Deep Breaths

To the ocean and back..and back to the ocean... and back.

Fear not everyone, we are alive and well. We've had an exhausting couple of days. Yesterday was Greek Easter, so we went to an Easter Sunday service here in Nicosia, then left to go to Limassol to pick up Leia's grandma (or, in Greek, her giagia, which is pronounced "ya-ya"). Then the five of us drove to a place called Governor's Beach, which is where Leia and I had our engagement party back in October, and which is also where our summer youth camps are held. We had a lovely dinner overlooking the ocean, which as you can (sort of) see from the picture, was beautiful yesterday.

When we got back to Leia's grandma's house, I got to see some cute/embarasassing pictures
of Leia as a child. Let's just say that she was never camera shy... hehehe. Later last night, we drove through Limassol and saw all the touristy beach resorts and the main oceanfront road with many restaurants and cafes and so on. It sort of reminds you of a less glitzy and seedy Las Vegas strip, or (for our friends in Tennessee), a less cheesy Gatlinburg.

Leia's giagia came back with us to Nicosia last night, so today we drove back down to Limassol again to take her home and to hang out by the beach a bit more (yes, it's a rough life). Leia and I and her parents walked along a lit path right next to the beach, and stopped for some drinks at Starbucks. All in all, it was a lovely time, although there was quite a bit of deja vu involved, as we basically spent two whole days driving in circles.

So much for our Easter adventure... now we're faced with the prospect of lots of wedding preparations with fast-approaching deadlines... the next few weeks are going to be really hectic and we're just trying to brace for it. All of my things that I shipped from the States are supposed to be arriving in the next day or two, so we'll also have the challenge/fun of unpacking and sorting all that stuff out. I'm very excited because I have missed having my books and CD's and guitar and all the other random odds and ends that one never really misses until they're sealed in a box in the hold of a cargo plane on some other continent. Hopefully being able to arrange all my stuff in my new room will make it feel a bit more like home.

Anyway.. that's about all for today. Thanks for tolerating the brief interruption in your regularly-scheduled blog programming yesterday. Hopefully we didn't cost ourselves any loyal readers. Please post some comments and/or email us as often as you like. Hearing from our friends and family always makes our day. We would also like to encourage some of our friends with blogs (you know who you are) to post something new soon because we check them faithfully every day and say things like "STILL nothing new since March 20th?!? What's wrong with (insert friend's name here)?!?" :o)

I'll leave you tonight with another quote. This one's from Rainer Maria Rilke:

"Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."

We are definitely living some questions right now (as I know many of you are), and trying to learn how to love them. Maybe we can help each other live into some answers along the way.

More tomorrow.

–John

posted by John and Leia @ 12:21 PM