All 'magical' things must come to an end...

Yesterday was it.  The day our Premium Disney Annual Passes expired.  It was one of the most wonderful gifts anyone has ever given me.  And did we ever enjoy them!  I wish I had thought to keep track of how many times we went to Disney, sometimes for a whole day, other times just for a couple of hours.  We probably saved enough in parking fees each month to pay for the passes themselves.  We saw the parks decorated through the seasons, got photos and autographs, and developed systems for attacking our favorite attractions.  Yes, Disney passes, you will be missed.  Today, I thought I'd include a few photos from some of our memorable Disney trips over the past year.

Day 1!  Our first passes.  I've had one new one since then... Zach's had too many to count.

Our first trip.  A child's "Mickey" ice cream cone on Main Street in Magic Kingdom

My favorite Disney dessert.  "No Way Jose" at Beaches 'n' Cream (Disney's Beach Club Resort)

I had never been to a Disney water park before this year.  It turned out to be one of our favorite things to do.

My favorite time of year and some of my favorite people.  Can't beat it.

Marching with Pluto, nbd.  This is one of Zach's favorites.

with "The Big Cheese" himself on my birthday

Z with his birthday pin

Panda Watch!  Epcot Flower and Garden Festival

Sharing our Disney joy with Zach's fam

Turning to the dark side at Star Wars Weekends

Two words: Dole. Whip.

Our final trip.  August 14, 2011.  It's been a great year, Walt.  Thanks!

And thank you for reminiscing with me. :)

-Lindsay

Raise your hand if you have more than one towel.

I see you there.  Judging me for being such a terrible blogger.  It's been a long time... and I really don't have a good reason for being so quiet lately.  Just lack of discipline.  And I think I need to start writing down my blog ideas.  I always seem to have them when I can't sit down to write, and then when I have the time I often feel like the inspiration is lost.

Not today, though.  I spent the weekend helping my handsome boyfriend move 90 miles away from me.  It's bittersweet.  I miss him already (mostly because he won't text me back), but I'm proud and excited for him because of this new beginning.  Helping Zach embark on a new chapter in his life brought to mind so many things that he'll get to experience in his own "grown life."

One of those things... is owning towels.

About a week ago, Zach and I walked around the mall just browsing...making little wish lists for his new place.  Suddenly it occurred to me.  Zach had pots and pans, he had furniture for his bedroom, but he had never ever had to furnish a bathroom.  The boy didn't own a single towel.

"Maybe my mom will let me take one of hers," he suggested.  Ridiculous.  A ridiculous suggestion.  We had just spent the better part of an afternoon trying to convince her that neither one of us had stolen one of her bathroom towels.  Now he thinks he can make off with one?  Insanity.

I told him to ask his new roommate, with whom he would be sharing a bathroom, if he had anything.  Shower curtain?  Plunger?  Toothbrush holder? 

Between the two of them they had "a curtain that's 'greyish' and....a towel."  A towel?  What do you do when said towel is dirty?  Please tell me you clean the towel.  And what if someone stays over?  Do they have to drip dry?  Ohhh...boys. ::shakes head::

As luck would have it, Zach didn't remember to purchase his own towel before heading over.  After a hard day of heavy lifting and long drives, he really wished he could take a shower.  The curtain wasn't unpacked yet either.  I distinctly remember saying, "pack things last that you know you'll have to use right away.  Like toilet paper and anything for a shower."

But that's what the grown life is all about, really.  Learning for yourself which things make a home.  I remember the time I didn't think about a plunger 'til I needed one... definitely NOT going to blog in detail about that (you're welcome).  Some pickles you just need to get out of on your own.  You'll be pleased to know, reader, that Zach now owns TWO towels and two washcloths.  They're 'greyish' to match his roommate's shower curtain...which is horribly wrinkled...but that's another story.

-Lindsay

Learning to wait...

D'you know how it seems like you have to keep learning the same lessons over and over again in life with different surroundings and circumstances?

That's what's happening for me now.  I've always known that waiting for things is a weakness of mine.  For as long as I can remember, I've been trying to figure out my birthday or Christmas presents.  This was generally pretty easy because my mom usually hid them in my big brother's closet. 

