Sagunto, October 22

It has been a while since I have written, yes, but I figured it would only bore you to hear of how little has been going on here. However, I've had a few randomly interesting experiences over the last two weeks. One of them was the surreal experience of going all the way back to San Francisco just to pick up my visa because of a consulate difficulty--at three days in the air and three there, it earned the dubious distinction of the shortest trip to the US in the history of the school.

Another has been teaching this conversational English class to high schoolers three afternoons a week. Each of these classes is entirely different, and they're all very curious about the US, California in particular. Lucky them, that's where I'm from. What's amusing is that two of the groups just want basic vocabulary on how to not get lost in a city, etc--the other very specifically wanted to know everything there is to know about having fun in Los Angeles and Hollywood. That group also had really random questions about where "Springfield" is. With my roughly hand-drawn map on the chalkboard, I felt the need of a good US map terribly. I may buy one in Carrefour this Friday.

We had our first choir performance this last Sabbath, to kick off Week of Prayer. The speaker took so long first service that by the time it was our turn to sing, we didn't do nearly as well as we could have. The teacher, frustrated, managed it so that second service, we sang before the sermon. It sounded much, much better.

That afternoon, I did something really stupid. Bored and curious about the castle that had been staring down at us the entire time here, my friends Jenny and Lillian went with me to explore the castle which crowns the town of Sagunto. Why was this stupid? Because only an idiot would not recognize that the looming dark gray clouds meant rain. This registered on a very theoretical level, but we were too eager to have fun to pay it much mind.

We had a great time exploring the castle. It is a beautiful old thing, a mixture of Roman and Gothic architecture, and surrounded by cactus, oddly enough. We took all kinds of pictures, enjoyed the view, and then. . . came the rain. It came lightly at first, merely refreshing. Then it fell in great drops, slickening the path so that Jenny fell and twisted her knee. I had prepared for rain, but she had not--I lent her my umbrella, as I had a good rain coat, but I had left the raincoat's hood way back at the dorm.

Pretty soon, all three of us were waterlogged, stopping in a supermarket to dry off. Lillian got a plastic bag to cover her head, but it did not do much good. Shivering, cold, and wet, we could hardly see the way back over the bridge to the road that led to the school. Much to our profound joy, someone from the school was driving along and that road, saw us, and took us back up to the dorm, making us vow to put on dry clothes and never try to go to the castle in the rain again. No argument there--that is burned in my brain as something I will never, ever do again.

Since then, it's been a fairly routine round of classes, though today we had the fun of performing Spanish folk songs in Folklore class. Much to my consternation, both my group and another picked the same song, Mar y Cielo, but it turned out all right in the end, when the teacher had us combine to teach it to everyone. The video of that is online--we certainly had a good time with that.

Please pray for me to learn patience. I have become frustrated with two things: the rain, and the habit my deans have of locking the doors of the dorm during the Week of Prayer meetings. I would go to worship even if the door weren't locked, but it just makes me irritable to feel like they don't trust me enough to do this on my own. It tempts me to spend the worship hour somewhere else on the grounds writing just to make a point, even though I know in my head that would be counterproductive. It's a part of Adventist culture I've had the good fortune to avoid so far, but is just a part of the way things work here.

At the very least, I'll have a week to cool off from this as myself and the other ACA students travel to Andalucia starting this Monday. We will see all kinds of things I'd always dreamed about seeing in Spanish class back in the states, like Seville, Granada, Cordoba, and even a small bit of Morocco. I hear there's lots of sun in Andalucia; I certainly hope so, as the unseasonable rain here is really starting to get me down. When I saw the sun yesterday, I nearly cried, it was so beautiful.

Hope life is treating all of you well, with lots of sunshine and good music.

Valencia, October 4

That's right--I've decided, since I'm going to be here so long, to dispose of this whole "Part 1, 2, 3" business. On Thursday I had the pleasure of my first trip into Valencia, and wow, it was amazing. . . my pedometer read 26,000 steps at the end of the day, but the tiring effort was well worth it.

Valencia is a feast for the lover of architecture. I'm not just talking about the Gothic, Baroque, and Neoclassical buildings dotting the place (which are incredibly awesome, but scattered all over Europe, after all), but some of the amazingly streamlined modern buildings of the city as well. They have a concert hall, for example, that looks like a spaceship suspended over a crystal sea. It's in the middle of a complex of beautiful, futuristic buildings which oddly mix well with the well-tended gardens next to them. It reminded me, for some reason, of the Ghetti Museum in Los Angeles.

