Wander Susan Wonder

Ok, so if you know me at all you probably already know this…but I love food. My whole family does. It only takes one look to understand that we have never been starving. I’ve always been surrounded by amazing food….so when I got to Vancouver I wanted to find the good food here too. I guess no one ever really goes to a new place looking for the bad food. Anyways…here is your complimentary food tour of Vancouver. And remember, I’ve been here over a month so there is some justification of ALL the different things I’ve tried.

The famous Canadian dish is called poutine. Unfortunately, I wasn’t that impressed. It’s basically fries with gravy, and while I am a fan of both, together they just didn’t do it for me.

49th Parallel, however,  has quickly become my favorite coffee shop. Great coffee, cool mugs, and even better donuts. These are like fancy doughnuts. Pictured is the salted caramel one…awesome. Sorry Tim…these coffee and doughnuts have you beat.

 Sophie’s Cosmic Cafe has the best breakfast. It’s a great brunch place in town, but who wants to order lunch when you can get breakfast options like this:

Burger Heaven…the name says it. And everyone knows a place is legit when they offer a substitution of sweet potato fries. I opted out of getting my name on the wall of fame here by eating the 8 patty burger…maybe next time.

The chicken shawarma…oh how I love you. And Vancouver has some good ones. Just stop anywhere on the street…I haven’t been disappointed yet.

  So my first stop is Vancouver for a few months of urban cross-cultural training. Let me tell you…Vancouver is an amazing place to have a first stop. On my trip from the airport on the skytrain, I was amazed at the mountains surrounding the big city. It is so beautiful here. There are tons of things to do outside, and the spring season is making everything come alive. I’ve been here about a week and have gotten the chance to explore a little…

 This is the Olympic torch from the winter games a few years ago. If you know me well, you know how happy this made me. I love all things Olympics. I’m excited to see some of the Olympic venues as well.

This picture is from an area called Gastown. It’s a pretty touristy area, but fun nonetheless. If you need a decorative jar of maple syrup, Canada magnet, or Canucks jersey….this is your place.
 

Even though I’ve only been here a short time, this is my favorite spot to see the city so far. It’s from Stanley Park, which deserves a blog post all by itself (maybe later). If I turned around….I would basically be looking at a forest. That’s one of the coolest things about this city. There are spots where you can feel like your alone in the woods, and then they open up to views like this one. I’m so excited about exploring this city over the next few months. Hopefully there will be many more blogposts to come as I find new favorites.

…if by “joy” you mean complete frustration. Packing for the next 3 years of your life seems seemingly impossible, especially when you’re a chronic over packer like me. Here is the process in pictures:

           It starts out a little like this. Now it could be more organized, but that has never really been my tendency in my life…against popular belief…I can usually find anything I need in this environment. Believe it not the next stage actually gets messier…here begins the process of deciding what stays and what goes…

        This by far is the most frustrating stage. I would be lying if I said there was no tears involved in this stage. There were tears of confusion of not knowing what to take and what to leave…tears of frustration that not everything fits in the suitcase…and tears of humiliation that you are actually crying of insignificant things like packing.
      Because of the 50lbs weight limit on bags, I love to see numbers like this on the scale:

        And at this glorious point, I put like 12 more things in my bag…because of course all those things together weigh less than a pound (yeah…I know I’m dreaming). These guys pictured below are also helpful. The packing cube not only holds a lot, but allows people like me to feel organized for a least a few minutes.

      I would love to show a final picture of bags that are all underweight and have everything I need. Unfortunately, we are not down to the last hour so of course there are a few more things to do ( I work best under pressure). The good thing about the packing process is at some point past all the frustration, you start not to care what is packed….and you’ll just learn to live with whatever makes it. Thanks to Mom and Brittany for helping in this process. They are magicians that make a crazy amount of stuff fit into small suitcases. Here’s to really nice check in people at the airport that will hopefully look past an extra pound or two.

So I’m in the last days before I leave on the big adventure…the adventure that includes moving across the continent for a few months, and then moving across the world. I feel like that kind of adventure warrants an adjective like “big.” The last few days at home include some stressful moments like packing (post about that to come soon) and saying goodbyes. It can get a little heavy…a little like “Am I really about to do this?”

