Vacation is sweeping away the clutter

It is my third full day now in the mountains of western Austria. And a feeling of rest is slowly seeping into my soul. How exactly I'm not sure. Even while climbing a mountain and enjoying the beautiful scenery, I was often restless and preoccupied, as if my soul was unable to let go of the busyness and pressures of normal life. But now more time has passed, I have gotten to do what I had hoped when coming here (climb a mountain or two :)), I have worked away some of the things on my to-do list, which had been pressuring and distracting me, I have finished a book and a half, and spent time talking with God.

In other words, the clutter that fills my life has been pushed away for awhile, for which I am thankful. All the ought-to-be-done things have been swept aside for a time, and I may simply be. Given space to listen to my heart and listen to God. And simply enjoy the blessings I have - a friend who allowed me to come here, and a husband who pushed me to go (to name only a few).   

The following pictures give a bit of an indication of the natural blessing around me (taken during my walk yesterday morning)

Weekendje Paris

Although Matthijs and I had both been to Paris before, we'd never been together. And even lthough it's supposed to be such a romantic city, I can't say that I felt a desperate need to go together. But a friend of Matthijs (from America) came through Paris last week, so we met her there. As she was staying in the suburbs in the apartment of a friend of a friend of a friend, we decided to see if we could find something nearby. We found a bed and breakfast about 2,5 km away in Saint Cloud. What began as an inconvenience - staying in the suburbs - became one of the best parts of our trip, as the house we stayed in was a 19th century mansion with this beautiful stain-glass window you saw every time you walked into the building. The hosts were also charming - a bit awkward at times - but very friendly and helpful.

Our bed and breakfast

Stained-glass window in the main hall

As for the other best parts of the trip? Well, catching up with Matthijs's friend was really good. Walking around on the streets of Paris and entering churches is also always good (I especially appreciated being in Montmartre again - I had stayed there when I first visited Paris). The museums were also good (a lovely Monet museum on the west side and the Louvre, of course - although there the lighting had problems and the queues for the bathrooms were horrendous).

And the very best part? The food. We lingered over coffee, cake, lunch, and dinner. We ate lots of different things, including finding a Vietnamese place Matthijs had visited 15 years ago! On top of that, I got to share it all with Matthijs. Just thinking about it makes me wonder if I shouldn't be planning already now when we should go back! Who knows?

view of Paris from Saint Cloud

Welcoming summer

Despite the rather chilly temperatures at the moment (15 celsius), summer has arrived. The end of the season has come, vacations are beginning (Matthijs and I just went to Paris!), and there is time before we need to start thinking much about next season. Life takes on a slightly different rhythm, which I am grateful for. Somethng to be less grateful for is that the cat is shedding. Even though I comb him, there is still cat hair everywhere, including sometimes in food (blech).

As the small details of summer (hot weather, cat hair, organizing vacations) can sometimes overshadow the wonderful possibilities of this season, I found this prayer on Ruth's website to be a helpful way of more prayerfully welcoming in summer. Here below is a small section of the prayer, and I encourage you to go to her website to read/pray the whole prayer:

"Thank you, God, for the feelings of summer:
Freedom,
Expansiveness,
Openness,
Adventure.

Help us, gracious and hospitable God,
To use these gifts of summer to bless others.
May we use the freedom we find in our schedules to build relationships with others,
May we extend the expansive feeling, inviting people who are different than us into our lives.
May we have a special openness to others and to what you might do in us and through us.
May we be adventurous--following the Spirit's leading outside of our comfort zone. . . "

Home Again

I thankfully got to fly home today, and I am happily situated back in my small apartment (which is still bigger than a hotel room - although not by much), doing my laundry, spending time with my anxious cat, doing stuff on the computer, and looking forward to chapel and coffee with the Community this evening.

In honour of coming home, I thought I'd share a couple of pictures from my trip that have to do with home:
Throwing snowballs - a normal winter activity back home (the other home, that is).


Bikes in Konya


Jip and Janneke (dutch children's literature) in a sidestreet in Tarsus



My temporary home for the last week:

The view of the hotel and the beach.

The view of the beach and fort in the Mediterranean that you could see from the terrace of the hotel (and also from my balcony).

The castle within a 10 minute walk from the hotel.

And the last glimpse, a brief glimpse at one of the highlights of my vacation - the caves in Cappadocia. Now that I'm home again, I remember again how amazing a vacation it was.