The Valencia Cathedral was really cool, too, though. The first part of it was built in the 300's--it blows me away to think that there's really churches that old that have been worshiping continuously for such a long time, and still do. I soaked in the mix of Gothic, Baroque, and Neoclassical styles, and climbed the tower of Micalet. Wow, that's a lot of stairs, and I feel really sorry for whoever had the job of ringing bells there before they were all mechanized (talk about mixing athleticism with musicianship), but the view from the top was well worth it. To take the trip with me, check out the video on the website.

At the cathedral door, we got to witness the Council of the Waters, where anyone with a water dispute can come to the judges there, and they will deal with it on the spot. They do this every Thursday, and anyone can come. No one had a water complaint this time out, and no wonder--if they do this every week, they must be very efficient at dealing with it.

After that, we saw a very old Gothic-style bank, the best-preserved in Spain, and then got turned loose on the city to enjoy all kinds of free time. I had the joy of trying Spanish horchata for the first time, which is nothing like the US version--it's much thicker, much richer, and made from almond, not rice. And it's GOOD. We also had some gelato, and went shopping--as in looked in all the shops without buying much.

We had Friday to recuperate from this and go to class, and Sabbath morning to enjoy church, then we had another fabulous adventure. At the bidding of our Folklore class, we walked all the way to Sagunto to see the Fiesta de Moros y Cristianos.

Okay, we have parades in the States, but nothing like this. When our teacher said it was a relatively short parade, I didn't expect a 2-hour spectacle with hundreds of participants, all kinds of amazing, glittery costumes (which unfortunately didn't photograph well in the poor light), and all kinds of marching bands. And this parade was only the first half of it, where the Moors come in to conquer the city--this morning (which I missed) was when the Moors and the Christians are supposed to fight, and the Christians win with the help of St. James. Just seeing the half I did, though, was absolutely amazing. The marching was far more precise than almost anything I've ever seen in the States, and there was dancing as well--they used a lot more people just walking and showing off their costumes than they did parade floats, though there were a few of those, too.

There were all kinds of instruments, some of which even after a life time of hanging out with a music teacher, I can't identify. All in all, I have to reflect--they do spectacle way better as amateurs than Disney does as a professional company. Go figure.

Anyways, as you can imagine, I slept a solid nine hours after I got back. Between the festival and the trip to Valencia, we've all certainly had an interesting, and a physically exhausting time of it. Hope life is treating you well, and that you've had as good a time this weekend as I have.

Justin Day 2008

To those of you who are new to Jillian's Journeys this year, every now and then I take a break from the travelogue posts to mark a special occasion or to honor something or someone who has made a difference in my life.

This post is dedicated to my brother Justin, who would be 22 today if he had not died a little over four years ago in a hiking accident in Peru. I started celebrating Justin Day, as I now call it, last year on his birthday; there are many ways to celebrate, some of which I listed in the following post:

http://jilliansjourneys.blogspot.com/2007/09/justin-day.html

Today I celebrated by wearing all black save for a pair of boots, a caribiner, and a portrait of him given to me by a family friend around my neck. I went down to the Bocasteria, a place here on the Sagunto Campus where they sell food items, etc., to us students, and drank a cup of coffee in his honor before writing the following poem. It's not the smoothest or most beautiful poem I've ever written, but I thought I'd share it with you today:

A cup of coffee I raise today
For the man with the hair of fiery red--
To honor all those who've crossed his way,
To honor the words he has said.

"No fear!" he said--
Let courage be your guide.
Go wherever you think God has led
Your way across the ocean wide.

"No regrets!" he added, with a grin--
Don't let the past be your chain.
For we were all long freed from sin,
And will come home again.

"No holding back," he finished, smiling--
Be bold, live all the life you can.
For what use is it to waste life whiling
Your time away where you began?

So, a cup raised high from foreign land,
I drink to the man with hair of fiery red--
Forever to celebrate his words, which stand
As wise and great as the day they were said.

No fear, no regrets, no holding back.

