Well, remember how I told you it would not be six months before I wrote again. Straight-up lies. I don’t know where the time goes or why it is so hard to sit still and write something down, but it all just happens and—whoosh—it is six or nine months later. I have no excuses. That is not entirely true. I will share some excuses before I finish this entry.
Let’s go waayyyy back to January. Axel and I met Lawrence in Prague, by way of a layover in Dublin. It was an adventure, and it wasn’t even that cold. I did wear a wool base layer, which was absolutely necessary, and two coats. It was nice and toasty under all those clothes. I did not suffer as much as I thought I was going to. I also got us some waterproof hiking shoes. What a difference that made! The rain and cold did not even get through those suckers. It was actually game-changing in the sense that we did not fear going anywhere. We walked everywhere!
Prague is split into different areas, old and new. We stayed in the old area with the historical buildings, bridges, and castle. We walked miles and miles every day, exploring all the narrow roads and cool buildings. We saw the astronomical clock, the Jewish quarter and cemetery, and the Christmas markets. We crammed as much as we could into every day. We hit the restaurants and bakeries hard.
We did tourist stuff, like cross the famous St. Charles Bridge and tour the Museum of Communism. We drank beer and ate local food. Axel didn’t really drink beer. I did make that up. Another lie. Oh, man.
We were only there for seven days, but we had fun. The trip was a great escape from Texas, got Axel his snow and cold, and took us to a place we had never seen before. All good stuff. On the way home, we even stayed the night in Helsinki, Finland. I’m gonna be honest here; no sugar coating. It is a good thing it was only a night. That kind of cold is not something I can do for more than a minute. The snow piles on the side of the road were as tall as us. Not for me. It was a great ending to the trip though, because why wouldn’t you spend the night in Finland, right?
Axel missed the first two days of the new school semester, but maybe a trip to Europe taught him more than two days in class. I am thinking that might be the case. I think two days in any other country is more valuable, but who am I to say?
The months just started to blur after January. February brought the children home. We did Christmas in February. Matilda returned from her two-year stint in South Korea to stay here while she figures out her next move. Lydia flew in for a week so we could do xmas together. Axel lives here, so that worked out. We had saved all our presents, and I kept the tree up the whole time.
We all settled into a routine. I was anxiously awaiting my trip to Panama in May. And that is where the caca hit the fan. My trip was more like a bad telenovela with ex-wives causing everyone stress, long texts with lots of name calling, calls and voice messages at all hours sending people to hell, loud threats to break car windows, to call the cops, to run people over, and any other ridiculous action you can think of. It was a long two weeks.
I left there with more questions than anything. We spent the next couple of weeks talking about what happened. There was a lot of confusion and hurt feelings. He didn’t know what to do or how to move forward with so much drama with the ex. I had planned to go down for a week to decide what we were going to do next. Well, big surprise, I did not go. It turns out that I don’t like games or indecision and called it all off. It turned out to be a good thing, even though it really sucked at the time, because I have left the drama behind. It is not what I thought was going to happen, but it must be what was supposed to happen. Looking back, it certainly made me open my eyes to what I was getting myself into and what I want out of life. I said no to toxic behavior already; I don’t want to invite it back in when I have so much more to do and see. No, thank you. Thanks for thinking of me. See you later.
Now that that episode is over, I can refocus and get back on track. October has been busy at work with projects, events, and deadlines. I booked a trip to Ireland for November and reached out to Pano, my Greek friend/tutor, to see if he wanted to meet me there. He said sure, and we started coordinating calendars. We were thissss closssse to booking when he discovered that his ID would not work for travel to Ireland! The soonest he could get it fixed was the 11th of November, and our trip was scheduled for the 6th! Dang! Time to regroup.
We decided to do a road trip of Greece and travel to Ireland for the next trip. So, I leave here November 5th, arrive in Athens November 6th, and will do a road trip of the Peloponesse, Greece, until the 11th, then head home the 12th. We will be going to Sparta just so I can push him down a hole and say, “This is SPARTA!!.” It is going to be awesome.
When I left you the last time, I promised to be quicker about the next entry. It was an unintentional lie due to unforeseen circumstances. Life is back on track. The next installment will definitely, possibly, most likely be before next year! Seriously.
20K and a Year Away 