A Week in Greece #33: ELIZABETH ARRIVES

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August is tourist season, and I’ve been so happy to host visitors taking advantage of their summer holidays-first my mom and now one of my closest friends (Elizabeth co-writes the Let’s Talk  About series with me). 

But before Elizabeth came on Friday, I had a normal workweek.  Not much to report there, necessarily. Two staff members are out on holidays, and we’re just about finished with our summer schedule. That means slowly getting ready for the return of our official classes (thank God) and me working on fundraising things (I’m up to about $4,000 out of $32,000!)
What a good time to self-promote! Donate online today at www.gemission.org/donate! 

The main interesting thing this week was all the skype conversations I had with strangers and old friends.  An unexpected theme arose from these conversations where I was reminded of my primary interest in ministering to ministers, and thinking about how that might play out someday in missionary member care or a retreat center or who knows! It’s really fun to see how I am accumulating experiences and developing skills that will lead me on a hopping path to new opportunities. 

I’ve been feeling a lot lately, just how much I love my life. I’ve frequently wondered if I would be happy if I died suddenly and soon, and…yes! I feel like I am living life to my fullest. I’m taking advantage of opportunities that come up, I am giving to the world the best of myself, and I am constantly learning and growing and transforming. I feel so content (in the midst of fear and wanderlust and anger) knowing that I’m living the life I want to live. I’m so lucky. 


That pickiness only increased on Friday morning when Elizabeth arrived! She is my kindred spirit and my mental soul mate, and so far we are having so much fun together. We went to Heraklion, Crete for the weekend because we’re both massive history nerds, and last night we stayed up until 1:00 drinking wine and eating cheese and talking about the freedom that comes from actually believing in God’s grace. Today we spent hours at the museum full of the most amazing Minoan artifacts, and we’ve been eating great Greek food to stay energized. Also napping. Right now is nap time, so as soon as I post this…zzz. 

Letters Between Friends: WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT GREECE

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Dear Tricia,

First I would like to thank you Miss Tricia for my history lesson today.  I learned some new stuff and RE learned some old.  Most of the historical stuff I read was as one would assume…Because Greece is one of the world’s oldest civilizations, the influence MANY Greeks had on EVERYTHING is astounding.  Math (Pythagorean Theorem), Language, Architecture, Art & Theater, Psychology, literature, fashion (draping, gladiator sandals, headbands, etc.), democracy, should I keep going??

Basically, we wouldn’t be the America we are today without Greece.  So how about I give you some random trivia knowledge about everything Greece… Some you may know, but others (I will feel accomplished if) you may hear for the first time!!!

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  1. Athens is one of the oldest capitals in the World.  (Back story: The original capital was Nafplio, then that was stripped during the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th Century.  Athens became the capital in 1834.)
  2. Nearly 17 million tourists visit Greece every year, which is 50% more than their entire population!
  3. Greece is the most sexually active country according to Duramax survey.
  4. Greek is the oldest written language and one of the oldest spoken languages in the world.
  5. Cleopatra, famous Egyptian ruler, was actually GREEK!  Not Egyptian at all!
  6. Greeks invented the yo-yo!
  7. The Parthenon at Dusk
    447-438 B.C., Athens, Greece — The Parthenon at Dusk — Image by © Colin Dixon/Arcaid/Corbis

    So that Parthenon was actually in pretty good shape most of it’s existence…but in the 1600s they were using it as a place to store gun powder and there was an explosion…that + time = what the Parthenon looks like now.

  8. Greece is the leading producer in sea sponges!
  9. No point in Greece is more than 85 miles from water.  Greece has about 9,000 miles in coastline, 10th longest in the world.
  10. The first recorded Olympic games was in 776 BC staged in Olympia.  It consisted of one event, the 200 meter dash.  BUT FIRST, they sacrificed 100 bulls to Zeus.  The dude that won it, Koroibus, was a baker from a nearby town.  And of course, he did it in the buff.

So did I teach you anything?!?!  Every other article I found was, “You’re an American going to Greece?!  Oh my! Be careful!  People want your money, and don’t wave at someone with an open hand.  And if they spit on you, it’s a good thing.”

HAPPY THURSDAY/FRIDAY!  See you in 64 days!

Love,

Lindsay

Podcast Recommendation List | PART 2

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A few months ago I recommended some of my favorite podcasts (and received some great recommendations back!), because there is rarely a time when I don’t have a podcast playing in the background.  While all of my previous recommendations (especially Dear Hank and John, Overinvested, and The Liturgists Podcast) are still high on my priority list, I have since added some new ones to my queue!

600x600bb1|  The Guilty Feminist

Big thanks to blogger Jesse for recommending this one to me.  Sofie Hagen and Deborah Frances-White are European comedians who record their shows about “the feminist ideals we hold and the insecurities and hypocrisies that undermine them.”  They start each show with a series of “I’m a feminist, but…” confessions that create a safe place to laugh about all the ways we fail to be as body positive and self-confident as we profess to be.  They’ve done shows about exercise, apologizing, femininity, and many more, and I look forward to each new episode every week.

