So I haven't been doing very well to keep this blog up to date. To be honest, I haven't been keeping anything really up to date, which is a problem since I have so much to write about. I spent a bit of time tonight looking at pictures of our European travels and reminising about all that I've seen and experienced here. And time just keeps ticking onward. I still don't really know how to bottle up moments. Something always seems to keep me from fulling being able to grasp it and lock it away. We've realized that we really don't have that much time left in Paris - we have 2 weeks of vacation starting on Friday, which will be full of travels, and then we have one full week of classes until exams start to eat out our brains. I still have a few things to cross off of my to-do/to-see list for Paris, but at this point, I just have to enjoy living in it. I've become so familiar with this big, crowded, rich city. I look at maps less and less frequently. I ENJOY getting lost now instead of panicking slightly and whipping out my plan de Paris. I've realized that if something becomes familiar to you, it will become comforting and acceptable to you. And it's always hard to say goodbye.. But that doesn't have to come for a little longer yet :)
A couple Saturdays ago I hopped on a train with Sara and two of our Oxford program friends, Justine and Kim. Off we went to find Vimy Ridge! The platform at Vimy is legit just a slab of ashphalt with no station or signs or anything. We walked into the small town that was completely void of people, open stores or signs of life in general. We followed a few signs for the Canadian monument until we came to a 4-way fork in the road, bearing no sign whatsoever. Thankfully we saw a lady walking her dog, so we asked her for directions. She seemed surprised that we were about to walk there, which we found out why later.
Her directions turned out to be bang on. But it was a super long way. We were 4 girls walking seemingly aimlessly along unknown streets. So what else were we gonna do than to try and hitch-hike! Now, I've never hitch-hiked before, so holding out my thumb to unknown cars was quite the thrill. I don't know if the French don't know what that signifies or if they just though that we were stupid, since the sign was around the next bend, but no one picked us up. We saw the sign that said that the turn off was 250 m up the road. We turned right. We kept walking. And walking. And walking. Turns out, the centre isn't for another about 2 km down a twisting, wooded road. So we definitely worked off those waffles we had eaten earlier!
Can I just say that I love Canada. That road, quite, surrounded by woods, the chirp of an occasional bird, the pile of logs - it was the very definition of Canada. Made me long for the summer even more when I can go into the woods or hop the fence into the corn field and get those guitar calluses back.
Vimy Ridge was incredible! If you are ever in France, I suggest that you go to see it. No Man's Land is only 25 m wide, and seeing how close the enemy lines were was incredible! We walked through the Canadian and German trenches, through the Canadian tunnels and were restricted by an electric fence to go onto the battlefield/No Man's Land. There are huge craters everywhere from the war, and apparently some of the mines and whatnot never actually went off, so no one can go on it. They even use sheep to cut the grass. So basically, live ammunition from the First World War is still buried under the grassy hills on Vimy Ridge!
So as not to make this super long for you to read, I'm going to jump to this past weekend that I just spent in Amsterdam. Finding a hostel was like impossible, so I ended up staying on a boat!! Best choice! The room was tiny and the water in the shower was only cold, but it was cute and welcoming. Captain Lucas made pancakes in the morning and I ate toast with hagelslag!! Been a long time since I've enjoyed that. I went into the Anne Frank house and was really sad that it's prohibited to take pictures in there. I repeat that I love being where history really happened, so seeing the original bookshelf that concealed the door to the secret annexe, seeing the pictures that Anne put up on her wall, walking through the rooms where 7 people hide from the Germans and remembering the freedom that there is in being able to go outdoors and even in being able to write was amazing.
I went to the bloemenmarkt (the flower market), got some Dutch cheese samples, walked the length of the Albert Cuyp Markt (the largest market in Amsterdam), ate stroop waffles from a vendor (which is better than any stroop waffle you've ever had), and tried raw harring. Okay, so I love fish! Like, give me any kind of seafood, more or less, and I like it. I'm Dutch, I like seafood, therefore I should like harring. It's gross. The texture is what got me, kind of squeaking between my teeth in a nasty way, having like no real taste. I shared the fish with the garbage. But hey, I tried it!
And I found schuimblokken!!!!! Basically my favourite thing of life (like no joke!) and they don't sell it in Canada (that I've seen) anymore, so I got a huge bag of it :D It's basically just like blocks of sugar, but it melts in your mouth and is just delectable!
I also went on a canal tour. That was probably my favourite part of the whole weekend - being able to see Amsterdam from on the canals, with a fantastic skipper (who even kicked off a large group of loud, disrespectful guys), and listening to the info and stories that were told.
