Living in tokyo.

Monday, May 19, 2008

April 18th, 2008
We finally left Firenze after being in Tuscany for over two weeks. Some of you probably think we are crazy for not being out in sunny Toscana more. I'm sure you will think we are even crazier when I tell you our first trip outside of Florence isn't even in Tuscany. We decided to make our first trip out of Florence to Venice. I, of course, have a bad cold and shouldn't go at all. Everything in my body was telling me to stay home in bed. A sunny, warm day at least could have saved me a bit but NO we had to have a cold rainy day. And for some stupid reason I left the house in a short sleeve shirt. Yes, I was cold all day! I am brilliant. Sure hope I get smarter on my sabbatical! We decided to not to be too adventurous and take a tour through my school. We had a guide who actually guided us so we didn't have to think. That was nice for a change-not having to think. Maybe that was my problem. We met at the station at 8 am next to the McDonalds. Yes, FIRENZE has a McDonalds-in fact I have seen three of them. So what did Jonathan and I do? Of course, we had breakfast at the golden arches. (We had no food at home.) Kathy, an older woman on the tour and our friend from school, gave us a a bad time in very broken Italian. I was just happy to have some coffee. I wasn't feeling too well, I was already cold. I bought some more medicine at a pharmacy there before we left. Jumped on the train. My goal was to sleep but that was not to be as a very nice but talkative British woman talked the entire way. She was brilliant, interesting and lovely and all I wanted to say was SHUT UP!! We changed trains in Bologna. It's amazing just nonchalantly changing trains in such TERRIBLY famous places as towns that have food named after them. Again, tried to sleep-no such luck. Arrived in Venice. Ate lunch at a tacky cafeteria in the station. Had lasagne and Jonathan had a sandwitch. We finally get outside the station and our sweet, very relaxed Italian guide announces that the streets are liquid! How shocked we all were. (It's after 11 pm. I have to put myself to bed now. My cold will be gone tomorrow! My cold will be gone to tomorrow. My cold will be gone tomorrow!...)

Very nice looking newly weds! We thought of Wendela and Yuuirchiro

who were married that same day! CONGRATULATIONS!!

I get distracted sometimes and ignore the beautiful buildings when I see such beautiful...

This is not a James Bond movie. These three priests (?) were walking right toward me!

And how did I REALLY feel about the day?

AAAACHEWWWW!!!

Different faces of Santa Croce.

Two or three days ago the sky was completly dark but then the sun snuck out from behind a cloud and lit up Santa Croce. It was breathtaking. I didn't have my camera so I dashed upstairs as fast as I could. I grapped Jonathan and told him to come down and see. The first two shots are that. Literally two seconds after I took these shots the sun went back under a cloud.

Maybe two days ago I woke up caughing. (I have a bad sinus infection. I think it's fianlly getting better now! ) It was 5 am. I looked out the window which looks out on a beautiful inner court yard. The sky was as pink as I have ever seen the sky. Again, I dashed down with my camera. There was no pink in the sky what so ever. The courtyard faces the opposite direction. Anyway, it was great being completley alone on the square which usually has thousands of people on it at any given time. This is what my front yard looks like with nobody in it. I wish it were like that more often.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

April 21st -27th
As I said yesterday, we are in Amsterdam. Across the canal is a gorgeous church and right next to it are some of the prostitute rooms. Two groups of tourists have passed them taking pictures since sitting down here. I heard from a man working at our hotel that the mayor is trying to get rid of all these rooms.
After Taize we headed up to Holland. A friend of mine in Tokyo is from a small town called Noordweijkerhout. Her parents own a cute, little B&B there. The reason they have a B&B is because it is located right in the middle of millions and millions of tulips. It has always been my dream to see these fields in full bloom.
I was excited about being in Holland. What if my grandfather had never moved to the US? What would I be doing if I were Dutch? The Dutch language almost seems familiar to me which is strange as even my father doesn’t speak any Dutch. But for some reason I could understand quite a bit. There are similarities to Swedish I guess. Maybe Dutch will be my next language after Italian. The problem is the Dutch speak better English than Americans do so it’s hard to get motivated to learn it.
The first morning in Noordweijkerhout (I think it’s spelled that way.) we took a three hour walk around the tulip fields. On the left side was a canal that went on forever. Yellow flowers lined the canal the entire way. The variety of birds we saw was amazing. Ducks, swans, water chickens, and many more I can’t name. On the right side were the fields of tulips. We spent three days looking at TULIPS. Jonathan definitely got tuliped out! I could have still done some more however. Thanks to Ricy and Nic, Brejcht’s parents our stay there was beyond my expectations. THANK YOU!!!
Enjoy the tulips pictures!! This is about a 100th of what I took.
Now back to Amsterdam. The first day here I decided to go to the town of Delft. I wasn’t ready for a city yet so I went back out into the country. Jonathan stayed in town.
Delft was a cut little town with, guess what, lots of canals and bridges. The old and new church there was spectacular. I had to pay to get into both of them so I acutally only went into one of them.
I’m getting cold now. I’m going in to have breakfast.
Having breakfast now. There’s a TV in our hotel lobby and it’s a report on the world food crisis. Hard to believe that so many millions of people don’t have enough food to eat. They just interviewed a mother who doesn’t eat so she can send her kids to school. Here I sit with a complete breakfast buffet sipping my coffee. It’s hard to feel good about myself at the moment. What can I do? Eat less? Send money somewhere? Pray? It’s just not fair. Why do I deserve to have all I have? So many things to think about.

the town of Delft