this afternoon I found myself sitting here wondering how it’ll even feel when I’m there. I’ve never been to Asia before, so I have no idea what to expect. no clue how I’ll react, or how it will impact me. I was thinking of all the pictures I’ll take there, and if Asia will become a place as dear to me as Africa. right now I don’t see how that’d ever be possible.. but I don’t know! because I’ve never been there! haha. my thoughts are all spinning in circles these days. can’t wait until I have more definite answers. more concrete plans. 

I did have my first real moment of excited to go butterflies yesterday though – thinking of flying over different parts of asia. what that will look like from the sky. *fingers crossed I get a window seat!*

So it’s official – my next destination is Phnom Penh, Cambodia!! As official as it can be without a plane ticket, anyway. I’ve told my family, my boss.. I’ve made up my mind, and that is the starting point.

South East Asia has been a place I’ve been planning to go since my last trip to Africa. I’ve been waiting for the right time, and the right people to go with so when this opportunity presented itself about a week ago I hopped on board and started planning ways to raise this money with 6 weeks to go till take off.

My good friends Jay and Kellie (the ones I visited in Northern Ireland earlier in this blog) are going to be heading up the new Iris Cambodia, and starting up their NGO where we will be working with children who have been taken out of the sex trade there. So I’ll be meeting up with them in Cambodia to help start getting things up and running, get some training from local NGOs and get to know the people of Phnom Penh. It’s going to be intense, and heart-breaking, and eye opening and incredible. I can’t wait.

lately my life has been absolutely consumed with work. I know it is just one of those busy times and it will all calm down again soon, but right now it’s almost unbearable. working 6 days a week does not make me a happy girl. so today, a particularly stressful day, I snapped and headed to the trail to go let off steam. about 10 minutes in to my regular route there is a side trail that leads to a look-out over the ocean. there are rickety stairs blocked off and crumbling that go right down to the water, so naturally I headed down. I thought it’d be nice to just take a little break and look at something beautiful.

almost an hour later I was finally getting back up to finish my run. I ended up on some big flat slanted rocks beside the stairs watching the waves crash over the impeccably smooth, round boulders just below me. the sky was so perfectly blue, the water was such a dark blue, but turned almost tropical green where the waves were hitting, and spinning against the rocks. I forced myself to stop trying to think of solutions to my work issues and just clear my brain for a while, and actually take in what I was looking at and enjoy it. I laid back on the rocks and soaked up what may be my last summer sun, and got lost in the sound of the tide coming in. the highest tides in the world. with the perfectly flat, sharp horizon only broken by the huge freighter ship and partridge island – so close, but still a mystery to me. one of these days I’ll be writing a post about what’s on there.

once the cool fall wind finally pulled me away, the rest of my run was so much more relaxed and enjoyable. sometimes you just need to let go, and stop analyzing. let yourself breathe, remember who you are and who you are NOT. what controls your life and what gives life to your soul. one day I hope my work is one of those things, but until then I think I’ve found a new favourite spot.

Gooseberry Cove

It took me 7 hours to drive there along the coast on a beautifully sunny day. The next day my friend steve took me for a drive along the coast around the bottom of the island. We started in his home town New Waterford, and drove along the water through so many cute little downs, fish and chip busses, and things like old forts and the first lighthouse in north america in lousiburg, and ended in one of his favourite spots “Gooseberry Cove”. We stopped at tons of beaches, and towns, and each place we stopped was incredible. I can’t say that enough – Cape Breton is beautiful, and the people are so wonderful. The end.

I’m sitting here in marissa’s living room while she puts brock down for a nap. I had absolutely no problems on the way here! they didn’t even ask for id or anything! it was so freakishly smooth. and the security at the portland airport were all really nice! which made my nerves a little less frazzly.

time to go!

I was driving here yesterday, when half way to the boarder I started thinking about how hilariously old my passport photo was, then got the worst sinking feeling in my stomach… “I seem to remember seeing a 2011 on it somewhere.. and thinking how far away that was….” so I rummaged through my bag, flipped it open, and… yep! expires 06 Feb 2011. so I tried to stay calm.. think of logical ways to fix this.. but just kept getting more and more anxious, so I called my friend jill who has some travel experience, and she immediately got on the phone searching for ways around this. after a while I get a call back, and pretty much my only option is go to the boarder and pray that I make it through! once I was in the states, it was a domestic flight to california, and only required photo id.

so I opted to go to the old boarder crossing – I felt like maybe they’d be a bit less intimidating there.. I’m shaking waiting for my turn.. rehearsing what I’d have to say to marissa when I call and say I couldn’t make it because I was too dumb to check my passport before I left. I pull up to the window, and hand the man my passport. he goes through the regular routine “why are you coming to america? how long are you going to be int he country?” and then starts asking questions I’m less used to “how much money do you have? do you have a job interview in california? what does your friend do?” never says anything about my passport, but eventually he asks me to pull my car over and go inside. *terror!* (fortunately I am pretty good at remaining calm in these kind of situations).

inside, he passes my id off to another man. the first thing he says to me “so, your passport is expired” and for a brief second I consider pretending I didn’t know.. but then decide to NOT lie, and go with the speech I’ve been rehearsing the whole way about how my friend called the airline, and passport canada, and I just realized halfway there.. and I could drive to fredericton if I needed to get a new one that day etc etc. all the while he just stares at me with a blank expression, which makes me MORE nervous, which makes me ramble more. haha.

so after about 20 minutes in there with him, he goes out and searches my car while I wait inside. he comes back after a while and sits behind the desk, and I wait… … .. ….. … .. trying not to use guilty body language. try to look innocent and nice and make them feel bad and let me through. still rehearsing what I’m going to tell marissa. eventually he stands up, hands me back my passport and my JOURNAL which, turns out, he has been sitting there READING, and says “have a nice trip.”

I was so shocked I just stood there for a  minute.. staring.. and then was like “really?? oh! ok! thank you!” and try to calmly run out the door when really I want to simultaneously run out the door and puke in their hallway. haha. I try to drive as carefully as possible out of the lot, and make it all the way to the irving before stopping to tell jill that I made it through! wooohooo!!!

next step, making it on the plane!