Thank you for bearing with me for this out-of-the-ordinary post; the next one will be more fun stuff about Spain. After all, not much of interest has happened around here over the last few days--I single-handedly flooded my floor of the dorm on Sunday (that was exciting; for an explanation of how this is possible, go to the website and check out the video), helped register immigrants for Spanish classes, and started Choir--other than that, nothing particularly interesting has occurred. Tomorrow I get to go to Valencia, which will provide all kinds of interesting pictures and whatnot, and this weekend I'll get to see my first Spanish fiesta in Sagunto. I hope life is treating all of you well, as always, and wish you a very happy Justin Day!

In my prayers,

Sagunto, Part 2

The weekend was restful and relaxing almost to the point of boredom, broken up by a sudden, unexpected seasonal rainstorm. Struck by a sudden inspiration, I grabbed an umbrella and ran out there with a camera to get the footage you'll see on my blog if you're nice enough to look at the web page. Please. . . view it. I got sopping wet to give you that oh-so-authentic location footage. The link is at the bottom of this email, as it is for all Jillian's Journeys posts.

Class really began on Monday, and for the first time, I went to breakfast. To miss breakfast here isn't a horrible thing to do, as we have this place called the Bocasteria where we can buy ourselves some fairly tasty food on our mid-morning break, but it's much cheaper (as in, already paid for) to go to the caf. My hardest class, it looks like, will easily be Translation and Interpretation. After the Greek course this summer, though, it's almost a breath of fresh air to be applying the same skills with living languages. In a fit of overachieving ambition, I decided to translate "Sabbath Prayer" from Fiddler on the Roof into Spanish because of the disturbing lack of Spanish translations of the song anywhere online.

That is HARD. I have a lot more respect for people who write voiceovers for musical films than I ever had before. To translate the words, make it fit into the music, and then hope that somehow, it will retain the same feel as the original is a mad balancing act that I find ridiculously, suicidally enjoyable.

After class, in the evening, some friends and I went to worship just because we were bored and found out that worship is required, sadly enough for those who'd skipped. Glad that we'd done this, however accidentally, we went for a walk afterwards. The night was fragrant from the freshly fallen rain on the orange groves, and the castle was beautifully lit for the night time. I needed the exercise, and the air; both were wonderfully medicinal, despite the cars trying to hit us every few minutes.

Today they canceled class to take us into Sagunto itself to see some of the local sights. We were supposed to see the castle up close and personal, but it was raining so much (something which hasn't happened at this time of year here in thirty years) that we didn't. We did, however, get to see the Roman Theater leftover from the Roman occupation and explore it thoroughly. I'd gotten to see ancient theaters in Greece, but I never got to explore any of them like this. I was amazed at how similar the passages behind the rows of renovated seats were to a modern theater. Someday, I really, want to see one of the outdoor performances they have there. It sounds like fun, like a Spanish version of the Hollywood Bowl.

Afterwards, my friend Jenny and I went down to their open-air market that they have every Wednesday in Sagunto. Although I had only intended to buy a bag and some yarn, she convinced me to buy a shirt and a pastry as well, both of which were quite good. I'm not sure how I feel about the shirt, but it only cost me 4 euros, after all. I've never been good at shopping for things I don't need. She's teaching me, and I'm a slow learner. Incidentally, if anyone wants to send me yarn, the local stuff isn't very good and only comes in white, grr. . . but I love to crochet, no matter what color I'm using.

Anyways, enough of my ranting about yarn and whatnot. Not a very exotic thing for me to talk about all the way from Spain. Perhaps my brain is too short-circuited today to think of anything more creative to write about; I just wanted an excuse to put up pictures and video. Please check it out; it takes a certain amount of loving care that takes up time and it makes my little heart happy to know when people are actually looking at it.

I hope life is treating you well, as always, with much luck and prosperity.

Sagunto, Part 1

Hello! Yes, I have arrived safely in Spain, and am incredibly sorry for the delay in writing this issue, for any of you who may have been worried if I got here. I almost didn't, though, as my flight from San Francisco to Chicago was canceled due to mechanical failures in the plane, getting me off to a great start on this saga. Fortunately, American Airlines was able to rebook me for a flight to Los Angeles instead, from which I was able to fly to Chicago, literally walking straight off of my first flight and onto the second. In Chicago, I didn't have much time, either--just enough to make a few last phone calls before kissing cell service good-bye for the year.

