Blogs from Europe - page 10062

Blogging from May 3-10th, 2008 For my last week, I set out for the Scottish Highlands to join up with Trees For Life, a non-profit organization I’ve been fond of since the (no name) Art Group Candle Project 2004 (our environmental beneficiary). They are also the organization from whom I’ve purchased many little tree gifts from. Volunteering with TFL would be an opportunity to do something a little different, working with the earth instead of people. Gettin dirty and doing something out of my comfort zone keeps it all interesting. About Trees For Life: Trees for life is an award-winning Scottish charity working to restore the Caledonian Forest to 600 square miles of the Highlands west of Inverness.The distinctive Caledonian Forest community, dominated by Scots pine, is substantially depleted and fragmented. Only 1% of the ... read more

It has been an eventful few days. We have walked up substantial hills, and then back down the other side of others. It has been rainy, sunny and overall just wonderful. But there have been moments when I realized that at least I had lost the focus of why I was here. Surrounded by friends, it is also easy to forget that we are on a pilgrimage. Up until now, the notion of pilgrimage has been of a much more technical nature. Heck, I have four different kinds of socks with me after receiving four different kinds of advice - 100% wool, for dryness, 70% wool and 30% technical fibers for a mix of benefits, technical socks of nothing but odd silver-studded material for wicking, and one pair that was a gift of unknown origin. The ... read more

Notre départ de Londres pour Minster Lovell c’est décidé très vite. Comme on pensait rester longtemps à Londres, on avait visité quelques trucs, mais il nous en restait beaucoup. On a donc pris la journée de samedi pour visiter les trucs important qu’on avait pas encore fait. Bien entendu, on a pas eu le temps de tout faire, mais on a fait l’essentiel. Premièrement, debout très tôt. On retourne dans le coin du tower bridge. On commence par visiter le « Britain at war museum », un musée 100% consacré à la vie en Angleterre durant la 2e guerre mondiale. On y voit plein d’ancienne publicité (paradis de MC :P) et on en apprend beaucoup sur comment les gens ont vécu cette époque. Tout était rationner…. Aucune perte permise. On donne des conseils aux gens sur ... read more

So our time here has been wonderful. Such a warm and welcoming family that I am staying with, but pretty much everyone has a great home here! Today we were able to sleep in til 830! it was so nice! Frööshtuk was not until 9 because we didnt need to be at the church again until 10. We went into the city of Ulm. The main part of the day was to visit the Ulma Munster...which means the Ulm Church. It was HUGE! the largest cathedral in the world!...well tallest at least. We actually were part of there 1130 service so we were able to sing 3 songs and it was great. Then tehre was an organ concert that we could stay for, which we ended up doing so because it was such an amazingly huge ... read more

Rain pounding down on the canvas - must be time for another blog ! Shook myself from a deep slumber to hear the promised rain lashing down so no need to rush around. As you can imagine the normal activities of the early morning human are relatively slow in a tent and even more so in the rain. Fortunately I had the foresight to bring swimming trunks and umbrella ! Breakfast was prepared inside the ten - which of course has large safety signs something to the effect of DO NOT COOK INSIDE TENT !!!!!! Seems to me the tent is unlikely to burst into flames in these conditions so with all sensible precautions breakfast was smoothly prepared and devoured - double helpings to lighten the gloom … I am camped for a few days on ... read more