whitewater pics

Since some of you are asking for pictures (and I need to scan them would prefer to do that from home) I found the pictures from our trip online and I'll try to post the link so you can see and believe. Hopefully it works. Here ya go -

http://www.glacierraftco.smugmug.com/gallery/1687857/1/83039851

I can't think of an original title

Hidie ho gang - sounds like some of you might be wondering if I'm tied to the bottom of a raft somewhere - this is not the case. I have just been without internet since I last wrote. So anyway, first things first -- white water rafting was great. And I have some great pics that I'll post sometime. There were 11 of us total on the raft. I ended up not paddling because there was an extra person. I was having all sorts of nasty mental images of all the things that could go wrong. And signing the little paper beforehand didn't exactly help...." Since I am choosing to be this stupid, I will accept responsibility for my injury, dismemberment, stroke, heart attack, nasty sunburn, heat exhaustion, and death by any number of means such as drowning or hitting large rocks..." Something like that... anyway, it made me very weak in the knees and made me want to throw up before we ever left. So when we finally left, we merrily floated upon 4 miles of calm lake, followed by 4 miles that contained rapids. There was only 2 that were serious enough to be really exciting. And by the time they were over, I was hoping there would be more like that. It was quite fun. Okay, what else... Glacier was amazingly beautiful. We did some hiking and swimming in Lake McDonald which was beautiful. It's also nice to be back in civilization and showers are amazingly wonderful little inventions. (Our campsite didn't have any so what we took had to be paid for) Now I'm back in the Falls and will head up to Red Lake sometime soon, probably in the next few days. I'm going to help my niece with some writing stuff and I'm really looking forward to the opportunity of being on the inflicting end of some of this torture that I've received the last few years. bwahahahaha. Just kidding, I'll be nice.

just saying HI

Hello all - Just have a quick moment to say HI - I'm out at Glacier right now and it's beautiful! Having a lot of fun. Oh, and stay tuned for pictures and reports on daring adventures that should happen tomorrow and if you never hear from me again, assume it didn't go too well. Oh, I"ll just tell ya, I'm going WHITEWATER RAFTING! I wasn't going to go, but decided to face my fears so here it goes....

snap decisions...

So, I guess I'm leaving again for a little trip. I was thinking if it worked out I'd leave the end of the week, but my brother and I were doing some juggling of airmiles and then he realized that I could only fly up there on certain days, so I've leaving early tomorrow morning. AHHH!! Okay, so I have to go do a bunch of stuff. I'm going camping with them and will go to Red Lake too. Hope to see a bunch of you!

My new life philosophy

breakthrough

So yesterday when I was driving about 45 min. away to visit my friend, I discovered on they way that I had forgotten both directions and phone numbers. Those of you who know me well know that getting anywhere WITH directions and phone numbers is usually challenging enough. Now I'm stranded with only my wits to save me. Well, I'm happy to report that I did find the place, with a minimal amount of wandering. (I drove to a house, thought it might be it but wasn't sure, did a bit of backtracking, then drove back and it was right) Do the wonders never cease? I won't put on here how many roads I had to remember or anything cause then you might make a lot of fun of me and I'd get bitter and grind my teeth at night and develop gout or Sirius’s.

Today I feel like I could run a marathon...

... spread out over several weeks of course. So I thought I'd say Hi in order to give you all something to comment on (hopefully). I find it ironic that when I have lots of time to update this thing, I usually don't have much to say, because that means my life isn't very exciting. But I'll try to ramble for awhile about what's on my mind. It's so odd right now to be home and really have no plans and nothing going on - no school work keeping me up all night and no exciting trip to plan for. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the decisions I need to be making. Decisions were never my strong point (you don't have to agree so loudly with that comment!) but I especially don't like having too many options which is precisely what I have now... where to live?? (anywhere in North America really, or anywhere at all I guess [with a few exceptions])... how to go about making that decision..., etc. So if anyone knows of a great social work job in your area (except Jenni and Iris = P ) feel free to let me know. That's what I'm thinking about these days. What else? I changed the template on this thing because I was tired of having the links at the bottom - any of you experts (Rhonda) know anything about fixing that little situation? This one isn't my favorite. So, the other day I was having one of those random conversations with someone online. It went something like -
chatter 1: maybe you should look for a job close to here.
chatter 2: maybe I should move in with you guys and be your personal shrink
1: when can you come?
2: soon as I unpack and repack...
1: do you do marriage counseling?
2: well, I might be in over my head there, but I'd be happy to point out all your personal problems. (those would probably have something to do marriage issues, right?) ... get paid? ... for pointing out all your problems... this is sounding like a lot of fun!

Well, then we went on to discuss appropriate fees and all - I was thinking a small fortune and they were thinking room and board, so maybe not. (this was all a joke, so please don't try to figure out who I know that might be having marriage problems!) But anyway, I got a big kick out of our conversation and then it sorta hit me funny how people go to school for years and then get jobs making exorbitant amounts of money doing what was strongly discouraged when we were kids - pointing out how nuts people are. Hopefully in a more tactful manner, but anyway... maybe it's just me, or maybe it was late...

Tomorrow I'm going to see a good friend who was on my REACH team in Israel. Haven't seen her for over 1.5 years so that'll be fun and a nice diversion. You're free to go now. Sorry to keep you so long.

