here we go again

It’s been forever since I blogged....for once it’s not my fault :P For some reason blogspot and tumblr and pretty much every site I ever go on ever besides Facebook and Gmail is now blocked here. ??????????? So I'm relying on occasional visits to the ever-helpful Carnforth library...

I spent the last five days of spring break in Germany with my relatives—my grandpa’s sisters and their family. Most of them I had never met before, but everyone was amazingly kind, I was bowled over by their generosity. Saw Bergen Belsen and a castley place, did a lot of biking, and walked around Hamburg, it was pretty great. Hamburg reminds me a little bit of Vancouver—it looks more modern than old because so much of it was destroyed when the British bombed it during the war, and it’s right on the water and there are plenty of green places. So many things about those four days reminded me of home, and of my grandparents and the German side of my family and of the place I worked last year... So similar, but so far away; so much the same, but not.

And staying in someone’s house is a massively different type of travelling than backpacking is, let me tell you. Lots of stories to tell about that, but I’ll save them for real life.... :P I spent the last night in the airport (neglected to mention that detail of the plan to the German relatives, because I knew they would flip, but I think they found out anyway haha. nonetheless, so long, Manchester Airport! My days of sleeping in your Terminal 2 are over forever!) and took the train to Carnforth the next morning. Showers and proper beds and clean clothes are wonderful, wonderful things. Never forget that, people.

It’s been over a week now and we’re 1/7 through spring school. A little less than half of the people here were at winter school and a little more than half of them are new and it’s the oddest dynamic, for both sides. I don’t envy the spring school people who have to come into a place where half the school already knows each other and already has their established friendships, but at the same time, we all miss people from winter school and so much is different and I don’t know, it’s just weird. I think a lot of people are kind of subconsciously avoiding the effort it takes to get to know new people and sticking with their old friend groups, just because eight weeks is so short and leaving everyone at winter school was hard and you can’t help feeling a bit of “the more people I become friends with, the more it will hurt to leave again.” And leaving IS going to hurt, it’s going to hurt a lot. I didn’t expect this to be very different than the last six months were but it is, not worse, just odd.

aaanyway. Apart from psychological phenomenons such as the above and that kind of thing, spring school has been a blast so far. It’s been gorgeous weather, I am in the Lower Tower with two lovely roommates, everything is super chill because there are hardly any assignments, and we’re in the midst of some brilliant lectures this week by Derek Burnside on the life of Solomon (today was Song of Solomon, oh was that interesting...haha. It was, though! Ever heard it as a love story between a country girl and her man, with Solomon and his promiscuity as the villain? nope, neither had I.)

June feels like ages away, but it’s only seven weeks until I’m home and this adventure is over...

"If you read a lot...

nothing is as great as you've imagined. Venice is--Venice is better." --Fran Lebowitz

I haven't seen much of it so far so I can't agree or disagree with that yet, but we are finally in Venezia! after a ten-hour journey from Florence. Which should not have happened but apperently we bought tickets for a four-in-the-morning train that does not exist. Five different trains and much stress later, here we are; I will spare you the details.

The minute we walked out of the station we ran into three people from Capernwray! They weren't people I had known especially well but once we started talking it made no difference at all. After hearing some of what they've seen the last few weeks I can assure my small army of concerned friends and family that you have absolutely NOTHING to be worried about for me, compared to some people's wild stories...haha. Favourite part of the day. The thought of being back at Capernwray in less than two weeks seriously makes me SO happy, no matter how much I've loved every place I've been to so far. Spring school is going to be fantastic.

So now we're at our hostel. Craziest place I've stayed at yet. Everyone is super friendly and the place is run so casually that all I can do is laugh. The rooms are lit by chandeliers but the floor is made of crumbling cement and the paint is coming off the walls. The staff are determined to memorise everyone's names, the girl in the bed next to mine has been living here for next to forever, there are only two showers for the entire hostel, and apparently the staff takes whoever wants to out at night to experience Venice's nightlife. I learned this from a girl I met in Rome who stayed here, who told elabourate stories involving drunkeness and falling into canals (somehow I do not find this tempting).

I'm sitting on the balcony overlooking the canal right now and a mad thunderstorm is going on outside. In between typing this I'm talking to a girl from Hong Kong, with a bunch of people swapping travel stories in the room behind me, and wind blowing through the wide open doors but nobody cares.

