*Note* I wrote this on the drive to Cinque Terra; we're in Rome now though. Sorry this blog is a little outdated, I'll write again before leaving for Venice in a few days!
Hello everyone! I hope you’re all doing well. I’m currently on the road in between Lucerne, Switzerland and Cinque Terra, Italy. You should definitely check out both areas, they’re amazing! I know I’m horrible at keeping everyone updated, but I’ve been having trouble finding time to get on the internet in our hostels; either we’re getting back so late that it’d be rude to sit in our room with the computer on while everyone else sleeps, or they’ll only have it available for a certain amount of time, etc.
After Amsterdam, James and I headed for Bruges, Belgium. It was a really quaint little town with lots of weird shops that I really enjoyed. We climbed the bell tower to get a better view of the city, but we have an awful habit of being in bell towers when the bells start to ring. I’m pretty sure I’ll be deaf before I make it back to the states.
We did the “Belgian” things—got a Belgian waffle (delicious!), went to a chocolate museum. We mostly just walked around though because the town was small and just really beautiful. James’ dad told us we would enjoy it more than Brussels, and though I didn’t see Brussels, I’d have to agree with him. I’ve really enjoyed all of the smaller towns we’ve visited more than the major cities.
We left Belgium in a slight rush because I’d developed some sort reaction/rash on my arms and scalp that was highly irritated by the sun. I was trying really hard to be a trooper and just not complain about it or talk about it. But that last day in Belgium it was just unbearable. James pretty much demanded (nicely, haha) that I see a doctor. I emailed my dad about the situation (I’d kept it on the down low for fear that he’d overreact) and he told me that if it was “flesh-eating” to come home. Then he proceeded to tell me about a boy fighting for his life back home from a fungal infection he got in a public pool. So now that I was thoroughly terrified, I decided to go to a French hospital.
So French hospitals are a little strange. And more than a little dirty. Everyone in America is all about “free healthcare”…that is a stupid thing to wish for people! Basically James knew just enough French to talk to a guy who knew just enough English to explain what was happening to me. I was a little surprised when they needed my “overnight” information—I was absolutely not staying in that place overnight. But after waiting a long time we headed to a room where I was immediately handed a pill and water without any sort of explanation. Heck no I wasn’t taking that—I made James ask what it was. It was just like allergy medicine, but still I can’t believe they just expected me to pop whatever pill they put in my hand.
Anyway, after refusing to agree that I just had sunburn (I had red patches of what felt like acid all over my arms), we went to a second waiting room for a while. There were people laying in rolling hospital beds just out in the middle of this room, looking completely helpless. Two elderly women sat in beds in a back corner and were still there when we left. That’s what free healthcare looks like—quit asking for it!
When the doctor called me in, we walked through a few rooms of random black lights before getting to his office—strange. We tried to communicate the prescription I was currently on, and he decided that it was probably causing my reaction. I’d considered the possibility originally, but I’ve been on this medication off and on for years; I used to go to the tanning bed while I was on it and never had any sort of UV reactions, but apparently it can occur randomly. I’d discontinued the medicine the day before anyway just in case and in the next few days I started to feel a lot better.
I felt really horrible that we wasted a day in Paris and 50 euro on an experience like that. But James was really gracious about the situation and it was really nice to have some peace of mind that I didn’t pick up some crazy fungus in a hostel somewhere. The rest of our time spent in Paris was really enjoyable—we did a little bit of shopping and saw the Notre Dame, the famous bridges, and of course the Eiffel Tower.
I thought the Notre Dame was pretty, but I’ve definitely seen much more elegant cathedrals on my trip. I was kind of disturbed that when we walked in to tour the sanctuary, mass was being held. I don’t think it’s appropriate to allow tourists to walk in and take pictures and talk while there is a service being held. I’ve noticed a lot of churches have been allowing this; and they sell all sorts of things inside their sanctuaries and I just think it’s really sick. I can’t decide which is worse: the American church that everyone belongs to just because it’s the right thing to do or the European church that is focused too much on making money off tourists.
We thought it’d be more fun to go to the Eiffel tower at night; but we kind of lost track of time and ended up having to rush to make it there on a our last night. We made it just after 11:30pm and were one of the very last groups to go up. The top level was already closed, but we were still able to go to the second, which was perfectly fine with me. I was scared we wouldn’t get to go up at all that late, so I was very grateful. Paris at night is absolutely beautiful and I got some really amazing photos because I took my tripod up with me. I think the only thing I disliked about the tower was the elevator—I’m claustrophobic when I’m cramped in with a lot of people, but it was worth it for the view.
We hadn’t eaten dinner yet, so after taking some more pictures outside the tower, we walked around for about an hour in the middle of the night in Paris—not sketchy at all, haha. We luckily didn’t get mugged and eventually found a restaurant. We didn’t leave there until almost 3am and then were somehow able to successfully get a cab to take us back to our hostel on the other side of town. I wish I could say that was our scariest night in France—but it doesn’t hold a candle to the next night.