Next up: Italy!! Cheryl, Sara and I leave for Italy on Friday where we'll spend the week in Rome and Venice, then Cheryl and I will spend a week traveling to Dublin and London. Let the good times roll!
Monday, 22 April 2013
Monday, 8 April 2013
On the Beaches of Normandy
I love history. I almost took a history minor when I started Redeemer just because I loved it so much. All the studying that I have done of the World Wars always gives you a reminder of what happened in our world not 70 years ago. But I must say that actually walking along the D-Day beaches where the fighting actually took place and walking through the same streets that Canadian soldiers and tanks liberated made it a whole lot closer to home.
5 of us left Paris early on Saturday morning on the train to Caen in Normandy. I didn't learn until later that day that Caen was a huge place of fighting in the battle for Normandy and it took the Canadians a month to get from Juno Beach to Caen when it's only a 20 minute drive away from the English Channel. We took a bus to Courseulles-sur-Mer and walked to the Juno Beach Centre. The day was cold and cloudy and threatening to rain and the tide was out - two things that were parallel to when the soldiers landed on the beach on June 6, 1944. There was a bit of national pride as we saw the Canadian flag blowing in the wind, as well as seeing an entire shelf in the souvenir shop full of maple products! The museum was very well laid out, informational, clear to follow, and the guided tour that we took explained quite a bit. We went outside to the bunker that the Germans had occupied while they protected the coast and I must say, they were stinkin' smart people! Their tactics and defenses were incredible!
Juno Beach is bigger than I thought. Out of the 80 km of coast that the Allies attacked on D-Day, 8 km of that was designated to the Canadians at Juno. Since the tide was out, we walked for a good long time, dogging puddles, across the beach and out to where the English Channel actually started. As dismal as the day was, there was a sort of beauty about it and awe at what the soldiers actually accomplished. These past couple days have made me so much more thankful for our freedom. It sounds like a simple statement, but there is so much weight behind that. Seeing footage and pictures and then the real thing is humbling and sombre.
Justine, Sara and I spent the night at a B&B in town. Cutest little town! Cutest little B&B! They left the key for us, since they weren't around the night we got there. We met Isabelle the next morning. Sweetest lady ever! She showed us a picture of the Canadian soldiers and tanks that were right in front of their house! Crazy to think of that as we walked out that morning. She was so kind and drove us 15 minutes farther west to Arromanches, where Gold Beach is - one of the beaches designated to the British on D-Day. Here we saw huge concrete slabs 2 km out in the water. These are the remains of a make-shift harbour that they secretly brought across the Channel in order to provide supplies for all the soldiers along the Normandy coast. The sheer genius of it and the scale of the task and the detail that went into it was incredible! I suggest you Google it because I had never heard of it before Sunday and there was so much information! The tide was in when we got there but went out again later that day and so we could walk out to one of the closest concrete slabs that helped to make up this road on the water. Kind of intimidating to be so close to it, but so amazing. I'm really not giving any of this trip justice with my descriptions, but incredible is an over-arching word I will use to describe it.
So in short, freedom. We are so blessed! We really can't forget what happened during this dark time, even though none of the fighting ever took place on Canadian soil. We still played an important role in the war and we have freedom because of it. I've thought so much about freedom of all sorts these past few days. I'm free to walk around and run and jump and do what I want because I am not detained in any way and my body is healthy. I'm free to speak my mind and talk about what I believe in because I live in a free country here in France and I come from a free country in Canada. I'm free to live for Christ, free from the bondages of sin, because Jesus has redeemed us and washed us whiter than that cold, white stuff we get in winter, and I'm free from the restraints and burdens that society and media puts on people. And I'm free to write this blog. You are free to read it. We are free to live each day in peace and joy.
5 of us left Paris early on Saturday morning on the train to Caen in Normandy. I didn't learn until later that day that Caen was a huge place of fighting in the battle for Normandy and it took the Canadians a month to get from Juno Beach to Caen when it's only a 20 minute drive away from the English Channel. We took a bus to Courseulles-sur-Mer and walked to the Juno Beach Centre. The day was cold and cloudy and threatening to rain and the tide was out - two things that were parallel to when the soldiers landed on the beach on June 6, 1944. There was a bit of national pride as we saw the Canadian flag blowing in the wind, as well as seeing an entire shelf in the souvenir shop full of maple products! The museum was very well laid out, informational, clear to follow, and the guided tour that we took explained quite a bit. We went outside to the bunker that the Germans had occupied while they protected the coast and I must say, they were stinkin' smart people! Their tactics and defenses were incredible!