I think I like this place :)

in which our road leads to Rome

Home is behind, the world ahead

That song has been running through my head all week.

Sitting on the floor of a cold and internet-less Paris airport with a long, long night ahead of me is enough incentive to actually write a blog post. Amazing I know.

Spent a lovely weekend in Hull at Lucy’s. And guess who was born and raised in Hull? Guess whose house has been made into a museum about his life and about slavery and abolition? that’s right, William Wilberforce (i.e. One Of My Favourite People In History, Ever). How awesome is that?

We spent two nights in London which is the one part of this trip that felt/feels familiar and easy...haha, never thought I’d say that especially not last September when the thought of deciphering that transit system struck terror into my heart. Saw Wicked (which was pretty great, creative and clever and deeper than I expected), went to the Imperial War Museum (my third and probably not last time...I love that place) And then spent a long, long nine hours on a coach to Paris. We assumed we could sleep on this journey. Never assume.

..that was how my post last night began, but it never got very far, because a security person came by and told us that the airport closed in an hour, leaving us homeless in Paris. After a few seconds of panic, some hasty prayer, and some help from the guy at the airport tourist office, we managed to find a cheap hotel and a bus that would take us there. The whole bus was full of people whose plans were similarly foiled—a bedraggled collection of Canadians, Americans, French and other Europeans—and we couldn’t do much but laugh. I expect half of that hotel’s business comes from unfortunate budget travellers.

Sky Sailing just came up on my playlist and there are bright clear mountains just beneath us and this combination makes me happy. Hello down there, we are captains of the sky, huzzah. I’d really like to know where we are right now, but those fancy moving-map things are far too deluxe for this airline. Instead the cabin is bright yellow and plastered with advertisements. Yay Ryanair! For £25, I’m not complaining.

And, oh yeah, there was Paris. We were there for a couple days and they were filled with pouring rain, way too many pictures, the typical tourist sights, avoiding everyone who tried to convince us to buy their stuff by yelling and shoving it into our faces, croissants and jam, battling high-tech toilets next to the Eiffel Tower, and gazing into the Seine contemplating Javert’s suicide. haha. If we had had longer and I had planned it before I would have hunted down all the Victor Hugo/Les Mis places, but we didn’t and I didn’t, but just being there was cool enough. (The check-in guy at our hotel was called Marius, but he had a beard and red hair and in general looked nothing like Marius, it was very sad.)

Descending now. Hello Italy!

the breaking of the fellowship

So much has happened since the last time I updated but I had better give a quick abridged rundown before even MORE happens...

Outreach went wellI was on a team of 11 girls who went to Morely, a town near Leeds. It was craziness, but so much fun, and even though I was glad to get home at the end I miss it now. The town is known as “The Centre of the Universe” by those who live there but nobody quite figured out why. The church we worked with has only 15-20 people but they’re involved with a ton of stuff in the community and have all these connections with in schools, etc...which is pretty cool. While we were there we ran a kids’ club and some youth groups, did a Bible exhibition/drama thing in a bunch of primary schools, put on some elderly events, and ran a few church services. We also handed out 4500 calendars and way too many flower bulbs, did spontaneous drastic things to our hair, and made videos filled with ridiculous inside jokes.

Now school ends on Thursday and everyone leaves on either Thursday or Friday. I’ll be back for spring school, but most people won’t, and and the last week has been odd, so odd... Leaving is going to be tragic but I’m more restless than I’ve ever been here. A week from now I’ll be at Lucy’s house in Hull and then Gabby and I are out to conquer the world. Or at least London, then Paris, Italy, and Malta (and Germany for me--visting relatives). woohoo :D

***

Yeah, so, that was a week ago and I'm at Lucy's now. Yesterday dragged on forever...after the cleaning and packing was done everyone sat around waiting and waiting, ready to go but not, and then suddenly the London coaches were here and everything was a blur of hugs and tears and tripping over lost luggage and then everyone waved and yelled "MOVE THAT BUS" and the coaches were gone and most of Capernwray. And Megan left at 5:45 this morning (in pyjamas, having woken up exactly three minutes before, so that was interesting haha)... I hate goodbyes. I don't really know what to write right now and I'm definitely not doing the last few weeks justice but everything is just kind of mixed up and numb and bizarre. Not even going to bother deciphering these emotions. I can't imagine what the tenth of June is going to be like. And I should probably stop listening to all this tragic melancholy music.