Walking Across the Atlantic

As my plane left DIA, I reached for a volume of poetry by Billy Collins. This poem resonated with me, and so I will share:

Walking Across the Atlantic

I wait for the holiday crowd to clear the beach

before stepping onto the first wave.

Soon I am walking Across the Atlantic

thinking about Spain,

checking for whales, waterspouts.

I feel the water holding up my shifting weight.

Tonight I will sleep on its rocking surface.

But for now I try to imagine what

this must look like to the fish below,

the bottoms of my feet appearing, disappearing.

~Billy Collins

I made my way across the Atlantic once more, and once more fight against the pursuasive pull of jet lag, as I am thrown into the to-do list that I hid at the bottom of my suitcase for the last 6 weeks. A little reordering, and I am already checking things off. Unpack, check. Clean, check. Write a few emails, check. This way I can almost trick myself into thinking that I am working my way down. But I will get there. Don't you doubt. And if you don't doubt, maybe I won't either. ~love~

Fancy

Warning: this post will be a short foray into my random musings as I go about my every-day life...if you were hoping for pictures and adventures, best come back in a few days.

As I walked around running (ok, well, acutally walking) errands yesterday (oh to have a car and zip from one place to the next with air conditioning and a roof...) I saw the most loveliest of ladies standing outside of the bank. On a street crowded with workers, youths, students, and tourists, this woman was dressed in her Sunday best. A black dress with a bold floral print was complimented with a short lacy short-sleeved sweater and the most delicate hat I have ever seen. Imagine going to a picnic with Jane Austin...that is where you would see such a hat. And I appreciated this woman's attention to detail and dedication to being fancy. This woman made me want to pack a picnic and get out of town - hike through long grass to a winery and just enjoy. Summer. Sunshine. Friends. And I wouldn't pack just any picnic, I would pack porcelain tea cups, and tiny tea cakes and we would wear fancy hats and celebrate. Wanna come? ~love~

Cowgirl up

With sincerest apologies for my blogging delinquency (how often do I have to do that here...this is a bad pattern!) I am announcing my return to the blogging world! Here are a few highlights of my whirlwind summer:

1. Visitors

I have had the great privilege of welcoming 3 visitors since March to the incredible land of Germany!

Our neighbor, Cindy, graced me with her presence for a week in March. Despite having a sinus infection, we had a wonderful time and even had a chance to spend a couple of days in beautiful Cologne.

Then, the lovely and talented Nicole came and blessed me with a week of family time! We had a great time discovering new and exciting places, watching the world cup, going to a poetry slam, and generally enjoying summer. Here you can see Nicole seeking a break from the heat in the incredible English Gardens at the Schwetzingen Schloss.

Finally, my dear friend Ashley and her husband came for 2 nights and a day and in spite of yet another bout of illness, we were able to have a lovely stroll around the old city and eat dinner to the tune of a German folk-song sing along. It was wonderful to finally meet her husband and to reminice about the old days and our awkward phases!

For those of you who are keeping score, my illness while Ashley was here put sickness ahead of health in the cosmic game of my health while guests are here. The stand is now 4:3 for sickness.

2. Travel

I have been blessed with the chance to travel a little this summer

I visited the Rheinfall waterfall with Thomas and his family in May and was once again reminded of the beauty and diversity of God's great creation.

I also had an incredible weekend field trip to Paris with one of my history classes. We visited 3 museums, each representing different perspectives of historical rememberence. Although it was a bit of a whirlwind, I absolutely fell in love with Paris. I was exhausted after walking to all of the major attractions in one day, but so glad to have had that opportunity. More to come on that little excursion later!

3. World Cup Mania!

What an incredible experience to be in Germany for the World Cup 2010! Public Viewing, dancing in the streets, singing on trains, hearing vuvuzelas at all hours of the night, the whole experience was simply unbelievable!

Here you can see Nicole and me cheering on the Schwarz-Rot-Gold DEUTSCHLAND!!! Unfortunately this was the game that Germany lost to Spain, but a good time was had nonetheless!

4. Work, school, life in general

My work teaching English is challenging and fun, and defintely keeps me busy and laughing. In an attempt to make 3 unruly boys stop acting up, one of my pre-schoolers said something to the effect of: "please stop doing that because Miss Rebekah has such pretty toe nails!" (they were freshly painted!)

