Role Reversal

Yesterday Michael and I had a conversation. It went something like this:

W: Where are we staying tonight?
M: I don’t know, why?
W: Oh, I just thought you had something booked already.
M: No. You spent two months traveling Europe and never had anything booked before you got there.
W: Yes, we always had something booked.
M: You did? You never told me that. Oh well, I guess we’ll just figure it out.

You might imagine my surprise if you know Michael at all. He’s very organized and much more “with it” than I am. Usually I’m the one just rolling with the flow (mostly because I never know what’s going on) and telling Michael to just go with it. This tends to stress him out a little, but again, he’s an adjuster. It was me, however who had to do the adjusting last night. We didn’t even really know where we were going. Once we picked our destination, I was a bit panicky at the thought of not knowing where we were planning to sleep. However, I was reassured when we saw a beautiful poster on the train to Flam that advertised the Freteim Hotel; an upscale and very classy looking hotel. Secretly my heart smiled as I thought, “he won’t want to hike all around looking for a room at night.” And with the Freteim Hotel only being a 30 meter walk from the train station, it was shaping up to be a perfect solution! When we got off the train in the tiny town of Flam, Norway at 9:00 pm we happened to see another sign for a pension house (B &B). The frugal person that I am trying to be decided it would be ok if we checked there first. Unfortunately, no rooms were available. I was happy because I knew this meant destination Freteim Hotel! I was mad because this meant I had to climb (I use this term loosely) up the hill back towards town again. As we walked into the glass atrium of the hotel I already pictured myself asleep in a plush feather top bed with a down comforter wrapped tightly around me. “Sorry, no rooms available.” I’m sorry? I think I misunderstood you. As quickly as I pictured myself asleep in luxury, I saw my options vanish. The child-sized seats in the kids’ play train we passed on our way to the pension house were looking like a sure bet. After the receptionist called the youth hostel and another apartment with still no luck, I began to feel my eyes start to burn.

After a few seconds of awkward silence and a few jokes about Mary and Joseph, she said, “There is one more thing I can check. We do have a little house up the street that we use to rent rooms to fishermen. You could stay there possibly. It’s clean.” Well, needless to say we hiked the 10 minutes up the street and found our 8 x 8 ft. room. The good news is that it only cost us 350 kroner. That’s 70 dollars for a bathroom sized room. But, at the end of the day, we praised God for a roof over our head (albeit a small roof) and an experience to laugh about.

P.S. Michael was up long before I was, making a reservation for our next location. I’m writing this from a much upgraded abode. Love you all!

Whitney in Paradise

Iceland Pics

Here are a few pics from Iceland. We have just had quite the adventure tonight, but will write more soon...

Europe 101

Well, here we are sitting in front of the computer just 24 hours into our trip. We can´t get in to our hotel room. It´s not "ready" yet. Lesson number one: never mistake backpacking for a luxury vacation tour. We slept for about 2 hours on our flight over and would really love nothing more than to take a nap right now. The frustration may be due to the utter state of relaxation we´re in after soaking in 100 degree silicon infused thermal baths. The Blue Lagoon quickly embraced us. We rotated from steam bath, to sauna, to massaging waterfall and back again. The best part for me was watching Michael do all this, his face smothered with exfoliating silicon face mask. I never thought my husband to be the spa type but he´s quickly adjusting. He says his cheeks have never felt so smooth.

The landscape of Iceland is the most unusual we´ve ever seen. It feels lonely and barren here. There is no vegetation at all except dingy moss covering the expanse of volcanic rock. Its as though the world fought a brutal war, destroying everything, and we´re here discovering it a hundred years later, moss covered and desolate. And yet all of it has a striking beauty, one we feel fortunate enough to have seen with our own eyes. We will take pictures, of course, but nothing will capture the essence of this place.

Last night...

Its our last night on U.S. soil for over 180 days. It's scary and exciting. I honestly can't believe that the last 9 months of dreaming, planning and quitting our jobs has finally left us just 24 hours from takeoff. Literally. The last several days have been full of relaxing, enjoying family and friends and saying some difficult goodbyes. While we can't wait to begin this journey, there is also a piece of us we leave here. We leave our first home. We leave our favorite Vietnamese restaurant. We leave familiarity. We leave Chili's Bar and Grill. We leave our family, our friends and our beloved Romeo. I don't think I've ever left this much for this long and the weight of it all is beginning to settle in my stomach and push a little bit at the corners of my eyes. And yet, this decision has been ours from the start. Our idea, our planning, our plane tickets and I don't want to ever appear to complain. While leaving it all will be (is) tough, I can't imagine the things that we are about to learn, the sites that we are about to see, the places we are about to explore and the people we are about to meet. When I peer through the tri-paned glass of our Icelandair 747 at 7:20 tomorrow night I surely will watch the last light of St. Paul disappear, but I will also be looking for the ocean and with it will come an adventure of which I have never known.