Missoula Recap

After a very long three days of travel, Leigh and I made it to Missoula, Montana to spend a few days with a friend and relaxing our weary bodies. We got in pretty late the first night, so the fun times started the next day. We slept, we ate good food, and we poked around this fun little city to get a feel for the place. Thursday was our first full day in Missoula and after Jescy, our dear hostess, was finished with work for the day we went to a wine tasting (yummy), drove around a little bit, the got dinner and beers at a local bar.

Leigh was still pretty knackered from our trip so she called it a night then, but I let Jescy talk me into a pub crawl of sorts and I'm pretty glad I went along with it. First we had a pitcher with dinner, then went to a preppy sports bar for another pitcher and shooting hoops, then we bounced between the local "gay" bar (which had about 3 patrons and sold $1 jello shots) and another club with good dancing. Most of the night was spent at the last place, Badlands, dancing (or I should say "dancing" in my case) to pretty good DJs. I'm sure you can tell that the above picture was taken at the end of the night because I look pretty haggard :-)

The rest of our time in Missoula was spent doing more of the same: resting up, eating good food, and checking out the local scene. On Friday we visited Jescy at her job, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, and ran some errands around town. Saturday morning we hit up the farmers markets, which was really fun, and later went on a short hike with Jescy, her boyfriend and their cute dogs. The view from the top was great and it felt amazing to get some real exercise after a few weeks of being lazy and sedentary.

Sunday was low key. Leigh and I found a yummy place for brunch and started packing to leave on Monday morning. Then we met our hosts in Stevensville, MT at Jescy's childhood home for a family dinner with her parents. Her dad cooked chorizo soup, her mom made salad and we soaked in the hot tub after eating our fill. What a treat! We felt so spoiled and rejuvenated after a long trip!

Tomorrow morning Leigh and I will leave for Rock Island, WA via Moscow, Idaho and Spokane along the way. I'm excited to reconnect with an old friend, my grandparents, and to start working again. I know Leigh is excited to start working again too and to get some quality time with Seattle, her favorite city, after several years of being stuck on the East Coast.

Travel through South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana

Our trip cross country has gone swimmingly so far. We have now made it to Missoula where we are spending a few days with my lovely friend Jescy, whom I met while working in Juneau and reconnected with during her trip to Europe a few months ago. We basically floored it through the vast majority of our drive West, so it feels amazing to take a few days to decompress in a fun city like Missoula.

On the way here we stopped briefly to see some sights. By briefly I mean 10 to 15 minutes tops to take a photo, stretch our legs, then be on our way again. If you are my Facebook friend you can see a few photos there. Maybe I'll post some here in the coming days, but for now just a few updates and observations with have to suffice.

Once we crossed into South Dakota we were truly in the flatlands. Leigh had never seen flat land before, being from southwest Virginia and having typically flown to the west coast, so it was very new for her. This is my third trip across country by car but my first as an adult, so it all felt very new to me also. I think I have some vague memories of similar sights from my childhood, but things just don't stick with you in the same factual manner until you are older. Though tiresome, the trip was pleasant. We didn't have any problems with our trusty Toyota Yaris Betsy and we never got lost thanks to our GPS we call Greta. Juneau the Cat was even well behaved the whole time. She slept like an angel most of the day in the car, never cried, and then prowled around our motel room at night only disturbing us with the sounds of her eating her dinner and sometimes jumping up on the bed hoping for some attention.

While driving through the heartland I realized that the Midwest is probably the most quintessentially American place in the country. When I think of the term "All American" I think of wide open spaces, the flag flying, good natured and hard-working people under the sunshine with a bootstrap mentality. However, these characteristics are not widely found on the East Coast or the West Coast. I don't intend to be judgmental, but the East Coast can be pretty snobby, uptight, and conformist. Likewise, the West Coast is really focused on social status, looks, money, and the "granola" image (without always being genuinely "granola"). These are not bad places to live or work, in fact I love many places on both costs, but neither really fulfills these Americanisms like one might assume.

