it's crazy to think that we've been back a couple of weeks already. our transition home was pretty hectic with unpacking, a friend's wedding, jet lag, and the start of my new job. we continue to reflect on a lot of the things we saw and experienced. i think that we will try to adapt some of the things that we learned on our trip into our life in the states as much as we can, however, there are some things that, unfortunately, just don't translate. how can we slow down and enjoy "la dolce vita" when things in dc are so busy? how can we walk everywhere when there are no sidewalks? and where the HECK can i get a decent cup of coffee and a non-greasy croissant?
so times are bittersweet in the shiu household. our trip has made us view life here through a different lens. we were suprised when we realized that we miss so many of the european traditions that we had grown accusomed to. in the same way, it has been sweet to return to the familiar - home, henry, friends, church, and neighbors.
i have a 2 year contract at my new job, so we know that we will be in this area for at least that much time....but after that, who knows? i expect that this won't be the final resting place for the shius. there is still so much more to see! now if i could just find a good cup of coffee......
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
la vie en rose
bonjour from paris...our last stop on this adventure of a lifetime! paris is a beautiful city, and it has been bittersweet to wrap up our time here. interestingly enough, it has been raining about every day since we arrived....i think that europe is sad that we are leaving it! enough melancholy. let me catch you up on what we have been up to since our arrival.....
we are staying in the rue cler neighborhood on the rive gauche. it's a sweet little neighborhood with views of the eiffel tower peeking out from each street. since we are staying near the eiffel tower we have walked to the eiffel tower a lot. we have also spent some time just sitting in parks. these have been some of my favorite times. we've also done a bit of sightseeing of course: Notre Dame during mass, walking over the Pont Neuf into the Ile St. Louis, wandering through the Louvre, taking a night cruise on the Seine River, drinking lots of coffee and attempting to become "regulars" at a cafe....the list goes on. i won't bore you with all the details, but i will tell 2 funny stories before i go.....
story 1: this story takes place during one of my favorite times in a park. jonathan and i were in between things to do so we thought we would kill some time in a park. we went in, sat on a bench, and decided to watch the world go by. we watched some people walking through. we watched a black cat. we remarked at how cats always seem to go straight to jonathan who is highly allergic to cats. we remarked that the black cat that we were watching was walking right to jonathan. we started laughing. we started laughing harder when the cat walked up to jonathan's shoe. jonathan sat there with his arms crossed and tried to give the cat the evil eye. it backfired. the cat jumped up on the bench beside jonathan. i began searching my bag for tissues because i was laughing and crying. and then i turned around and the cat was on jonathan's lap. have you ever had one of those belly laughs that make you feel like you just took an hour abs class? well, yeah, that's how hard i laughed. the cat was on his lap for about 20 minutes until he got up. don't worry - we have pictures.
side note: i think that i know why they don't have coffee to go in europe. coffee is a part of life and life is something that you don't just rush through. for this reason i think that this is why the french excel at many things: fashion, cheese, wine, coffee, and cooking to name a few. these things are not to be done just to get it done, they are things to work on, enjoy, and perfect. just my little observation. and if you haven't noticed i really like paris. now onto story 2.....
story 2 doesn't involve a cat, but it does involve someting less intelligent than a cat. story 2: on a recommendation from my best friend and IU pal, Liza, we visited the Orsay Museum. the Orsay showcases art from pre-Impressionism to contemporary art. it's a great museum and much more managable than the Louvre so go if you get a chance. now i'm not a fan of impressionism, in fact, i think that it is a bit overdone. nevertheless, after spending so much time in this museum it was growing on me so jonathan and i stayed a while and decided to explore some of the other exhibits. my story starts while we were walking through an interesting exhibit on furniture and decorative arts from the art nouveau period. i was admiring a lovely wooden wardrobe with beautiful inlaid metalwork in the shape of leaves. the "leaves" were in the wood as well as springing out of the wood making it look almost organic. it was lovely. apparently the man beside us also thought it was lovely because he walked straight up to the wardrobe, past the roped off section and started boinging the metal leaves! i'm not joking! it was amazing that they didn't disengage from the wood and fall off. why did this retard do this? i don't know. to make sure that they were metal i guess??? it was unbelievable. i had to tell him that you aren't supposed to TOUCH the art, only to LOOK at it. he looked me up and down like i was the crazy one and then moved on to the next room. i couldn't follow him. it was unreal. who are these people!?!?!
