Continuing on this journey through the last six months...next up is the month of traveling post-L'abri.  Once again I'll share by way of photos.

Dorset

Immediately following the end of term, nine of us traveled to the southern coast of England for a weeks stay.  We rented a cottage and spent our days wandering through fields and pastures and coastlines.  Now I will try my best not to romanticize this time in Dorset, but really, it was incredible.  I enjoyed every moment of it and was so thankful to be with friends from both of my terms at L'abri.  It was the perfect way to gradually ease me out of that community.  

Here's our cottage.  It was beautiful, in a great location and three stories - plenty of room for all nine of us - and best of all, it was cheap!

Here is how we would start each day...with a feast!  Different people would rotate preparing breakfast and dinner, this morning was french toast with eggs, and here we are eating together around the table.  

So here is how we spent the majority of our days:  walking...

 

Along the cliffs and down to the water...

Steven dances at Dancing Ledge.

We would break for a picnic lunch usually of cheese and bread.

More walking...

It was stunningly beautiful.  Pictures simply do not do the landscape justice.  

In England all footpaths are public, going through people's pastures and fields, we were free to roam them all.  This allowed us to see lots of animals.  My favorite - the little baby lambs! 

A wise looking goat.

Kari found a friend in this baby miniature pony.  So cute.

Once again, I must emphasize  how beautiful this was!  See those castle ruins way in the background?  Well that's Corfe Castle and one of the days we made the trek there.  We then road the steam train half-way back to save our feet.

Steven found a rope swing.

And I found a friend at a local pub.  His name is Nobby and he is amazing.

We flew a kite.  This picture is perfect.

And on one of the last nights we lit these Chinese paper lanterns and sent them out to sea.  

I loved Dorset.

Holland

From Dorset Kari and I flew to Holland to stay with our friend Laura.  We were there about four days and Laura was an amazing host.  She showed us a night in Amsterdam, a day in Utrecht and a day in her hometown of Rotterdam.  I kind of blew it on the whole taking pictures front - but here are a couple.

This is Kari (on the left) and our friend Laura.  Here we are in a park in Rotterdam.

And now this is me, on a Pancake Boat.  Yes, it is called a Pancake Boat, and it is a big tourist attraction, and it was amazing.  You ride this boat throughout all the dams in Rotterdam and have all you can eat pancakes with endless toppings.  I'm enjoying my pancake with a Hoegaarden beer - when in Holland, do as the Dutch do.

And here we are riding bikes.  Rotterdam has got to be the most bike friendly city I have ever seen.  The bike lanes are huge and equipped with their own streetlights.  The weather was beautiful so we took a bike tour of the city.  Stopping at all of Laura's favorite spots along the way.  We also managed to see a few windmills!

Hungary

Next Kari and I were off to Hungary.  We were meeting up with some of the friends we had left in Dorset and also with a few of our Hungarian friends.  There were five of us visiting, and the magical Marta was able to get us a flat to occupy.  Marta's gracious friend (who was living out of town) let us stay in her centrally located flat for the week.  It was incredible.

Here are Fruszina and Alida, two sisters from Hungary who visited L'abri throughout my time there.  They were our hosts and tour guides.  Both of them were wonderful in showing us around Budapest and the surrounding areas.  They took time out of their busy working schedules and showed us such an incredible time.  After my short 3 days with them in Hungary I was desperate to stay longer - there was so much to see, take in, and enjoy.

 

This is the Opera House, which is gorgeous...

And this is the finale of the opera we went to see.

Here I am on the famous Chain Bridge.  It connects the Buda and the Pest sides of the capital city.  It was so beautiful at twilight.

This is Kari and I being serenaded at a gypsy restaurant.  Notice the disparity in our responses - Kari loved it, and I tried to hide under the table.

The Baths!  A favorite local past time is going to the Baths.  This place was huge.  Here we are in one of the several outdoor baths, the temperature of this one was lukewarm.  There were other outdoor pools all at varying temperatures.  The warmest one was equipped with built in chess boards, these were all occupied by old Hungarian men.  There was also a huge building which wrapped around the pools, this building was full of baths and saunas of different temperatures.  I've never seen anything like it.  This was a girls day full of baths and sunbathing.

Well, I just think these pictures are funny.  Kari and Fruszina had a dandelion war.  Then they turned on me.

And here is the whole crew - well almost, Marta and Danny are missing.  This picture was taken right after the oh so clever Fruszina tried to sneak us into a historical church.  She thought we should see it, but none of us wanted to pay the fee.  So she attempted to lead us through the back door as some other tourists were headed out.  Fruszina pushed all the Americans in first so that when the security guard came (which he did, immediately) she could distract him while we looked around.  I have no idea what she was saying to him, but it gave us a good five minutes to look around at the beautiful architecture before getting kicked out.

Hungary was a great time.  Being so brief it left me aching for more, I would love to go back someday.

And so there is my post-L'abri traveling adventures.  I can't believe it has already been two months since I arrived back to the great state of California.  Although these posts are quite delayed, and are recording the recent past rather than the present, I think it is a good exercise for me.  A way to begin to process and document this time of my life.  These last few posts have been my virtual scrapbook - and I love scrapbooking.