We were leaving for Interlaken, Switzerland the next day… or at least we thought we were. We left Paris a little later than we meant to, in the late afternoon. I’m not sure how or why this happened but we didn’t end up looking for a gas until the gas light was on at 11:30pm. I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but Europe is a lot different than the States. Things aren’t open at 11:30. Things are barely open at 10. But anyway, we use my GPS to find probably 5 or 6 different gas stations, each between 10 and 25 kilometers apart on pretty much no gas. We are driving on completely ridiculous back roads in mountains in the middle of nowhere. It was pretty creepy. But when we finally started to come to the realization that no gas stations were going to be open and our car was fussing at us in German to get gas—we were going to have to stop somewhere. The GPS luckily has an option to find nearby lodging, so we went by a few places in the random town we’d ended up in, but they looked pretty abandoned and shady. Finally though, we found one called Hotel de Paris that looked pretty decent. It was really late by this point but James got out and rang the intercom and luckily someone woke up and answered us. We got a room and were able to at least not sleep in the car that night. Honestly I was pretty creeped out by this hotel, but I kept telling myself that if we survived that Prague hostel that this would be a piece of cake.
The next morning we discovered we were in a town named Poligny. I actually liked it a lot, we found an absolutely beautiful church that I’m pretty sure was part of a monastery. No one spoke any English so James’ French came in handy a lot. He’s pretty modest about it, but he’s very good at French. I don’t know what we would have done in a lot of situations without it—probably eaten a lot of really weird food.
We finally got some gas and headed for Switzerland. The drive was beautiful. BEAUTIFUL. I was really sad because James’ side of the car had a much better view usually and I couldn’t take pictures of that side. He stopped the car a lot so that I wouldn’t miss a lot of opportunities, but there was this one perfect scene of one of those streaky sunsets over a little French town in a valley between some mountains—I missed that picture, and I’m heartbroken that I can’t share it with you.
Switzerland though… NOTHING is more beautiful than Switzerland! The mountains, the water, the towns, every inch is just gorgeous. I think we stopped every 5 minutes to take pictures. We’ve decided we’re getting a house here and inviting all of our friends to come live with us. We’re just going to get like a 25 bedroom house on the top of some crazy slope and hang out. Snowboarding in the winter, the lake in the summer—perfect. You’re all invited.
We kind of let our time in Switzerland be our “rest” time during our trip. We knew we’d be exhausted by this point, and Italy is going to be pretty strenuous because there’s a lot we want to see. We didn’t really plan a lot to do so we just took some naps, hung out, poked around in random stores and walked around Interlaken, Bern, and Lucerne. This place is crazy expensive though so we didn’t really buy anything. Hopefully with Italy will come cheaper food.
This blog is ridiculously long, it’s hard to cram 10 days of our trip into one blog; I’ve left out a TON… like celebrating Canada Day in Interlaken, the 4th of July in Bern, the time capsule we’ve been collecting to bury somewhere… the list goes on, but hopefully when we get back we’ll be able to tell you all in fuller detail of how much fun we’ve had.
I’ve been away from home for almost two months now and I’m starting to really miss South Carolina and all that it entails, like my family, friends, puppies, and free refills. Be praying for safe travels in our last country! Just Cinque Terra, Rome, Assisi, and Venice before we head back to Munich for our flights home!
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
One week into our travels...
Sorry my last blog ended on such a ridiculous note. Let me continue with the story of our first night in Prague.
James and I had previously made a reservation for the next night in another hostel further into the city. We already had the address, so we decided to go see if they had any beds available. They didn’t, of course… but they were nice enough to point us across the street to a somewhat sketchy hostel that pretty much looked like heaven compared to what we’d just experienced. We needed a place to park our car though, so the nice man running the place let us squeeeeeze the Fiat into what seemed to be a storage room. I had to get out of the car before James pulled in, and he barely got his door open to get out either. But frankly, at that point, it was a miracle that we were about to go sleep somewhere that did not ensure death; we were very thankful.
The next few days were spent exploring the city, which just so happens to be BEAUTIFUL, and hanging out with Bryan, James’ roommate. There’s a really gorgeous river running through the city, and the Charles Bridge had a famous tower that we went up to get a 360 view of the area. We saw the astronomical clock toll in the city square and all of the apostles come to the little windows in the clock (it’s very strange and kind of anticlimactic, but people freak out about it). We explored a big hill and park on one side of the city and ran across a cherry orchard and ate ourselves silly. We went to a lot of STRANGE restaurants that play even stranger music. Everything from oldies to 90’s to some random Praise music in a Thai place. All of the music I have experienced so far in Europe has been more American than the music I listen to in the States. It’s sort of disappointing honestly.
We ended up staying in Prague an extra day because we loved the city so much, but we did eventually make our way to Berlin. Prague was a hard act to follow, but we enjoyed Berlin very much. My favorite part was definitely poking around an antique bookstore on our last day. I was looking for something interesting for my daddy and had sat down on the floor in front of the Physics/Chemistry/Astronomy section and amongst all of these volumes of German science was a completely random biography on Calvin entirely in English. I decided I had to buy it, I mean it was placed there specifically for me to pick up, was it not? Haha. We lost track of time there, which made us late to Amsterdam, but it was completely worth it. I bought an old journal with lots of beautiful handwriting in it that I can’t read, but a lot of pages are still blank so I’m going to finish it for the person who never did.