despite crazy-art-molester-guy we have had a nice time in paris. paris is a great city. but paris is a city and yet it is not. maybe it's all the tree lined streets. maybe it feels smaller because everything shuts down from noon until threeish for lunch. maybe it feels more like home because there are tons of parks, dogs walk off leash following their master, people sit in long lines along the sidewalk sipping their coffee and watching the world go by. the metro here is exceptionally clean, and, if you're lucky, your car will have someone playing "la vie en rose" on the accordian or the violin. i know that it's probably something cheesy that they do for the tourists, but i don't think i would ever get sick of it.
actually, we have had a nice time everywhere. each place has been fun to explore and get to know. each place has helped us to better know ourselves. and we have learned so much about each other on this trip as well. we've talked about what we love (the language, the history, the food); we've talked about what we will miss (the walking, the coffee. the adventure); we've talked about what we're looking forward to when we get home (henry, my closet, peanut butter.....and seeing friends and family of course!). still, i'm in denial that we leave tomorrow. i haven't told jonathan yet, but i might have to fake a GI illness so that we "accidentally" miss our flight (shhhhhhhh). let the fake stomach gurgling begin!......until then.....a bientot......and thanks for following along with us.
sara(&jonathan)
we are staying in the rue cler neighborhood on the rive gauche. it's a sweet little neighborhood with views of the eiffel tower peeking out from each street. since we are staying near the eiffel tower we have walked to the eiffel tower a lot. we have also spent some time just sitting in parks. these have been some of my favorite times. we've also done a bit of sightseeing of course: Notre Dame during mass, walking over the Pont Neuf into the Ile St. Louis, wandering through the Louvre, taking a night cruise on the Seine River, drinking lots of coffee and attempting to become "regulars" at a cafe....the list goes on. i won't bore you with all the details, but i will tell 2 funny stories before i go.....
story 1: this story takes place during one of my favorite times in a park. jonathan and i were in between things to do so we thought we would kill some time in a park. we went in, sat on a bench, and decided to watch the world go by. we watched some people walking through. we watched a black cat. we remarked at how cats always seem to go straight to jonathan who is highly allergic to cats. we remarked that the black cat that we were watching was walking right to jonathan. we started laughing. we started laughing harder when the cat walked up to jonathan's shoe. jonathan sat there with his arms crossed and tried to give the cat the evil eye. it backfired. the cat jumped up on the bench beside jonathan. i began searching my bag for tissues because i was laughing and crying. and then i turned around and the cat was on jonathan's lap. have you ever had one of those belly laughs that make you feel like you just took an hour abs class? well, yeah, that's how hard i laughed. the cat was on his lap for about 20 minutes until he got up. don't worry - we have pictures.
side note: i think that i know why they don't have coffee to go in europe. coffee is a part of life and life is something that you don't just rush through. for this reason i think that this is why the french excel at many things: fashion, cheese, wine, coffee, and cooking to name a few. these things are not to be done just to get it done, they are things to work on, enjoy, and perfect. just my little observation. and if you haven't noticed i really like paris. now onto story 2.....
story 2 doesn't involve a cat, but it does involve someting less intelligent than a cat. story 2: on a recommendation from my best friend and IU pal, Liza, we visited the Orsay Museum. the Orsay showcases art from pre-Impressionism to contemporary art. it's a great museum and much more managable than the Louvre so go if you get a chance. now i'm not a fan of impressionism, in fact, i think that it is a bit overdone. nevertheless, after spending so much time in this museum it was growing on me so jonathan and i stayed a while and decided to explore some of the other exhibits. my story starts while we were walking through an interesting exhibit on furniture and decorative arts from the art nouveau period. i was admiring a lovely wooden wardrobe with beautiful inlaid metalwork in the shape of leaves. the "leaves" were in the wood as well as springing out of the wood making it look almost organic. it was lovely. apparently the man beside us also thought it was lovely because he walked straight up to the wardrobe, past the roped off section and started boinging the metal leaves! i'm not joking! it was amazing that they didn't disengage from the wood and fall off. why did this retard do this? i don't know. to make sure that they were metal i guess??? it was unbelievable. i had to tell him that you aren't supposed to TOUCH the art, only to LOOK at it. he looked me up and down like i was the crazy one and then moved on to the next room. i couldn't follow him. it was unreal. who are these people!?!?!
despite crazy-art-molester-guy we have had a nice time in paris. paris is a great city. but paris is a city and yet it is not. maybe it's all the tree lined streets. maybe it feels smaller because everything shuts down from noon until threeish for lunch. maybe it feels more like home because there are tons of parks, dogs walk off leash following their master, people sit in long lines along the sidewalk sipping their coffee and watching the world go by. the metro here is exceptionally clean, and, if you're lucky, your car will have someone playing "la vie en rose" on the accordian or the violin. i know that it's probably something cheesy that they do for the tourists, but i don't think i would ever get sick of it.