More pictures to follow...

in İceland a volcano erupted....

And hence İ am enjoying a (mostly) all expenses paid vacation (on unexpected free-time) beside the Mediterranean Sea. My group vacation - a sort of educative trip - has now become a beach vacation due to the havoc to flight operations that the volcano has caused. Our flight out is now booked for monday - hopefully the disruption of flights in Europe will be cleared by then.

İ think İ would have preferred to have gone home as planned - back to life as usual - but hey, since İ don`t have that choice - hanging out in a hotel on the beach of the Mediterranean in the company of a group of theologians (Matthijs being of course my favourite :)) with good food included and castles to visit - that is a pretty great alternative.

a different kind of blue apron

after a crazy busy month in canada and america, i'm returning to life in the community and donning my blue apron again. i'm thankful to be back again (especially now that i have the time and energy to participate more fully - the first few days back were filled with quite of busy-ness - the result of catching up on things here while still having work from america with me). but i'm also thankful for the time with friends and family that i had.

during my visits, i got to do a lot of random things that i don't do here in the netherlands. probably the most unusual over the holidays, was getting to don a different kind of blue apron, and help make sausage. (my parents used to own a butcher shop, so this brought back a lot of memories.)

the following are pictures of my dad and me (my mom was taking the pictures):

adventures with Kristin (again)

since Kristin came to visit (again!), i once again had someone with whom to share in some random adventures (as well as having an excuse to do so). even though it was a bit rainy during her visit, we had a lot of fun exploring different places and laughing together a lot. the following are some of our adventures, with some pictures:

- the uitmarkt: the opening of the Amsterdam cultural season, which offers a ton of free music and events all close to my house. some things, like the large orchestra performance, we enjoyed tremendously. others, like the strange electronics + accordion show, were less enjoyable. and as delightful as it was to see Mary Poppins fly through the sky, the rehearsal did get a bit long after awhile - one can only hear the supercalafragilistic song so many times....

- taking the 'fast flying ferry' to Velsen-Zuid and then biking to the sea. since it poured while we were at the sea, the best part there was our break for coffee and apple pie. on the way back, we biked back through the (Zuid) Kennemerduinen, which is a lovely bike ride. Kristin and i also worked on our skills at taking pictures while biking - not so many turned out well but we did laugh a lot while trying.

- biking along the Amstel towards Ouderkerk. due to the weather, this was not quite as good as hoped (although i finally did get to explore one of the little walking areas along the route). on the bright side, we did get home in time to eat the best fries in the neighbourhood. and Kristin fell in love with dutch (indonesian?) saté sauce.

- Leiden, Den Haag and Scheveningen. first, we stopped in Leiden to visit a windmill museum. next stop was Den Haag, where we biked around quite a bit, saw a couple of the more famous buildings, and visited the military base. it was a crazy windy day, and on the way to Scheveningen, we managed to get blown off our bikes. what made it funnier was that Kristin managed to fall off only seconds after i did. i had slowed down and felt the wind pushing me towards the road. but as my bike was too tall for me, i couldn't really stop without falling. yet, as i swerved closer and closer to the road, i figured i might as well just abandon ship. although my shoe ended up a metre away, i did land on my feet. when i had recovered, i saw Kristin also standing over a fallen bike - apparently the wind had caught her, too. i can only imagine what a funny sight we must have been! i know it made us laugh for a long time. after that, we stopped biking for a bit - and decided to let the wind push us around on the pier at Scheveningen instead.

overall, it was a delightful visit - full of many good conversations, a few random adventures, and lots of laughter!


more pictures can be seen at my profile on Facebook.
with thanks to Kristin who took most of the pictures above.

a trip to Paris

a short while ago, i went to paris with Karen, a friend of mine from Seminary. although i've travelled to quite a number of places, that's been a bit more accidental than on purpose. as much as i like exploring the world around me, i'm quite content to do that through books or to hang out in the woods/parks. i've travelled usually because someone else wanted to go and i went along - or there were people to visit and/or ministry kind of things to do. and well, this trip was a bit the same. Karen had wanted to see Paris since high school - and finally the opportunity presented itself - so off we went.

on the way, we stopped in Brussels and just generally wandered our way from the central train station to the south one (where we'd meet our connection). we bumped into and explored churches, went through a park with this lovely fountain, and checked out the palace. i think the best part was all of a sudden coming across the huge escarpment that divided one part of the city from another - what a wonderful view of the city!