The Heartland, however, seems to embody these characteristics to a T. Obviously, the wide open spaces are everywhere. In fact, once we got to Wyoming and Montana, we would often drive 3 or 4 hours between towns and then sometimes that town was a series of 10 to 15 little buildings along the side of a two-lane highway and then we'd glide back into nothingness. The fields go on for miles and the most life we saw was in the form of horses and cows (and sometimes lambs!). It was great. The flag flies everywhere in those parts, but not in an obnoxious way. As opposed to many places where it's overwhelming, seeing the flag in the Heartland is kind of beautiful and refreshing. Plus everyone we met was friendly, just living their lives with a smile. In fact, when we stopped at a tiny ice cream place for milkshakes in a tiny town in eastern Montana the sign on the door said, "Enter as Strangers, Leave as Friends." Nice, eh?

So now we're in Missoula, which is a great little city. The downtown area is made entirely of locally owned businesses, there's an abundance of yummy food, tea, coffee, etc. We have plans to poke around the town, drink some local beer, and do some hiking plus maybe take in some live music, etc. Should be fun. Probably Monday we'll go to Idaho to visit another Juneau friend of mine then on to Washington to start working.

This is going to be a great summer.

Cross Country Day 1: Southwest VA to Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Not much to blog about today, just that Leigh and I drove about 15 hours yesterday. We started from her mom's house in Grundy, VA, drove through Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois and into Iowa. Weather was nice and clear and we didn't have any major hiccups, which was nice. Just lots of time on open midwestern highways. Traffic went from typical crowded eastern traffic to almost non-existent once we reached Indiana. It was just us, a few big trucks and some RVs plus the occassional local family in a sedan or small pickup truck. Juneau the Cat was mostly well-behaved with just a few moments of stupid (like deciding to hang out in the driver's side floorboards or looking like she wanted to jump out the door when we stopped at a rest stop- ugh). Not bad at all.

Today we are driving to Rapid City, South Dakota, about a 9 hour drive from here. After yesterday it doesn't seem too bad, so we allowed ourselves to sleep in an extra hour before leaving. Well, I should get dressed so we can pack up the car.

Last Grundy Visit till Christmas

Yesterday afternoon I drove back to Grundy to meet up with Leigh on her birthday and start packing up our trusty Yaris, Betsy. My dad got really quiet and squeezed me pretty hard, my step-mom cried a little bit. Since I've never been a parent I don't really understand why just having an adult child hanging around your house and eating your food can be such a comfort for a parent, but alas they were happy to have me watching their TV and reading in their living room for several days. Leigh and I have pretty solid plans to fly back to Virginia for Christmas this year, so it won't but much longer between visits than when we lived in Buffalo, but in their minds our living in Alaska must make it seem less likely that we will return often.

Yesterday evening we celebrated Leigh's birthday very small scale. Her grandmother cooked dinner and there were two cakes to be eaten. We ate too much, mostly in the realm of sugar. We must get away from the southern US very soon so we can stop eating! *sigh* Anyway, it was a good time mostly consisting of us listening to her mom, aunt, and grandmother chattering away and telling stories. My relationship with Leigh's family is pretty tense involving mandatory visits and a series of polite questions that have about as much warmth as a job interview, but dinner with a few select members last night was quite nice. Everyone was in a good mood and nobody once said any unpleasant about us moving away. That's about as good as I could have reasonably asked for.

So I'm here now, once again surrounded by all my worldly possessions in a rather small room (can you say "claustrophobia?") with a mountain of little tasks to complete before we drive away on Monday morning. It's nearly 1pm now and I haven't actually accomplished anything! Not good. Hopefully after getting dressed and starting my laundry the spirit will strike me so Leigh and I can get a lot done today, rather than leaving it all for Sunday afternoon.

