Oh my life and days.

I’ve been out of Ukraine for nearly a month. I’ve been traveling the UK for nearly a month. I’ve been with friends and family for nearly a month. Goodness, it has been a glorious month. Stepping off of my Ukrainian International Airways flight and meeting Mom and Erica was ridiculously surreal. Then, having ten days to revisit some of my British Isles Quarter highlights with them was just brilliant. While it felt a bit soon to already go back to cities like Cambridge and Stratford and reminisce my time living and studying there, I secretly loved feeling like the comfortable “been here done that” tour guide. I can’t pretend I didn’t get us lost or confused a few times, but we did just fine for ourselves. We saw loads of plays, visited ancient historical pubs, and soaked up the history that this country is practically drenched in. What adventure could be better? That bit of family and home was just the fix I needed. But it doesn’t stop there…

Dropping Mom and Erica off at the airport I immediately picked up Shelby, fellow SPU student and former part of my SMC staff all those millions of years ago when I was an SMC in the dorms. Having just graduated, she was gifted a plane ticket to anywhere by her parents. Making the best decision of her life, she decided to make her way on over here to the motherland to hang out with me for the three weeks I had left while that troublesome Russian visa was processing. With dwindling finances on my end, a two-man tent purchased by Shelby, and an adventurous spirit between us, we booked a hostel in London for one week but left our other two weeks completely open. We explored London top to bottom spending days in museums, going to the Ballet, wandering new boroughs, seeing local theatre, and frequenting the market. This being my third visit to London on the trip I thought surely I had seen most everything previously, goodness I hadn’t.

Straight off the plane and into Kensington Gardens. Shelbster rocks the idiot grin.

As our week was coming to a close, we looked at the empty two weeks ahead of us and decided it was time to make a few plans here and there. Decision number one: let’s go to Swansea. The major factors in choosing this location really had to do with three things: bus tickets to Swansea were extremely cheap, it was in Wales, and Joanna Newsom sings a song about it. The last one was really the deciding factor for me. So we went, and pitched our tiny tent on a family owned farm that stood on magnificent cliffs overlooking the Ocean. Our immediate conclusion was that we were geniuses, when we chose blindly we chose very well. We may not have gotten the best sleep of our lives on the hard ground without proper sleeping bags, but days spent seeing castles, laying on the Welsh beach, and hiking the cliffs along the ocean surely made up for it. Making friends with old ladies at the bus stop didn’t hurt either. We extended our visit for a bit longer and plotted where our adventures would next take us.

Check out the baby tent.

We extended our visit for a bit longer and plotted where our adventures would next take us. Finding ourselves at a “Y” in the road we had to choose between going North to Scotland or South to Cornwall. Somehow we made the best decision of our lives: going south to Cornwall. Cornwall Cornwall Cornwall…you do beat all.

Oh my life and days, I’ve got no idea where to begin in describing the most fantastic week of our UK adventure.

After a few emails and phone calls with my friend Chris Parker (former intern at Oasis-Bend) it was decided that we would stay with his family in Truro and perhaps do a bit of camping around the area. Staying for just a few days and camping during those few days soon became a ridiculous idea when we realized that this was the most fantastic family and place. A few days turned into a week, and our one friend soon grew into a slew of English mates and a family we wouldn’t mind adopting. We kayaked, boated, hiked, enjoyed cream teas and crumpets, went to pub open-mics, cooked, sat around bon-fires into the wee hours of the morning, danced, and had the most excellent conversation I’ve had in a very very long time. The genuine spirit of this family, the overwhelming hospitality and the amazing wit of this family was like nothing I’ve experienced before. Truly, I do not exaggerate. Shelby and I were in no way ready to leave at the end of the week, but London called. Thoughts of returning or somehow visiting are already milling around in our minds. They will forever be milling around in our minds.

Some of the Parker Clan.

Windy Cornwall Beaches

This is Cornwall.

And so, I am back in London for the fourth time…the penultimate time. Shelby is flying home to Seattle and I am running around the city taking care of last minute things before I begin what I have waited so long for: Russia. I’ve got my visa, I’ve got my itinerary, now I just need to wait for my fellow travelers to arrive and my plane to leave on the 28^th. I don’t know a single person in my study group or in the vast Russian country, but I do know that I love this culture and this language and I am ready to spend the next three and a half months learning, living, breathing all things Russian.