and then Paris. we stayed in Montmartre area and every morning i walked
around for at least an hour. it was delightful to get a feel for at least a part of Paris - i think i got to walk up the hill to Sacre Coeur almost every day :)

the view from Sacre Coeur in the morning

we took the bus downtown a couple of the days (even managing to go by the Arc de Triomph because the Tour de France had blocked the bus's usual route!).

we checked out the Louvre (wonderful, and huge! we spent all day monday there).

on sunday we walked up the Eiffel Tower - after all the stairs I've gotten used to in Amsterdam, the stairs on the Tower hardly seemed all that bad.

the view of Montmartre from the Eiffel Tower

and then on Tuesday, we wandered around a bit closer to home, visiting the Montmartre Cemetary.

every day we enjoyed fresh baguette for breakfast and ate at a Montmartre area restaurant for dinner. it was good to enjoy Paris with Karen - and be along while she got to visit a place she'd always dreamed of visiting.

as much as it was lovely to go away, it was also good to come home again and return to the regular routine of life in community and working on my dissertation (my life has been rather out of routine lately with travelling and the retreat and visitors). and the cat i'd been looking after was also glad that i was home - or at least thrilled to have people around again, so she can be asked to be petted in the middle of the night and hang out in our suitcases :)

from one queen's day to another

30 April is Koninginnedag (Queen's Day) in the Netherlands. it's a lot of noise and a lot of people and the official day for trying to sell your old junk in front of your house.

18 May is Victoria Day (named after a former queen) in Canada. it's often used as an excuse to go camping or do yard work or just enjoy the coming of spring. there's often a lot of drinking involved, as well - although i'm pretty sure that's true about the dutch one, too :)

and i'm travelling from one queen's day to another. i leave Amsterdam early on 30 april (missing most of the crowds) and should arrive early enough in Canada to meet up with friends and travel together to a monastery in Michigan. and on 18 May after hopefully celebrating a lot with family, i'll be travelling back to Amsterdam, just in time to celebrate Ascension Day by going on a pilgrimage.

instead of saying that i'm travelling from one queen's day to another, i could also say i'm travelling from one monastery and community to another monastery and community. or better yet, that i'm travelling from one home to another and then back again. i'm looking forward to the break - and spending time with people i've missed and dearly care about.

vacation - and trying to take advantage of different countries

in a little over a week, i'm going to Ontario and Michigan to visit (yay for seeing family and friends!) and since i'm travelling all the way there, i've been trying to figure out how best to take advantage of all the countries that i live in and/or am going to visit.

so, i've been thinking about what to bring back. a nice dutch birthday calendar (for my brother, who as far as i know never reads this blog, so i can tell all of you :) although he now has a laptop, so who knows, maybe he'll be my friend on facebook pretty soon?!?) and stroop waffels and chocolates, and so on. oh, and bike locks - the kind that you permanently attach to the back of your bike and locks your back tire - quick and convenient and helpful against low-key theft.

and i've been ordering books on amazon.com - because english books are pretty much all cheaper in the US. and i'll be visiting a couple of discount book stores while i'm in Michigan :) and there's this shoe store that i want to visit while i'm also there - high quality discounted shoes. i could use some new sandals :)

and i'm picking up a used game (the farming game) - after a bit of googling, i found a cheap copy of it that i was going to get shipped to me - but then turns out i could pick it up from him, since the guy works less than 10km from where i'm staying (convenient, eh?) and i'm looking forward to trying to play this with my dad - just to see what he has to say about it...

and then there's this store i often buy clothes at in canada - and go shopping with my mom and/or my sisters. i don't really like shopping, but since i don't go very often it generally means i could always use some new clothes - and if i have to go shopping, i like doing it with my mom and sisters. and i managed to redeem some air miles for gift certificates to one of my favourite stores (reitman's) - i'll never have enough air miles to fly anywhere, so i'm glad to be actually able to use them for something - and turns out i have enough air miles that i can also share the certificates with my family :)

all of these things, thinking about what i'd like - what i can bring from here and what i can bring here from there (and how to share those things with people i care about) makes me more and more excited about going on vacation. this just adds more joy to my continued anticipation of seeing others!

