Monday, February 16, 2009

Happy Picture Post

I was going to write about some people I currently detest. (People in the news not in real life.) Then I got too down, and decided to post travel pictures instead. (But if you would like to read about tolerating the intolerant, please take a look at this sermon. Yes, I post a large amount of sermons given that most of my 4 readers don't go to church, but I find that my ministers put a lot of time and intellectual thought into their sermons and I feel that you, my readers would appreciate that.)

When I went to Chicago last month, I spent over 16 hours (with power) on the train. I could only work on my paper submission for so long, so I spent some time organizing my pictures and pulling out favorites. Here are six pictures from my travels, proving that I travel to places other than Europe.I never tire of this image from Florence, Italy. I've posted it before, but I think it's my favorite travel picture to date. Great memories of lots of gelato with Rachel and some amusing incidents with my Italian. Namely that in trying to buy bus tickets I ended up buying two parking spots for one hour at the train station in Lugano, Switzerland. In 2004, I studied in England and got 4 weeks off over Easter to review for exams and travel. My roommate was also studying abroad in France so I went to visit her in Grenoble and then we flew up to London to tour the UK for a week. This was taken by her bus stop on the way to the University of Grenoble. I love the alps!
May Day (Ascension Day) at St. John's College Cambridge. The choir was supposed to sing from the tower, but the rain and hail made that unsafe, so they sang from the yard. All the children from the school were all around the courtyard with parents and tourists. Quite a festive occasion, made more so with the great white and red robes.
This is from a class trip to Mexico in 2003. We were studying the role of women in the Zapatista community and traveled to Oaxaca and Chiapas. This lady was part of a women's weaving cooperative about an hour from Oaxaca city. The coop was called Las Mujeres De Vida Nueva.
Sometimes I even travel when injured. This was my current state when Mom was visiting California this past summer. My equipment that week ranged from crutches and aircast to cam walker boot and cane. We couldn't miss the opportunity to visit Monterey and take cheesy injured Katie pictures.

3 comments:

Anne said...

Good sermon - food for thought.
You have a lot of really good photos. My favorite too is the Florence one - especially the copy on my living room wall! Who believes that you only travel to Europe? You've even been known to travel to Canada!

Simon said...

You look really happy for a person with a boot and a cane! I enjoy your travel stories. How did you end up buying a hour's parking? That made me giggle. That would totally happen to me, although probably in French.

P.S. I will read the sermon when I am not at work. (Though it will probably be most useful when applied to work...)

Katie said...

Mom - I'm glad you enjoyed it. The folks in my lab are the only ones who think I only travel to England. I've been to England more in the past three years than I have to Canada though...

Simon - I had to laugh or else I'd start to cry.

The parking issue was simply that I saw a machine and with my limited Italian I assumed it was for buying bus tickets. After buying two hour long tickets (which I thought was a little strange) I realized my mistake. Then, of course I was out of change, so I went inside, realized my mistake and went back to the bus stop. I should've realized something was up when the "bus ticket" vending machine was on the other side of the parking lot from the bus stop. Textbook Italian is not, in fact, very useful in live situations where you're paranoid about missing your bus and being stranded in a strange Swiss town with no lodging instead of on a goat farm with a lovely breakfast.

Enjoy the sermon when you get around to it.