The flight to Madrid was long, dull, and tedious like most transatlantic flights, amplified by the fact that I couldn't sleep. By the time I got to the Valencia flight, I was so tired, the only thing keeping me awake was a certain skepticism as to how airworthy the plane really was. And, of course, some magazines talking about great things to see in Spain I hadn't realized were even over here. Even in a year, I don't think I'll see everything I want to see in Spain, let alone Europe. Coming off of that flight, I thought I'd lost my baggage, but fortunately, they had merely come in on a different terminal, so I was set for success already.

Riding on the highway at break-neck speed, I enjoyed the scenery passing by--with all those orange groves, the place looks like Southern California used to before all the orange groves were covered by houses, with the added perk of the occasional ruin of a castle. Upon my arrival, I was settled in with a very nice room mate, Yamuna, who speaks no English and is very sociable. That's a very good combination for someone who's actually trying to learn Spanish. She told me how her somewhat odd name is actually the river that flows in front of the Taj Mahal. Cool.

The next morning, which was my birthday, I took the placement test to see what group I'd be placed in for the year. I scored in the top group, to my wonder, joy, and delight. This made me eligible for the Translation class I so badly wanted to take, which I registered for along with the rest of my 19 credits. That may sound like a lot, but the pace and culture here is much more laid back than PUC, and I feel like I can handle it. If I can't, I'll probably drop my Bible class--we have worship every night, several hours of church and sabbath school a week, and the credits probably don't transfer to my religion department back home anyway. If I took a class at their seminary, on the other hand, that would count. . . but I don't want to try that until I get a general feel for the coursework in the regular ACA classes.

I celebrated my birthday by walking into the town of Sagunto with some other ACA students. We had to cross several orange orchards, walk under a tunnel, and ask for directions when we got lost to get there, but it was rewarding enough when we actually located a place to eat. Sadly, we didn't have time to do much else, so we got back in time for evening worship, which was followed by an orientation to dorm life here. It is very different than dorm life at PUC, and I actually appreciate the enforced silence rules they have from 10:30 PM--7:00 AM. If they had that rule at PUC, I know any number of people would get a better night's sleep.

Yesterday was my first day of class, but I only had two classes which aren't even into the subject matter yet, so no comment. I did, however, meet, their Biblical Languages teacher--nice woman, and a lovely wake-up call for me to remember to practice my Greek. With Spanish swimming around my head, though, I really don't feel like it. That afternoon, the school had us all bussed into Sagunto to go to Carrefour, a store a lot like Walmart, but better, for some of our daily necessities. It was hard for me not to fall into the temptation to buy a nice, large jar of Nutella. I justified my purchase of a bottle of tonics by my need for a one-liter bottle for my water. We were supposed to go to the beach afterwards, but there wasn't enough time--we just got to see it from the bus, looking beautiful and tantalizing. I can't wait to go next week.

There were two worships last night, and three this morning, so I'm actually sort of worshiped-out. I've enjoyed the music in all of them, and the preaching, even, up to a point--the more tired I am, the less any language, particularly Spanish, makes sense, and I'm still jetlagged. I think I'll appreciate it all a lot more next week, and I am truly glad to see such an active church community over here.

Hollywood to Home

Joyfully I sat on a stump at the entrance of Camp Wawona, waiting for my grandpa Les to pick me up. In an hour or two, he did, but that was only the beginning of the epic birthday weekend for my father and I, ranging from Hollywood to Disneyland, and eventually bringing me home at last, where I am now writing as I prepare to leave for Spain in two weeks. This weekend was a great delight for a variety of reasons, but first and foremost because of family and food. You may laugh at the last one, but food has recently become very, very important to me as a rare and valuable commodity. Even rarer and more valuable, though, was the family I got to share the weekend's events with.

I almost cried when we got to the hotel. It was so beautiful, and I had nothing to do with its ongoing upkeep. The beds were soft and comfortable, and the furniture matched. It may seem odd that something that simple would strike me so powerfully, but to look at the city of Los Angeles through the window was truly a spiritual experience for me.