hunting for castles

i enjoy getting to explore what's around me. and Kristin's visit was a great opportunity to do more of that with someone who would delight in it as much as I. our last adventure was hunting for castles. i'd done some googling and talking with others and had a fairly decent idea of where we could find castle ruins but we had no idea what to expect.

we began our adventure with visiting the St. Bavo church in Haarlem, something Kristin had always wanted to do. and the church was as beautiful as we both hoped, both peaceful and majestic.

then off to hunting for castles! first, bike rental: the bikes were courtesy of OV-fiets, a coupon i'd received when i bought my train discount card. next, finding Castle Ter Kleef with only a couple of street names, a vague sense of direction, and random maps along the way. when we found Ter Kleef, the first thing we bumped into were the cows: random plastic structures of cows, the sort of thing that was begging for pictures. and then off to the ruins and garden. the ruins were definitely ruins, so that you knew that something large and brick was there (with water around it) but you'd have no idea of what it really looked like. the garden was lovely, with an indoor greenhouse in the back, flowers still in bloom, and little gnomes telling you different things you should do along the way.

and then to the Brederode castle. this is in Sandport-Zuid, so we got to bike close to the dunes and past majestic houses in order to get there. the ruins were fairly significant - the castle has been an official country monument for almost 150 years. and so we got to walk up stairs and look in old rooms, read about the history of the castle and admire the strange art displayed inside.

and then home. on the way back, we walked by Febo, so Kristin got to try one last really dutch experience: buying food "out of the wall." she let me taste it, and it was much better than i expected!

See Facebook for the rest of the pictures.

on holiday/vacation with Kristin

i'm on semi-holiday for the week. Kristin, a great friend (she did let me live with her for 4 months this year!), is visiting. i'm still in the community and doing a few random chores but i've rearranged my work schedule and minimized other things. and her visit definitely has the feeling of a holiday - for i get to ask "so, what should we do today?" and it's been lovely just having random adventures and exploring places with her.

thus far, we've gone bike riding north of the IJ, amidst the dikes and water and farmland. we've eaten at a Surinamese Chinese restaurant. we've gone shopping (more for me) and to see the biological/organic/trendy market. we've seen the inside of the Noorderkerk and the organ of the English Reformed Church. we've spent some time with the community here, and watched the movie, "Alles is Liefde" (Everything is Love). we've gone to the wedding of a colleague of mine. we've drank coffee and wine. we've talked about bodily functions (which either means we're really comfortable with each other or we think like we're in junior high). we've visited the beach (Zandvoort aan Zee) and ate fish. we've walked a lot and surreptitiously checked out what the inside of houses look like (so many people here conveniently leave windows open and lights on and looking inside is not frowned upon, although the person inside is just as likely to be looking out at you as you are at them!) and we've giggled and talked and laughed. and most of all, we've had the joy of being ourselves and enjoyed exploring the world around me here.

the following are some pictures:
eating kibbeling at the beach

the strange fake stumps that exist under Amsterdam Sloterdijk station

the view of the lake north of Durgerdam

at the centre of Ransdorp

more pictures can be seen via Facebook. [these were updated again on 30 October].

and the route of our bike ride (a decent total of 17.25 miles (or 27.5 km) - made more impressive since it was rather windy!)

View Larger Map

tulip fields and the sea

as preparation for going to France tomorrow, we took public transportation through Holland's tulip fields to get to the North Sea. the sea was wet and windy. and the tulips were lovely. i truly am on vacation (and except for my books on Jeremiah's confessions will thus disappear from the world of academia for the next week).

stay tuned for pictures.

vacation time again

tomorrow i fly to Budapest again. and i don't come back here until 8 feb. i'm looking forward to the vacation.

it's a bit of a 'working vacation,' though. i'm helping out with an english week at my old high school. and i'm taking schoolwork with me, as i have so much to do in the next couple of months that i can't really afford to take too much more time off.

things are going better with the house, but my level of patience with other people still isn't as high as it should be. i'm hoping the opportunity to visit with old friends, eat different foods, and just have a change of venue and pace will help restore my level of joy and grace to better levels. i'm tired of being annoyed so much of the time. and i'm even more tired of hearing myself be annoyed so much!!

so i leave with the hope of being restored - and of remembering my sense of humour - so that i can laugh at the absurdities of life with so many people. and i can spend less time focusing on how much further we all have to grow in becoming more aware of those around us and instead rejoice in the (small steps of) growth i amazingly get to witness on such a regular basis.