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Fireworks From A Plane

Do you like fireworks?

Ever seen fireworks from a plane?

Ever seen hundreds of separate fireworks displays from a plane?

Last night when we flew into London from Glasgow I got to see all the glory of Guy Fawkes night. In 1605 some bloke was foiled while trying to blow up the parliament buildings and now every year on the eve of my mom's birthday there are thousands of fireworks displays put on and bonfires burnt.

I captured some video. It's pretty dark, but if you look close you can see it. It looks just like flashbulbs going off at a big sports match, but they're actually fireworks going off all over the countryside of greater London.



Matt

ps. We went to church at Westminster Cathedral this morning. It was terrific. A very nice peaceful close to this trip.

THE END

Day 153

The end has come. 152 days behind us. How awesome those days were. O, how heavy the feeling after coming home from a week's holiday in Hawaii--times 22! Oh freedom--we shall miss you!

Today we leave St. Andrew's. Sunday pack. Monday fly home.

The last 10 days we've been hanging out with Kate and John and getting to know 3 month old Micah J. Here are a few photos of some of Micah's current hobbies. (Plus a few of the gorgeous Scottish coast because I can't resist. I shall so miss Europe's beauty!)



Bath time, splashing,...





getting kisses,...



wheelies on the beach,...



modelling,...





ooooohhing, aaaaahhing,...





looking cute,...



sitting on people's heads,...



leaping flying,...



smiling,...



and finally, Micah in the 70s.


Wild and windy coast...





Kate, Matt and Micah out for a walk.









Sunset at low tide in St. Andrew's.



Caio! Thanks for tuning in to the two bosses on their grand tour.

FINIS.

...or maybe not...

Muli Shani Zambia?!

Here's our African adventure in a few random photos (click to enlarge). It was wild and wacky. We expected the unexpected, but we were still surprised. And glad we went. We went for the opportunity to participate in a development project--specifically a poultry plant meant to stimulate the local economy, give small farmers jobs, and provide affordable protein to the poor.

Royal Poultry Company is the brainchild of a Zambian man who partnered with Engineering Missions International (EMI) for technical assistance to get the project up and running. EMI is like Doctors Without Borders for engineers and architects. So I got to spend a week with a bunch of science/technology nerds! Very fun. They were a really enjoyable, great team of 7 engineers, 1 architect, me, and another wife. 1 Ethopian, 3 Americans, 6 Canadians. While the guys worked, the other tag-along wife and I spent 4 days at Buseko Children's Home, an orphanage for HIV+ kids.



Sunset. African sky and light can be gorgeous.



Our grass hut at Pioneer Camp where we stayed the first two nights just outside the capital city, Lusaka, waiting for the team to arrive. It was a cool African dream--complete with mosquito net, stone walls and floors, fire heated shower, birds, giant spiders and beetles. Very fun.



Many billboards exist throughout Zambia now to suggest fidelity and/or safe sex as a way to fight HIV/AIDS. Often these are accompanied by Bible verses.



Lusaka market.



Roadside markets are everywhere. Everyone is an entrepreneur in Zambia--out of necessity I think.



The first and last couple days were in Lusaka, the capital, and the in between days we spent in Ndola, the major city of the Copperbelt, the copper mining area 4 hours drive North. In between these two cities of 2 and 1 million people were small, grass hut villages of subsistence farmers.



Running man.



Local bus.



A cheery way to ride under the hot, dry sun.



That sun going down.



Matt at the guest house in Ndola where we stayed. The guest house was also the work base for the team.



Toddler at Buseko, which means "laughter."



Lisa. Shoes always on the wrong feet. Always full of laughter.



Beautiful Agnes.



The two I wanted to take home. Matthew, the gentle-spirited 7 year old who loved sports and Izukangi, the 7 month old with big eyes and lots of smiles.



Lily pads in Nsobe Game Park.



Waterside at Nsobe Game Park--our fun day.








African cowboy.



Sad sacks.



Bicyclette en Afrique.



Broken down on the road back to Lusaka. And right after we just filled up at the "gas station"--two guys on the side of the road with a jerry can and siphon tube. The wheel had started to smoke so we all clambered out, waited for a safer vehicle, then all clambered aboard the next minivan whose whole underside was smoking. That's Africa.



Got to enjoy one African downpour--rare, since October is Zambia's hottest, driest month.



Space to Let--typical hanging out scene.

Your Questions Answered

We're swimming under a wave of so many questions, trying to keep our heads above water. So I thought I'd answer them publicly all at once here so that when we return we can waste no time and just get straight to hugging and eating dinners together and drinking good wine.

WHERE ARE WE NOW?
London. Visiting with Deb and Tom take two.

WHERE WE TWO DAYS AGO?
Italy. We did a whirlwind 8 day tour of Pisa, Florence, Ravenna, and Venice. And we LOVED it. Italy was hilarious, gorgeous, interesting, stunning--a great pile of funny cliches too. I wish we could have gone longer, but whose to say it's the last time?!

WHAT NEXT?
We fly to Zambia 3 days. We're excited, ambivalent, a little nervous all in one. We return Oct 24. London for a night, St. Andrew's for 10, London for 2 more, and fy home Nov 6.

Ok, that's the details of now, but here's what you all really want to know.

DID WE FIND OURSELVES?
Sure! We were right where we left ourselves.

NOW WHAT?
Don't know.

KIDS?
Don't know.

WHEN'S MATT GOING BACK TO WORK?
Don't know.

IS MATT GOING BACK TO WORK AT BCTC?
Don't know.