Bryan was still with us in Berlin and it was incredibly helpful because he’s fluent in German. Who knows what we would have eaten or which train we would have gotten on. We’re lucky ducks. We saw some more very pretty churches and some really sweet art galleries—one if which was once an abandoned building that a bunch of artists took over and just turned into a huge work of art. You’ll be seeing pictures of it, I promise.
Berlin was a strange place, it was very sparsely populated for a city one would assume to be some major center of business or study.
Bryan had to leave us to go back to Bamberg for class, and we headed toward Amsterdam, where I am currently. The hostel we’re staying at is something right up my sister Mandy’s alley. It’s just a bunch of hippies in campers by a lake about 10 minutes outside of town, I love it. There are ducks, roosters, and other little animals everywhere and the atmosphere is just incredibly chill. It’s nice to stay outside a city for a couple of nights and not have to hear sirens and traffic constantly.
Amsterdam was much, much different than I assumed it would be. I’m sure you’ve heard all of the stereotypes about this place, but I thought it was pretty nice. We never ran across the red-light district, and even the advertisements/etc. were tamer here than in the other places we’ve been. Canals run through the city; old couples and groups of teenagers just sit on their boats and ride up and down. There are tons of really interesting little stores with random things like puppets and tins. I didn’t however find one particular store I was looking for that my Swedish friend Sophia told me about; I guess I’ll just have to make another trip back here very soon to look again!
In the morning we’re headed for Belgium. We decided to go to a smaller town than Brussels, so I’m excited to see it. Also, I think the countryside we’ll see tomorrow will be beautiful. I promise to try to write again before I leave Paris next week!
Have a good weekend everyone!
Mindy <><
James and I had previously made a reservation for the next night in another hostel further into the city. We already had the address, so we decided to go see if they had any beds available. They didn’t, of course… but they were nice enough to point us across the street to a somewhat sketchy hostel that pretty much looked like heaven compared to what we’d just experienced. We needed a place to park our car though, so the nice man running the place let us squeeeeeze the Fiat into what seemed to be a storage room. I had to get out of the car before James pulled in, and he barely got his door open to get out either. But frankly, at that point, it was a miracle that we were about to go sleep somewhere that did not ensure death; we were very thankful.
The next few days were spent exploring the city, which just so happens to be BEAUTIFUL, and hanging out with Bryan, James’ roommate. There’s a really gorgeous river running through the city, and the Charles Bridge had a famous tower that we went up to get a 360 view of the area. We saw the astronomical clock toll in the city square and all of the apostles come to the little windows in the clock (it’s very strange and kind of anticlimactic, but people freak out about it). We explored a big hill and park on one side of the city and ran across a cherry orchard and ate ourselves silly. We went to a lot of STRANGE restaurants that play even stranger music. Everything from oldies to 90’s to some random Praise music in a Thai place. All of the music I have experienced so far in Europe has been more American than the music I listen to in the States. It’s sort of disappointing honestly.
We ended up staying in Prague an extra day because we loved the city so much, but we did eventually make our way to Berlin. Prague was a hard act to follow, but we enjoyed Berlin very much. My favorite part was definitely poking around an antique bookstore on our last day. I was looking for something interesting for my daddy and had sat down on the floor in front of the Physics/Chemistry/Astronomy section and amongst all of these volumes of German science was a completely random biography on Calvin entirely in English. I decided I had to buy it, I mean it was placed there specifically for me to pick up, was it not? Haha. We lost track of time there, which made us late to Amsterdam, but it was completely worth it. I bought an old journal with lots of beautiful handwriting in it that I can’t read, but a lot of pages are still blank so I’m going to finish it for the person who never did.
Bryan was still with us in Berlin and it was incredibly helpful because he’s fluent in German. Who knows what we would have eaten or which train we would have gotten on. We’re lucky ducks. We saw some more very pretty churches and some really sweet art galleries—one if which was once an abandoned building that a bunch of artists took over and just turned into a huge work of art. You’ll be seeing pictures of it, I promise.
Berlin was a strange place, it was very sparsely populated for a city one would assume to be some major center of business or study.
Bryan had to leave us to go back to Bamberg for class, and we headed toward Amsterdam, where I am currently. The hostel we’re staying at is something right up my sister Mandy’s alley. It’s just a bunch of hippies in campers by a lake about 10 minutes outside of town, I love it. There are ducks, roosters, and other little animals everywhere and the atmosphere is just incredibly chill. It’s nice to stay outside a city for a couple of nights and not have to hear sirens and traffic constantly.
Amsterdam was much, much different than I assumed it would be. I’m sure you’ve heard all of the stereotypes about this place, but I thought it was pretty nice. We never ran across the red-light district, and even the advertisements/etc. were tamer here than in the other places we’ve been. Canals run through the city; old couples and groups of teenagers just sit on their boats and ride up and down. There are tons of really interesting little stores with random things like puppets and tins. I didn’t however find one particular store I was looking for that my Swedish friend Sophia told me about; I guess I’ll just have to make another trip back here very soon to look again!