Juno Beach is bigger than I thought. Out of the 80 km of coast that the Allies attacked on D-Day, 8 km of that was designated to the Canadians at Juno. Since the tide was out, we walked for a good long time, dogging puddles, across the beach and out to where the English Channel actually started. As dismal as the day was, there was a sort of beauty about it and awe at what the soldiers actually accomplished. These past couple days have made me so much more thankful for our freedom. It sounds like a simple statement, but there is so much weight behind that. Seeing footage and pictures and then the real thing is humbling and sombre.
Justine, Sara and I spent the night at a B&B in town. Cutest little town! Cutest little B&B! They left the key for us, since they weren't around the night we got there. We met Isabelle the next morning. Sweetest lady ever! She showed us a picture of the Canadian soldiers and tanks that were right in front of their house! Crazy to think of that as we walked out that morning. She was so kind and drove us 15 minutes farther west to Arromanches, where Gold Beach is - one of the beaches designated to the British on D-Day. Here we saw huge concrete slabs 2 km out in the water. These are the remains of a make-shift harbour that they secretly brought across the Channel in order to provide supplies for all the soldiers along the Normandy coast. The sheer genius of it and the scale of the task and the detail that went into it was incredible! I suggest you Google it because I had never heard of it before Sunday and there was so much information! The tide was in when we got there but went out again later that day and so we could walk out to one of the closest concrete slabs that helped to make up this road on the water. Kind of intimidating to be so close to it, but so amazing. I'm really not giving any of this trip justice with my descriptions, but incredible is an over-arching word I will use to describe it.
So in short, freedom. We are so blessed! We really can't forget what happened during this dark time, even though none of the fighting ever took place on Canadian soil. We still played an important role in the war and we have freedom because of it. I've thought so much about freedom of all sorts these past few days. I'm free to walk around and run and jump and do what I want because I am not detained in any way and my body is healthy. I'm free to speak my mind and talk about what I believe in because I live in a free country here in France and I come from a free country in Canada. I'm free to live for Christ, free from the bondages of sin, because Jesus has redeemed us and washed us whiter than that cold, white stuff we get in winter, and I'm free from the restraints and burdens that society and media puts on people. And I'm free to write this blog. You are free to read it. We are free to live each day in peace and joy.
Wednesday, 3 April 2013
Pentecostal Moments
HE IS RISEN!!
HE IS RISEN INDEED!!
Easter is basically my favourite day of the year! My family has this tradition that Mom will wake us up by blarring the song "Early in the Morning", by David Meece, through the stereo, so we wake up with the joy of Easter vibrating through every fibre of our being. Being in Paris this year did not break that tradition for me. I'm glad that both of my roommates are gone this weekend, because I woke up, turned on my ipod, played that song and danced around the room! There is such joy in this day! There has been a permanent smile plastered to my face all day! The tomb is empty, Jesus kicked Satan in the face, my sins are forgiven, the temple curtain is torn, and my Saviour's alive! When I get excited about something, I run. So I ran out the door, down the gazillion flights of stairs, out the residence, and down the street to the metro on the way to church. I got some strange looks as the Parisians wondered what on earth this crazy girl in a dress and a goofy smile on her face was doing tearing down the street.
I was a little late (despite the running) and got to the French church just as they started to sing the first song. It's more traditional there, which, not gonna lie, kind of took me aback for a second. Yes, the songs spoke of joy and celebration and there was gratitude in the prayers of the people, but where was the sheer excitement in their actions that I'm used to in my Pentecostal church back home? I'm not trying to tear down any denomination, don't get me wrong, but I felt a little out of place. But it was still the same joyous event that we were declaring, and that's all that matters!
A few of us went to the American church after the French service was over. This felt a little more like home for me: the songs were upbeat and loud, the people clapped through and after the songs, I sat by the aisle and had room to jump and move around - as I love doing when I worship. There's something about being able to raise your hands in worship and sing as loud as you can and dance around before God. There's something about being completely abandoned in worship, that it doesn't matter what you look like, but you just let everything you have be showing your joy. I often feel like there is no dance that expresses it properly, no raised hand that is able to reach high enough, no jump that can make it up to the heavens. Even our outward acts of worship in that sense do not capture the emotion that we feel and long to express to God, but we're celebrating with the angels and shouting with the 4 living creatures around the throne, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come!"