Last Day at Home

I have been back in the US for 17 days now and it still feels weird. It's getting less weird day by day, most likely because I'm able to ease into my life slowly over several weeks. Plus I'm spending the first chunk of the summer continuing to behave like a tourist by driving a lot and being completely without responsibility to any job, home, etc. It's just me, Leigh, Juneau the Cat and our crazy plans. I feel really lucky because, starting next Monday, Leigh and I get to traverse this gigantic country in my Toyota Yaris before starting jobs in one of our favorite places on Earth (Seattle), stopping to visit with friends along the way. I can't think of a better way to get reacquainted with America before starting up a more normal existence.

Since about May 9 I have been with my dad and step-mother. First Leigh and I met up with them at their beach condo, which was a nice lazy holiday, and then I returned to my childhood home with them for the better part of this week. It's been just as always with lots of time to relax, read, watch TV, play outside with cats and dogs, take little hikes, etc. I've also been running to the nearest town a lot for errands to prepare myself and my car for the trip to Seattle, so there's plenty to do. This week was a good chance for me to relax into the American version of "provincial life" again before hitting the road. I started a few new books (I'm currently reading Alice in Wonderland and In Europe by Geert Mak simultaneously, after briefly studying some French curse words last week) and Leigh and I bought a German language CD set for our drive across country. I always feel better when I have a project and small goals for myself.

Tomorrow is Leigh's 29th birthday and I will drive to her family's home in Grundy to finish packing up the car for our trip. I'm so proud of her. When I met her she was 21 years old and so innocent to the world. Since then she has finished university, a master's degree and now she's looking at getting her RN in the coming years. But those are just typical forms of measuring success. In the past 8 years I have seen her grow from a shy college student enjoying life day by day to a responsible adult with strong values and a big, warm heart from which all of her friends and family benefit endlessly. Today she is a brave, experienced young woman with an emerging adventurous spirit to compliment my frantic one and a constant source of kindness, understanding, and good humor in my life. Most of all I consider myself lucky to call her my best friend and doubly lucky to get to spend my life with her. Happy Birthday, Leigh!

On "For Now" Plans

I'm kind of amazed at how quickly my blogging has gone from frantic and filled with stories to wondering to myself if I'll ever have anything to write about again. Since coming back to the US my daily life has come to such a standstill that I find my mind wandering back to Europe several times per day. When I bring my thoughts back to reality I just get really sad and lonely feeling, in spite of now being in the presence of my Leigh and my family. So the subsequent and final emotion I am left with is guilt for not fully appreciating my family now that I have them back in my daily life.

This repatriation thing is really challenging, both logistically and on an emotional level. I know how lucky I am to have so many great opportunities in my young adult life, but that good fortune doesn't mean that I don't also mourn leaving the people and places I took such joy in knowing this year. The past few days all I can think about is how much I wish I could find a piece of Earth in which to grow my roots. Corny? Yes. True? Also yes. I have traveled a great portion of the world and have found a number of places I would be happy to call home for all the most typical reasons, but have yet to find a more soulful reason to stay anywhere. So for now my plans remain the same- Alaska for a few years, keep learning, keep growing, keep casting a wide net. Leigh and I are seriously talking about relocating to Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, etc after we tie up some loose ends in the US and after I get some experience under my belt as an attorney.

So today, after nearly a year of wandering the world, I am still making my plans in the "For Now" category of plans. Maybe it's a sign of growing up that I want to grow roots somewhere, but it's also very difficult to have that want without a clear direction or reason to choose any particular place. Clearly the place would have to be conducive to work and happiness for both Leigh and I, but that can be many places. What it really must have is a good community and people who would miss us if we were to leave once again, so life friendships that equal to family and a daily life that makes us/me feel whole. All I know is that I was happier in Europe than I have ever been in my life. The place speaks to some of my most core desires like language, culture, ease of travel, diversity of people, excellent educational system, and general sense of acceptance of different types of people. Plus living in Europe would mean we could visit Taize regularly, which is good for the soul, and raise our kids with options we never had and that I always wanted.