14711124649122|  Harry Potter and the Sacred Text

This is a new podcast that I only just discovered, but I LOVE it. Continue reading →

Perfect Love Casts Out Fear

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Yesterday I wrote about fear’s power in destroying love.  Thankfully, we can choose which of these worldviews we feed.  And just as focusing on fear can make love shrink, so to can focusing on love banish fear.

Again, this is easiest to see in the world of human interactions.  Growing up in the Midwest, surrounded by white middle class girls and boys, I had a fear of the other that zeroed in on Muslim people after 9/11.  I didn’t hate them, necessarily, but I figured that if I ever met one, I wouldn’t want to be friends with him or her.  I was afraid of the actions of a few, and it kept me from loving a massive population of diverse people.

Luckily, in college I went to Turkey and met Muslim men and women.  I was overwhelmed to realize that they were normal human beings with fears and passions and hobbies. Continue reading →

Perfect Fear Casts Out Love

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Yes, you read that correctly.  The actual Bible verse is “perfect love casts out fear,” but I’m reading Jonathan Martin’s book Prototype, and I fully agree with him that the reverse is also true.

Perfect fear casts out love.   Continue reading →

#SAME | You Really Get Me

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It’s been a while since I made a #same post (parts one and two), a kind of series I made to celebrate the ways tumblr posts unite us in our weirdnesses!  

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That’s it for this round of #SAME!  

Until next time…

Sunday Summary #37

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1|  Stop Pretending “Sexy” and “Sexualized” Mean the Same Thing by The Mary Sue

YES, thank you.  There are ways to show and appreciate the human form without resorting to gross objectification.

I repeat: nobody has a problem with you being turned on by people you find attractive. This article is not about how you perceive people; it’s about how they are presented to you…The human body is neutral, not inherently objectified just by virtue of being visible. When Olympic athletes are represented in the media, the photographers, journalists and commentators have a choice: do they show these accomplished professionals doing their thing and allow viewers to decide on their own if they find the competitors attractive, or do they choose close-ups, angles and descriptions which draw attention to attractiveness over performance?

2|  What Travel Did For My Body-Image by Travelettes

I love this piece on how travel helps your body image by shifting your priorities and decreasing your opportunities to obsess over your body.

3|  Alia Shawkat & Aubrey Plaza Will Play Hamilton & Burr in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Drunk History Episode! by The Mary Sue

YESSSS, super excited to see this gender-bending, immigrant-appreciating Drunk History about Hamilton and Burr!

4|  Finally, the Try Guys recreate the Ancient Olympics, and it’s AMAZING, obviously.

A Week in Greece #32: MOM LEAVES

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I’m back with weekly recaps!  Hyper-observant readers of my blog might notice that Weeks #30 and #31 don’t exist, the former because I forgot and the latter because it was actually A Week in Slovenia.

Mom and I finished up our vacation on Monday. In some ways it was hard to return – being in Slovenia rekindled my wanderlust in a big way, planting visions of new jobs in new European countries in my brain.  This is unfortunate, since I literally just committed to staying in Greece for another year.  But it’s also pretty standard, since my reaction to any kind of commitment is usually “JUST KIDDING OMG THIS IS SCARY.” Most commitments, anyway.  The great thing about returning was getting back to my cat-shaped cuddle-monster, Hans Harrison.

On Tuesday, my mom and I did a lot of shopping, both practical and fun.  We went to the mall, an hour-long journey that got us thinking about the differences of city and country travel Continue reading →

Italy | BOLOGNA

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As you know from my last post, Venice (mostly its hoards of tourists) was kind of overwhelming.  I was not excited to leave the hotel for day three, so I threw out this option:  “Let’s go somewhere else.  We’re near the train station!”  My mom is awesome, so she agreed to the impromptu change of plans.  Our mission was to simply find a train headed to a city we had heard of that was leaving relatively soon.  Those low standards led us to getting €12 tickets to Bologna!!

The two hour ride there was amazing, because I love reading and falling asleep on trains.  It is…my normal preferred life activities, but on a train, so it has the aura of forward movement and purpose attached.  There was one downside, though, which we discovered when we got to Bologna.  Because we hadn’t planned anything or even known where we would go, we hadn’t downloaded Google Maps for the area, and therefore had no idea where we were.

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We found some fancy stairs, and assumed that going up was a good idea.   Continue reading →

Italy | COMPLAINING ABOUT VENICE

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Venice is an amazingly unique city, full of twisty streets, water transportation, and…tourists.  It is absolutely FULL of tourists.  Granted, my mom and I visited the city at the worst time of the year; a weekend in August is basically asking to be smothered in visitors wearing shorts and sporting cameras around their necks.  And it didn’t help that we had just come from Slovenia, which is a country that boasts wide open spaces and mostly short lines.

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TOO MANY PEOPLE.

But okay, can I really complain about Venice?  I KNOW how ridiculous and privileged that sounds.  I’m not ready to give up on the city, and I would love to return in, like, November or February and see if the experience is more enjoyable.  But I cannot tell you how much the presence of tourists made the place feel cheap and fake.  I mean, one night we returned to the hotel early to watch Heath Ledger in Casanova, because an ACTUAL fake Venice seemed more appealing than the real thing.  Continue reading →