4.5 weeks until I go home
Hello readers.
I was just recently reminded that people were still reading this when Jen posted a comment. Thank you, Jen. Your comment lit up my day. Spread the forget-me-not love! I hope my posts have been dignified...
I just got back the other day from my week with the de Muincks in Sweden. It was really nice being around a family again. It makes me really miss talking to all of you guys. We're all studying for exams now and have really heavy doors between us and the kitchen isn't a very nice hanging out space unless one is eating.
I was pretty chill in Sweden. I didn't plan anything (which may or may not have frustrated my hosts). We went to Strasbourg where I found one of my new favorite churches 'cause it still had all its gold stuff (it wasn't all stolen by Napoleon like in all the other cathedrals), painted murals on all the ceiling tiles, and new stain glass windows so they were all really bright, richly colored, incredibly detailed, and anatomically correct. I like old churches and new windows. This one did well. It was the German church, I believe. I got pictures of that somewhere. I'll make a video or something out of all my stuff. I also got drinking horns (like hollowed out cow horns that you can drink mead out of). I almost just got one for the pagan/wiccan collective back home, but there was one I really liked and I would've been really sad if I left it so I have 2 mead horns! One for me and one for club. I got stands for them too. Hand-picked mead horns from Sweden; can it get any better than that? We hopped over to a few museums, but everything closes at 5 in Sweden (just like in England. Even the Walmarts!) I could've spent longer in Strasbourg, but it was nice to able to visit. Swedish is easier for me to read than to speak. I can recognize most of the fruits now. apelsize is orange! Anana is pineapple and banan is banana and appel is apple! Thankfully, many people there knew English. Yay European countries!
It was cool- the road that gets ya to the de Muinck's house goes past sheep land and such and there's these piles of rocks (they don't have mountains, but they have big hunks of climbable rocks!) and some of these piles of rocks have a tree or two sticking out of them and they said that they're probably viking graves. Sweden is flooded with viking stuff, apparently, so they haven't been excavated or anything, but I got super excited. There's a bunch of pictures of those. All the de Muincks say 'hi', btw, and Matt says that Tony is very handsome.
They eat a lot of bread over there at their house, and read a lot of web comics and do what a family of 4 young boys would do. They're all trying to learn Swedish at the moment.
Plane rides are tiring. Hopefully I won't need to be taking too many more after this (And if I think about it, I'll have to take a few home, there'll be the plane rides for vacation, and if I do go and teach in Japan, that'll be more plane rides... Cry.)
My first exam is on the 18th so I'm studying for that and my next 2 are the following week. And then I'm off to Findhorn, Scotland and then to York for a wedding. Apparently my birthday is the same day as the bride's hen-party so that should be exciting.
I'm going to go look over lecture powerpoints now. Love you all. Miss you all. Happy everything.
-Julie
I was just recently reminded that people were still reading this when Jen posted a comment. Thank you, Jen. Your comment lit up my day. Spread the forget-me-not love! I hope my posts have been dignified...
I just got back the other day from my week with the de Muincks in Sweden. It was really nice being around a family again. It makes me really miss talking to all of you guys. We're all studying for exams now and have really heavy doors between us and the kitchen isn't a very nice hanging out space unless one is eating.
I was pretty chill in Sweden. I didn't plan anything (which may or may not have frustrated my hosts). We went to Strasbourg where I found one of my new favorite churches 'cause it still had all its gold stuff (it wasn't all stolen by Napoleon like in all the other cathedrals), painted murals on all the ceiling tiles, and new stain glass windows so they were all really bright, richly colored, incredibly detailed, and anatomically correct. I like old churches and new windows. This one did well. It was the German church, I believe. I got pictures of that somewhere. I'll make a video or something out of all my stuff. I also got drinking horns (like hollowed out cow horns that you can drink mead out of). I almost just got one for the pagan/wiccan collective back home, but there was one I really liked and I would've been really sad if I left it so I have 2 mead horns! One for me and one for club. I got stands for them too. Hand-picked mead horns from Sweden; can it get any better than that? We hopped over to a few museums, but everything closes at 5 in Sweden (just like in England. Even the Walmarts!) I could've spent longer in Strasbourg, but it was nice to able to visit. Swedish is easier for me to read than to speak. I can recognize most of the fruits now. apelsize is orange! Anana is pineapple and banan is banana and appel is apple! Thankfully, many people there knew English. Yay European countries!
It was cool- the road that gets ya to the de Muinck's house goes past sheep land and such and there's these piles of rocks (they don't have mountains, but they have big hunks of climbable rocks!) and some of these piles of rocks have a tree or two sticking out of them and they said that they're probably viking graves. Sweden is flooded with viking stuff, apparently, so they haven't been excavated or anything, but I got super excited. There's a bunch of pictures of those. All the de Muincks say 'hi', btw, and Matt says that Tony is very handsome.
They eat a lot of bread over there at their house, and read a lot of web comics and do what a family of 4 young boys would do. They're all trying to learn Swedish at the moment.
Plane rides are tiring. Hopefully I won't need to be taking too many more after this (And if I think about it, I'll have to take a few home, there'll be the plane rides for vacation, and if I do go and teach in Japan, that'll be more plane rides... Cry.)
My first exam is on the 18th so I'm studying for that and my next 2 are the following week. And then I'm off to Findhorn, Scotland and then to York for a wedding. Apparently my birthday is the same day as the bride's hen-party so that should be exciting.
I'm going to go look over lecture powerpoints now. Love you all. Miss you all. Happy everything.
-Julie