In the morning we’re headed for Belgium. We decided to go to a smaller town than Brussels, so I’m excited to see it. Also, I think the countryside we’ll see tomorrow will be beautiful. I promise to try to write again before I leave Paris next week!
Have a good weekend everyone!
Mindy <><
The Adventure Continues!
I apologize that I’m not very responsible with keeping up with blogging. It just doesn’t really make sense to me to pause life so that I can sit down and write about life. I’ll try to keep you updated more often now that we’re on the road; I’m sorry if I lead any of you to believe that I just fell off the face of the earth.
Project ended about a week ago. We debriefed in Munich for about three days and I had to say my goodbyes to the best team of all time before they went to catch the train to the airport. I am so thankful that God chose each of us to do ministry together in Sweden. He did amazing things during that time, both in the Swedes and in us. He is truly moving there; He constantly put members of our team in the paths of hungry people, lead us to friendships and good conversation, but most importantly provided us opportunities to share the gospel with people who had never heard it before. No one accepted Christ as their Savior during our time there, but we know for certain that many are steps closer than they were. It’s amazing to me how quickly our love for these people grew, and I know that we will all continue praying for Sweden for the rest of our lives; I hope you’ll join us.
James came to pick me up in our Fiat a few minutes before my team left. I have to admit that I was worried about being stranded in Munich if he didn’t show up. I didn’t get a message saying he’d made his flight like we’d planned, and the internet in the hostel was bad so it was hard to look up his flight. I was pretty worried, but God took good care of him and brought him safely to the hostel in the nick of time. If anyone reading this knows James’ dad, you need to thank him for letting him take almost of month off of work so that he could fly to Europe and hang out with me. I don’t know where the heck I’d be right now without him.
We left from Munich to Heidelberg, another absolutely beautiful town in Germany that has a big castle and a really quaint “old town” . We just walked around and enjoyed the scenery for the most part. We explored the castle and a famous trail called “Philosopher’s Way” that supposedly has inspired many great minds in history. We didn’t get that inspired, mostly just lost, but it was really fun and just a relaxing day. Our hostel was run by a sweet family with a cute little boy, and we roomed with two Canadians (that made James very happy). I’m sad that we were only spent one night there, but the next day was a pretty big adventure.
So we left Heidleberg in the early afternoon, in hopes of getting to Prague around 6 or 7. That didn’t happen. That didn’t even come close to happening. I’m not really sure how to explain this without sounding like a complete idiot, but I’ll put my pride aside just this once so that you can fully enjoy this story. When I’m in South Carolina, I set my GPS to avoid toll roads because I live close to one and it always sends me that way. I forgot that this avoidance was in effect, so we set off toward the Czech Republic with an ETA of around 10pm (we weren’t sure why it was going to take so long, but we just blindly followed the GPS). So a couple of hours in to the trip, we’re in the CR on a dirt road that’s about a meter and a half wide, lined with trees and random little villages. We’d go about 6 or 7 kilometers before it would tell us to turn onto another completely ridiculous back road in the middle of NOWHERE.
We did, however, see some very interesting things:
-James is not a country boy, and thought the hay bales covered in white tarps were sheep and he got really excited.
-We were talking about how similar some of the fields with cows and barns were to the ones back in Carolina and I said “All they’re missing is a John Deere”… Low and behold we come across a John Deere store. In the middle of NO WHERE in the CR. Ridiculous.
-We saw a beautiful sunset, pulled over to take pictures…and a car came down the road in the opposite direction we’d be driving. That was how we discovered it was actually a TWO lane road somehow. Good thing it just so happened to cross our path when we were pulled over—not sure how we would have both fit on that little tree lined road.
Eventually I got to thinking about all the settings my GPS is capable of… and then I realized why exactly we were on a dirt road with no street signs outside a 10 house village in the Czech Republic… because they use toll roads for pretty much everything. Awesome.
Haha, actually, it was a pretty fun mistake and I’m glad we did it. We’re actually probably going to continue taking as many scenic routes as possible while we’re traveling.
A fun day/evening of travel turned out to be pretty terrifying. We finally made it to Prague around 11pm and the address the hostel had provided us was incorrect, so we drove/walked around some sketchy part of Prague for half an hour looking for it. I even got out my laptop and looked for the hostel’s wireless to see if we could find it that way haha. We eventually find it, thanks to a few people walking their dogs in the middle of the night, and we park our car and go to the door. It’s locked, but they’re supposed to have 24 hour reception so we continue to ring the doorbell for quite some time. Finally, a girl comes out from behind a curtain and starts stumbling to the door. She is obviously completely wasted. She let’s us in and tells us we’re in room 8 and just to pay in the morning. She gives us the key and goes back behind the curtain.
