Early Morning Reflections

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Woke up very early to an already bustling city. It's six in the morning here and the noises are a new reality since I'm a country girl at heart. Always more comfortable with the soft sounds of the country. But there is something about the cacophony of noises that is also life challenging. Come on, get up, times a wasting. I remember the first time I went to Europe as a young, very naive college student. It was so life altering at the time, the foreign and formidable archetecture, the language barriers, the places I had only read about in history books. I hiked around Ireland seeing places I had only heard about through stories and songs my whole life. Galway Bay, Dublin, Tipperary, It's a Long Way to Tipperary, we use to sing in the car with my mom and dad on lazy Sunday afternoon drives in the country.

Memories of the Tower of London, Big Ben, London Bridge, the Cathedral of Chartes, the beaches of Normandy. The Joan of Arc Tower where St. Joan of Arc was held captive and tortured. It was a lot to take in for girl from a small town in Michigan. All my subsequent trips to England, ireland, France, Belgium, Spain, Switzerland, Italy and Greece were never quite as eye opening as my first trip.
Visiting Costa Rica is a bit like my first trip so many years ago. People live here in a totally different type of enviornment, surrounded by mountains and jungles, with challenging demands to make it through each day, very poor but happy. Delighting in the music in the square in front of the cathedral on Sunday night.with family and friends. We sat in the square last night listening to the lively band play a mixture of Spanish music to dance and religious music I recognized from familiar music from church back when Latin was the langapuage. The Catholic Church is alive and doing well in Costa Rica. The open air cathedral was packed with standing room only during mass and the choir music filled the square where we'll dressed families rushed up the stairs and stood in line to hear the prayers. We are off today to the the volcano, ten thousand miles high and million years old. This volcano had a minor eruption in March 2006 and a devastating 6.2 Richter earthquake on January 9,2009. More later.

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