I have drunk excessive amounts of tea due to my cousin being Brittishly fond of tea and I will be at Taize for a week so don't worry if I don't blog

me and my cousin

I spent a night in Genève, with a lady from Church for the nations. Walked down the street wondering where to go, and saw the sign for a Church, met a man who had the key for it and gave me tea and bread, joined there Wednesday evening service and got a place to stay for the night.

At one in the afternoon I went to the train station to catch a train to Lyon to meet my cousin at 16:30. The train was wickedly expensive so I ended up going ot the airport, getting a lift with a woman from the parking house exit, and arriving 5 km from my cousins house in the middle of nowhere, an hour from Lyon, after getting 6 more lifts with other people.

The first bit of catching up with my cousin was done on the phone.
Me: Just don't worry about me, I will be fine, and you needen't go past the train station and pick me up. Just give me your address, and I'll get there.
Sarah: You won't, it's not even a village, it's in the middle of nowhere, and I really don't want to pick you up at night from God knows where!
Me: I'm telling you, I will be fine. This is how I travel, OK?
Sarah: Well, I have four kids in the car, and I am alone tonight, and I really don't want to pick you up late at night!!!

Anyways, had she trusted my word for it, she hadn't needed to worry. God always provides a place to sleep or a way to get there. I called her 45 minutes after she got back from Lyon, and told her I was 5 km from her home... She was mightily impressed, and we had a very good laugh at our conversation on the phone. At least we covered a lot of information in just two sentences... "This is how I travel" and "I have four kids"...

Taize on Sunday.

soccer match

Oh, yeah, the soccer match. I was really looking forward to the cultural event of actually seeing my first soccer match live. OK, maybe not the huge arena kind of soccer matches (if you are a soccer fan and haven´t heard of Cazis/Thusis vs. Bühler, don´t worry too much about it), but still, it was a soccer match. My excitement lasted, well not quite, to the first goal.It was actually scored while I was getting money out of the car to buy myself a hotdog. The second goal came as I deep in thought was plowing through the book I found msyelf reading on a bench in the sunshine... it was a very cultural event, and I am glad to say I really enjoy reading books to the cheering of a soccer fan crowd.

a thought

The other day I had an American, overhearing me speaking english with someone, think I was from the States. That is the best compliment I have ever recieved for my English skills, but maybe not my character...

(and that of course, is a joke, for anyone who missed out)

lonely pilgrim (still at Monika´s house)

My heart is so broken.

I know it is really late at night and I have just finished reading one of those books that leaves you emotionally wrecked and in tears, as always, but I wouldn´t be justified in blaming it all on that. I believe my heart is broken. And, as many wise friends of mine would say, that is a good state to be in, though I myself would gladely exchange the current amount of tears running down my cheeks for a cheerier state of mind.

I know I am hiding behind long sentenced with an icy touch to them, hiding behind sentence strucures as usual. But really, I am writing this hoping that a friend or two will be reading. There, that set those tears off again.

I am so lonely. I have friends all over the world, more friends than I can count, not trying to brag in any way, just meaning that where ever I go there are new friends to meet and love. But every time I meet a friend, it is just to be torn away again, leaving a heartbreaking longing in my heart. I have been torn away from so many good friends, have moved away so many times, in so few years, that it feels like I´m standing on a remote island, waving to everyone I love at a far away distance. Yes, I am fully aware of many deep reasons for my life looking the way it does, none of which I mean to elaborate on now, some of which are for my own good by God´s device, some of which could be different but are being used by God being as they are the way they are.

But the fact remains, that I live in an everyday life where I do not have close friends joining me daily or at least weekly. Screw it, all the wrong people will be reading this and getting all worried about me, but what the heck, everyone knows I have my days of being a wreck so who cares. I can´t be the only one bawling my eyes out because I don´t have my friends around me at all times. I´m hurt. I´m really, really hurt, and I really wish I could be on this journey through life with someone, someone who would be here and not currently in Stockholm or Calgary or Vancouver or Africa for that matter, or in any other of those far away places life and God has chosen to place the people I love...

I guess I just had to write to get these tears to stop for a momet. Nuff self pity, eh? ´kay, sleep time, huh? Yup. Clock strikes 2 am.

getting hooked on the catholic way

I have added a verse to Alanis Morissette's song:

what it all comes down to
is that everything's gonna be fine fine fine
I've got one hand in my pocket
and the other one's doing the cross sign

I love these nunnes. They are loving, passionate about Christ, and they risk their health and lives in helping people all across the world. I am blessed with meeting these Christians from all across the world and from different denominations.

I will go back to St Gallen with Monika. We are going to a football match (soccer)and then I will stay with her.

Oh, yeah, the song has a dance to go with it if you feel like adding motions...

my heart has turned pilgrim

Good things about Switzerland:

1.
The gardens. Absoultely amazing gardens. So many flowers; every window has baskets of different coloured flowers hanging in beautiful constallations down the sides of the walls...

2.
Wanderweg. Incorrectly translated Wonder way because it is so amazing. 10500 km of marked out trail, telling you how long it will take you to get from one place to another, and so well marked out you can't get lost. Perfect for people travelling alone without maps!