The hallway is pitch dark and there isn’t a sound at all. We use James’ phone to light each of the doors to find our number. It’s on the very end of the hall. We open the door and walk in—still eerily silent considering we were supposed to be in a room with lots of other people—there are 4 single beds, none of which are occupied, and each couple of beds are pushed together. The place is just downright CREEPY. And then… we notice two brown hand prints halfway down the wall. They weren’t made by someone standing up, it appeared more like they were from someone falling down… and I can’t describe it as anything other than blood. That is what it was. I am sure of it. At this point, I was pretty terrified and James was really uneasy about the place too, but it was late and we decided to go get our luggage out of the car. We go to the door. She’d locked us in. (holy crap! I was beyond scared at this point). She’d disappeared behind the curtain again and I didn’t want to try and find her, so we tried to find another way out of the hostel. We found some open windows in the bathroom…but it was a 20 foot drop. The locked door was the only door to the entire place. Y’all—this place was something out of the Shining or some equally scary horror movie—it was decorated in ridiculously weird pictures of like sad puppies and old people. And I am almost certain that there was no one else staying there. We sat in our room for a minute and tried to figure out a game plan. We decided that staying there would end up in certain death for both of us, maybe torture too, so we went back to find the drunk receptionist. We rang the bell for a while before she stumbled out again, she seemed confused about why we wanted to leave—but she let us out and that’s all that mattered to me. I didn’t care if we slept in the car or something—we would have surely died if we stayed there.
So, we were in the shady part of Prague, in the middle of the night, with nowhere to stay.
That concludes this blog. Haha, sorry… I promise to finish telling our epic story as soon as the opportunity presents itself.
I hope you’re all doing very well and that your summers are just as adventure-filled as mine. I can’t wait to hear about them!
Your sister in Christ,
Mindy
Project ended about a week ago. We debriefed in Munich for about three days and I had to say my goodbyes to the best team of all time before they went to catch the train to the airport. I am so thankful that God chose each of us to do ministry together in Sweden. He did amazing things during that time, both in the Swedes and in us. He is truly moving there; He constantly put members of our team in the paths of hungry people, lead us to friendships and good conversation, but most importantly provided us opportunities to share the gospel with people who had never heard it before. No one accepted Christ as their Savior during our time there, but we know for certain that many are steps closer than they were. It’s amazing to me how quickly our love for these people grew, and I know that we will all continue praying for Sweden for the rest of our lives; I hope you’ll join us.
James came to pick me up in our Fiat a few minutes before my team left. I have to admit that I was worried about being stranded in Munich if he didn’t show up. I didn’t get a message saying he’d made his flight like we’d planned, and the internet in the hostel was bad so it was hard to look up his flight. I was pretty worried, but God took good care of him and brought him safely to the hostel in the nick of time. If anyone reading this knows James’ dad, you need to thank him for letting him take almost of month off of work so that he could fly to Europe and hang out with me. I don’t know where the heck I’d be right now without him.
We left from Munich to Heidelberg, another absolutely beautiful town in Germany that has a big castle and a really quaint “old town” . We just walked around and enjoyed the scenery for the most part. We explored the castle and a famous trail called “Philosopher’s Way” that supposedly has inspired many great minds in history. We didn’t get that inspired, mostly just lost, but it was really fun and just a relaxing day. Our hostel was run by a sweet family with a cute little boy, and we roomed with two Canadians (that made James very happy). I’m sad that we were only spent one night there, but the next day was a pretty big adventure.
So we left Heidleberg in the early afternoon, in hopes of getting to Prague around 6 or 7. That didn’t happen. That didn’t even come close to happening. I’m not really sure how to explain this without sounding like a complete idiot, but I’ll put my pride aside just this once so that you can fully enjoy this story. When I’m in South Carolina, I set my GPS to avoid toll roads because I live close to one and it always sends me that way. I forgot that this avoidance was in effect, so we set off toward the Czech Republic with an ETA of around 10pm (we weren’t sure why it was going to take so long, but we just blindly followed the GPS). So a couple of hours in to the trip, we’re in the CR on a dirt road that’s about a meter and a half wide, lined with trees and random little villages. We’d go about 6 or 7 kilometers before it would tell us to turn onto another completely ridiculous back road in the middle of NOWHERE.
We did, however, see some very interesting things:
-James is not a country boy, and thought the hay bales covered in white tarps were sheep and he got really excited.
-We were talking about how similar some of the fields with cows and barns were to the ones back in Carolina and I said “All they’re missing is a John Deere”… Low and behold we come across a John Deere store. In the middle of NO WHERE in the CR. Ridiculous.
-We saw a beautiful sunset, pulled over to take pictures…and a car came down the road in the opposite direction we’d be driving. That was how we discovered it was actually a TWO lane road somehow. Good thing it just so happened to cross our path when we were pulled over—not sure how we would have both fit on that little tree lined road.
Eventually I got to thinking about all the settings my GPS is capable of… and then I realized why exactly we were on a dirt road with no street signs outside a 10 house village in the Czech Republic… because they use toll roads for pretty much everything. Awesome.
Haha, actually, it was a pretty fun mistake and I’m glad we did it. We’re actually probably going to continue taking as many scenic routes as possible while we’re traveling.