Today has been filled with joy, and I've been reminded that this day (this weekend) is what all of theology hinges on and what all of our lives are lived for; it's why we're on this earth. What would happen if we woke up every morning with the same joy and celebration that we woke up with this morning? How would our lives be different? What would our attitude and our actions be?
On a completely different topic from Easter, a few of us got dressed up last night and went to Palais des Congrès to see "Esmeralda", my first ballet ever! I've had this dream to be a ballerina, and watching the group from the Ukraine do it last night was absolutely fantastic and I loved seeing the precision and grace and expression in each move. The Kremlin ballet was supposed to do it, but something happened and the group from the Ukraine took over, but I of course couldn't tell the difference, having nothing to compare it to. As for the storyline - let's just say that the Disney version of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" is very tame! Basically everyone dies! Wasn't expecting that... There were sheets of paper on our seats to explain the story, seeing as the ballet itself was done with only music and dance and no words. One thing I learned: your arms can get sore from clapping too long. We legit clapped for like 3-4 minutes solid as they bowed at the end. It just didn't stop! They for sure deserved it, but I think that's the longest I will ever clap in my life!
Happy Easter (a few days late)! Be joyful! Carry this message in your heart, as we claim that we do, throughout this week and into the entire year. :)
HE IS RISEN INDEED!!
Easter is basically my favourite day of the year! My family has this tradition that Mom will wake us up by blarring the song "Early in the Morning", by David Meece, through the stereo, so we wake up with the joy of Easter vibrating through every fibre of our being. Being in Paris this year did not break that tradition for me. I'm glad that both of my roommates are gone this weekend, because I woke up, turned on my ipod, played that song and danced around the room! There is such joy in this day! There has been a permanent smile plastered to my face all day! The tomb is empty, Jesus kicked Satan in the face, my sins are forgiven, the temple curtain is torn, and my Saviour's alive! When I get excited about something, I run. So I ran out the door, down the gazillion flights of stairs, out the residence, and down the street to the metro on the way to church. I got some strange looks as the Parisians wondered what on earth this crazy girl in a dress and a goofy smile on her face was doing tearing down the street.
I was a little late (despite the running) and got to the French church just as they started to sing the first song. It's more traditional there, which, not gonna lie, kind of took me aback for a second. Yes, the songs spoke of joy and celebration and there was gratitude in the prayers of the people, but where was the sheer excitement in their actions that I'm used to in my Pentecostal church back home? I'm not trying to tear down any denomination, don't get me wrong, but I felt a little out of place. But it was still the same joyous event that we were declaring, and that's all that matters!
A few of us went to the American church after the French service was over. This felt a little more like home for me: the songs were upbeat and loud, the people clapped through and after the songs, I sat by the aisle and had room to jump and move around - as I love doing when I worship. There's something about being able to raise your hands in worship and sing as loud as you can and dance around before God. There's something about being completely abandoned in worship, that it doesn't matter what you look like, but you just let everything you have be showing your joy. I often feel like there is no dance that expresses it properly, no raised hand that is able to reach high enough, no jump that can make it up to the heavens. Even our outward acts of worship in that sense do not capture the emotion that we feel and long to express to God, but we're celebrating with the angels and shouting with the 4 living creatures around the throne, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come!"
Today has been filled with joy, and I've been reminded that this day (this weekend) is what all of theology hinges on and what all of our lives are lived for; it's why we're on this earth. What would happen if we woke up every morning with the same joy and celebration that we woke up with this morning? How would our lives be different? What would our attitude and our actions be?
On a completely different topic from Easter, a few of us got dressed up last night and went to Palais des Congrès to see "Esmeralda", my first ballet ever! I've had this dream to be a ballerina, and watching the group from the Ukraine do it last night was absolutely fantastic and I loved seeing the precision and grace and expression in each move. The Kremlin ballet was supposed to do it, but something happened and the group from the Ukraine took over, but I of course couldn't tell the difference, having nothing to compare it to. As for the storyline - let's just say that the Disney version of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" is very tame! Basically everyone dies! Wasn't expecting that... There were sheets of paper on our seats to explain the story, seeing as the ballet itself was done with only music and dance and no words. One thing I learned: your arms can get sore from clapping too long. We legit clapped for like 3-4 minutes solid as they bowed at the end. It just didn't stop! They for sure deserved it, but I think that's the longest I will ever clap in my life!
Happy Easter (a few days late)! Be joyful! Carry this message in your heart, as we claim that we do, throughout this week and into the entire year. :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)