But this won't happen for some years and I can't plan to return even for a visit for nearly 18 months, so back to the present For Now: Leigh and I have chosen next Monday, May 24 to start driving west toward Seattle for our summer jobs. This is very exciting, though I'm afraid the drive won't be too thrilling as we're taking the most direct route to Missoula, MT to visit my friend Jescy. This means we're driving through a lot of Fly Over States (WV, Ohio, Iowa, etc) before getting to the Wild Wild West. At any rate, I'm ready to be occupied and ready for new challenges. I hope that the busier I am the easier it will be for me to remember the past year in happy ways only rather than being sad it has ended.

Week Two in US of A

After a whole week of doing NOTHING in Grundy, VA while Leigh finished up her job at the locally owned greenhouse, we headed south and east for a week at the beach with my parents. Let me clarify that it is Bike Week here in Myrtle Beach, but luckily we have only seen a handful of bikes. Let me also clarify that I don't normally enjoy vacationing at Myrtle Beach for a number of reasons (too many people, too much food, too much time in the car, too many children, just - too- much!), but my parents have a condo here and Leigh had been wanting some beach time so we decided it sounded like a good plan all around.

I can't complain too much, but I can complain just a little bit. There's a serious lack of activities for people who don't have small children, motorcycles or are not members of fraternities (can you say beer, free t-shirts, sun burns, crass jokes and bad southern accents?) on vacation with their "boys." So Leigh and I have done a fair amount of sitting around, getting sunburned, eating too much (this is kind of a big deal considering that we are finally really healthy and don't want to have a major set-back), and doing A LOT of shopping. I have a nice sunburn now, a few new, much needed, clothing items, a very full tummy and am ready to move on from here... but we still have two more days. I see a lot of put-put golf in my near future.

Next week I'm basically repeating Week 1 in US of A, except I'll be in Ferrum, VA instead of Grundy and will have access to a car and some more facilities nearby such as the pool at Ferrum College. I might even drive up to Roanoke for some reminiscing: i.e. Hollins University (even though everyone is gone for the summer now), Brewster's Icecream, downtown shopping, coffee shops and parks area, etc. I also plan to do a lot of reading, prepare for our cross-country trip and seriously take up studying French again and start on German Level 1.

Speaking of learning French, I recently purchased Talk Dirty French: Beyond Merde, a book explaining the best ways to speak French lazily, crassly, and to sound cool or at least a tiny bit like locals/French rap artists. It has everything from street lingo, rap lingo, curse words (and their etymology), bedroom speak, etc. It's fascinating on so many levels and I really wish I'd found this book BEFORE moving to France and working with teenagers, rude bus drivers, etc. It would have made my experience very different, I think. Also, the authors of the book live in Lausanne, Switzerland, where Leigh and I once changed trains. Number 11,457 Cool Things About Europe is that once you've seen a good portion of it you can sort of relate to tons of little connections like having a vague idea of the city where the authors of a random linguistic book currently live. Love it.

I'm planning to get through German Levels I and II this summer, which is a pretty good chunk of information. My strategy includes buying a Drive Time CD to listen to during the drive across country. German is a very different language from French, and even from English in some pronunciation rules, so I think it's important to hear how it sounds generally before trying to learn it from a book or tutorial on my own. Then this summer I'll use some books and online tutorials to get a good knowledge base. After that I'll see how much progress I make over the course of the next year before enrolling in a language school after my clerkship ends. In the mean time I will continue to work on my French, which I believe is at a real crossing point and I just need to keep pressing forward toward some sort of fluency. Plus I'll start going to French discussion meetings once I get to Seattle, and then in Anchorage also. Practice makes all the difference.

But for now I'm stuck in the South. I don't mind completely, it's great to see my family again and reconnect, but I think this is the first time I've realized that I don't really have a life here anymore aside from visiting my parents. Kind of sad, but it will only encourage me to press forward and try to find a place of my own to make my life. I'm ready for my Seattle Summer followed by my First Real Job in Anchorage. After Anchorage I've been given the green light from Leigh to look for everything from a full-time, full commitment job in Alaska, to a contract position in law or business or fellowship abroad or a stage or anything of the sort, really. As long as I'm working and learning and growing it's going to be just fine. The rest will sort itself out in the end.

