Back from the Mount of Oaks

Friday, Aug 17
I have arrived in Estoril from the Mount of Oaks (Barbara's land)! I was hoping to be able to just have a shower and go to bed, but my parents are having a pizza dinner with a bunch of people in just an hour... Oh well, it will be nice seeing everyone.

Sat, Aug 18
I miss Barbara, Anne, the Mount of Oaks and the kittens! My time at Mount of Oaks was amazing! It is so beautiful and relaxing there! You have so much time with nature, God, yourself, and all kinds of people that pass through there! I had so much fun working in the woods with Anne (clearing it up for the 24/7 week), reading in the sun, contemplating the nature around me (I had never seen a shooting star before, but there I saw soo many!! So awesome!!!), playing with the kittens, watering the trees, and talking, laughing, crying, eating, being silly, having fun with the people there. There is such a sense of peace and family in that place. I really felt at home.

I had interesting conversations with different people about our views on things (which is always something I learn a lot from), about similar struggles or same experiences (which was really comforting), and about church and Christianity. It was so nice to be with people who think the same way I do on Christian subjects! Being a missionary's kid, you don't exactly have tuns of Christians around you and being an international, kind of weird and hippy-ish person, it's even harder to find Christians who think the way you do.

Mischu's kittens were so cute and funny! Duma (swahili for cheetah) is black, very adventurous and independent and loves to attack things and run fast. Sambo (the name the Masai give to striped animals that have no specific name) is white, black and gray with stripes and is the people's cat. She loves to just come in people's laps, snuggle up to them and fall asleep. She's also very playful and curious (she's always looking in the buckets and falling in them...one of these days there's gonna be water in them!). Pula (the name Angolans give to white people) is light gray. He's the only boy, is very lazy, loves to complain, eat and sleep and is the dumbest of them all haha. But he's very cute and silly.

Oh, I found out that I can understand a lot of the Northern Portuguese! In fact, these two Portuguese guys that didn't know any English were convinced that I knew how to speak Portuguese but was too shy! haha It was great hanging out with them around the campfire speaking a mixture of Italian, Spanish and Portuguese! =)

My travels so far have also been very interesting. Coming to Portugal, we traveled from Italy to France. There, we stopped in a town to have dinner and I go to use my very limited French! I was so excited to do that and have the people understand me! (Take that Prof. Bresciani!) Then, we ended up sleeping in France in a rest stop, where my parents and Isaac slept in the crammed van and Alana and I slept in sleeping bags outside on the grass, where it was damp and freezing cold (the whole time my mom would wake up and check on us to make sure no one had kidnapped us!). The next day, we traveled from France to Spain and our van broke down! We ended up spending I-don't-know-how-many hours in a very creepy and surreal town in the middle of nowhere in a garage full of everything but the kitchen sink (actually, they might've had that, too!). My mom and Alana came up with a horror movie story that involved our family, the surreal town, the creepy people there, and killer moles. Don't ask. At least the dinner was really good. Oh yeah, and to complete the surrealness of it all, this older couple showed up at the restaurant/hostel/mechanic place we were at. She was a very loud and odd American and he was an intelligent German.
We ended up finally leaving at about 00:30 and arrived at Barbara's land at 3:30. Alana and Isaac slept the whole way there, my mom and I tried to stay awake, but would doze off every once in a while, and my dad drove the whole way doing all kinds of silly things to stay awake.
A week later, when I left Mount of Oaks, I had to take 3 trains to Lisbon. The first train I took was really small and only had a few people in it. When I sat down in the second train, I felt a very not pleasant smell fill my nostrils. I had been sweating a lot that day cuz it was SO hot and I had walked a lot, but I couldn't believe that that smell could come from me! I kept smelling myself with disgust thinking "I feel so sorry for the people in this train! I've never smelled like this before! How is this possible?". Then I finally identified the smell: it was certainly the smell of crap. Oh yay! Had I stepped on a big pile of crap?? I looked at my shoes, but they were clean. I noticed the old guy next to me looking at me like I was some kind of weirdo (which is actually the look I usually get from people =P), so I decided to just sit still for a bit and listen to music (since I couldn't stand listening to the very annoying dance song that the guy on the other side of the old guy kept listening to!). On the next stop, the old guy got off...and so did the smell. I finally figured out what the brown stuff on his jacket was. Poor guy.
After a long scenery of just big huge rocks plopped around fields of brown grass, the train started running beside awesome trees, a big river and a bunch of abandoned houses! I know it's not very normal, but I have a fetish for all three of those things =) So then I felt happy watching what was outside of my window and started to listen to some worship songs. When I got to He Reigns by Newsboys I felt something inside me want to jump up in my lungs and have me sing the chorus "It’s all God’s children singing Glory, glory, hallelujah He reigns, He reigns" out loud! Fortunately, I was able to tame the thing and tie it up in my stomach. However, I then started giggling and smiling haha It was then Mr. DanceSongOnRepeat's turn to look at me as if I was a weirdo haha A couple of songs later, during Wonderful Maker by Jeremy Camp, I started having the urge to cry! Fortunately I didn't. I can't figure out what the heck was wrong with me. I guess I was just really impacted during my time at The Land =)....and then there's obviously the fact that I'm such an emotional person :-/
I then almost fell asleep on that train, but the ticket man woke me up and told me that I had to change trains at the next stop and that my train was on line 5. That was so nice of him.
When I finally got to Lisbon, I desperately needed a toilet, but I needed to find Ivo (and I couldn't find a toilet sign anywhere anyway). It took me 40 minutes to find him! (and It's not exactly the nicest thing walking around a frickin big train station when you are in real need of a toilet!) I was so happy to finally see him again =) (Ivo, not the toilet). I had seen him once during my time here in May, but we didn't really get to talk, so it was really nice catching up on things with him. He didn't know that I was gonna be in Chicago for a year =(

Now I'm here, stuck in this house, with sleeping Bingo (the Farmers' huge black Labrador). I feel so trapped, sad and useless. I've either been sitting right next to the one window of the house that gets sun, or out on the balcony (though it's REALLY windy outside).
I'm regretting not staying at The Land longer, which was what I wanted to do. However, I decided to come here since this will be the last time I get to spend time with my Portuguese friends and since this is supposed to be a time for me to spend with my family before I leave to Chicago in about four weeks. I'm planning on taking Bingo for a walk this afternoon.