IF NOT BCTC, THEN WHERE?
Don't know.

IS SANDRA GOING TO WORK?
For Christmas season doing flowers again, and then, don't know.

SO WHAT DO WE KNOW?
Our plane lands in Vancouver. Ken and Sonya's will be our temporary home while I work for Christmas. Having it all figured out is overrated.

WAS IT WORTH IT?
Absolutely!

ARE WE READY TO GET SERIOIUS AND SETTLE DOWN?
No way. That's not the last time we quit our jobs and go on a big trip. The world is our oyster...

Taking a Left When Everyone Else is Taking a Right

I just had a most encouraging and serendipitous experience!

Way back in July by the river in Heidelberg, Germany we met a lively, talkative American, Tom, and a smiling and kind Polish doctor, Agneiszka. They were recumbent biking across Europe. I felt like a lazy slob in comparison to our "eat raw, live long" fellow English speakers, but we were desperate for a little English banter. We chatted, wished each other well in the morning, and never thought we'd see them again.

Today as we stumbled over Florence, Italy's narrow and beautiful streets, we saw two familiar faces on recumbent bikes. Two months later, we chatted again--this time for much longer to share some very funny and similar stories and experiences. As we talked, people openly stood right beside us and gawked at their bikes. I would have felt horrified earlier on in our trip to be so obviously conspicuous as tourists, but today I gloried in our loud English conversation in the middle of the piatza. English conversation has become a truly delicious treat after four months on the road.

We laughed about the wacky Europeans and just how quirky they can be. We commiserated on desperately searching for a camping spot as the dark quickly approaches, while you're lost, and hungry, and tired, and fighting over whether to spend more time looking or spend a few more Euros and stay inside where it's cosy and easy. But the best was being able to relate to other weary, but addicted to freedom, travelers on the experience of the whole abandoning your whole life back at home gig. Very encouraging. Tom firmly told us that we all get so afraid and to be able to make a huge change and take the risk was courageous.

That was what I needed to hear.

In a week, we say goodbye to the roaming, the freedom, the outside and fly back to London for a few days visit before Zambia. (Then back to St. Andrew's for a 10 day baby viewing, ogling, squeezing). And then home. As the whole Matt and Sandra gong show on wheels nears to its end, I am feeling sadness. I am excited to see people again, to be able to communicate again, but I will miss this life. It has been sweet sweet sweet. The last two weeks we hid out on a terrassed mountainside just outside Monaco. We stared at the olive, almond, and cypress trees. We swam every day in a big pool--just us. We listened to Soren--our beloved and talkative donkey who shared our agony so poignantly. We sat, we looked, we listened--from the porch of our charming little bungalow with the best view. It was truly blissful. I cried when we left. So we went back for another week!

Despite the sweetness, that pesky human nature rises up and reminds you that this will all be over very soon--traded in for homelessness and rainy Vancouver days trying to find an apt and jobs. As we've begun to contemplate life back home, I've wondered whether this was all the "right thing to do". Others would have saved the zillion dollars we've spent for their mortgages. Others wouldn't have "run away to find themselves" at an age when it's less cute to do such things. But we took the left... Doubt creeps like a devil into my dolce vita loving heart.

But Tom, the recumbent cyclist from Florida, lifted my heart. We have been courageous, not foolish. We have done what most will only dream about. Yes! It's true. A little truth was far more impacting than the grand, imposing cathedral we stood right beside. It was impressive, sure, 4th biggest in Europe, the world--I can't even remember. But the beauty that people share and give when they connect and encourage each other--even if just strangers--is the only beauty that matters. The only beauty that will survive. This is the real la dolce vita.

So when I feel a little gloomy as I am wont to do, I will remember Tom and Agnieszka and their smiles. When I am overwelmed by all the decisions to be made upon our return, I will relish in the fact that we've a ton of smiles and encouragement waiting for us at home. I sing of true beauty in Michelangelo's hometown.


"if the too obvious, too straight branches of Truth and Good are crushed or amputated and cannot reach the light," then "perhaps the whimsical, unpredictable, unexpected branches of Beauty will make their way through and soar up to that very place and in this way perform the work of all three."
--Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Float naked.

My best holiday moment has finally happened.

Yesterday morning I padded quietly down to the beach by myself. Only a few people were in the distance, also stealing some quiet moments alone with the Med, since every afternoon it's a busy buzzing flesh-fest. And then I watched the sun rise from in the water, naked--glowing white in the still warm aqua. I floated effortlessly. Stared at the sun streaming along the water onto me. Revelled in the big dome above me. Floating on your back in the water, you can really experience the earth as globe. And I love globes, circles, curves. Usually the the world does look just flat. A new perspective bringing me a little closer to the reality I forget.

And the freedom. Heaven better be like floating naked in the Med. Floating, soaking in the light, enjoying the weightlessness. No feeling is quite like the weightlessness of swimming. The closest thing I've felt lately is having no home, very few belongings, isolated by language--ie. being on this trip. It can be unsettling. To just float and trust--that nothing is going to swim up and bite you in the ass. I think that's why we cling to physical possessions. Piles of weight to tether us to the ground so we don't just float off weightless. Even homeless people gather a cart of stuff--debris from our modern life. We like stuff. It's safe. Keeps us feeling physical instead of floating off into the world of spirit which is just so strange and unknown. But what if all our feelings of dread are for nothing? What if the only thing in the water is Good? We've been able to shake loose for a few months, and it's been freeing, like being naked in public with no shame, just pure enjoyment.

Do it. Float naked. I dare you.