actually, we have had a nice time everywhere. each place has been fun to explore and get to know. each place has helped us to better know ourselves. and we have learned so much about each other on this trip as well. we've talked about what we love (the language, the history, the food); we've talked about what we will miss (the walking, the coffee. the adventure); we've talked about what we're looking forward to when we get home (henry, my closet, peanut butter.....and seeing friends and family of course!). still, i'm in denial that we leave tomorrow. i haven't told jonathan yet, but i might have to fake a GI illness so that we "accidentally" miss our flight (shhhhhhhh). let the fake stomach gurgling begin!......until then.....a bientot......and thanks for following along with us.
sara(&jonathan)
Expecto Patronum!
It has been a while since you all last heard from me. Sara's been doing the heavy lifting on the posts lately, but for those of you who were concerned about my absence, Sara has not left me behind in some small town in Italy.... I am in fact still a part of this trip.So... after our few days in Taize, we left for a day and a half in Beaune. Beaune is in the Burgandy region of France, famous for its wines, Dijon mustard, and some regional dishes. Once again God provided us with the perfect little place for our time in town. One day ahead we called a number of different places that did not have rooms available, but I think both Sara and I were glad that we ended up where we did. For starters, as we pulled up to the little bed and breakfast, we were greeted by Oscar, the owners' giant black lab. Like I said, Oscar is one big dog, with a HUGE noggin. He was, however, friendly and even hung out with us as we sat outside and read our various installments of the Harry Potter series that we were working on.
ASIDE: Our friend Megan gave us a copy of the first Harry Potter book for trip, as Sara had not read any of the books and wasn't sure what the big deal was. Well... she's a believer now. We have had to find bookstores that sell English books all across Europe so that we could buy each of the books in the series as Sara finished the previous book.
So... back to Beaune. It was another quaint town with a lot of old stone buildings, narrow streets, and a lot of little shops and cafe's. A perfect place to kick back and relax a little bit before hitting up our last stop in Paris. The first night we sampled some of the regional specialties for dinner... I had beef bourguinon (beef simmered for hours in red wine with mushrooms and onions) and Sara had the coq au vin (chicken stewed in red wine). Both of our tummies were very happy after dinner. I have to admit, that my tummy has been happy very often throughout our trip. I think my bike trip across America a few years ago made me realize how much I appreciate food, and this trip has only confirmed those findings.
Our one full day in Beune was spent perusing the various shops. Sara found a nice tea set which we purchased. In the late afternoon, we decided to sample some of the wine the region is so famous for, so we went to a wine bar for a pre-dinner drink. I had no idea about anything they offered, but just chose a white wine because of the name. Well... the owner could not have supported my decision any more enthusiastically. He gushed about what a great little wine it was. I freely admit that I know nothing about wine, but apparently I have a spidey sense about these things.
After the wine bar, we headed back to our room to rest a little while before dinner. Well... Sara got to 'the point of no return' in the final Harry Potter book and had to finish it off that evening. Sara gets emotional sometimes, and after finishing the book, she was a puffy mess. The same thing had happened after she finished the previous book. After she had a good cry, she informed me that she was too emotionally drained to go out, so she sent me out into the rain in search of dinner for us. Being a good hunter gatherer, I wisely chose a Chinese restaurant just down the street from our hotel. Beyond hello, good-bye, and thank you... i'm pretty lost when it comes to French. But with my newly rediscovered Chinese language skills, I was able to get dinner ordered without incident. We enjoyed the delicious food and called it a night.
Arriving in Paris... sadness... we had to say a tearful goodbye to our faithful guide 'Penny' (our GPS) and 'Flash' (our car and home for the last six weeks). Sara is working on our Paris update as I write this, so I'll let her catch you up on the rest of our Paris stay.
Monday, October 1, 2007
oh, the farmer and the cowman can be friends
hello friends! sara here to update you on our travels....probably our last update before we return :(
as i said in our last post, we left chamonix for taize, france. i had heard of taize from my kairos days (for those of you who don't know, kairos is a young adult group affiliated with The Falls Church). one of the old kairos guys, Bill Haley, had mentioned Taize as a place he went as a new priest to hone in on some key spiritual disciplines such as prayer, meditation, and silence. so with that information we set out to be transformed.....
