I've gone to look for America

So our time in Europe has come to an end. With one last walk through Hyde park we say goodbye to London, and to all of the countries we've visited in the last two and a half months. Wow. Just writing that down reminded me of what we have been doing here and how insane of a blessing it is. Tyler and I have been talking about just how normal this life feels to us now. A life with monopoly money (euros are all fun colors and don't really feel like money at all), A life seeing some of the most beautiful slash historic places on this Earth, A life traveling practically everyday where so many things can and do go wrong, A life where you are a foreigner (and not really respected because your American), A life living out a dream I have had since before I can remember. But regardless of what you are doing, I have found that everything loses its luster, no matter how cool or important it is. That kind of stinks, but its okay with me because it helps me remember that there is something in this world that never fades, and that always remains beautiful and relevant. I have enjoyed this trip to the utmost and feel truly blessed to have had the opportunity. But I am glad that it is coming to a close and am about to have another adventure back in America. I have never really had an affinity for that word before, but now that word holds so much meaning to me. It is the same to me as home. America is my home and I am excited to go back. I am excited to see my friends and family and spend large amounts of time with them, learning of their past two months. I am excited to drive my car, with just me, the road, some timeless music, and a landscape all around me that screams of the one who never fades.

Italy:

First we found our friend Hope in Cinque Terra.

Then we found this mountain, so we climbed it.

Then we found a sweet sunset.

Then we found Florence, but I can't find the Pictures.

Next we found Hope's friend Katie on a metro in Rome.

After that I found the Colosseum.

Then Tyler found it.

Katie found gelato.

Then we found our friend Stephanie.

We looked for the Pope, but He was hiding.

Now we are in Scotland looking for the Loch Ness Monster.

We come home in less than a Week.

E

Read this:

About a year ago Evan became slightly obsessed with a music video of a pop music group from Denmark.  The group: Alphabeat. The song: Fascination.  His excitement for the fun and colorful group grew and spread among friends (including me).  In the fall we bought their first album on the secret music website that was revealed to me by Brittany Turner and that I have revealed to a few of you.  We bought their second album while on our trip only days before visiting Antwerp, Belgium.  It was here that we would get to see Alphabeat live!  The day of the show Evan claimed to possibly more excited about this event than any other thus far in life.  He was exaggerating I'm sure, but part of me thinks that he wasn't...  As expected the show was like a perfect ice-cream sundae and the Fascination encore was the cherry on top!

This is only one of the highlights of a very busy trip since leaving Spain.  Before Antwerp we were in Brussels for a few days eating waffles and fries and listening to Barbara teach us about the European Union (because Brussels is the capital of the EU).  From there we took a day trip to Brugge and Gent.  Brugge was quaint and beautiful!  Gent, well, we basically got free coffee and walked back to the train station...

Since Antwerp we have been to Cologne! Munich! Prague! And now Berlin! oh, yea, and poland.

This time has been a good "recovery" period from the marathon, which means no running and lots of eating!  Back in Knoxville my running habits allowed my metabolism to keep up with my ice-cream based diet, but with race "recovery" and European food things have changed.  The result: I've gained about 10 pounds and Evan seems to have lost weight!  I've started running a little bit again...

Next stop: Italy.

The farther East we went...

Barbara here, traveling alongside Evan and Tyler as they explore the lands of Europe. Having successfully traveled through Spain, Belgium and Germany I hoped to show the boys a different part of Europe -- the far East. Well, not too far, but farther then any normal tourists dare to venture: Poland - the home of great food, great people and fabulous memories. Well, atleast I think so. The boys, however, have spent the last few days being scared out of their minds. 

The first scare started with our train. Western European trains look and smell fabulously -- eastern trains look and smell like your great-grandma. We arrived into Krakow with high expectations -- and then the boys had their first food. Zapiekanki-- we Poles eat meat, potatoes, mushrooms, and ketchup...on everything. Sadly, Tyler almost died. I tried to explain to them that other Polish food is INDEED delicious -- but then sort of failed by serving them condensed wheat soup for breakfest...yes, we eat soup for breakfest. Needless to say, the boys were ready to move on...

My main aim for this trip to my homeland was to show the boys a different side of culture and history.  We started our historical lesson with a trip to Auschwitz Concentration camp outside of Krakow.  Auschwitz was the main extermination camp of the Third Reich and the place where the majority of Slavs, Jews, and Gypsies were systematically gassed. The tour was not an experience that is easy to put into words, but we were all overcome with realization of the frailty of life and the power of Sin within our world. Next, I took the boys to my hometown, Rzeszow, to show them how the Polish truly live. I am absolutely in love with my family, so it was a treat to share them with Evan and Tyler. I LOVED that they  were able to enjoy some of the people I love most in life. The Polish culture is extremely centered on family and community and....Vodka. So to add to the cultural/family experience, we went to a Vodka production Factory/Museum to learn the intricate details of the art of alcohol. We got to taste over a dozen different types of vodkas and liquers --- all of which the Polish claim to be the best in the world. But, Evan and Tyler will quickly tell you that the Polish think EVERYTHING from Poland is the best in the world. I think I asked the question, "isn't this AMAZING??" at least 20 times each day!

