Xaviera
Star Seiver Joined: December 14th 2007
Logged in: December 15th 2009
Logged in: December 15th 2009
Travel Blog Posts
San Francisco 125
Our morning started out early, with hopes of going through Golden Gate Park and marching far north to go over the bridge. I had seen pictures of the Palace of fine Arts in travel books, so we hoped to see that as well once we were in the Persisdo area. While we had been walking through the Japan Center Mall, we saw a few pastry/bread stores that was decided to visit for breakfast. Our hotel, as awesome as it is, has a horrible deal for breakfast. For $14/person you can get the breakfast bar but you get little more then yogurt and cereal, for an extra $4/person you may add scrambled eggs and chicken apple sausage. After we sat down to eat our breakfast and get a good idea of which direction to head to, ... read more
After a few delays from the airport, thanks to the weather in San Francisco, we finally made into the city we decided to spend our year anniversary. Being cheap, we took the BART from the hotel to the civic center and thought it best to walk to our hotel instead of call a taxi. The taxi ride $9, watching Jeff carry our heavy travel bag on his shoulder as we blindlessly navigated through a city we're never been too, priceless. We did make it to the hotel, and thankfully the weather was kind and stopped raining between the time we were in the airport and the time we took to walk to the hotel. As soon as we checked in, the rain realized it had granted us everything it could, and started up again. Because our ... read more
Catacombs
I’m a bit tired, but can’t seem to sleep. It’s around 2pm over here, and already this morning I found three things to do! I was so happy and thought that that would fill my day, but after seeing the last of the 3, I came back to the hotel to try and take a nap. Meaning, I still have another 8 hours or so before I call it a day. What to do? I’m on a super tight budget so I really don’t want to tempt myself by going out shopping. I might look around a little bit later tho. So the first thing I found was kind of crazy. I was just flipping through my tour guide book and found something called, Catacombs. It said something about bones and skulls stored in them, so ... read more
Louvre
So it doesn’t even matter what happened first thing in the morning (cept for the fact that I was feed for free!), because once I made it to the Louvre and saw the glass pyramid outside, everything stopped. It was amazing. It was breath taking. Hardly ever am I the person who stops and ‘awwws’ at buildings and the such, but this .. wow, I can’t even describe it. In fact, I don’t know why it’s the Mona Lisa that attracts everyone to the Louvre and not the pyramids. If for no other reason, this alone has made my visit to Paris worth while. After many minutes of just standing around and taking pictures and looking at the pyramids this way and that way, and almost slipping in the process, I decide to go in. I ... read more
The Eiffel tower
I get up pretty early and am happy to see Paula up so I give her a hug and wish her well, Hyo-Jin was sweet and sent me and Susan off this morning. I took the same train with Susan and was super grateful, on many levels for that. Not only is Susan an great person to be around, but she also knows more French then me, so when it was time to buy the train the ticket, she handled mine 100% ,Merci! She got me on a train to Paris that was leaving Bordeaux around 10:30am, while her’s left an hour later. We do have assigned cabins and seats on that train so I think regardless it was alright cause we wouldn’t have been able to sit with each other. After we got off our ... read more
Thay
So despite what was written in the ‘problems’ section, I had a great time. I think it really took me being away, or leaving, before I’d realize it, and I knew that ahead of time. It’s a different life at Plum Village, for two weeks I have no idea what’s gone on in the world, I watched no tv unless it was a DVD of Thay giving a Dharma talk. There was no internet, and except for a few phones to Jeff (which cost $11 just to connect) I didn’t talk to anyone in the ‘outside’ world. But that also meant I spent a lot of time doing a lot of things I came there for. There are a few things I didn’t like, like the lack of scheduling and meditation, too many down times and ... read more
I dunno if “Problems” is the right heading or not. I’ve learned a bit about myself, and some things I learned I knew, I think they just came more into the light here. Thay and others talk about people being social ‘animals’, they need to be together. Living in a community like this has really shown me, …. And I sigh as I think of the right words … another sigh… I’m ok with an isolated life. I don’t mean I’m ready to move up on a mountain, but I’m happy having a few things and people in my life. I am not happy here as far as the community thing goes. I don’t like this living and doing things as a group, and having strong leaders tell us where to go and what to ... read more
Sunset on a Plum Tree
Today is Lay Day at Plum Village (11/ 25/2008) it was my first and only encounter with Lay Day. What happens on these days is the monastics have their thing to do, so they leave and all meet together at one Hamlet, while the Lay people (non-monks and nuns, so… me!) get to meet up at another Hamlet and do all the things the nuns do. We walked to upper hamlet after breakfast; I went with Paula who wanted to practice noble silence until we got there. It was amazing, because on the way in the grape fields we saw two beautiful deer! In fact at first I almost mistook one for a big rabbit! His tale was very big a fluffy (four or five times bigger then the white tailed deer we have at home)! ... read more
Ping Pong Monks
On these days we go to the other Hamlet (and once they came here) for a gathering of all the people to listen to the Dharma and hold a discussion afterwards. My first experience of Mindfulness Day was not a good one. I was happy and looking forward to it the whole day before, and then thinking of Lazy Day the next day was also exciting. But it wasn’t at all what I thought it would be. This talk was in English so we didn’t need to bring our headphones. A nun came up to talk and all she said was the same thing over and over, and that we need to be mindful, and when she is mindful she is happy, but when she found out she had to come back to Plum Village for ... read more
Me and a Kitty
Lazy days are every Monday at Plum Village. All we have scheduled is Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner, unless you are on the cooking team, you get free range of your day. In fact I am typing all of this during my last lazy day at Plum Village. The first lazy day was very awesome. I had such a great time. I started out with some Tai Chi before breakfast, then went on a walk with Susan to nearby town of Bernac. They had some little café and convient store and the town was old and completely different then anything I had ever seen in America. I think Susan thought the café was going to be a little different, but it was simple. They were also a bar and pizzeria. I think they only make pizzas (and ... read more