A fun day/evening of travel turned out to be pretty terrifying. We finally made it to Prague around 11pm and the address the hostel had provided us was incorrect, so we drove/walked around some sketchy part of Prague for half an hour looking for it. I even got out my laptop and looked for the hostel’s wireless to see if we could find it that way haha. We eventually find it, thanks to a few people walking their dogs in the middle of the night, and we park our car and go to the door. It’s locked, but they’re supposed to have 24 hour reception so we continue to ring the doorbell for quite some time. Finally, a girl comes out from behind a curtain and starts stumbling to the door. She is obviously completely wasted. She let’s us in and tells us we’re in room 8 and just to pay in the morning. She gives us the key and goes back behind the curtain.
The hallway is pitch dark and there isn’t a sound at all. We use James’ phone to light each of the doors to find our number. It’s on the very end of the hall. We open the door and walk in—still eerily silent considering we were supposed to be in a room with lots of other people—there are 4 single beds, none of which are occupied, and each couple of beds are pushed together. The place is just downright CREEPY. And then… we notice two brown hand prints halfway down the wall. They weren’t made by someone standing up, it appeared more like they were from someone falling down… and I can’t describe it as anything other than blood. That is what it was. I am sure of it. At this point, I was pretty terrified and James was really uneasy about the place too, but it was late and we decided to go get our luggage out of the car. We go to the door. She’d locked us in. (holy crap! I was beyond scared at this point). She’d disappeared behind the curtain again and I didn’t want to try and find her, so we tried to find another way out of the hostel. We found some open windows in the bathroom…but it was a 20 foot drop. The locked door was the only door to the entire place. Y’all—this place was something out of the Shining or some equally scary horror movie—it was decorated in ridiculously weird pictures of like sad puppies and old people. And I am almost certain that there was no one else staying there. We sat in our room for a minute and tried to figure out a game plan. We decided that staying there would end up in certain death for both of us, maybe torture too, so we went back to find the drunk receptionist. We rang the bell for a while before she stumbled out again, she seemed confused about why we wanted to leave—but she let us out and that’s all that mattered to me. I didn’t care if we slept in the car or something—we would have surely died if we stayed there.
So, we were in the shady part of Prague, in the middle of the night, with nowhere to stay.
That concludes this blog. Haha, sorry… I promise to finish telling our epic story as soon as the opportunity presents itself.
I hope you’re all doing very well and that your summers are just as adventure-filled as mine. I can’t wait to hear about them!
Your sister in Christ,
Mindy
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Project Update and Stockholm
Hello again! Sorry it's been so long, things are busy here in Sweden. Last week was our first full week of ministry, and we were exhausted within the first couple of days. Lucky for us though, things were slower the last two days because Swedes were celebrating (ironically) Christ's Ascension Day. They actually sort of laugh when we ask about the holiday, because they know it's really ironic for a nation that doesn't believe God exists would still have a holiday like that. It's definitely not something that is centered around Christ anymore, and it breaks our hearts.
Ministry has been hard but good. Basically, Swedes are very different than most of the people you will run across in the Bible belt. No one is afraid to tell you, "There is no God" or "Nothing happens after we die, humans made God up as a coping mechanism." It's hard to hear that, but it's actually helpful that they don't claim to be Christians. At least they're being honest with themselves and with us. At home at USC, everyone will tell you that they're Christian, no matter how they live. Here, they know they aren't, but they don't want to be either. It has to be such a sad state to be in; I asked a girl that I met what she wanted out of her life since she thought her life was all that she had, and her answer was, "I just want to feel happy about what I did with my life. I'd like to be satisfied." There's a chance that we'll meet again for fika this coming week, and I hope that God will soon reveal to her that He's the only full satisfaction we can ever attain. Pray for her and several others I should be meeting with this week. Pray that God would give me the words to speak and the boldness to speak them. Also, we're still trying to meet as many students as we can, so pray that we would be lead to open ears and softened hearts, and that God might place someone in our path that would lead even more to Christ. We're looking for the woman at the well.
This picture is from a government building I believe, from the "old town" of Stockholm which was founded in the 1200s. It was so beautiful inside, but I got yelled at for taking pictures, so you won't get to see the exquisite hall that was behind those doors. Maybe someday if I'm ever a professional photographer they'll let me in? ...Eh, you might want to go check it out for yourself.
Stockholm was a great city though. We spent all of Saturday there, hitting up the Viking Museum, the 5 H&M's (yes, FIVE.), and a Pizza Hut with chandeliers...they do it differently in Sweden. I ate a pretzel from a vendor instead of Pizza Hut because I don't pay 80 crowns for bad pizza, no sir. My delicious pretzel was 20 crowns, and the only other purchase in Stockholm was a postcard. Daddy, you'd be so proud : ) Mom, not so much! haha.
But the best part of the trip was definitely the Absolut Ice Bar... it's made entirely of ice! Even the glasses we drank out of! It was really cool (dad pun!). We had a lot of fun in the huge eskimo parkas they gave us, posing with all the ice. I'll probably post pictures of that at some point. We didn't stay long, reservations are only for 40 minutes, and at first I thought that was kind of lame. But when you're in a room below freezing in sandals, you don't want to stay much longer. If you're ever in Stockholm and the Ice Hotel has already melted, hit up the Ice Bar. It's definitely the next best thing.