3.
Patient cows. The Swiss cows constantly have miniature Church bells ding-doning under their ears. I would run my head into a wall. Luckily these cows don't, which allows us pilgrims to listen to constant music.

4.
Fabulous farms. Feels like coming back in time. Wanderweg goes straight through peoples farms and gardens, and is full of old fashioned farms with ducks and hens and cows and sheep, and everything very cottage like and nearly medieval seeming.

5.
Walnut trees. If you ever have sat at the top of a high hill overlooking a Swiss river, and gazing out over forests and alps, eating fresh walnuts, you will know what I mean. If not: try it!

My plan worked thus far. I got to Chur, slept on a bench outside of the train station in Reichenau (to my friends who promised to be with me in the dark and cold times; you were there), hiked seven hours through a beautiful valley and mountains, slept at a monestery and met a friend who shares my dreams and visions. It was one of those "coincidences". My cell phone shut itself off (something happened with the battery so it didn't ring) so I was an hour late for breakfast. As it happened breakfast was still going on and I met this girl named Monica there..

After this though, my well thought out plan failed as I can't get to the Matterhorn by interrail, so I am back at the monestery with Monica and will make a new plan tomorrow.

Yesterday I decided I am ready to be a pilgrim. For real. I picked a staff and have carved a cross and the name Kristus into it, I met a man who asked me if I am going to Compostella and wished me a good journey in latin, and I wrote the first verse of my walking song.

moving, moving slowly toward you
moving, moving slowly within you
like a baby in the womb
like a wave in the sea
I am within you
and you are in me
moving

I have a plan

For the first time for a long time I have a plan. It does of course involve sleeping in some towns I have never been in and don't really know where to find a sleeping place in, but still, it's a plan with places to go and things to see. I am going to Chur and from there to Disentis and then I eventually will end up Brig, after hopefully seeing St Gotthard and some mountains. My not very secret idea is to get to Zermatt and be very touristique (I can't help using the french version of this word, it's so cool!) and see the Matterhorn. Let's see if my plan works...

either the word random doesn't exist or else God meets us in whatever direction we go

I prayed something in the terms of:

Thanks for giving me the adventure I really wanted. It has been awesome, I have loved every second of it, but now I would be OK with a bed and a shower and another Christian in my life. Please, would you want to give me a Christian with a home I could stay in? (silently adding in a selfish kind of a way: in a house on a mountain side in a beautiful place)

I randomly jumped on a train at the Luzern Hauptbahnhof. It was going to St Gallen and was called Voralpen Express, which sounded good. I had read the name St Gallen on a map once, but didn't remember where it was.

So on this train there just happened to be someone reading a book with the word Christian in the titel and three crosses on the front, so here I am in this house on a mountain side outside of St Gallen.

the saga of monks, alps and a slide out my window

The monk business continues...

From Vienna I went to Graz and got a map at the tourist info, trying to decide whether I liked the feel of the town. I saw Franziskanerkloster on the map, a St Francis monestery, and I find him to be an interesting saint so I headed straight for the monastery...

Another Vesper (evening prayer) and I met a 23 year old monk, or monk to be (2 years left until he has to make a final decision) who got the job of taking care of me when the older guys decided I got stay there for the night.

Conversation between me and monk Maceo (correct me if my spelling of this name is way off!!!):
E: Teach me this handwaving thing...?
M: Handwaving thing?
E: Yeah this (gesturing)
M: Oh, the cross-sign! What is there to learn?
E: Well, how exactly do you do it, because it looks like everone has different ideas about it? We don't do the cross-sign in the Church I come from.
M: You don't do the cross-sign...?
E: No.
M: Well, what do you do?

Yeah, sometimes we wonder, don't we...

I liked this monestery a lot. It has the feeling of God's presence, as if he smiles when he watches it. Even though my understanding of German is limited (getting better!) I really felt like these people mean what they pray and preach. Maceo instantly felt like a good friend. He got to answer many of my quetsions about catholisism and monk life. The red light by the altar shows that there is bread there which symbolizes the presence of Jesus, and indicates that one should kneel, and monks don't do sports in monk clothes, they change in to sport wear...

I like the kneeling. It feels like physically bending my will to God's. Maceo said it's like saying with your body: You are big, I am small. I like the cross-sign too, but I still tend to call it the hand-waving thing.

I walked around Graz doing the typical female processing, which usually means having the same thought run twentyfive times through my mind... But it was needed.

I looked at a fountain. If you zoom in on the place where the water in motion hits the still surface, the spray looks like chaos. But if you look at the whole picture you see 16 perfect arches of water through the air, forming a circle. If something looks like chaos, remember there is a bigger picture. Water in motion is important. Oxygen...

Tried my theory of sleeping on a train, but picked an evening when the trains weren't working and the replacement buses were late. At 2 am. I finally jumped on a train to Zurich and slept until 10:00 am. Lindau?Bergenz is beautiful seen out of train window.

