bucket list

• Go back to Meteora
• Live in Vienna again
• Go back to the Vatican
• Go back to Nice and Barcelona with a significant other
• Climb a mountain
• Take another trip to Europe
• Backpack through Asia
• Get baptized
• Try blowfish
• Learn how to ride a bike
• Learn how to ride a motorcycle
• Learn how to drive a stick-shift
• Live in a Victorian house
• Own a dog
• Go skydiving
• Backpack/bike across the western US
• Go to Alaska
• Have a book/essay published
• Drive that one scary road in South America
• Go hiking in the Black Forrest
• Visit Chernobyl
• Get married
• Have a daughter
• Trace back my family tree
• Run/walk a marathon
• Go to Jerusalem and Mecca
• Have a garden
• Ride in a hot air balloon
• Visit Egypt 
• (14/11/2011) spend at least a year in service

Off to travel the world a bit more... see y'all in a week!
auf wiedersehen,
c.

a musing

I think it is very interesting that my recent trip to Auschwitz and especially Birkenau has made me feel closer to God… or to at least feel like I understand Him better. I think I might actually be mentally and emotionally built for the “grim acceptance” style of faith. I think so many people like to sugar coat God and how he acts, and they overlook the fact that he indirectly created all of the sorrow we deal with- that he allowed us to have free will, which has led to the existence of evil. That he continues to allow evil to exist. And I think that’s one of his greatest kindnesses that he gave us something to contrast with the absolute joy we can experience. Maybe that’s part of spiritual maturity… being able to see God’s greatness not only in love and nature and all of the good things in life, but in the horrors, too. It certainly requires a great deal of discipline to be able to do both equally. 

this is such a small part of my musings regarding the trip.

things that make me smile

1. Meine kleine Schwester. No seriously. A snippet of an earlier conversation with my baby sister (okay, she's 10 years old, but she'll always be my baby sister):

We went to Surin today. My tummy is happy :) CHEESE.
cheese?
I like cheese. WOOOOOHOOOOOO.

Oh my gosh, I love her. And not just because she shares my fondness of cheese... though that definitely has something to do with it. I mean y'all remember my Macaroni and Cheese craze over the summer, right? But yeah, anyways... I love how she is possibly the only person more ridiculously random than I am.

2. Purple pens.
3. Vienna in the rain :)
4. Men who are more organizational than I am.
5. Dubstep.

Das ist alles.

UPDATE: I just noticed that this is my 100th post! Woot!