The next day we saw a few sights before going to the long-anticipated Hollywood Bowl. A cemetery may seem like a bizarre tourist attraction to start, but Forest Lawn is no normal cemetery. It houses a brilliant stained glass replica of Da Vinci's Last Supper as well as the world's largest painting. I'm not kidding; at 90 ft high by 160 ft wide, the size of this painting is truly staggering. My father and I, suddenly struck by an inspiration, decided to track down the grave of the famous Walt Disney. Despite rumors that he is frozen beneath the Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland, we found his family plot, a rather humble private garden where he, his wife, and his son-in-law are buried. More difficult to track down than Walt Disney, however, was our own relative aunt Lydia. Whereas Walt was easily accessible outdoors, we actually had to be buzzed in to a locked mausoleum and given directions through the winding corridors to find her. She had lived to be over a hundred before she passed away recently, and I can only hope that some of that luck carries over to the rest of us.

From there we visited an excellent vegetarian Chinese Restaurant, The Happy Family, before going over to Griffith Park Observatory. The observatory is a beautiful building, recently restored and outfitted with an entirely new underground floor of exhibits. The new exhibit I appreciate the most down there is a vast wall panel of the stars on ceramic tile, rendered accurately from a satellite image of a patch of the sky no larger than what is covered by a person's thumb looking up at it. I can now say officially that I have been stargazing underground. Coming back outside, the sun was setting beautifully over the famous Hollywood sign, and we made our way over to the Hollywood Bowl for the long-anticipated concert.

John Williams is not just an amazing composer, but a very charismatic, personable musician in live performance as well. It is one thing to half-listen to his internationally famous Olympic Fanfare while the sports are being shown on television; it is another thing entirely to be there in a live concert hall, feeling the kind of energy that many trumpets produce. Amazing, too, is the way that 18,000 people can become so silent so quickly in awe of such genius. I've been to Bay Area knock-offs of the Hollywood Bowl experience, but none of them quite equal the sheer spectacle of outdoor performance done right. The LA Philharmonic may not come close to matching the San Francisco Symphony in musical perfection, but when they play, their audiences listen with much more rapt attention than I've ever heard the San Francisco Symphony receive in even a closed concert hall.

A special guest to the program that evening was the director and choreographer of the immortal classic film Singin' In the Rain. Listening to this man talk about working with dancers like Gene Kelley and Fred Astaire was fascinating, and the clips shown with the music from these various films filled me with admiration for the old school Hollywood actors who had to be able to sing, dance, and act as triple threats. Between listening to his experiences and hearing so many of John Williams' greatest works performed live, it was a real night to remember.

That alone would have been worth the trip. However, there was still Disneyland the next day.

Disneyland is one of those places which continue to enchant me no matter how many times I visit it. Everything there has a story. Also, they are always building new attractions while refurbishing the old with innovative concepts. I had the privilege of seeing ASIMO, the only robot in the world capable of walking upright on its own. More impressively, it can also run and go up and down stairs; these are movements which were not possible in robotics even five years ago.

Another new attraction worth seeing is in the California Adventure theme park, the Toy Story Midway Madness. It does a beautiful job of combining ride, game, and show technology for a very fun, very interactive experience. It's great to be able to celebrate the introduction of a new attraction like that, but not without some sadness for the old. Let us now spend a moment of silence to mourn the passing of the Golden Dreams film which will be ripped out next week in favor of something slightly more interesting, despite its value as one of the most efficient and moving retellings of California state history I've ever seen. . .

All right. Moment of silence over. It gave me great joy to cross back over to Disneyland and view the fireworks and Fantasmic again. Every time I see Fantasmic, it fills me with great delight and makes me feel like the little girl on Dad's shoulders I used to be. In a good way. Some things are just too cool to be changed much with time, and are still worth coming back to time and time again.

Like home. At the end of a long, 6-hour drive yesterday (which was Dad's birthday--can't believe he's 50 now!), I finally got home to my cats, my room, and the tasks I need to accomplish before leaving for Spain. I am overjoyed to be back, and hope that life is treating all of you well. The next time I write a post, it very well may be from a dorm room in Spain; wish me luck!

