find beauty in unexpected places

Awhile back, I was out on a Friday night with a few friends. Walking back to the car, we walked past this closed piano shop, and we noticed an old, unlocked piano sitting right outside the store. Something about randomly busting out into song in public in the company of a bunch of geeky friends while everybody else is out drinking and dancing just makes you feel so alive inside.

My evening plans entailed having a friend keep me company while I housesit, and watching episodes of Scrubs on their awesome surround sound entertainment system after I got everything taken care of for tonight. Lo and behold, as we arrived at the house, the power was out. The power – stayed – out for about 4 hours.

I thought we would be bored out of our minds waiting for the power to come back on. Turns out, a power outage is the perfect time waver back and forth between having a thought-provoking spiritual discussion and playing immature and vulgar games.

We even managed to get in 2 episodes of Scrubs after the power came back on.

Recently, my choir toured Europe. We spent 12 days/10 nights touring Salzburg, Vienna, and Prague.

In Salzburg, I would get up early in the morning and take a walk around the hotel before getting breakfast. One morning, I walked into a bakery slightly beyond the tourist realm where the hotel was located. I busted out my phrasebook, and after a sloppy German conversation with the cashier, I walked out with what I wanted. My spirits boosted, I decided to get away from the touristy locations with English-speaking employees and see how well I could manage among the natives.

Let me say, the Austrians I encountered in Salzburg were so nice. Where I live, people don’t look each other in the eye when you walk down the street, even if it’s someone you know. When I was walking around in Salzburg, dozens of people I’ve never met in my life would smile at me and say “Guten morgen.” They were all so genuine and sweet.

What should have been a 20 minute walk wound up taking me 2 hours. Eventually, I started to inadvertantly walk in circles. There were certain buildings and landmarks that I must have passed about 3 or 4 times. But in getting lost, I took some of my most gorgeous pictures.

It also rained for about 80% of my walk. Normally, I hate the rain. Can’t stand it. Walking around in damp clothes is uncomfortable and depressing. But just having that time to myself and being among such gorgeous surroundings made it so that a small thing like the weather had absolutely no affect on my mood.