One of the streets really close to where we stayed in Amsterdam - it was dark but lots of street lights - I thought it turned out kinda neat

More Amsterdam

A famous bridge whose name I can't remember - this was taken on the cruise, but we also rode our bikes across it earlier in the day (I forgot to mention that we rented bikes on Monday and booted around that way)

Some of the many canals on the cruise

Amsterdam - I think this was on our pizza cruise

The church at the city center in Amsterdam

A beautiful sunset in Vlissingen - have tons of these pics too and couldn't decide which one to post...

The castle at Antwerp

shopping at Goes - trying on hats, taking pictures and making big idiots of ourselves in the (classy) store.

The castle at Antwerp

Some shops at Antwerp

The inside of the cathedral - I took a bazillian pictures in there, but here's one for you

The outside of the cathedral

Okay, we move now to the Netherlands. Actually this picture is in Belgium when we went to Antwerp for the afternoon - taken at the center of the city.

This really was in Matthew and Rhonda's backyard (I wounldn't lie to ya)

a row of zebu carts we saw along the road when we were driving home from Ampefy

Some little cuties who let me take their picture (a lot)

flying high in Ampefy

There are a lot of little shops like this along the roads

This is the second of 2 Malagasy houses that I have posted for you to look at

This would be a house in Madagascar (I don't mean to insult your intelligence, but I didn't know what else to write)

same thing as that other thing I just said

more everyday life

Some shots of everyday life in Madagascar - Matthew and I went driving close to their house and took some pictures.

Ampefy sunset

Lovely little family

At Ampefy again

Back to some more Madagascar pictures - at the Lemur farm (actually, this was in Matthew and Rhonda's backyard, this guy just attacked me...)

All good things must come to an end...

Okay, here I am and I fear the size of this post may overwhelm even my most faithful fans... So without further ado.. I shall commence to begin updating you on the rest of the trip, followed by the painfully slow process of posting pictures. Let's see... I think I last wrote about eating Belgian waffles. Yes, on Wednesday afternoon, we went to Antwerp which was very nice. We spent some time in this amazing cathedral and walked around - the city center which was interesting, well, it was all interesting. It's easer to just let pictures do the talking. On Thursday we went to Goes (not pronounced "Goes" as in "she goes to the store" but more like hawk up a hairball, then say "ooze." hummm, talking is so much easier than writing sometimes) - this is a city about 10 minutes from Heather's village. It's really nice - a nice big "center" with cafes all over and you can't drive in the downtown shopping area - you have to either walk or ride bike. We did some shopping walked around, ate at this restaurant that offers over 150 different kinds of pancakes. Basically they come with anything imaginable in it - if it's not in the menu you can just make one up. They are thin, but the size of your plate, I had pineapple, bacon and cheese I believe - very tasty. Saturday we went to Vlissingen - a city about a half hour away. We walked along the dike there and there was a gorgeous sunset over the beach and I got some good pictures there. Okay, Sunday and Monday we spent in Amsterdam. We were going to go to London as well, but it would have been quite rushed and expensive, so I guess I'll just have to go back sometime. Anyway, we decided to just spend some more time in Amsterdam. What did we do there... let's see... Sunday afternoon we went to a coffee shop place and had English high tea which was quite enjoyable - basically they keep brining you food and it all tastes really good. Then we walked around the city, went to the city center, and went to the Ann Frank House. That was really neat! Saw the actual place where the 8 people were in hiding, saw the moving bookcase (it's not constantly moving or anything) and walked up the really narrow and steep steps behind the bookcase up to the rooms where they stayed. The history was very interesting and a lot of the house seemed very authentic - things on the walls that Ann Frank had put there, etc. I couldn't take pictures there unfortunately. But that was a really neat place to visit. I guess there are a lot of Turkish people in Amsterdam so there's a lot or Mideastern food being sold. Which means that falafel stands were all over the place! I don't think I've had any since I got back from Israel in 2000 so that was quite enjoyable. On Saturday night we were walking to our high class hotel (that's a joke) in the dark (street lights of course, don't freak out!) and I was enjoying the taste of Israel, not realizing that it had a small leak so I arrived at the hostel looking like a walking falafel stand. The lovely Tahini sauce had been running out unbeknownst to me. Yes, that was a lovely experience. There's a lot I could stay about our sleeping arrangements in the city, but suffice it to say that our room was probably 130 degrees and it was very loud. So sleeping was a bit difficult that night. At least when we woke up, it felt more like a comfortable 145 degrees. Monday we went did more walking around the city. We went to the Jewish historical Museum, which was nice, bt a bit of a disappointment after the Ann Frank house. The evening was a lot of fun - we did a boat cruise and had pizza onboard. We didn't see the area where the buildings are right up to the water, which is my perception of Amsterdam, but it was still really neat. Tons of canals and nice scenery. Some of my supper had the same problem as the falafel the night before, so I again arrived at the hostel.... yeah, I'm sure you see where this is going. Oh, I should say that we got a new room for the next night and it wasn't as hot. I also discovered the joy of earplugs and was in a vegitative state for 6 hours. I left Tuesday morning for home and travel was pretty much uneventful. It was so much fun to do some serious traveling again and spend time with far away people that I don't see often enough... Okay, I think I'll sign off for now and try to post some pictures.