Today we went to Domkrykan, one of the oldest cathedrals in Europe, and worshiped with their congregation. It was entirely in Swedish, but I recognized "How Great Thou Art"...which made me feel more at home than a lot of churches at home that only sing the new, cool, hip praise songs. Nothing beats the old hymnals guys, sorry. Other than that, I didn't pick up on much of the service. Last week the church we attended had headsets with an English translator so I imagine we'll go back there next week. Hopefully a woman from Trinidad that I met last week will also come, she's been looking for a place to worship in English for awhile now and God just randomly dropped Amber and me right in her path one day last week. Her name is Ruth and she'll be studying here for 2 more years, so pray that she'll find a place in a church family here in Uppsala.
I hate to cut this short but it's very late here in Sweden, it's almost 2am so the sun will be rising here in about an hour and a half to two hours... (still haven't gotten used to that). Hopefully I can post some more over the next couple of days! Love and miss you all--Remember SVERIGE in your prayers : )
Mindy<><
Ministry has been hard but good. Basically, Swedes are very different than most of the people you will run across in the Bible belt. No one is afraid to tell you, "There is no God" or "Nothing happens after we die, humans made God up as a coping mechanism." It's hard to hear that, but it's actually helpful that they don't claim to be Christians. At least they're being honest with themselves and with us. At home at USC, everyone will tell you that they're Christian, no matter how they live. Here, they know they aren't, but they don't want to be either. It has to be such a sad state to be in; I asked a girl that I met what she wanted out of her life since she thought her life was all that she had, and her answer was, "I just want to feel happy about what I did with my life. I'd like to be satisfied." There's a chance that we'll meet again for fika this coming week, and I hope that God will soon reveal to her that He's the only full satisfaction we can ever attain. Pray for her and several others I should be meeting with this week. Pray that God would give me the words to speak and the boldness to speak them. Also, we're still trying to meet as many students as we can, so pray that we would be lead to open ears and softened hearts, and that God might place someone in our path that would lead even more to Christ. We're looking for the woman at the well.
This picture is from a government building I believe, from the "old town" of Stockholm which was founded in the 1200s. It was so beautiful inside, but I got yelled at for taking pictures, so you won't get to see the exquisite hall that was behind those doors. Maybe someday if I'm ever a professional photographer they'll let me in? ...Eh, you might want to go check it out for yourself.
Stockholm was a great city though. We spent all of Saturday there, hitting up the Viking Museum, the 5 H&M's (yes, FIVE.), and a Pizza Hut with chandeliers...they do it differently in Sweden. I ate a pretzel from a vendor instead of Pizza Hut because I don't pay 80 crowns for bad pizza, no sir. My delicious pretzel was 20 crowns, and the only other purchase in Stockholm was a postcard. Daddy, you'd be so proud : ) Mom, not so much! haha.
But the best part of the trip was definitely the Absolut Ice Bar... it's made entirely of ice! Even the glasses we drank out of! It was really cool (dad pun!). We had a lot of fun in the huge eskimo parkas they gave us, posing with all the ice. I'll probably post pictures of that at some point. We didn't stay long, reservations are only for 40 minutes, and at first I thought that was kind of lame. But when you're in a room below freezing in sandals, you don't want to stay much longer. If you're ever in Stockholm and the Ice Hotel has already melted, hit up the Ice Bar. It's definitely the next best thing.
Today we went to Domkrykan, one of the oldest cathedrals in Europe, and worshiped with their congregation. It was entirely in Swedish, but I recognized "How Great Thou Art"...which made me feel more at home than a lot of churches at home that only sing the new, cool, hip praise songs. Nothing beats the old hymnals guys, sorry. Other than that, I didn't pick up on much of the service. Last week the church we attended had headsets with an English translator so I imagine we'll go back there next week. Hopefully a woman from Trinidad that I met last week will also come, she's been looking for a place to worship in English for awhile now and God just randomly dropped Amber and me right in her path one day last week. Her name is Ruth and she'll be studying here for 2 more years, so pray that she'll find a place in a church family here in Uppsala.
I hate to cut this short but it's very late here in Sweden, it's almost 2am so the sun will be rising here in about an hour and a half to two hours... (still haven't gotten used to that). Hopefully I can post some more over the next couple of days! Love and miss you all--Remember SVERIGE in your prayers : )
Mindy<><
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Sverige!
Hello friends : )
Okay so I realize I'm starting this blog a little late, but honestly things have just been full speed ahead since I got to Greensboro on Sunday. I imagine the rest of Summer Project and my travels after will remain full speed ahead... so don't count on me updating this daily. Or weekly. Or ever again.
Getting here was a little intense. A little less than hour before our flight from DC to Munich was supposed to board, I realized my boarding pass/passport were nowhere in sight. We all proceeded to freak out. Treece and I were walking all over talking to different security guards while everyone else searched... no luck. But, just in time, ten minutes before boarding, Stephanie found it in a bag that both a staff member, another student, and I had already looked through. Ridiculous. But also awesome. After that little stumbling block--the wheels on my luggage broke. On both bags. I've been DRAGGING 90 lbs. everywhere we go haha. Changing to another hostel on the other side of town today--not fun. Definitely worked up a good sweat. Luckily the guys here are awesome and have been helping me out a lot. (Yes James, I actually let them help me, aren't you proud?...It took some convincing though. Actually they forced me.) I need to buy some new luggage before I travel around after project. (like my huge bag was going to fit in our little car anyway...)
