go to Europe again

We’re going to England, Ireland, and the Netherlands in 2 months!

I want to see Spain to work on my Spanish, Italy for the art and the food, and Greece for the history. I’ve always wanted to take this trip.

I dream of travel, enjoyed Italy and Greece immensely. To return I need to make travel a priority. Find the right situation for traveling as a single or find friends with similar interests, time and means to make it happen.

I want to see Tuscany, Venice, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Great Britain, more Greek Islands. Even in the US, there’s lots more to explore. Someday Israel.

cause I’m poor

I have taken today off, to get over jet lag and put things away. Before I get too busy, though, I want to write about realizing a dream.

I don’t exactly know at what point I concluded that I couldn’t have big dreams anymore, but that belief has been there, lurking in the background, since sometime after I got sick. I don’t know if it was the difficult recovery per se, the nasty things Ex said about me that sapped my confidence, or just the sheer depression that created a sense of inertia.

It was a wrong, believing that I couldn’t have big dreams anymore.

Ridiculous.

Absurd.

An old boyfriend told me once (when I was breaking up with him) that the trouble with me was that I couldn’t accept being ordinary. I hotly responded: “I’m NOT ordinary.”

That was true then, and it’s still true now.

For that matter, I’m not sure any of us are ordinary; some of us are just dragged down into believing so.

There is nothing like a change of pace to reintroduce you to what you are capable of. Here I was, stymied by my health, but in England, hard as it was, I climbed stairs and hauled luggage. Pain medicine, yes; inactivity, no way. I got up early when we needed to, and had no problem tolerating the long flights there and back (for a while I had trouble breathing on flights, an effect of the pressurization and my asthma). I walked off enough calories to eat bread pudding for a week.

In fact, I did eat bread pudding, with raisins and rum. I went to Phantom of the Opera and rode the London Eye. I climbed up in the Tower and saw king Henry’s armor (what was he thinking, that people would believe he needed a cockpiece that big??). I raced around the British Museum, looking at the pieces of the Parthenon that weren’t in Greece when I was there. I had tea with cream and sugar and rode the underground (mind the gap). I chatted with taxidrivers (as surprised by my Southern accent as I was by their cockney). I found every Rembrant in the National Gallery. I wandered through Warwick Castle and wondered how Shakespeare’s mother birthed a genius in that tiny, cold house. I had dinner on a boat on the Thames. I watched my children marvel.

I had white roses in my room.

There are many, many hard parts of life, but it’s a tragedy to let life be any worse because of a lack of belief in your strengths. God gave me these gifts, which enable me to produce further gifts.

Let’s hear it for living out loud.

ordering the kinds of things we need for our London trip—big travel umbrellas and adapters, good walking shoes and guidebooks and such.

I’m so nervous about it and excited, both at the same time!

But I want to see the rest of the US before I head over the pond.

to prepare for the trip. All of us, not just me. I have a thick, fairly dry history of England that I’m determined to make my way through. Man-child is really English History for Dummies, which I think I envy. Girl-child is reading a series of biographies on nifty female royal figures—Ann, Elizabeth, etc. She has gone through 2 books already—good thing I have 3 more!

What is the point of going somewhere if you don’t know what you are seeing?! It is so much more fun to have the anticipation, and to really study up on the history and art in advance!

I won’t be able to do this until at least summer

I booked the tickets to London for next November. Oh, wow! What a blessing to be able to be there when my kids first realize how very big the world is. I want to take my boy to see art like he’s never seen it before, and I can’t wait to see my daughter’s eyes reflecting the crown jewels!

What a wonderful world it can be!