Camp Wawona, Season II

Thanks to the general lack of particularly adventurous things going on in my life lately, I haven't been writing in this blog. However, since a few strange rumors as to my whereabouts have been circulating (mostly misconceptions that I've already left for Spain), and some of you have taken to bothering my mother about it, I felt it necessary to clear this up:

I am still in the United States, at Camp Wawona. That's Yosemite, in California. I've been here since I got back from Greece, and I have been cooking, cleaning, and otherwise making merry here. Mostly cooking and cleaning, though. It feels, for some reason, like it's been harder, longer work than last summer, and I didn't feel the need to document that for all of you. If you want to get a really good impression of Camp Wawona, read my posts from last year and look at the pretty pictures on the site from that time, too. I really love the camp, but I feel that taking many more pictures of it would be redundant.

My work here has been punctuated, of course, by the occasional visit from friends or a family member or two. That always really brightened up my week. Also, the odd visit into town (Oakhurst) is very nice, and the staff here have taken a liking to a local Mexican restaurant which I wish I could remember the name of now, because I'd really recommend it to anyone on their way into Yosemite. Great atmosphere, delicious food.

Otherwise, my off time is filled with finding cell service here to call home or crocheting. I've discovered a certain fondness for crocheting in myself I didn't know I possessed. It's kind of soothing, just sitting there making scarves while watching a movie. . . and the lengths of these scarves reveal the amount of time on my hands. Too exhausted from a day's work to do much else with it.

Particularly days like this last weekend, when the camp was packed out with a gigantic Naga View reunion. The banquet on Saturday night was the most elaborate we'd ever done, and quite exhausting. Still recovering from that, though there was something wonderfully familiar about punch tables and table skirts--I actually used to enjoy doing that sort of thing for my parents.

Anyways, I'm out of here on Friday morning, to another adventure in Southern California where I will see a good deal of my family and we will celebrate my father and I's birthdays. I can hardly wait, as it's been so long since I've spent some decent time with my family, and I've gotten a little homesick here. Okay, a lot homesick. It'll only be worse when I'm in Spain, so I'll just deal with it--in the meantime, I hope that life is treating all of you well, and that you are enjoying life to the fullest.

Greece, Epilogue

Well, my profoundest apologies for waiting so very long to send an update, but it's been a very busy time of it ever since I returned from Greece. I write to you now from Camp Wawona, where I am currently working in the kitchen, and at last have a break to tell you how I got here perfectly safe and sound, even having quite a bit of fun along the way.

I finally met Mary, my friend Mrs. White's Greek cousin, Wednesday of last week. She was kind enough to take me out for orange juice to rival the best of Florida or California and dinner. This meal was wonderfully filling after I had started to starve on the hotel's food, which was low on vegetarian options. When I asked her where I could get a ticket to a bus to the airport, she immediately volunteered to take me herself. I was incredibly grateful for this kindness, as I had not savored the idea of finding my way to the airport in the middle of the night.

So, after taking the exam and learning I had earned a high B (very respectable, that, nothing wrong with it if worked for) and being celebrated by some of my classmates, she picked me up and took me to her house. There, her husband, godmother, and daughter had prepared a wonderful meal of their own. I enjoyed spending time with actual Greeks, not just hotel staff, and wished that I'd thought to get in touch with them sooner. Mary's daughter was my own age and had taken English in school, so we had fun exchanging words back and forth. She even gave up her room for the night to give me a place to stay. I was touched by this family's generosity to a near stranger, connected to them only by a relatively they rarely see all the way back in the States. They asked, too, that I come back to Greece, to see them again--I hope someday I will be able to do so.

After many hours of flight in which Iberia somehow managed not to lose me for a change, I landed in Dulles to be greeted by Katie and Aunt Faith again. Now was the time for the visit we had actually planned on, and I enjoyed meeting Katie's boyfriend Paul and seeing KJ (or rather, Kenny) in church the next day. They always were my second family, and it was good to be with them. On Sabbath afternoon, Faith took Katie, Paul and I to be tourists in our nation's capital, and I was blown away by everything I saw.

It took me 16 pages in my journal to talk about the National Mall with its gleaming monuments, the White House, the Capital building, the Library of Congress, Arlington Cemetery, and much more. . . it was like walking through the entire history of the US in one action-packed afternoon. I will not trouble you with all the details, but give highlights. The two monuments that moved me the most deeply were actually not on the Mall, but a little off the beaten track--Jefferson and FDR. Both represent leaders who stood up for the rights of the people in a dramatically changing world, Jefferson with his words and FDR with his many acts of reform throughout his long presidency. The new World War II monument on the Mall does a great job of honoring the men who served and the unity of the states during that time, but the FDR monument tells the story. It is beautifully narrative, not quite like anything else there.