Zach knew this about me without me ever having to tell him.  He just gets me.  That's why he hid the necklace he bought me for our first anniversary at his office instead of his home.  He knew I'd start turning the place over 'til I found it.

So we can all agree that I've always been impatient.  There was a time in my life a few years ago that I took a hard lesson about waiting on God.  Well, actually I learned a lot of lessons all at once, but one of the most painful was the lesson of waiting.

Back then, I didn't know for what I was waiting.  I thought I knew.  We always think we know.  I tried to convince God that I was being patient for what I wanted, when inwardly I was throwing temper tantrums.  Eventually, my desire for what I thought I wanted faded.  That's what happens sometimes.

So now I find myself impatiently tapping my foot at God again.  I want so many things.  I want to be married (or even engaged).  I want a "big girl" job.  I want to move on to something new.  I feel that I'm finished with this part of my life and my heart has already run away but my body's still enslaved here.

If we're not careful, during these times, we can push our desires through.  We can try so hard to make things happen for ourselves that eventually they do... but they were never really supposed to.  Dr. Mark Rutland (a personal hero of mine) spoke about that very thing yesterday at church and I knew I had to check myself before I wrecked myself.  I don't want to push my desires through and ignore the plan of God.  The consequences would be disasterous.  I just need to wait.  I just need to wait... and stop trying to find my presents in my brother's closet. 

You'd expect this kind of revelation to bum me out a bit, but it didn't.  Instead, I felt sort of renewed.  Knowing that I'm supposed to be here, at least for now, makes me want to be the best that I can be.  Sure... I'm just a glorified assistant and mid-day host.  But I can (and should) be great at it, right?  I must wait... but I can wait with excellence.

Join me.

-Lindsay

Czechin' out the Jewish Quarter

I told myself today that I have to write a blog.  I've been so inconsistent lately!  Truth be told, work has been busy and I've been...well...working.  But with a few minutes here while I eat my lunch, I'll tell you about one of my favorite places in Prague - The Jewish Quarter.

The Jewish Quarter, also called Josefov, is the oldest part of Prague.  As soon as you get there, you know it.  The buildings have Hebrew written on them and beautiful stars of David worked into the architecture.  There are 5 or 6 tourist sites to see in this part of town.  The Jewish people used to be confined to this small area of Prague.  They weren't allowed to live or work anywhere else.  Nowadays, the synagogues have been turned into museums.  One of them has been painted with the names of thousands of Jewish people who lived in the ghetto there.  Others hold treasures and items used in rituals.  Most of them don't allow photography inside.



A star of David on a wrought-iron fence around one of the Synagogues



Men are required to cover their heads inside...

 Probably the most interesting site to see in the Jewish Quarter is the cemetary.  Back when the Jews were confined to the area, they were only alotted a very small piece of land to bury their dead.  In Jewish law, the dead must receive a proper burial.  Cremation is forbidden.  With so many people living in such a small part of the town, people often died from disease... and with such a small plot of land set aside for burial, it was pretty crowded.  When there was no more room to dig, they began to bury people on top of each other.  The result is a hill, covered in grave stones, with an estimated 150,000 people laid to rest.

Just a small portion of the grave stones.  Clearly, there's not room enough for all of them to be represented this way.

So that was a neat little trip for an afternoon.  As a Christian, I've always been fascinated with Jewish culture.  I bought a little gift from one of the vendors here for my best friend, but I won't tell you what that is because I know she'll read this. :)

-Lindsay

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Eighteen.

What is... the number of public transportation vehicles we took to get to Prague?  *Ding ding ding ding!*

After packing and repacking our items many times for this trip, (is it a checked bag or a carry on?  We don't know!) the time had finally come to call it a night on Friday, the 17th.  Sleeping is always difficult the night before a big trip.  It's like waiting for Christmas to come.  You know if you can just shut your eyes and make sleep come, it will feel like an instant, but your mind is running a mile a minute.

We had no idea what time we were supposed to leave in the morning so that made getting ready a little bit tough, but eventually we were on our way.  Not counting our car ride to the airport, we were about to embark on our first of 18 public transportation vehicles on this trip to Prague.

