bergen-belsen

God help us, may it NEVER happen again...

http://www.bergenbelsen.de/

32 years young

thank you all for the birthday wishes! i am truly blessed to be surrounded by so many inspiring and encouraging souls.

my birthday began (exactly at midnight by the way) with a toast from some new friends here in Germany. 24 hours later (complete with gorgeous sunny weather) after some shopping, lounging with lunch in a central park, and a sushi dinner, i finally had a chance to catch up on e-mail where i was greeted by more words of celebration. thanks for being a part of my life...God is good!

fantasybecher

hello all (those keeping up with my blog, that is)! as some of you know, i am traveling in Germany and Belgium for the next 3 weeks and, since my travel experience lies primarily in Asia, hope to do a better job with blogging so i actually have a written record of the sights and sounds. consistency is not my forte, unfortunately.

i arrived yesterday (7/16) afternoon after a 7-hour flight to London, 2-hour delay in Heathrow (which allowed me extra time for one of my favorite activities, people watching!), and a short jaunt over the strait to land in Frankfurt. i struck up a very interesting conversation with the girl next to me on the plane from London to Frankfurt - she is a stage & costume designer working on various operas across Europe and was an exchange student to Canada during her college days. what an unexpected warm welcome to my days here...

there is a plethora of vegetables and herbs grown in the garden at this house so i enjoyed a delicious salad with lumpia (=Filipino egg rolls) for dinner last night, all the while trying to fight off my desire to run to bed and relieve the jetlag. i woke up this morning to a hearty breakfast of pungent cheese, fresh salami and various multigrain breads - getting in touch with my German roots ;) today we drove to the little town of Bad Karlshafen where we saw a spa/wellness center with open-air jacuzzis (wow!), walked around the city center, and consumed a huge dish of fruity flavored gelato (i.e. today's title).

tomorrow we will head to Berlin for 3 days and experience life within the walls of the former Iron Curtain. hopefully they'll let me past Checkpoint Charlie on the way back... ;)

perfect goodbye

it strikes me as such an oxymoron...is there such a thing as a perfect goodbye? in the life of stefanie asmus, it is possible given the following conditions: 2 close friends / super generous couple, yummy spaghetti and meatball dinner and the balcony view of a gorgeous sunset.

most of you know i will be leaving los angeles in 1 week to begin a new chapter in life. just when i think i've said enough goodbyes, God in his amazingly mysterious timing seems to bring about another one. my thoughts the past month or so have mostly revolved around "the lasts" (time i eat something / time i visit someplace / time i meet someone / etc). praise God he does not leave us in our sadness. despite my overwhelming sense of loss, tonight i discovered an exception to this recent theme.

boo & aric, i love you. thanks for lovin me back. this season in LA was not "the last" for us!

gate C19

woah baby! it's been more than a month since i last left a blogmark. how could i have let that happen? sorry people, all 2 of you that check this regularly ;)

so, on my way back to cali this sunday i had a layover in the grandiose chicago o'hare international airport. i was doing fine on my trek from where we had arrived across the ENTIRE airport to my departure gate. until i saw IT as i rounded the corner into the C concourse...an ice cream shop!

i proceeded to buy a dish with a scoop each of the 2 bestest flavors in the whole wide world...black cherry and cookie dough. ok, you might have your own favs (believe me, i have more than 2) but at least that's what i was in the mood for that day. since there were no seats available right near the shop, i ventured off down the concourse and flopped down at the first gate i came to. it happened to be C19 departing to munich.

have you ever wished you could just divert from your planned travels and board whatever plane you wanted to your destination of choice? would that be awesome or what?! someday my friends, someday. if anyone out there gets me, please do drop a comment...

thursdays 9/8c

i LOVE it. i am so glad i found this show... or maybe that it found me. i'm not a big TV watcher... in fact this is the only one i watch, no lie. so needless to say, i've honestly been a bit shocked at how many hours i've dedicated thus far to taking in each episode 1, 2, 3 times... i LOVE it :)

night people rock... nuff said

i've never been a morning person... and here's the totally scientific internet test to prove it!