selfie sunday

Emotion overload. Millions of thoughts at a million miles a minute. Budapest impressed me in the first two hours and has yet to let me down. Staying here for four days was a good decision (that I made a month ago, haha.) The weirdest part, what I'm trying to stifle in order to appreciate what's going on around me, is the fact that I come home IN FOUR SLEEPS. DO YOU HEAR ME PEOPLE!? FOUR. My life will be Tennessean and American and Knoxvillian and college and RA and Daily Beacon and old friends and new friends again. It's overwhelming in the best way possible. But yea, here's a selfie, a list and a song for you:

These boots carried me through 13 countries, this dress was snagged at a Finnish flea market, the bracelets and bag are mementos from different cities and I'm holding a piece of kürtoskalács, a Hungarian pastry. The only thing that's missing from this ensemble of things that describe me right now is the watch my best friend gave me (I forgot to put it back on after the Turkish bath.)

My appreciated five:
1. Comfortable beds after a sleeping on a ferry floor and (on another occasion) a seven-hour night bus ride. I wouldn't call either of those nights restful in any way, but hey, sometimes you gotta get where you're going and it ain't easy.
2. The opportunity to see Auschwitz. This is a place that I have imagined visiting since I first started learning about the Holocaust. It was as surreal as I expected it to be. 
3. Hostel comrades.
4. A promise to have a pen pal and to see her again in less than five years. I'm still not really okay with the idea of Henni living in Finland aka really far away.
5. The irony of "plutonic" describing a relationship better than "platonic". Still laughing at that awkward evening. 

Some of you know that I used to listen to the album For Emma, Forever Ago every night in my bedroom as a teenager. While it's no longer an every night occurrence, I turn to Bon Iver when I need comfort in an unfamiliar dark room or when I want to block out the sounds around me in hopes of catching some sleep. The ferry and the night bus definitely called for this man's voice, but the weirdest thing happened: I kept waking up half way through this song which is the last one on the album. Typically I play the album once and sleep washes over me before I even hear this song, but on those nights, I restarted the album multiple times. And the line "there's a black crow sitting across from me/his wiry legs are crossed/he is dangling me keys, he even fakes a toss" made me feel helpless. It was the strangest sensation.




And now you all know me a bit more than you were really bargaining for. Sorry about that. 
xoxo//hc

selfie sunday

Well, I'm not dead. A cold has got me sniffling and sneezing, but dead I am not. The extended internet silence comes from a desire to enjoy the company of my people and sunny weather. Can you blame me? The Netherlands, Ireland, England and even Finland shined sunshine on my cheeks. Nobody wants to squint at a computer when they could be squinting in the sun (something I've gotten pretty good at; all my sunnies are broken, and I haven't replaced 'em.) I'll surely be playing catch-up with images/thoughts from Europe for the rest of forever, but that just means the memories will keep on giving. And maybe the "post-Erasmus" feelings will never sink in. With all that said, I present this week's selfie sunday and a half-assed promise to deliver one again in seven days.

Sitting in the "garden" of the Utrecht house - a home I already miss. 

The appreciated five:

1. The ladies who have shared their homes with me and showered me with compassion and kind words. Emily, Kait and Henni - I'm lookin' at you three. 

2. The opportunity to spend four weeks traveling. Need I say more?

3. Summer produce or at least the idea that my Tennessean comrades are stuffing their faces with all the freshest fruits and vegetables they can find. 

4. Medicine because this cold is SO ANNOYING.

5. Grandmama's life. My paternal grandmother passed last week, so I wrote some haiku (that Dad read at the burial) which touched on the compassionate way she loved everyone around her. I'll treasure her bright smile for the rest of my life, and I'll do my best to channel her patient servitude. 

I am absolutely diggin' Lord Huron. Their album has been on repeat during most of my travel time; it's catchy and folksy and the lyrics pique my curiosity  This track gets stuck in my head, but oh-ho, I can only remember five words. 

over and out.
xoxo//hc