As for the White House, don't let the pictures fool you. I had to stand on the fence like any self-respecting tourist, stick my camera through the bars, and use zoom to get them. Between that experience and seeing how lavish the Capital really is, I couldn't help but think that it's no wonder that sometimes our leaders in Washington seem a little out of touch with the outside world. We finished the day at Arlington, watching the changing of the guard at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier--wow, what precision to their steps, and care to each movement!

I almost didn't want to say goodbye to Faith, Ken, and everyone else so soon, but it was time to go home. I actually cried as I saw the hills of Oakland come into view through the scratchy window of the plane. I hugged my mother tightly when she picked me up, and we went to the movies while we waited for my dad's plane to come in later. I cried at the film Wall-E, of all things--just seeing the Pixar logos to remind myself that I was in California was all it took. I loved the big silly grin on Dad's face when he saw me as we picked him up from the airport; I had missed him, too. I cried, too, when I saw my room--my parents had selflessly worked hard on assembling new furniture for me, and it looked so. . . peaceful.

After a mere two days, just long enough to see a large portion of my family at a little get-together at our house (and what a joy it was to see them!) and to run some errands, I left home again to come here, to Camp Wawona. Here I will work for the remainder of the summer, and I'm so glad to be back! Many remember me from last year, and my boss, Theresa, is particularly glad to have me working again. It's been hard getting back into the swing of things again, particularly as jetlag rears its ugly head, but I'm happy just to be in California, doing something fairly productive-feeling again. I wish you all well, and hope that you are having times as happy as this, my homecoming was. Thank you for all your prayers and support while I was gone; without that, I don't think I would have made it back here so safely and satisfactorily.

Greece, Part VII

We rose early on Friday morning to rush onto a boat to take us to an eventual destination which, thankfully, does not encourage rushing. To get to that peaceful island of Hydra, however, we spent a very long time on a day cruise ship called the Ana Maru, stopping at the islands of Aegina and Poros along the way. We sailed out of Piraeus, the port city near Athens, and shared some fairly decent conversation on the way to Aegina.

Although Aegina is home to the famous temple of Apollo and a rather lovely monastery, the tour to those places was rather out of the price range of anyone in my group, myself included. So, we walked Aegina's streets instead, looking at things which are free, like the fish market and the local Greek Orthodox church. It was somewhat disturbing to see octopus tentacles hanging like decoration outside of some of the cafes, but more disturbing were the sea horses sitting in a bowl outside a jewelry store. Unsettling, rather. The Greek Orthodox church, on the other hand, was transcendentally beautiful, from the elegantly carved chairs for the people, the rich paintings on its ceiling, and the soft glow of the light through the colorfully stained glass to the scent of incense which lingered in the air.

Poros had one point of interest--a lighthouse with a flag next to it overlooking the city. So, we climbed it, took pictures, browsed the stores, and climbed back down again. It was nice, after the noise and bustle of Aegina, to see the soft white of the village's houses with bougainvilleas (yeesh, that's a hard word to spell) spilling out from various openings. That was nothing to be compared, however, to the incredible stillness and peace of Hydra.

With no cars or motorcycles, the place had its own unique sound--nothing but waves, footsteps, and human voices. The hotel was a charming place, converted from the former governor's palace, if I recall, and not a single room was alike. Mine was a pure white--walls, ceiling, beds--no clutter, just soft white. Coming down the stairs on the way to dinner, I was shocked to run into an old classmate of mine from sixth grade, Nicole King--it is amazing how, even in the most remote of places, it is still possible to run into a long-lost acquaintance. She was there with her college, studying abroad, and I hadn't seen her in years. Remarkable.

After an incredible dinner (I wish I knew the name of the restaurant so that I could personally recommend it on a travel site), we went up to where the cannons from the battle against the Ottoman Empire were, and had worship there, overlooking the sea and the town. A perfect opening to the Sabbath. Many hiked up the hill to the monastery the next morning; I slept, slept better than I had slept since I came here. Then, we had a study on the book of Esther in our room before meeting together for our little group's church service, a discussion on Daniel.