1)  The airport employee shuttle
2)  The tram to our terminal
3)  Our plane to Newark, NJ
4-5)  The EWR "Airtrain" or as I like to call it "Epic Fail"
6) The train from EWR to Penn Station
7-8)  New York Subway to China Town
9-10) Various New York Subway lines to Times Square
11)  The train from Penn Station to EWR
12-13)  Air-Train-Epic-Fail
14)  The bus that had to come get us when Airtrain failed for real
15)  Our plane to Munich!
16)  Bus from Munich airport to Train station
17)  Train from Munich to Regensburg
18)  Train from Regensburg to Prague

I may have a few of those jumbled but at this point... who even knows?  I became an expert in public transportation in a short 48 hours.  The key is to anticipate your stops and have all your stuff together.  Let the people off first before you try to shove your way on... and basically, just be nice. 

After being shuffled around that many times, you get kind of a nomad mentality.  Nothing belongs to you.  No space is your own.  Sitting in a seat is a luxury, not an expectation.  It's good for the soul, I think.  Being herded like cattle helps you stay grounded.  Below, you'll find some photos of us on our way to Prague on various planes, trains and automobiles!

Zach taking a snooze on the way to New York from Newark

"Where are we supposed to be going?" - a common question.  Shown here, in the New York Subway System

Jessica and I, crammed like sardines in the Airtrain-fail-death

Some guy who looks like Morgan Freeman waiting for a bus with us

Happily on our plane to Munich.  Zach took a downgrade from Business Class to Coach to ride with me.

-Lindsay

How can I blog about Prague?

(hey that rhymed!)

Aside from the really humorous and wonderful blog post my best friend, Adora Mae, wrote yesterday, you may have noticed that this blog has been pretty quiet lately.  There's a reason for that.

I was gone on vacation for 10 days... which would normally be a perfectly legitimate excuse for the silence.  Normally.  Except that now I've been back for a week and a half and I still have yet to formulate one decent sentence.

I just feel like a vacation that long, with so much to see and so much to think about can't possibly be condensed into a blog post.  I mentioned this to Adora and she told me that I should make the next few blogs about Prague.  That way, I'll feel like I can sufficiently communicate all that we did and all that we saw.  So get excited, reader(s).  You're about to embark on Lindsay's Trip to the Czech Republic.

With any luck, I can make Zach upload his photos too so that I have something decent to show you.

Here I am overlooking the city of Prague from the Castle Quarter.

-Lindsay

Stealing

Okay, maybe not stealing stealing. A few weeks ago I found myself sitting bored and alone in a bookstore, so when I came across a copy of Sylvia Plath’s ‘The Bell Jar’ I took the opportunity to crack it open. It’s been almost 10 years since I read that book and even longer since I really enjoyed reading. I remember that this was one of my favorite books my Freshman year in High School, but I couldn’t have even told you the plot, it had just been too long. Anyway, I make my way through the first two chapters during that visit to the bookstore, but alas that book was about $15 and I had (read: still have) about $2 to my name, so I put the book down and moved on.

A few days later, bored again (this is a consistent pattern in my life) and without any plans again, I found myself at the bookstore, reading through the next few chapters sipping a diet root beer. (side note: most of my delight in diet root beer from the bookstore comes from that fact that it comes in brown glass bottles and middle schoolers there always think I’m drinking beer & ask me about it.)

This continued for about a week and a half, if I didn’t have plans I found myself and Barnes & Nobel, scoping out a comfy chair, grabbing the book and diet root beer and just reading for a few hours. Cut to Sunday night, when I am at it again and then suddenly, I was done. I finished the whole book all in the bookstore, without ever having an intention of buying it.

I try and reassure myself, saying that I must have spent $15 on diet root beer during my time spent at B&N, but the truth is… I straight up stole that book, a chapter or two at a time. Anyway, sorry Sylvia Plath, if you hadn’t stuck your head in an oven, I would send you the $15 when I get paid on Friday.

P.S. If you ever want to feel COMPLETELY sane by comparison, read this book. The narrator is going crazy; you will never feel more sure of your sanity then when you are hearing the first person account of someone who is totally losing it. That is all.

-Adora