A Departure, An Arrival

It's Sunday afternoon. The sun is shining through my window, and the bells from the Minster are cascading off in the city center. I just finished a big load of laundry (my room is now a jungle of dripping clothes) and am trying to tie up some last-minute loose ends for our Easter break trip. Tomorrow morning we take the train to Cambridge for the day, then on London to settle in for the week. Our itinerary looks roughly like this:

Monday, March 17 - Friday, March 21: London area (Thursday in Oxford)
Saturday, March 22 - Wednesday, March 26: Paris
Wednesday, March 26: Torpe, Sandefjord (outside of Oslo)
Thursday, March 27 - Monday, April 1: Bergen
Monday, April 1 - Wednesday, April 3: back in London
Wednesday, April 3 - Tuesday, April 8: Reykjavik area

This being the first multi-country trip we've planned, I'm a bit worried about all of the practical things (like getting from Paris to London to Norway in one morning), but we'll be able to recover from such stressful moments during the train from Oslo to Bergen "over the roof of Norway." Or maybe Easter morning in Notre Dame? In the least, I'm excited that I managed to fix the good ol' Canonet today (all it took was a Q-tip, some turpentine, and a little patience), so I'll be able to actually document some of these things.

The last week or two in York have been an interesting blend of stress and relaxation. Working on trip plans, catching up on schoolwork, and maintaining my steady stream of extra-curricular reading. I came up with a to-do list of things to accomplish and places to visit and trips to take before leaving York, but John thinks that's just over-planning. I guess we'll see how much of the list is even possible to complete in the five weeks we'll have in York after Easter break, what with classes picking up and final papers being due then. I'm sure a handful of blog-worthy things have happened in my life since the last post, but now all my mind is on is the upcoming adventures, the Tate Modern in London, Indian food, Versailles, the Lutheran cathedral in Reykjavik, Norwegian sweaters, etc. etc. I hope to make a few brief posts while traveling, but I guess we'll see how that works out.

Goodbye for now!



| above: a view from my window at dusk