Our next adventure was a night train to PRAGUE. We were all very excited to see the city and couldn't wait to get there. Right before leaving Poland, my parents called me to warn me about train bandits--I am rather proud and travel savvy so I immediately blew off their naive warnings. Well, midway through our train I got my purse stolen. Bye bye Iphone and camera. Who needs those anyway, right? I am SO EXCITED to use my 1999 samsung again. 

But, despite the food misadventures and the mobster bandits we are managing to enjoy ourselves. Prague is absolutely gorgeous and may be my favorite city in Europe. Sorry Barcelona! We have spent our day walking around, napping in random spots, and enjoying the sites. I will always believe, the farther East you go...the better...

VENGA RUUSELLE

Hey there,

So we know we are not very diligent in keeping this blog, but we have good reason.  We are in some of the most beautiful places in the world with some of our best friends and we would much rather spend time enjoying it than writing about it.  But I do like to write about it because it helps process it and allows our other best friends (and random people who happen to look at this blog) know what is happening with us.  So here is a quick rundown of our lives the last 15ish days:

We flew from Nairobi, Kenya to London and spent a really great two nights there.  I think London is a wonderful town and it was an incredible transition from Africa to Europe for us (they speak English in London if you didn't know).  We then flew down to Barcelona and waited for our friends to arrive.  Brittany Turner, Lindsey Watson, Casey Holbrook and Jackie Newman all came over for their spring breaks to travel around Spain with us.  We spent several days in Barcelona roaming around the city,

Drinking the best juice I've ever had from La Boqueria,

Buying five Euro sunglasses at Park Guell,

and Tyler and I even ran a Marathon,

If you ever run a marathon I recommend eating a whole pack of oreos with milk at one o'clock in the morning the night before.  It is what I did and I think its the only reason I finished.  I also wore a cape with a hot pink lightning bolt on the back and I think that also helped me.  Tyler wore his classic short shorts and like broke a world record or something, but who wants to do that.  I also received more cheers because of my cape.

The whole first half of the race, the people watching on the sides were yelling "venga ruuselle" "venga ruuselle" which I thought (because of my impeccable deductive powers) that "ruuselle" must be some caped hero that everyone in Spain knows about.  It felt pretty cool to know I was representing a nationwide icon and I sported my "ruuselle" cape proudly.  I was planning on asking Daveed about this caped character later and was excited to learn about him.  I genuinely had all of those thoughts in my head for about 13 miles, then I looked down at my bib and saw why you are now going to think I'm an idiot.  You see when my parents had me they decided that it would be best for me to go by my middle name (I have always appreciated this) and so my first name is rarely spoken of, but when I fill out paperwork, for, say a marathon, I use my first name, Russell, never thinking that they are going to put it on my bib so that the spectators can cheer me on.  But there it was, printed in bright green letters right on my stomach, and the Spanish people were just pronouncing it a little funny, so of course I made up a caped hero in my mind.  I think I laughed to myself for like four miles because of this.  One day I'm going to make a cartoon about a spanish hero in a cape with a pink lightning bolt on the back and name him Ruuselle.

Aside from all the random people cheering for us, our friends were out in full force using our correct names giving us much needed encouragement.

They were awesome.  Here are some more random marathon pics: 

Tyler Killing it: he ran it in a 2:55:08 which is too fast for me to do the math for what minute mile pace he had.  Its close to like 46 seconds a mile. Whoa!!

Evan on the other hand had enough time to enlist the help of his friends:

Pray

For

Me!!!! 

( it worked even though I almost quit and went to the Mc'Donalds we ran by (also if you ever run a marathon, don't pick a course that makes you run right by Mickey Dees)) 

After the marathon Daveed picked us up in the Vansion (a nine person bus capable of carrying two smart cars inside it) and we headed off to Girona.  We got trapped in the snow and ended up having to spend the night in some random hostel. 

Palm trees in the snow!

 So fun.  Then We headed south on a beautiful day.  We were cruising right along the Mediterranean most of the way.  We passed by Valencia and its gorgeous orange trees, and stopped to watch the sunset in one of the most beautiful places I have ever been, Calpe.

 We arrived in Granada late but were excited for the next day exploring the historically rich town. We wandered around the next day, visiting the famous Alhambra,

and eating some delicious free tapas (you had to buy a drink).  We Then headed back North to Daveeds home town of Madrid where we enjoyed a dinner with the McNamees and my friend Barbara (from Oak Ridge, but on Young Life staff in Spain).  Madrid has been a lot of fun. We have seen the city and the parks and Daveed's wonderful Mama has cooked some incredible authentic spanish food for us.  It has been a great time with our friends and we wish they were traveling around the rest of Europe with us, but they had to get back to school.

