French Toast

Ok. I’m the worst blogger ever. I know. Hannah says I should skip the posts about Prague, Poland, the Regina Angelorum pilgrimage, Rome, Assisi, and Medjugorje for now so that I can talk about what I’m actually doing in my life. It’s going to drive me crazy to be chronologically incorrect, but for the sake of my readers (however many might be left) I’m going to go ahead and do it. I’ll blog about the other trips when I get time, so… eventually.

That brings us to today. As many of you may know, I’m supposed to be in Romania right now doing mission work. However, I am significantly still in Austria. Here’s what’s up…

Once upon a time there was a girl named Marriana, and she was a procrastinator.  I technically had all day Friday (so, yesterday) to pack, but I put it off till the last minute. As a result, I was up pretty late getting everything together, cleaning up the apartment, and praying. I took some time to play guitar too, which God ended up (completely out of nowhere) using to do some pretty deep healing in my heart, so… bueno. Anyways, by the time I got into bed I was only going to get a couple hours of sleep anyway, because Britni and I decided to buy stuff to make French Toast for everyone in the morning before we started traveling. Since we were meeting for praise and worship at 5:30am, that meant the food had to be cooked and waiting for us to grab in time to take off by 6:00. We had to factor in about an hour and a half to cook for the whole group… that’s a pretty early morning. I ended up laying in bed thinking too much for about an hour before I gave up. I figured I could get 50 minutes of sleep or be productive. I got up and went running.

Let’s take this opportunity to qualify the term “running”.
I’ve never been a runner. In high school, if I was upset about something, I’d go running at night, but I never went very fast, and I think the most I ever went was just over a mile, followed by me collapsing in my front lawn gasping like a fish. Classy, I know. The point is, I’m not the type of person to run a marathon for kicksies (professional side-line cheerer, present and accounted for). However, I realized, via those late-night adventures, that I actually enjoy running, when I get around to it. That’s good, since a running a marathon is on my bucket list. Ankle surgery kind of created a big set back. In all honesty, if I’d chilled out during the recovery process I’d probably be in better shape than I am right now, but since I’m a stubborn ginger I was bound and determined to be walking around without crutches two weeks after the operation. Dumb. I’ve gotten to the point where I can run alright, but I spend the next 24 hours wondering why I did it. I’m tired of not doing anything though, so last night (this morning?) I took 3 Ibuprofen and put on some sneakers. I only ran for about 20 minutes, and my ankle is a little grumpy, but I’m glad I did it. To the various women whose maternal instincts just kicked in, don’t worry, I’ll be careful. (:

Ok. Tangent complete. Back to my morning. I went running, prayed a rosary, took a shower, finished the last minute packing dealios, and started making toast. I like to cook. I don’t get many opportunities to do so around here, but I like to cook, and I really like to cook for other people. Acts of service, check. I guess it’s a good thing, considering those 26 kids, huh? ;)

After making breakfast (Britni came down and helped after she got ready.) I headed over to the chapel to get ready for morning praise. We loved of Jesus for awhile, and Fr. Ron came and we had a beautiful communion service. Then we all ran to grab our stuff and catch the bus. One of the RD’s, Tony, was kind enough to get up early (really early, as previously established) to drive us to the train station instead of having to pay the bus fare. We overstuffed a 9 person van and headed out. Tony dropped us off at the station, and Britni and I busted out our ziplock bags of breakfast. We made the batter for the toast with brown sugar and cinnamon, so it was sweet. We also brought honey (poor man/traveler’s syrup). It worked out great. I was happy. It’s almost weird how much I love feeding people, haha. Then we got on the train and everyone got out their Eurail passes, which were going to be checked on every train, giving us “free” passage (we bought the Eurail, for a lot of money, supposedly worth it in the end). This is where I had a problem. See, it was about this point that I realized that I took my Eurail pass out of my money belt for Medj, since I wouldn’t be using it and I didn’t want to lose it. Bad move. I had to choose between getting off the train and catching a bus back to Gaming, and paying a LOT of money to get to Romania. I think it’s clear what happened. Luckily, the second half of our mission team is leaving by van tomorrow morning, and they have enough room for me. Praise God!

There was about an hour to kill before the first bus from Sheibbs (where the train station is) to Gaming, so I found the local church. I sat with Jesus, said a rosary, and took some pictures. It was good. When I got back to Gaming, I was locked out of my room (magical disappearing key-card), and Tony had gone back to sleep. I didn’t want to wake him up, so I crashed on a couch in the lobby for about 45 minutes. I woke up just as Tony walked by with his laundry. It was funny, because he walked right past me and said hi, and then stopped in his tracks and was like “Wait… What are you doing here?!? You’re not supposed to be here. Wait… what???” and so on. It was a good time. At this point, I was barely coherent. He let me back into the room and I napped for a couple hours. Then I read a book and ate rice cakes with peanut butter and honey (JOY.) and read some more. It’s been a really chill day, which is probably a good thing considering my night/morning. I’m looking forward to a good night’s sleep and actually being refreshed enough to do some good at the mission. God takes good care of me. (:

I only took a couple pictures, and my camera cord is packed up again, so I’ll put them up later. Hopefully my next post will be written from Romania! :D