Change

I believe change is good. I had been craving for things to change in my life, to go to new places, to meet new people, and to experience more adventure. i had gotten sick of blogging because it underlined just how boring my life actually was a few months ago. I guess maybe boring is the wrong word for it, my life was becoming too much of a routine. I am not a fan of routine, so I needed a change.

For the past year I had been working an 8-4, Monday to Friday job at Paris Orthotics, which was a great, steady job where I met fantastic people and learned a lot. But I felt a little trapped. I was struggling to see where this was going in my life. I made a decision to follow something I saw as a dream, but I can see that God has been leading me towards this for a while, I've just been avoiding it. I applied for a masters program in worship at Calvin Seminary. Long story short, they welcomed me in with my science degree and I am now sitting in my apartment in Grand Rapids, MI procrastinating homework. Nothing too new there, but before I get ahead of myself, I need to backtrack and describe my summer.

I left this blog with a bit of a downer post. I was faced with a lot of hard things in the first few months of 2011, first by having my car totaled in an accident, then by my uncle's accident only 2 days later, then by the suicide of a friend. I felt attacked. One thing I did have to look forward to was the trip I was planning with my sister to Europe for the summer. First though, I dealt with my grief by donating my hair to cancer wigs in support of a friend of mine who lost her mom to cancer a few months earlier. She had shaved her head, but I was not brave enough or bold enough to do that, but I did manage to cut off 10-inches and get a pretty drastic cut. I couldn't even put it in a pony tail really at first, which is a big deal for me. That's my 'do! :)

In early July, I left for Europe with my sister. The following blogs I write will reflect my experiences on that journey. We had where we wanted to go all mapped out and booked hostels since it was high season, but we set out open to change and spontaneity, we just wanted a safety net so we wouldn't end up going way over budget on places to stay. We carried everything on our backs for 5 weeks, did crazy amounts of walking and hiking, and had an AMAZING time. There were ups and downs of course, but nothing we couldn't handle. Word of advice: if you want to take trains around Europe, go before you're 26 and get a global train pass - best decision I made.

Our journey began in Switzerland and went in a circle all the way out to Hungary and then back to the Netherlands. In total, I think we saw 14 different countries and stayed in 8. We arrived in Amsterdam and went right away to Gimmelwald, Switzerland, then Austria, Poland, Hungary, Croatia, Italy, France, and the Netherlands. We took trains through Germany, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Belgium and Monaco and we also went to Vatican City. That's 14 countries total in 5 weeks. It was fabulous. More to come on that in the foreseeable future as more procrastination comes my way.

As for now, I am in Grand Rapids, working on an MA in Worship with the hopes of being a music director in a church.

God is good.