We leave Madrid in the morning for Brussels, Belgium where we are going to try to eat as many waffles and fries ( they invented fries, not france) and mussels as we can.

Adios Tios

Matatu

A Matatu is a 14 passenger van used for public transportation in Kenya.  These are a crazier variation to the Ugandan Botabota.  While the seats of a botabota are generally less comfortable, it is rare (from what I saw) that one would have to share a seat or stand.  The Kenyans do things differently.

Our last ride on a matatu was the most interesting of them all.  It started in the small town of Banana where we had to change from our previous matatu to one that would take us back to Nazareth Hospital.  Immediately after exiting to change a thief/ beggar began to harass us and insisted on "helping" us find our way to our taxi.  After continuing to beg for "10 bob" for a up of tea, he did not leave until the conductor pushed him away and they pushed our taxi on our way.

I could not exactly see how many people were in the taxi once we finally left the stop because of the woman who was semi-standing in front of me just inside the door, but I believe I correctly estimated at 22 in the 14 passenger van.  As we stopped for gas across the street I could feel with my shoulder that the door was not quite shut.  The conductor began to try to shut the door, but i was clear to me that it most likely would not.  It was the lady standing over me who stopped it from shutting; her butt was simply too big!  A man outside came up to the door and I thought he was going to help shut the door when the unthinkable happened.  They opened the door fully and crammed another woman inside the door!!  We were now rolling 23 in the 14 passenger van.  I've never been so close to a complete stranger.  At times I thought I could put my arms around her and give her a big hug and she wouldn't really notice any change from the way we already were.

I wore a smile practically the whole ride and tried not to laugh aloud.  Amazingly I was able to get my video camera out for Evan to film, but it was dark and does it no justice anyway!  As we pulled up to the hospital another matatu passed us going the other way with green florescent lights inside.  It was basically a night club on wheels.  Maybe that's the only way that ride could've been crazier...

T

Last day in Uganda

We woke up to the loud thuds of raindrops pelting the tin roof of Marley's doghouse.  Oh no! We never thought about rain.  We thought about buying our 40,000 Ugandan Schilling tickets ( 20 bucks) the day before.  We thought about which taxis we would have to get on in order to get to the bus park.  We thought to  charge our ipods and pack our bags. We even thought enough to  buy a loaf of bread and jar of nutella for the journey (great call on our part).  We did not however, think about rain.  It has only rained like once since we've been here. Why does it have to rain on the day when we have to get up at five in the morning and walk up a small mountain with all our luggage to the paved road where the taxis drive.  Today definitely would have been one of those days where I just go back to sleep and enjoy the sounds of nature until I needed food, but we have a bus leaving at 6:15 that we have to be on.  So we trek out into the downpour in our sandaled feet up the muddy road in the pitch black.  We make it to the partially paved road where we normally catch taxis to town but the street is deserted.  Not even the crazy boda boda drivers are out trying to hound us for rides.  We keep walking toward the road that has more pavement on it.  We see a couple of our boda drivers uncomfortably keeled over their motorcycles sleeping ( I always wondered where they all went at night).  The main road has only a few more people on it and the cars pass too slowly for my liking.  A taxi stops with the conductor motioning us in, but when the door slides open we see it is already full (by our standards at least) and most definitely would not accommodate our huge backpacks and us.  I begin to think we will not make it the bus station on time.  If we couldn't fit in a taxi I thought we would just get a private hire, but none of them were out because of the rain, along with the rest of Uganda, so now we didn't know what to do.  We wait on the curb and watch cars pass us by as we get soaking wet.  Finally another taxi stops and there is one seat available in the front so we just throw our bags in and then cram ourselves in around them.  I think Tyler hit this woman in the face with his backpack.   It was a relief to get to the station and learn that the bus had been slightly delayed, which figures, because we were definitely slightly delayed getting there on time.  It was a good last memory of Uganda and our time there.

So we made it to Kenya smoothly and were collected by our friends from nazareth hospital.  We have spent the last couple of days resting and relaxing on the compound of nazareth which has a breathtaking view of the african countryside.  The nuns who work here have fed us well, they make some of the best chapatti ever,  and kept the fridge stocked with Coca-Cola, the bottled kind with real sugar in it mmm.  We ventured out today in Kenya's finest public transportation, the wonderful matatus, much are like Uganda's taxis but with twice as many people.  We are currently sitting in this nice little cafe drinking milkshakes and trying to plan out our short stay in London on monday and tuesday of next week before we head to Barcelona to meet up with our friends.

We will most likely come back here on saturday to use the internet so if you want to skype us we should be on during the morning in the U.S. 

E