Rocking that *International* Paradise

Two weeks ago, I moved home from Guatemala.  The actual leaving was tough; there was a lot of fear involved.  (And maybe that doesn’t make sense…fear?  When you’re moving home?  But yes, fear.  I could write a whole post about it, and maybe someday I will).  Thankfully though, when I arrived back in Wisconsin, my sister and I immediately threw ourselves into the work of planning a month long trip in Asia.  We’d booked our flights a couple months ago, but not much else.  Where would we stay?  How would we get from place to place?  What did we want to see and do in each city/country?  The planning, coupled with the typical summer gatherings with old friends, kept me busy and excited for the past two weeks—and being home hasn’t been a struggle so far at all!  The opposite, quite honestly.  And now, suddenly, it’s the night before we leave.  I look at the way I plan an overseas trip now versus the way I p...

Since moving to Guatemala and expressing my interest in running half marathons, all I’ve heard is that the race to run is the Coban 21K.  The past two years, the dates haven’t worked out; I’ve been in Tennessee for DI Global Finals the day of the race.  This year though, finally, I was able to run the race the day before leaving for Globals.  It, of course, turned into something of an adventure.  On Friday, Karina and I got coverage for our classes in order to leave school early (1:30pm) and avoid the Friday afternoon traffic as much as possible.  The strategy was pretty successful, but we encountered some road construction and slow trucks we were unable to pass, so the drive still took a while, and we were set to arrive after dark.  We probably never would have found our hostel if Annette and Joel hadn’t been braving the way ahead of us.  Our directions had us driving another 2 miles after the place we were actually supposed to turn.  ...