Eat Fly Love

Who am I?

2013-05-16T18:09:00.001-04:00

24601 Who am I? These days I feel buried. My life has change quite a bit lately, and along with some rather bad luck, I'm now sick with a sore throat, a lower back injury, and enough mental anguish at being trapped in the South that it takes every bit of strength to keep myself from literally losing it. I grimace at the flash-backs of places and events of the past as I compare them to the

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What Hurts the Most

2013-03-18T01:00:00.000-04:00

There's a country song that goes like this: Every now and again I pretend I'm okay but that's not what gets me. What hurts the most, was being so close. Still harder getting up, getting dressed, living with this regret. Last Monday my study-abroad experience ended with a whimper. My re-entry debrief occurred at 4 PM at the International Program Center at UNCG. I walked in, sat down and my

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Two Worlds Collide

2013-03-01T17:27:00.000-05:00

Shannon and me on top of the Eiffel Tower It's been over two months. My ability to suppress emotions and thoughts has even surpassed my own expectations. When memories, or "homesickness" for Europe creeps in, I'm able to "replace" the thought with something else conscientiously, and suppress that memory. I find it somewhat ironic that it's necessary for me to do this with what are typically

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No Fate but What We Make

2013-02-13T23:21:00.000-05:00

It's taken me nearly two months to actually decide to publish this post. I wasn't sure I originally would, but I think I finally feel it's time. Perhaps that's a sign? 19 December, 2012 (My return flight after four month in Belgium) I've been awake for nearly 24 hours, and I'm emotionally exhausted. Every few seconds on the plane a thought would creep in, and I'd have to force myself to

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Brussels Part 1 | Where it all began.

2013-02-13T23:05:00.001-05:00

This collection of photos began upon arriving in Brussels, and represent just the first part of my life in Brussels. I hope to add the rest in the weeks to come. It's rather weird looking back at these now, knowing where I am now, and who I am. I was definitely a different person then.

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Never Netherlands

2013-01-20T13:27:00.000-05:00

Me and Amsterdam had a relationship. It was a definitely a love/hate relationship. I'm not sure exactly what happened in Amsterdam, but I can say with certainty, no-matter what happened, there will never be another weekend like the one I had in the Netherlands that semester. The truth is, I believe, this was the moment that everything I was before ended, and everything I would become began.

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Poland: From Krakow to Auschwitz

2013-01-17T19:02:00.003-05:00

I've not written anything about my experiences in Auschwitz, or Krakow. It really was a fitting end to leaving. "The end of the road", so to speak for both of us, and an extremely moving experience. In one way, I knew once I entered the country of Poland, I too would not be coming out alive. While mine may have been metaphorical, none-the-less, it was an experience that changed me, saddened me,

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Pictures of a Pilgrimage (Through Spain)

2013-01-13T10:27:00.001-05:00

These are the images of my 118 K pilgrimage across Spain to Santiago. A journey which took five days through the mountains of western Spain on foot, following the ancient pathways and roads.

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Rome through my eyes

2013-01-12T15:04:00.002-05:00

In Rome, the weight of destiny is crushing. Here mankind grips what time tries to rip apart.

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A Melody Across the Pond

2013-01-06T14:03:00.001-05:00

So some of you may have already seen this. To those of you who lurk in the darkness, and aren't friends with me on Facebook, or just like to stalk (everyone needs a few good stalkers in their life!), well then, this is for you. Coming home has been like moving to a foreign country. I feel more like a study abroad student in the U.S. than I ever did in Belgium. I'm trying my best to deal with

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She Fell From The Sky

2012-12-14T10:56:00.000-05:00

Out of the sky she fell to the earth. So this is goodbye. I wondered what it would feel like. I think I always knew, but hoped that it wouldn't be like this; that I'd manage to take most everyone's non-requested advice and be able to see the positive aspects in it all. Like anyone would choose the alternative, if they could? As if I want to feel any of these final moments in the manner I do.

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Reverse culture shock | The Dark Homecoming

2012-12-09T13:08:00.000-05:00

This should serve as a warning. To all those who take travel candidly, who see the study abroad experience as nothing more than a footnote on their resumes someday; you may take home more than you ever bargained for. Since first experiencing this phenomenon myself, I’ve been asking the question: where is home, when your heart is oceans apart? This simple question, for me, best describes the

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The End is Where We Start From.

2012-12-06T07:18:00.001-05:00

Hermosa you are my camino now. (Spain) A single snowflake falls somewhere in the world. Then another, and then another. Like words, before long, we find ourselves traveling a landscape of art created by our observations. Each step redefines the landscape, and our single set of footprints there to remind us of where we have been. Much of art is like that, we look at it, we take a single glance

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The Road to Redemption

2012-12-02T12:52:00.002-05:00

Finality is rising. This morning I traveled the snow covered roads of the former Cold War city of Krakow to the airport. Wheels up at 9:55, I love the smell of jet-fuel in the morning. For the last five weeks I've been traveling from Spain to Paris, to Ypres, to Rome, to Auschwitz, unsure of where any of this leaves me as one final flight remains. I've been thinking a lot about this last

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Where the story ends.

