After a very full, yet relaxing first week in Cambridge, I'm off to Belgium and Italy with my parents! I'll get to see my little sister Hilly for the first time since early August last year - over 9 months! It's the longest we've ever been apart and I'm quite excited to see her again. I'll spend my birthday in Bruges or Ghent, both beautiful old historical cities close by her host family in Belgium. We'll stay in a nice hotel in Bruges for a couple nights, then back to staying with her host family for a night or two. From there my mom and I will go on to Orvieto, Italy, where we'll stay in a cute little B & B for a week. My friend Jana is studying abroad there this semester so we'll get to spend lots of time together, and hopefully take a couple of day trips to Rome and Florence, which are only about an hour train ride away. It all seems a little surreal, but I'm looking forward to my first European adventure, and am grateful that I get to share it with some of my favorite people!
Some other highlights of this week have been exploring the Fitzwilliam museum, going to a Church of England (yay Anglicans) on Sunday, and going to Evensong at King's College Chapel. The Fitzwilliam is a big, free, museum that Cambridge owns. The Armor section was awesome, and the pottery/ceramics section was surprisingly sweet too. There were these really bizarre, somewhat hideous life-size soup turreens in the shape of a chicken, a rabbit, and a fish. Apparently they were in style here in the mid-1700's, haha. The church I went to on Sunday was very old, but also very vibrant. It was cool that some of the liturgy there was the same or very similar to the liturgy at my church back home (in Wheaton). It led to some good conversations with my parents about church. They go to a nondenom. megachurch back home, so we have somewhat different opinions about what constitutes a "good church," if such a thing can be that easily defined... And the Evensong at King's College Chapel was fantastic. It was basically a short church service, but apart from a few readings consisted of an all-male choir singing Psalms and other songs. There were some cute little guys (7 or 8 ish) but the age ranged up through college age. It was truly gorgeous music, and the King's College Chapel is beautiful and quite old! I've been walking around Cambridge pretty much every day and am starting to know my way around pretty well. It's a great old city, and I feel like I still want to see so much more.
It's definitely been an adjustment coming from the busyness (academically and socially) of school. It's been a restful time so far, but also has allowed for a lot of time to think about people I love back home, so I've been missing people a lot. But I'm grateful to be here.
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Hi loverly lovely lover who I love,
ReplyDeleteThe fact that you have a blog again makes me so excited.
Reading it made me laugh and think about HOW MUCH I love you (which I think about often) but you sound SO much like yourself and it just makes me miss you achingly. I called you this week dumbly... I didn't forget you were in Europe but I was like "mayybeee she just has her cell phone like LYING around somewhere with her!". haha... no.
No no, I'm glad that you don't though because you totally deserve to relax and just be with your fam. I'm so excited for you and them and JANA (oh hug her for me!) and all your quality time.
Reading this reminded me of your xanga, and how you wrote for your family that "My roommate Emily is really hyper pretty much all the time, but not in an obnoxious way at all!".
I love and miss you so so much every single day and I'm praying for you. Thanks so much for coming over the day I left and hanging out with me while I cleaned the windowsills :-)- it made me so happy to spend time with you.
You are beautiful and I love you SO much and am SO grateful for you!!!!!!
miss you roomie.