taize has mostly catholic origins, but we met people that were from all christian faith backgrounds...and we all got along! taize is run by brothers (kind of like monks) who are committed to silence, prayer, and common work. they are also committed to social justice and serving the poor. they don't take any donations or money and even their inheritances are given to the poor. these guys know how to depend on God for everything. i know that i am not doing this community justice so if you want to know more, check out their website at www.taize.fr. then you can click to read about their site in english.
basically, we spent 2 days at taize taking in 3 church services each day, participating in teaching and small groups. the church services were more like prayer times - there was singing of many songs in many languages (latin, german, french, english and one in russian that i just listened to) as well as a long time dedicated to prayer. each day they would read the same scripture and a psalm in about 4 languages. sometimes the brothers would interject with prayers in their own languages - polish, spanish, italian, russian, chinese, etc. i can't begin to describe how special it was to be among believers of all nationalities. to me, it was a reminder of how big God is (and that He doesn't only speak english!). i also appreciated the songs because they were simple songs where you repeated the same words over and over. it really allowed for some great time to think about certain aspects of God....and it was a challenge to have 3 services a day with a lot of time devoted to prayer. the last service of the day was longer and afterwards they asked for silence until the morning service. i was really struck by how much you can HEAR when you take the time to be silent. it is definitely a discipline that we lack as busy americans.
in between the services there was time for a teaching as well as small groups. the teaching time was done by one of the brothers in 2 languages simultaneously! there was a large german group there during the week that we went so there was translation in german and english, but all around us we could hear people translating into other languages. after the teaching we met in small groups - we were in a group with 2 catholic germans who worked for the church, 1 italian who lived in croatia, 1 guy from belgium, 1 protestant german, and 1 canadian who worked for WorldVision of all places (it's base is in DC). we had some rich sharing and it struck me that we have such differences in how and where we may live, but we share many similarities because of our shared bond in Christ.
taize was a special place. we were struck by so many things that would make this blog entry way longer than it already is. but to take some time out to focus on God; to meet with him through silence and prayer; to meditate on aspects of his character through simple songs; and to share in the community of believers was such a gift. i hope to visit again someday....check it out if you can. next stop: beaune, france and the cote d'or - REAL wine country! until then...
as i said in our last post, we left chamonix for taize, france. i had heard of taize from my kairos days (for those of you who don't know, kairos is a young adult group affiliated with The Falls Church). one of the old kairos guys, Bill Haley, had mentioned Taize as a place he went as a new priest to hone in on some key spiritual disciplines such as prayer, meditation, and silence. so with that information we set out to be transformed.....
taize has mostly catholic origins, but we met people that were from all christian faith backgrounds...and we all got along! taize is run by brothers (kind of like monks) who are committed to silence, prayer, and common work. they are also committed to social justice and serving the poor. they don't take any donations or money and even their inheritances are given to the poor. these guys know how to depend on God for everything. i know that i am not doing this community justice so if you want to know more, check out their website at www.taize.fr. then you can click to read about their site in english.
basically, we spent 2 days at taize taking in 3 church services each day, participating in teaching and small groups. the church services were more like prayer times - there was singing of many songs in many languages (latin, german, french, english and one in russian that i just listened to) as well as a long time dedicated to prayer. each day they would read the same scripture and a psalm in about 4 languages. sometimes the brothers would interject with prayers in their own languages - polish, spanish, italian, russian, chinese, etc. i can't begin to describe how special it was to be among believers of all nationalities. to me, it was a reminder of how big God is (and that He doesn't only speak english!). i also appreciated the songs because they were simple songs where you repeated the same words over and over. it really allowed for some great time to think about certain aspects of God....and it was a challenge to have 3 services a day with a lot of time devoted to prayer. the last service of the day was longer and afterwards they asked for silence until the morning service. i was really struck by how much you can HEAR when you take the time to be silent. it is definitely a discipline that we lack as busy americans.
in between the services there was time for a teaching as well as small groups. the teaching time was done by one of the brothers in 2 languages simultaneously! there was a large german group there during the week that we went so there was translation in german and english, but all around us we could hear people translating into other languages. after the teaching we met in small groups - we were in a group with 2 catholic germans who worked for the church, 1 italian who lived in croatia, 1 guy from belgium, 1 protestant german, and 1 canadian who worked for WorldVision of all places (it's base is in DC). we had some rich sharing and it struck me that we have such differences in how and where we may live, but we share many similarities because of our shared bond in Christ.
taize was a special place. we were struck by so many things that would make this blog entry way longer than it already is. but to take some time out to focus on God; to meet with him through silence and prayer; to meditate on aspects of his character through simple songs; and to share in the community of believers was such a gift. i hope to visit again someday....check it out if you can. next stop: beaune, france and the cote d'or - REAL wine country! until then...
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