Like Little Lambs....

"The longer I live, the more my mind dwells upon the beauty and the wonder of the world." 

-- John Buroughs

I feel that there is a need to apologize for my lack of blogs - it's not that I haven't been doing anything fun and exciting, it's more that I came back to Lisieux, worked for 5 weeks, and than had a 2 week vacation. So really, in my mind, not that long has passed and not that much has happened since my January post. Though, I might have had 2 weeks, I really only traveled for one of them - the rest of the time was spent trying to not freak out about freaking out about not freaking out about what I was doing with my life post-TAPIF, sleeping the day away (while it rained cats and dogs), and applying to jobs, figuring out travel plans, and participating in TakeCaitlinToWorkDay via FaceTime. 

So, vacation. Vacation, eh? Va-ca-ti-on, vaaaaacation, vacationvacationvacationvactionvacation, vacation! Hope everyone is getting all of this down.

Budapest, Hungary. Where old meets new, where street food is all the rage, where ruin pubs are the coolest things ever, where there's something new, something historical, something fascinating just waiting around the corner to be found. And like always in Europe, where the majority of museums are free to teachers/students...which when on a budget is awesome, because it means you can spend more money on aforementioned food and beer....which in Eastern Europe is fantastic. 

Museum of Fine Arts - home to Rembrandt 

Heroes' Square

Ice Skating

St Stephen's Basilica

Parliament Building

Inside the Thermal Baths

Mathias Church

Buda hills

National Gallery

Buda Castle over Chain Bridge

Prague, Czech Republic. Where old is still old, where kolace pastries and chimney cakes reign supreme, where the building architecture means you are in a living and breathing art gallery, where there's something historical and ancient waiting to be discovered just down that narrow, twisting cobbled streets. And much like Budapest, where the beer is cheap, delicious and always available.

Astronomical Clock

Prague Castle from Charles Bridge

Inside the Municipal House

Municipal House

Kafka statue 

Mirror Chapel in Clementinum

John Lennon Wall

Prague Old Town

I think it's important to point out that to get from Budapest to Prague, I took a night bus - 11pm to 7am - through Bratislava. I can officially check "take a night bus" off my Bucket List - it is long, uncomfortable (either a sauna or a freezer, no in between), and border patrol/passport checks happen either way too often or not enough.

So to wrap up Eastern Europe: delicious and cheap beer, many delicious pastries, and worth returning to for another visit.

Sehnsucht (n., German): a yearning for a far, familiar, non-earthly land one can identify as one's home

"Little by little, one travels far." - JRR Tolkien.  

Wanderlust. Homesickness. Traveling.

Rain. Netflix binging. Wanderlust. 

Wanderlust. Transportation. Walking. 

Home. Wanderlust. 

2014 has been a year of change, a year of traveling, a year of trying to figure out who I am, what I want to do, where I want to be. Perhaps a look back thru the months is required:

• January: National Western Stock Show, where I realized I actually missed horse showing, braiding and grooming, and even the lack of sleep.

• February: My senior thesis started to slowly take over my life and having my "regular study room" at the library started to become a necessity, as well as any motivation I could get. 

• March: Got waitlisted for TAPIF, freaked out and applied to graduate schools.

• April: Got accepted to both TAPIF and various graduate schools. Accepted job offer from TAPIF and deferred the American University of Paris graduate program until fall 2015.

• May: Thesis handed in, rewritten and than defended. One step closer to graduation.

• June: Graduated from the University of Denver.

• July: Spent the summer loving on the Stan-man and Callie-mare. 

• August: Volunteered for the FEI World Equestrian Games in Normandy. 

• September: Spent the month packing and unpacking and repacking for France. It is quite near impossible to fit your whole life into 2 suitcases...
• October: Started working for TAPIF in Lisieux.

• November: Thankful for technology - it allowed me and continues to allow me the ability to stay in touch with friends and family while halfway around the world. 

• December: Realized that there is no where quite like home for the holidays.

But it has also been a year of realizations: 

• I can live abroad. I can make new friends in a new country in a new job. 
• I can drop the horses and pick it right back up, though each and every time just cements the fact more and more that the horses need to play a bigger role in my life. 
• I may not be cut out to be a teacher for forever, but sometimes there's a lightbulb moment with the students, and I think that I could, indeed, be a teacher. 
• As time passes, friends come and go, but it is truly those that stay constant are those who show their true colors and knowing that you have those people in your corner is the best feeling possible. 
• 7 weeks of work and than 2 weeks of break might just be the best idea ever. 
• Growing up in Minnesota with Minnesota winters does not mean that it is possible to always dress weather appropriate. 
• Train systems in all forms are fantastic and should be everywhere. 

So, I can't thank 2014 enough for what it put me through - the bad and the good - because looking back, there isn't much that I would change. Thanks 2014 and here's to 2015.

For anyone that is curious as to what 2015 could hold, let's take a quick peak.

• The remainder of my TAPIF time in Lisieux. 
• Traveling galore including Budapest and Prague, the South of France, and Meg coming over for a whirlwind tour of Europe.
• Graduate school for my MA in Cultural Translation at the American University of Paris. 
• The horses, the dogs, the cats. 
• The friends and family. 
• Minnesota.