Free to go, I wandered around the streets, hanging out with the local cat population--Hydra is teeming with cats. I visited a local book shop, where I was mistaken for a Greek by the owner, to my delight. Unfortunately, I could not keep up the illusion with my very few phrases of modern Greek, but it was cool to hear that. After dinner and worship, I bought a dress so that I could attend a Greek Orthodox service the next morning, just to see what it would be like. The chanting was beautiful, if a bit repetitive. The priest's robes were intricately embroidered, red stitching on white silk, if my eyes guessed the fabric right--I've always had a strange fascination with ecclesiastical vestments.

Spent the rest of the morning and, in fact, the day, just wandering around the island. I started walking on a path leading out of the town, and before I knew it, I found myself what felt like a mile or so out of it and in another village so small, it must qualify as a hamlet. I dragged some of my fellow students to the Ecclesiastical Museum of Hydra, and they actually thanked me, as it was quite a few shiny objects on display for free--and free museums are not to be passed up by starving students. Vestments, vessels, and gilded books--gorgeous.

The rest of the trip was fairly tedious, though we stopped at Aegina again on our way back to Piraeus, where two of us were cheated into paying twice as much for a scoop of ice cream as intended. . . just for sitting down. Irritating. On the way back, there was a show on board the Ana Maru with Greek music and dancing, as well as a comedian of many faces. The dancing, at least, was interesting.

Coming back to the Palace Hotel felt like coming back home, and after I checked my email, my heart was warmed by how many of you sent me letters of encouragement or news from home--I really appreciate that, and just wanted to thank, categorically, everyone who did. I wish I could write back to each one of you personally, but the finicky internet here makes even these posts a challenge. I am glad to hear that so many of you are doing so well, and look forward to seeing a few of you as I return--next weekend. The end is in sight!

Greece, Part VI

To celebrate the completion of the test on Monday, I got together some other students into Damali and I's room to watch Enchanted. It was exactly the break my poor little brain needed. However, I may have taken the charge to relax a little too seriously--the next day I decided to go study on the beach, thinking, "It would be really, really pathetic if I spent 4 weeks in Greece and never swam in the Aegean," and, well. . .

At first, it went fantastically. I actually got some work done. But then, then a random Romanian girl sat down next to me and talked, talked, talked because she was very bored. It was fascinating to hear her talk about her ambitions to be a fashion designer, and nice to have someone to swim with, but it was ultimately somewhat detrimental to my translation assignment on Philemon. Still, though, I really must recommend the Aegean Sea--it is truly wonderful water. I found it amusing how vendors kept on approaching me on the beach, as I had no money to buy anything from them, even if I were interested in doing so in the first place.

Yesterday morning, when I was going down the stairs and started to test each stair for its acoustic properties, I suddenly realized how badly the upcoming trip to the island of Hydra is needed. I was much more doggedly determined as I sat down to do translation, being stuck in the hotel to do laundry, anyway, but only saw a 4-point difference for all my effort. Eh. Doing laundry here is a real chore, working out of the hotel sink by hand. The hotel staff are a little miffed at our practice of tying clotheslines in their picturesque balconies, but if we didn't dry it there, where would we dry it? I'd love to hear their solution. In the process of this, I somehow found myself talking with a desk clerk for half an hour for no other inquiry than a lost room key. Interesting, at least.

As for today, well, heh, any who see me when I return will be somewhat amused at my tan. Somehow, in the process of sitting on the roof to get good internet, I managed to burn my left arm and side of my face, but not my right. It makes for a somewhat peculiar look--a good conversation starter, I guess. Had the rare pleasure of an empty train on the way to Glyfada this afternoon to get money--no people, perfectly safe to take photos without getting my camera stolen.

Anyways, I've probably bored you all out of your skulls enough with this mundane talk already; just thought I'd drop a line before heading out to Hydra tomorrow. It is an island so remote that there are no motor vehicles--all travel there is either on foot or donkey back. Essentially, enforced relaxation! This I consider to be a good thing--it'll be nice not to have any translations to worry about over the weekend, to have a change of space. It does make me a little sad that we may not get this room back, though--we have no idea where we'll be reassigned after the weekend. This room truly had a wonderful view of the ocean, and I hate to give it up.

Wish you all a wonderful weekend, full of fun and relaxation. I hope you are having an excellent summer wherever you are, nice and sunny--but no burns. Love you all dearly, and hope that it all goes well with you.