Until then, I have more southern heat and beach time to enjoy the next few days, then lots of planning and packing....

Feeling: Odd

I've been back in the USA for less than one week now. This time last week I was boarding a flight from Fez, Morocco to Marseille before a whirlwind journey to Paris then the US. So if last week is my normal level of activity/madness in life (or maybe just a few notches above normal), then comparatively this week I am dead, or perhaps the newest member of the Undead.

Since arriving here in cosmopolitan Grundy, Virginia on Tuesday night I have accomplished very little. This is only somewhat due to laziness but mostly because I'm housebound (a girl like me needs an ambassador or official escort to comfortably walk around in this town) and have almost nothing to do but wait around. Leigh works really long days this week because things at her temp job picked up big time (hence the reason the job was hiring in the first place). It's great that she's working a lot, but it also means I get exactly 2 or 3 hours of time with her or any other human being every day. The rest of the day it's just me and my mother-in-law's five cats plus my own cat who has been living here since October. That's right, me and six cats! A girl is bound to go crazy in conditions like that!

So every day goes like this: wake up with Leigh, have breakfast with her before she goes to work. Then I putter around, check email, etc for about an hour before realizing it's not even 10:00 and I'm bored stiff. So I usually go back to bed for a few hours to make the time pass. Throughout the rest of the day I do a few chores, play with cats, read a little bit, check email compulsively (though I rarely receive any emails because everyone else I know is working or has started classes again so they have lives and are busy) and Facebook (I have become WAY too interested in the minutia of others' lives), snack a bit (I hope I don't gain back my pre-Europe weight!), watch bad TV, repeat.

Luckily today is my last day of this existence because tonight Leigh and I will drive to my dad's house in Ferrum, VA, then in the morning we will drive to Myrtle Beach to hang out with my parents and reconnect with each other. So basically after today I get Leigh back to myself for a while, then we'll head across country and really start our adventure, but this little limbo period between Europe madness and North American madness has taken its toll on me emotionally. I feel useless, listless, bored, lonely, and a whole host of other emotions just from the mere fact that last week I was busy and discovering new things every moment and this week I am a guest in someone else's home with no purpose or goals.

Plus, and I didn't realize this until yesterday, before I left for France I literally sold everything I own that didn't have a significant sentimental value. This includes furniture, all housewares, clothing, etc. All I own now includes my car, my cat, Leigh, and some items that can fit into a few boxes. I've never felt quite so homeless before, so much so that my transient life in France looks like a cozy home compared to what I have here. Yeah, my apartment came furnished and I barely owned anything, but at least it was my own space based on my own terms. I never felt trapped or purposeless, not for a single moment, not even when it became all too clear that my job was purposeless because at least my time abroad was not.

The bottom line here is that I'm feeling pretty odd, mostly because my repatriation is starting out strangely. I'm the type of girl who needs to be occupied all the time. I need a plan, a project and a challenge. Time to sit around and do nothing but think and miss the people and places I came to know and love is not good for my emotional stability. Good thing it ends tonight, so I just need to get through one more day of this and then the fun can begin! Hell, then my new life can begin!

I've gone 6,000 miles...

During the past 10 days I have traveled to and from three countries, across the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, by train, bus, and plane and eventually by car. My trip to Fez from Marseille logged a roundtrip total of 1,694 miles by air. This does not include the 116 miles I traveled by train from Antibes to catch my flight. The day I returned from Fez to Marseille I took a train for 411 miles to Paris, where I camped out in someone's living room to recover from these 2,221 miles of travel in less than one week. Then, on Monday, I flew 4,168 miles from Paris to Charlotte, with a stopover in Newark.