Classes have been crazy busy...between my weekend excursion to Paris, papers, presentations and reading, I feel like I am just running from one thing to another! Luckily my pace of life will be changing a bit in the coming weeks-I'll still be quite busy, but without classes for the rest of the semester-I could definitely get used to this German way of doing things!

As usual, I have been unbelievably blessed by wonderful friends and good times in spite of all of my stress and running around. I just love summer in Europe! Yesterday from a train window, I saw a little village parade going through a small town-people in traditional dress atop horses and tractors, pulling elaborate floats of flowers, crops and wine...a typical summer day in Germany!

Well, I think its about time to wrap up this little summary. I love and miss you all and I can't wait to see as many of you as possible during my visit this fall! ~love~

movement

this song gets me moving every time...hope this helps me be productive this weekend! ~love~

affirmation

so these thoughts have been marinating in the pondering pool that is my brain for a little while now, swimming around until they make their debut in this very blog. there are a lot of things in this life that i live that just make me smile. mind you, they are little things, things that kinda sneek up on me as i walk through each day usually more prepared to climb a mountain of difficult tasks than to randomly start giggling, but that is what makes these little things beautiful.

out of laziness or ease or simplicity, when people greet one another here, the greetings of "good morning" "good evening" "good day" tend to get shortened to just "morning" "evening" "day", which i honestly just love. i relize this happens in english as well, but something about speaking a foreign language day in and day out is that you notice new contours of communication that the monotony of native tounge just doesn't include.

this greeting, as of late, reminds me less of a greeting and more of an affirmation. as if, as two strangers pass one another on the street, we affirm to one another things that are quite simply just true. smile, "morning", smile "morning". its as if we anchor ourselves in this communal space and time through the affirmation of something simple and concrete. the funny thing is, it feels great. this friendly exchange of affirmations somehow grounds us in the simple, in the present, and for that small window of time, i am transported out of my musings about the past and plans for the future, and am brought to the very beautiful present.

this musing is espeically poignant to me at easter time, as the greeing: "he is risen!" and the affirmation "he is risen indeed!" is, in a much more earth shattering and life-changing way, exactly such an affirmation. this greeting, this truth, grounds us in our being, our identity, and the reality of love that we so often look past in our every day lives. and as spring unfolds in vivid pinks and greens, i am so happy for the simple affirmations of life that ground me in the present and in reality. ~love~

a new adventure

Freshly browned and still glowing from the middle eastern sun, I would like to grasp at the straws of my vacation and share with you some of the shining moments of my 16 days in Dubai.

This is the view from my friend Maureen's 20th floor apartment, located directly on the

Dubai Marina. Maureen works as a teacher at a German school in Dubai and she and her boyfriend (who has an internship with a consulting firm there) were kind enough to host Thomas and me for a couple of weeks.

I wasn't really sure what to expect as we boarded out plane to Dubai a week after we booked our tickets (yay for last minute deals!) but it was the trip of a lifetime! Dubai is a young, booming city which is home to 71 buildings that stand taller than 591 ft and 51 buildings that are taller than 656 ft. (thank you wikipedia) We were craning our necks everywhere we went and snapping a lot of pictures. Although, to capture the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa I had to use the panorama feature on my camera:

Dubai is a multi-cultural city where you are just as likely to hear English as Arabic, and you are likely to feel that you ended up in a part of Las Vegas or New York that you never knew existed. It is extraordinarily clean and well kept, and there is a construction site around every corner.

We spent a lot of time seeing the spectacular malls and hotels:

Here is the Atlantis Hotel, at the tip of the Palm Jumiera Island. This hotel has a huge aquarium, water park and small mall inside. This island is one of two palm shaped islands that Dubai built.

Here you can see me "skiing" in the famous "Ski Dubai" indoor ski area in the Mall of the Emirates. This ski area has a sledding hill, ski lift and even a black run...it is so surreal to see snow in the middle of the desert!

Dubai is truly an imaginative city with so many creative buildings and incredible decorations. It is a mix of western and middle eastern culture and architecture and it was so much fun to explore. More to come soon!

~love~

quick update

here are a few photos to whet your blogging apetite from my vacation to Dubai! ~love~