Catch Up

The reason I'm now posting events that happened not so recently is because I just discovered that I can print this blog out and make it into a book someday...which rules. In the past couple of months, Kyle and i have taken some fantastic adventures together.

AMTRAK ADVENTURE

Kyle decided that it would be a really romantic and way cool thing to take a train ride together for Valentine's Day. I, of course, agreed. Who wouldn't want to take a sweet train ride? Basically, it was somehow better than expected, and we had already assumed it would be amazing. I don't think either of us would now prefer a plane ride over a train ride. I seriously could be a representative for Amtrak. Here is my handsome train mate:

The best part about the day was the fact that we only rode from McGregor to Dallas, but saw places in Texas we had never seen before. It's also the way you see the land. Everything automatically feels older, and somehow more important. The walls of the McGregor train station are that old fashioned peachy color. I've only read about that color scheme in novels from 1850. I felt a new connection to American soil and decided that impatience and convenience are no longer good enough excuses to fly anywhere anymore. I mean, unless you just must must must. After all, not everyone has 5 hours to spare in the place of what would otherwise be an hour and a half long trip.

This is us enjoying coffee and cheesecake and looking out the window.

These are pictures of the train menu (adorable), my cheeseburger which was SO good (no joke people, this is no airplane food), and the bedroom instructions for our compartment. Hilarious.

Upon our arrival back to McGregor from Dallas, we of course had to put pennies onto the rails to smash for souvenirs.

SUCCESS!

Where St. Paul stood, too.

Ομορφιά

I've been missing Greece a lot lately. I think a few people from our trip have taken a trip or two back in the past three years. I'd like to go soon, too. I think about how weird it is to know someone so well for a few months, only to either lose contact with them, or realize that you live in different states instead of the apartments next door to each other. It was getting drunk and laying out on nude beaches with your friends in paradise for 4 months. But actually, I used to think about those things a whole lot more than I do now. Lately, it's just fleeting.

Because I've been realizing also that people are supposed to keep moving. I miss my friends and that beautiful interim home, of course, but I love that everybody from that trip is probably doing something pretty awesome. I like where I am right now, partly because I don't know what's about to happen, and partly because I'm about to finish something pretty huge. Yeah, the big C-O-L-L-E-G-E, folks. I'm proud of myself for just finishing. I didn't think I would honestly. I don't really care about the degree because who the hell cares 5 years from now.

But back to Greece. Look at these sweet cartoonies:

Oh so Grecian and wonderfully cartooned. Greece is a place, you could say, where everything began. It's weird that we always say that everything we have comes from Ancient Greece. Things begin/began there. Words, architecture, culture, politics. I thought I was going to go find myself there 3 years ago. In a way I started over, or "began" there, but I realize in hindsight that I didn't need finding. Regardless, it was a really great trip.

Longevity

I think that heroism can be put into action in only a few select ways.

Saving a damsel in distress from the terrible prison of an evil and perverted covetous king is the classic picture of what heroism is to most people.

But I guess the most heroic thing I can think of is doing something that is good and right when most surrounding people reject that hero and that deed. The reason it really is heroic is because most people would never call it heroic. Whatever the the rejected deed, it is probably something that most others can never accept or understand. It's heroic because it stands alone-it happens, in different ways, only every once in a while. It doesn't matter that it changes maybe a handful of people, it just matters that a change did happen.

I love that a hero can still be a hero even when they aren't alive anymore. If they leave behind something with substance, a mark that withstands the mockery and spurning of everyone against it, it is still understood by some. That's the part that matters. The longevity of the heroism.