, all. Things are just so crazy.

Well, I'm lying in bed, where I've been all day, all alone and listening to music. Dan's still in Arizona, and I didn't have classes today. I should have done homework, but I didn't. Slept in till 2:00, then spent the rest of the day hunting down new music to listen to. It gets harder and harder for me to find music that I connect to emotionally. I remember how I felt when I first heard, say, Jeff Buckley's Grace or Van's Astral Weeks. (Appropriate examples as I am currently listening to Jeff's cover of Sweet Thing). I'm starting to wonder if I just can't connect to music the same way I did when I was 16. Was my intense sensitivity to the emotional impact of music - my ability to be completely taken over and uplifted by melody- gone now that I'm not an emotionally-driven, hormonal mess of a teenager? Or have I just not heard the right music since then? I suppose it's not gone, it's harder and harder to find. I don't like much of the new music I hear. Now I just have to spend hours and hours sifting through all the new music to find something that will stick with me, that I feel I'll be able to listen to over and over again. One of the challenges of this process, though, is that I much prefer the oft-trodden and familiar songs to new songs. The feeling of listening to a really good song for the second time is nothing to listening to Sweet Thing for the 300th time. So sometimes I don't listen to good music just because I don't know it, because it's not familiar to me yet. But how can it become familiar if I don't listen to it? This is often to my detriment, let me tell you. When I first bought "Rush of the Blood to the Head" by Coldplay, somehow I decided that I didn't like the song Green Eyes. So I always skipped it. Always. For 3 or 4 years I skipped that song. All the sudden, one day I pull that album out again, listen to it all the way through, and realize that Green Eyes is perhaps my favorite song on the album.

Our family loves music, and it's one of the things I love most about my family. Spending time this last week with my family reminded me of that. It took me some time to realize that the rest of the world didn't like music as much as we do. Not everyone will have memories of sitting in the garden listening to Sweet Thing with Gordon, and raising our hands to the night time sky when Van sung it. Or having a transcendent moment in the garden before leaving for Italy, listening to "Rain in July"while it was raining in July. :) Certainly one thing that brought Daniel and I together was a strong, inexplicably strong connection to music. And while not all of us can produce music, at least all of us can connect over finding it an incredibly meaningful and joyful part of our lives. I've always felt I was a musician that somehow got cheated out of musical talent - but now I am content with the thought that while I will never be able to make music, at least I can be understanding and supportive of those around me that are more musically-inclined.

So there's lots to post about my trip to AZ, but I have yet to order my thoughts (and my pictures) in order to do it justice. So I'll save that for the next installment.

Signs that you are older than you want to be . . .

1) Your little sister is asked out by her much older tattoo artist

2) The highlight of your week is finally being able to use that salad bowl you got for the wedding shower

3) You automatically wake up at 6 in the morning ready to greet the day all cheery-like


So, I've been pondering something Cara said on her blog - I'm the only one of the four kids to not have a tattoo from Divinity in Scottsdale! I'm not sure I can live with that disgrace. Well, I've been seriously considering getting a tattoo, and that's just the kind of incentive I needed. A chi rho on one food, an alpha and omega on the other. I am going to be in AZ for Spring Break . . . :) Thoughts? Feelings? Objections?

In any case, Daniel and I felt our dinner party was very successful. We had two couples over, and we made delicious food, of which every last scrap was eaten! They stayed for four and a half hours, and the conversation was lovely. I think Daniel and I could really enjoy this entertaining thing. We love cooking together, and we love making people happy, so really it's perfect.

It will be sad, though, when these two couples move away. Both are graduating at the end of this semester and moving on. I haven't really developed relationships with the other first-years like I have with the two second years and their significant others. Hopefully things will get better, though. And we will have fresh blood next year!

In other news, I am slowly wasting away with anxiety about summer programs. I should be hearing soon, and certainly by the end of the month, and I'm dying. I'm dying a) to know for sure that I was accepted and b) dying to start making plans for the pre-program travel with Daniel! In many ways Daniel is the perfect travel partner for me, among them the fact that I like to plan and figure things out and budget and itinerize (is that a word? as in, make itineraries, from the latin iter, itineris - journey . . .), and he likes to just chill and go with the flow. So I will have tons of fun picking hotels and sights to see and restaurants, etc!! Planning my trip with Gordon was a joy. As was travelling with Gordon, and I hope he will come visit while I'm in _________. (Athens? Rome? Pompeii?)

It was a beautiful 70 degrees today in Nashville! It went from being in the 20's/30's to the 60's/70's. I love rain, and I love clouds - but I'm beginning to realize that I love sunshine and warmth just a smidge more. The cold, icy winter of Nashville was starting to get me down. There is just something inherently gloomier about watching all the beautiful green around you slowly be consumed by cold and ice. At any rate, it's growing warm and lovely again, which means I will be doing much of my homework outside again.

Sorry about neglecting the blog, guys. It's been a challenging, time consuming semester. But I loved being able to spend a few minutes on the computer and feel somewhat reconnected with my family! So let's get back into this. Thanks, Stef for leading the way.

Saturday morning . . . and Daniel is still fast asleep, while I'm ready to jump out of bed and start my day. We have a lot to do today, and it's going to be a fun night! We're hosting our first dinner party for a few friends from school. :) And so in addition to preparing yummy food, we're trying to do all those little things around the house that we've put off for so long. It's been fun - almost like nesting all over again. So off to target to find a table cloth, and enough water glasses for 6 people, and picture frames. And also lots of grocery shopping for the meal. Menu: Salad with Apples and Maple-Walnut Dressing, Pasta with Creamy Wild Mushroom Sauce, and Lemon Bread and CC cookies for dessert. Oh, it's going to be sooo good! I'm a little nervous because I've never really cooked for people like this. And I'm worried that maybe someone won't like this, another won't like that. But oh, well! Daniel and I tried out our recipies on Thursday, and they all tasted wonderful to us. ::fingers crossed::

This semester will be a good one for Daniel, I think. Although it's also going to be crazy busy. But he has so many opportunities these days to just lose himself in music and audio. The school requires that students help out with various school-run live shows, and Daniel had two full days of shows last weekend. It's hard, because tempers flare and not everyone is nice when they're under pressure, but I still get the sense that with every show, Daniel gains experience and confidence. In addition to that, he has various mixing project to do for his classes. His first project was a simple overdubbing project, but we both had so much fun thinking of ideas to make it interesting. He felt creative, and that makes him very happy (in turn, it makes me very happy!). He's also taking guitar lessons, and I already hear his playing improving, and I see his motivation and desire for playing growing.

And I - well, I'm having a pretty good semesters. I'm enjoying my Greek classes so much. And my Latin class is going to kill me. . . But it's what I needed. I needed a very intense and challenging Latin course, and my Latin is getting better and better every day. I'm just sweating blood every time I sit down to do my Latin translation! The teacher is supportive, and understand that my Latin is years behind everyone else's, so he's been spending time outside of class helping me.

So, not much else to update on yet. But I'll let you guys know how the dinner party goes!