Glimmers of Things to Come

I was sitting at my desk eating the world's smallest granola bar (all they sell here) and listening to the click of my alarm clock (the one that tells you that you got up twelve hours ago), and I realized it's been a while since I've blogged.  The reason for that is pretty simple:  Travel plans.

We get one week off in February and two weeks off at the end of April and beginning of May, and everyone tries to make plans before their friends become unavailable and the prices go up.  This means that in the month of February I went from not having any plans to booking a massive amount of plane, hostel, train, and bus tickets.  We're ALMOST done, and I am really excited to have time to do homework before midnight again.  I've learned that you really earn the money you save through the hours of research you do on cheap tickets.  I don't think it's minimum wage (at least not in CA), but it's still worth it.  (I told my mom this week that I feel like a part-time travel agent.)

Anyway, that has consumed my life to the point where I've forgotten to be excited about my trips.  As someone who absolutely detests spending large amounts of money, I've had to chant "You're only in Europe once" constantly.  I realized today that I'll be in Barcelona one week from tomorrow, and my reaction was to stare blankly at the wall and wonder if we'd finished all of the necessary reservations.  The new challenge:  recapturing the excitement of getting to travel!!!  (Feel free to help.)  ;)

My inspiration for the title of this blog was a Tennyson poem that mentions "Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough / Gleams that untraveled world..."  I've already experienced living in France for a month.  I remember leaving the airport in Paris, getting onto the metro, and staring avidly out into the dark morning, when every glimpse of a graffitied shack or a light in a house made me excited.  I remember walking off the metro with my giant rolling suitcases, pausing when I reached the sidewalk, and then casting my gaze every which way as I rolled off down the street, glorying in the lampposts and the billboards.  I get to do that in Barcelona, Rome, and Florence in ONE week.  In a monastery and a castle in Ireland, in Scotland, in Venice, in two months.  Praise God from whom all blessings flow!!!