Wouldn't it be loverly?

With the sound of music. Honestly, I don't know how you couldn't sing when you are in the Austrian Alps--I didn't think it could be as beautiful as I had imagined, I was wrong. It is even more so...and it's been cloudy so I haven't even been able to see the whole mountain range.
But I am finally with my Pamela in the little town (well almost a village) of Schladming, Austria for the week. I arrived Thursday morning and will fly out Wednesday morning. It has been so relaxing here...being able to sleep again and take it easy. We're supposed to go for a hike today, but Pam is sick and the weather hasn't been too hot. Actually, it's sunny now, so I think I'll at least go for a long walk and find a pretty view of the area.
I cannot believe the difference in landscape here compared to Lithuania--it is a nice change. And being with an old, dear friend is also a nice change.

Oh man! what a crazy but fun trip over. So many things could have gone wrong (as always with me) and yet none did. In fact, even better everything went right and better than I could have wanted. First back to Riga and leaving Eastern Europe.
[Ridiculous Riga]
I was a little nervous all day about taking my luggage on the ryanair flight. I was only allowed 15 kilos for check luggage--everything over cost $6.50 per kilo and the limit was 32 kilos total. Well my bags together equaled 31.4 kilos--ahh! The lady at the check-in desk gasped when she saw what I had. She was so kind and let me take one bag as an extra carry-on (which just doesn't happen on ryanair because it is a low-cost airline) Renald and I were amazed. So I only had to pay for 8 extra kilos, $65.00. What a deal!
Well anyway, after doing all the check-in, which of course took awhile due to me, Renalda and I went to the store, bought crossaints to share and sat down to eat and spend our last 10 minutes toegether. Right as we finished and I stood up, over the intercomm it announced that "Jennifer on ryanair" needed to go to the Info. desk. Excellent! Renalda and I just laughed. Security was waiting for me--there was something "Questionable" in my bag that they needed to check?haha, oh man.
So I had to go through customs and leave Nalda?after 5 hugs and 3 kisses and the security man laughing/nagging me, I ran off.
Apparently the ?questionable thing? was my mom?s old music box which was now full of lavender. The security dude made me open my bag and search through it until we found the box. I think he felt a little foolish when he saw what it was?I just laughed and left. At this point, I had to walk straight to the boarding gate, which I made just in time.
I found Julija (Agata?s Lithuanian friend who lives in London now) and was able to sit with her and her roommate, Viktorija on board.
As if everything hadn?t already worked out, Juilija and Viktorija made my trip more amazing. Julija had already agreed to store my huge bag in her apartment (in the center of London) while I am traveling around Europe for the moth, which is so kind of her?no one else around LCC even considered helping me out!
Well as we were talking about when I would come back to London, they asked how long I would be staying and where. I told them I needed to book a hostel still and they said, ?No way, you?re staying with us. We have an inflatable mattress; we need a pump, but we?ll get on e and you can stay on that.?
Then, THEN! Julija found out that I would have all of Sunday (May 29) in London and with no plans, so both she and Viktorija are going to ask for the day off of work and show me around London?I mean what the heck?! I hardly know Julija and I had just met Viktorija and here they are offering their house and their time to show me the city! Plus, they were taking my ridiculously heavy bag across London to their apartment. This was almost too much for me.
We landed safely and after an hour or so trying to figure out the best travel (it was around midnight so this was a challenge) I handed off my heavy bag (I called her Big Martha?that?s for you Ali ;)) gladly, said goodbye and let the girls go.

Now I am hanging out in the airport, listening to some men across from me speak a very weird language?I honestly think it is Icelandic (or Finnish?I know, same difference! Haha) and hoping I won?t fall asleep: it is 4 hours till my flight and no alarm clock, so I?m going for an all-nighter. I will sleep on the plane. Oh man?it is funny to look around at all of the people that are sleeping?SO many open mouths!
Tomorrow I fly to Salzburg, Austria; I will take a bus to the train station and then a train to Schladming to finally meet my beautiful Pamela. Ok, I am finally signing out for today.