2012-11-15T17:28:00.000-05:00

The memory I want to forget when I leave is saying goodbye. I'm just not sure if they'll be anything left of me by the time I arrive at the moment. When I wrote this, I thought I'd be stronger. I thought I'd had come to terms with the ending by now. This week however I'm an emotional wreck. I'm still keeping it fairly private (up till now), though there are moments where I shield my face from

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Santiago de Compostela | You don't choose a life. You live one.

2012-11-09T15:07:00.002-05:00

You don't choose a life. You live one. Imagine this. After five days of walking through the mountains of Spain on ancient Roman roads with nothing but a sack on our backs, a worn down walking stick, and our bruised and bleeding feet we arrived to the final hill overlooking Santiago de Compostella. Our dirty faces, and raggedy clothes hung from out bodies as we hunched over from the magnitude

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When the World Changes You and You Can't Tell Anyone.

2012-10-20T17:12:00.000-04:00

I'm ready to jump now. To let go. And then I came to Brussels, and all these people and places changed me. Changed how I see the world, and I know now that I won't be able to share them with anyone when I go home. It has become obvious this week that my time is dwindling down, and that my return home will be arriving soon. There is now less time left remaining in my stay here in Brussels than

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A Walk of Faith | Camino de Santiago

2012-10-19T05:16:00.000-04:00

“All you have to do is look straight and see the road, and when you see it, don’t sit looking at it – walk.” ~Ayn Rand In less than ten days I leave for Spain. A flight from Brussels to Barcelona then onward in a bus to a samll town of Sarria for a week-long trek by foot. A pilgrimage upon the Camino de Santiago, the way of Saint James. For a self-professed fallen-from-faith individual, my

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Waiting for Life to Begin.

2012-10-14T11:11:00.000-04:00

I left Brussels on Saturday morning for Dinant, a destination chosen randomly to be spontaneous. It's a little village on the Meuse river in southern Belgium which might as well be a world away. The raindrops clung to the window of the train carriage as we pulled out of the station and into the unknown. This was really the first major trip I've taken by myself, alone, since arriving; I

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A Change In Me

2012-10-10T17:06:00.001-04:00

My morning starts with the sun peeking over over the top of Place Poelaert, slipping through the cracks in my electric shade. My mobile vibrates letting me know it's time to begin living again. I toss the comforter off, rotate 90 degrees, and my toes dangle just over the cold tile floor before landing me back into this reality. I begin my crunches, adding five more to the count of the day

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There's a time for everything under Heaven

2012-10-09T09:38:00.002-04:00

If you don't give your heart wings, you will never, never, never, ever fly. There's a time for everything. A time to cry, a time to laugh, and as Ren McCormack would say "there's a time to dance". It was this line in the movie Footloose (the original one) that's stuck with me for a lot of my life. It's a good metaphor for travel. As everyone knows by now, my last visit to Brussels involved

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Dreams live in the Future

2012-10-06T11:02:00.003-04:00

Don't dream your life, live the dream. So I was on my way back from Jeu de Balle where I met some friends and grabbed a chocolat chaud (hot chocolate) with a side of conversation and several laughs. Up the hill from the flea market is a little cafe where they bring you hot white milk and a small thimble full of chocolate chips (I can only assume, Belgian chocolate). You mix it yourself, the

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Amsterdam | So High You Can't Move

2012-09-30T17:15:00.002-04:00

Some of my favorite things was dinner with friends, and Anne Franks house. Amsterdam, the home of near-naked women standing in a bath of red light, coffee shops that sell marijuana laced brownies, and joints to anyone trying to escape reality. Vegas has nothing on Amsterdam. Welcome to the true Sin City. It's a place so high on life, you'll find yourself at some point during your visit

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Conviction of the Heart

2012-09-25T14:55:00.000-04:00

Where are the dreams that we once had? This is the time to bring them back. - Kenny Loggins Welcome to your life, there's no turning back. -Tears for Fears How can I possibly keep going down this path, blinded by reality, faithful to my convictions that a destiny awaits before me? Faith is rather scary word, especially when I use it to describe my life but yet I find it most

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Thank You Wonderland : Brussels

2012-09-24T12:40:00.000-04:00

Somewhere in the past my life split off into this tangent. The moment it happened I fell into a reality, a life which forever what reasons became my life here in Wonderland otherwise known as Brussels. Life here isn't "normal" (meant in the nicest way), you can't explain it to someone who doesn't live here. You can't define what life is here. There's bad here, but it's usually outweighed ten-fold

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