A guy on the train recommended Grindenwald, but interrail didn't get me all the way there, so I went to Brienz. Yeah, I was a bit scaredat first, going to the Alps not knowing where I was going. But Brienz, with its houses by th turqoise water and its surrounding mountains is too beautiful to be able to house any fears! I called Dad from teh dock and then went off exploring. I found the perfect place to sleep...

A single room in a wooden house, with a set of high stairs to climb up and a view of the lake. Completely for free, definitly air conditioned, and with my own slide rigt out my front window! And the best of all: the slightly.. undefined... walls gave me proper use for all the winter clothes I have been carrying around!

After a good nights sleep, waking with the sunrise, I went for a 15 km hike from Brienz to Meiringen. Beautiful, beautiful Switzerland! I love this country. I passed through a museum of old farms, buildings and the Swiss life in old times. My trail happened to go through it -I didn't sneak in for free on purpose!

I actually wlaked on the Jakobsweg for awhile, but I think I was going away from Compostella de Santiago at the time...

Am now in Luzern, about to make a new plan. Have eaten food! Yeey for bread and cheese, I was starting to get hungry after 24 hours on only two apples...

frodo and the jesus freaks

Oh yeah, and I relate most to Frodo. He has that longing for adventure, but is torn between wanting to travel and wanting to be at home in safety. He is scared of danger and hard challenges, but still willing to face them for a higher good. I can identify with being small and scared, and the fact that he wouldn't have survived a single day of his journey without his friends. I am very much a Frodo in many ways, but I haven't quite analyzed him deeply yet. Instinctly I identify. He despises the inhabitants of the Shire but when he is out on his journey he misses them. I would feel that way too was I to live in the Shire.

I didn't get to finish the book yet. It stayed in Prague as I moved on. But I will continue when it turns up again, somewhere else.

Nomadism verses stuck in one place with one group of people... I think God will prepare me. I think travelling might beat me a bit, hopefully, so that studying will be OK. So that I needn't keep moving all the time. I don't want to be tamed, I just want to be at peace in one place... Please God? Help me, will ya?

I am so tired. So incredibly tired. I am hanging out with the Jesus Freaks (no naked butts), but to be honest I'm more wiped out with the Jesus Freaks. I am in need of sleep. Talked with Juran late last night. Tomorrow is a new day. Heading towards Graz and the Klagenfurt I think... Yeah, I know I am worse than an American tourist. But I like trains more than cities...

vienna

I now have a CD called The Hot Doctor On The Train Indie Rock Mix. I have never listened to Indie Rock before. But I feel honoured that this random assistant doctor on the train from Innsbruck to Vienna wanted to make me a CD just so I would learn what Indie Rock is. The Hives. They are Swedish. Go figure.

So I didn't see much of Innsbruck because I decided to go to Vienna and meet up with Juran. I am now at a Jesus Freaks meeting. My day was spent touring looking at things. I fell in love with a rose garden and picked out my favourite statue (Vienna is full of statues!). It is actually the only one I liked. It i some slightly unkown Austrian poet I think... Grillpartzer something...

I will go towards Switzerland from here. Alps. Here I come again.

Am getting ready for my walk on Jacobs Weg. Sorry, switching to German... The Camino Pilgrim Trail. I am feeling like it's time after this. I am getting ready. I am also thinking about nomad life verses comunity living and thinking that tight friendships and a tight community is important. There is a season for everything...

inter-rail pilgrim

After a night in beautiful Tabor (Tom Kirby if you read this go to Tabor!) with Canadian Charis I jumped on train to Linz and bought 14 day inter-rail ticket for Austria and Switzerland and if I want Germany.

I followed my heart which led me towards mountains, came to Salzburg and walked in the direction my heart led. My heart tends to like oldish towns and castle like things. I ran into benedictian monk and got to stay at St Peter's monastery for free- room with bathroom and enormous meals - they treat pilgrims as royal family.. (maybe we are after all;)

I love trains. I love alps. Wow I love trains.

Am now in Innsbruck, the town my Mum hitchhiked to and slept on steps in pouring rain. And she wonders why I am adventureous. Huh.

the important business of doing nothing (but I do play with kids)

I am blog cheating today. I am doing a copy and paste out of a letter I wrote to a dear brother. But sometimes I write things to friends and realise I'd like to share it with others, too...

"I am reading The Fellowship of The Ring for the first time. I was thinking about two important things yesterday. I must be drawing closer to God because the two things that usually cause me pain are now giving me peace. Beauty and travellers. I have spent a lot of time in my life being drawn to beautiful places, but when I have seen something beautiful it has torn at my heart. And I have been drawn to men like Strider, constant travellers, but when I haven't been able to tame them, or hold on to them, they have caused me pain and grief. Today it seems like that is slowly changing. I long to meet people like Strider. To love and to learn from them, to see them move on and out of view, maybe to return for rest and a cup of tea at times before moving on again.

I am noticing that as I see the beauty in nature I feel love and peace, instead of that painful tearing at my heart by something too overwhelming to comprehend. It is as if the beauty outside of me is coming in harmony with something inside of me. "

So, I am still in Prague, resting, praying, reading, eating, sleeping and meeting people. I am not sure where God wants me to go, but major things are happening inside of me and concerning my future, so all is well.