Some things in life are not necessary, but there are certain things in life that you just cannot survive without. Latvia is one of those things that without it, I am not really living. There was a time in my life, a majority of it actually, that I didn't know Latvia, but my world was so small--barely even there. Now my heart has been opened, wide open, to the Baltics--and I see life in a diffrent light: it is more massive, too much...there is too much that can be done.
Lithuania taught me nothing, that nothing can be everything...and all that makes any difference and has any meaning. Living in the Post-soviet world has been of two most difficult challenges in my life. but it is the type of difficult that you realize only in hindsight. Suvrival mode kicked in and my mind kept telling me, "you can make it through this." But now when I gaze back I see that at some point there was a change in my thinking. I didn't realize it consciencely, I don't know if I even have now (or if I can).
But something, or some one, in me caused a feeling of home, or comfort--or better yet understanding. Maybe just a flash second of understanding--but it was long enough to plant a seed of love.
With even just a small ration of water, despite the lack of nurture, the plant grew all the more stronger--it grew in the same way that determination grew in the people of this country...and now after it is all over, rather than death, this tree of love has blossomed fully. It speaks softly to me, through its beauty--whipsering loudly that, "no, this is not the end. this, my dear, is only the first blossom--as the summer comes, and goes, so must the flower fade away and yet the tree lives on." Through the winter, especially the harsh winters (like that of Lithuania) the tree learns endurance and perseverance--it learns to wait patiently through the cold and wet times, and then with greater beauty, as nothing ever before of its kind, it reveals a more glorius spring, one that cannot fade.
and so no I will wait for this spring: months, years perhaps even til Heaven and yet I do not wait in vain--for I know it will come.

Yet in Latvia I have discovered something of a different nature. Peole that are cautious to share with strangers, but when they open to you, it is with arms wide open. Here there is hope, there is life, a new energy--one that is borne from oppression, but grows and is not bitter about the past, but looks to the prsent and upward toward the future. People are alive in Latvia and there is home. In Latvia, I have found something necessary to my life. People--friends--and a kindred spirit.
"But if the sky can crack,
there must be someway back to loving all we love." U2 (electrical storm)

How to act? What should I feel? Once again a semester is moving on and I have to leave people whom I have come to love.
But there is a different feeling in my heart today?leaving here hurts. It is like a piece of my heart is being ripped out: a piece goes to California, another to Latvia, some for the Midwest and yet a part stays here in Lithuania.
A bond holds all of these people to me?but what is it?why is it SO hard today? It must be, no I know it is becaue together we have endured, pushed through and overcome this challenge, this journey. In a cold, sometimes dark country that few people know (or care) about, I have found a home, and it is dear to me. My home is in the people whom I have experienced it all with. I was so afraid to open my heart for fear it would break?and break it did. But yet in the breaking comes a stronger healing and re-growth: so that as I go away, I leave a different person, changed forever by the popele I call home.

"as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing...as having nothing, yet possessing everything..we have spoken freely to you...our heart is wide open.? 2 cor. 6:10,11

Saturday morning, I escaped the chaos of school and went to Liepaja, Latvia to stay at Agata's home for the weekend. She met me at the bus station and skipping with joy, she lead me to her house. After an incredible breakfast, we left her flat and she showed me her city.
I think what I loved best was being back at the ocean (well technically sea, but same idea) again. And being with a family...I had some of the best conversations with her mom about the challenges of being a Christian in Eastern Europe-where religion often refers to ritual. We spent the weekend relaxing and walking on the beach. Sunday evening before Agata and I had to leave, we took a walk with her mother and brother along the beach. As we gazed out at the water, Karolis remarked that the way the sun shone through the clouds it looked like there was an island on the horizon. We decided it must be Heaven--so close you want to swim to it, but it could never be reached on your own.
After the walk, we watched part of a football game through the holes in the outside fence--that was hilarious, just us and a couple of old men that didnt' want to pay! Finally, Agata and I loaded the bus...back to Lithuania for finals.