The grand total for all of this traveling was 6,389 miles. The next day Leigh drove me from Charlotte to her mother's house in Grundy, Virginia: another 239 miles. On Saturday we are driving 180 miles to my father's house and on Sunday we are driving another 276 miles to Myrtle Beach to join my parents at their beach condo for a week of relaxation and catching up with the parents. Then, at the beginning of June, we will drive from Virginia to Washington State to start our jobs with my grandparents. This will be at least 2,800 miles, not including any side trips we take to Yellowstone, Missoula, Big Sky, and Rock Island before reaching Seattle. It's a lot of travel and can be both stressful and expensive, but its experiences like these that make my life so interesting and so blessed, so it's worth it. Plus, since landing in Charlotte, I know I will share every mile of it with my best friend and favorite person.

So after some days here in the sleepy town of Grundy, which I will spend organizing my stuff, doing my laundry, and reconnecting with our cat/first born child, Leigh and I will go on vacation with my parents to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. My dad teased me last week that the last thing I need is another vacation, but I contend that backpacking through Europe (often solo) is a very different experience than laying on a beach with one's family. Traveling Europe as a young person is great fun, but also education and sometimes a lot of work. Family vacations are true vacations involving a lot of sleeping, chatting, relaxing activities and eating. Plus I get to share this vacation with the people I love, rather than discovering something new all by myself as I have done over the past 7 months. I haven't seen my father or step-mother since the end of September, so it will be really great to spend several days with them, enjoying some real southern heat, and eating good food that I will surely regret later when I have to burn off the extra calories.

Well, I should check on my laundry and try to come up with something to cook for dinner that Leigh might actually enjoy (have I mentioned recently that I'm not a great cook? Poor Leigh...).

Coming to America

Well, "Going to America," but that's not so catchy is it?

I've been in Paris for two days and have hardly done a thing. I'm so exhausted from almost an entire month of traveling, hauling my stuff around, and sleeping in a different place (notice I don't say "bed" because it's often floors and couches) every few nights. I was so lucky to find a wonderful couch surfing hostess here. The apartment is so nice and comfortable and my hostess doesn't mind that I mostly just want to relax and repack my suitcase a few times before going to the airport on Monday morning.

Yesterday I literally left the house for only about an hour to get some groceries at Super U (and some chocolate to take home to family), then came back to the apartment to watch a movie and veg out. It may seem like a waste of a day in Paris, but I've spent a fair amount of time here over the past few months and really just needed a day of doing almost nothing. Today I attended the American Church in Paris, which was really nice. The building is beautiful and there was a guest choir visiting from the UK. They were fantastic! Ironically most of the permanent staff (pastor, youth pastor, etc) were in Stockholm for an international pastor's conference this weekend with my friend Kate, who has been interning at the American Church in Berlin this year. I chatted with her online last night and we thought the coincidence was pretty interesting.

After church I had planned to visit the Louvre, but of course the line to get in was wrapped through two courtyards, plus it was raining off and on. There is no way I was going to spend several hours waiting in line in the rain so I could walk around a massive art museum. Instead I decided to wander around the 1st arrondissement and wherever my feet took me. It was kind of nice to just enjoy the city without a plan to speak of. Aside from taking in a city that always surprises me with its charm, my only accomplishment was finding a very reasonably priced ham and cheese crepe and enjoying it by the Seine. Aside from being rained on periodically, it was a nice afternoon.

Tonight I need to do a final once-over with my luggage and prepare for a very early trek to Charles De Gaulle Airport in the morning. My flight leaves Paris at 10:00 and lands in Newark at 12:00 (so that's about 8 hours in the air- fun!), then I have a SIX HOUR LAYOVER in Newark before flying to Charlotte, where I will see Leigh for the first time since January! It's amazing, only two weeks ago I was worried that I would not be ready to go back to America, that I would sully my return by being unhappy to leave Europe. While it's still true that I love Europe and hope to live here on a more permanent basis one day, I am ready to see my family, some old friends, my cat, my car and some familiar sights... at least for a while.