Sweden is BEAUTIFUL! The air is clean, but a little chilly.... It's light outside ALL the time. The sun rises at 4am and sets somewhere around 9pm, but it'll get even worse before we leave. Everyone wears black all of the time and looks absolutely frigid. Honestly it seems more like their coldness comes from a lack of something meaningful in their lives, not the temperature. No one makes eye contact or smiles, and they look at you strangely if you do. However, if you strike up a conversation with someone, they're more than happy to talk to you (as long as you stay out of their bike lane!). I think they are very interested in the warm personalities of Americans. They don't realize that it's because we're Christians. They will though, they will : )
Please pray for the people here, they need the Lord so much. It's obvious that they are missing something here, no one makes deep relationships because they can't properly love. The first Swede I met, Adam, said that our conversation was the deepest he'd had in a month. Thinking back on all of the deep, deeeep conversations I have with my friends at home (T.coop goers--love y'all!)... I sympathized with him so much.
Pray for the Swedes, pray for Adam and the other students here in Uppsala, they need Christ. I think the best thing we can do for them this summer is just to show Christ's love to them as much as we can and also the joy that comes with it. Pray for our team that we'd be a solid example of the unified Body, that we be bold in spreading the gospel, and that God would soften the hearts of the Swedes. I've never seen harder soil than this.
I'd love to tell y'all more--about fikas and coffee, viking games, and my amazing project members...but time is limited.
BUT--hey--one more time. DO NOT CALL OR TEXT ME. FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING GOOD IN THE WORLD DO NOT TEXT ME! haha...but seriously, please? You guys are not listening. I keep getting texts inviting me to things... I can't fly home, so sorry... I also can't keep paying 50 cents per invite to do so. LOVE you guys...DYING to hear from you... just not via text. If you love me, e-mail me! hansel@mailbox.sc.edu
Mindy <><
P.S. Read Acts. It's tight.
Okay so I realize I'm starting this blog a little late, but honestly things have just been full speed ahead since I got to Greensboro on Sunday. I imagine the rest of Summer Project and my travels after will remain full speed ahead... so don't count on me updating this daily. Or weekly. Or ever again.
Getting here was a little intense. A little less than hour before our flight from DC to Munich was supposed to board, I realized my boarding pass/passport were nowhere in sight. We all proceeded to freak out. Treece and I were walking all over talking to different security guards while everyone else searched... no luck. But, just in time, ten minutes before boarding, Stephanie found it in a bag that both a staff member, another student, and I had already looked through. Ridiculous. But also awesome. After that little stumbling block--the wheels on my luggage broke. On both bags. I've been DRAGGING 90 lbs. everywhere we go haha. Changing to another hostel on the other side of town today--not fun. Definitely worked up a good sweat. Luckily the guys here are awesome and have been helping me out a lot. (Yes James, I actually let them help me, aren't you proud?...It took some convincing though. Actually they forced me.) I need to buy some new luggage before I travel around after project. (like my huge bag was going to fit in our little car anyway...)
Sweden is BEAUTIFUL! The air is clean, but a little chilly.... It's light outside ALL the time. The sun rises at 4am and sets somewhere around 9pm, but it'll get even worse before we leave. Everyone wears black all of the time and looks absolutely frigid. Honestly it seems more like their coldness comes from a lack of something meaningful in their lives, not the temperature. No one makes eye contact or smiles, and they look at you strangely if you do. However, if you strike up a conversation with someone, they're more than happy to talk to you (as long as you stay out of their bike lane!). I think they are very interested in the warm personalities of Americans. They don't realize that it's because we're Christians. They will though, they will : )
Please pray for the people here, they need the Lord so much. It's obvious that they are missing something here, no one makes deep relationships because they can't properly love. The first Swede I met, Adam, said that our conversation was the deepest he'd had in a month. Thinking back on all of the deep, deeeep conversations I have with my friends at home (T.coop goers--love y'all!)... I sympathized with him so much.
Pray for the Swedes, pray for Adam and the other students here in Uppsala, they need Christ. I think the best thing we can do for them this summer is just to show Christ's love to them as much as we can and also the joy that comes with it. Pray for our team that we'd be a solid example of the unified Body, that we be bold in spreading the gospel, and that God would soften the hearts of the Swedes. I've never seen harder soil than this.
I'd love to tell y'all more--about fikas and coffee, viking games, and my amazing project members...but time is limited.
BUT--hey--one more time. DO NOT CALL OR TEXT ME. FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING GOOD IN THE WORLD DO NOT TEXT ME! haha...but seriously, please? You guys are not listening. I keep getting texts inviting me to things... I can't fly home, so sorry... I also can't keep paying 50 cents per invite to do so. LOVE you guys...DYING to hear from you... just not via text. If you love me, e-mail me! hansel@mailbox.sc.edu
Mindy <><
P.S. Read Acts. It's tight.
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