I’ve left a few times in my life…all usually for good things like summer camp, college, a new job, living overseas, graduate school, etc. Donald Miller’s book, Through Painted Deserts always gives me encouragement when I’m on the verge of leaving again. Here’s what the intro has to say…

 “And so my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in a play. My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside you, about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about oneness as a way of understanding God. We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn’t it? It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change, to shine out. I want to repeat one word for you: Leave. Roll the word around on your tongue for a bit. It is a beautiful word, isn’t it? So strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don’t worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed.”

So here’s to leaving again…and all the lessons that will come with it.

    So I’m in the middle of this big transition of leaving my home of 2 and a half years and heading back to training, and eventually overseas. This past week has been the first rounds of “lasts” and goodbyes. This week I’ll have to say goodbye to church and small group and school friends. Since I’ve done this before the goodbyes are little different. Living overseas you get used to people, really awesome people, coming and going. Goodbyes don’t get any easier, you just get used to them. I also  think since I’ve been too busy to really think about the transition and the finality of some things.

   Tonight I was driving back from Wilmington…one of my most favorite places on earth. I had just said goodbye to it and the good friends that still live there. I can remember the first time I said goodbye to that place after attending college there. I could barely see it in my rear view mirror because of all the tears. This time was different, but it still hurt a little.

   On the way back a familiar song came on my ipod. It was “Painting Pictures of Egypt” by Sara Groves. I love how songwriters can express thoughts in such a creative way. I’m always amazed because I would never think to say a sentence like that…or paint a picture with words like that. Maybe that is one of the many reasons I love music so much….because it can say things that I can’t with words. Part of the chorus of the song goes like this:

But the places that used to fit me
Cannot hold the things I’ve learned
And those roads were closed off to me
While my back was turned

  Wilmington used to be home…the place where I felt alive and loved and grew and learned. I am not saying that it isn’t those things now, or that it will never be again…it’s just different. The Lord has been faithful to make me more like Him over the years…even in spite of me at times. I know that Wilmington is not the place for me right now…it hasn’t been that place since college, no matter how badly I’ve wanted it to be. The Dub and I used to be a perfect fit, but I’m different and praise the Lord that he has shown me for now a new place to follow Him.

  The Lord has allowed me to learn that home is wherever He is….it’s wherever I’m being obedient to Him. That doesn’t mean that I forget or don’t miss my actual home and the people that come with it….it just makes me look forward to the new place I’ll call home. The place that He has prepared before the beginning of time. The place where He will hopefully continue to grow me until I’m called to the ultimate Home.

    So I’m starting this blog thing up again. I stopped after I got back from Northern Africa…it’s hard for me to make “normal, mundane” life sound super interesting, so I took a break….a 2 year break. Why not? Wouldn’t be nice if you could take a 2 year break from work…or a 2 year vacation…sounds like a good idea to me.
    Well I’m staring all this back up again because I’m in this “let’s go overseas” thing again. It’s not really a thing…it’s my life…a life that I’ve been called to and a life that I love. It works out since the thought of settling in one place forever has always been super scarey to me. I admire people who do that…who invest their whole lives in one space. There are people who do it so well, but I tend to get restless. That’s why people are different though I guess…so we can be ok doing different things…Praise the Lord for that. 
    It’s been over 2 years since I got back from Africa which is crazy! There are times when I can’t even remember the last 2 years because it’s gone by so fast, and there are other times when that restless spirit of mine gets the best of me and I feel super trapped in the grad school bubble. In all of the transition of the past 2 years, I think back and realize that I’m still African in many ways which makes me laugh most of the time. Here are a few examples:

1. I’m cold-natured. Growing up I never thought that term would be used to describe me, but two years in the intense desert of Chad changed everything. I start putting on the jackets and cardigans if the temp. hits mid-70s. The first thing that happens when I hit my air conditioned apartment is put on a hoodie and sweatpants…and sometimes hop under the covers if my roommates are extra hot that day and the A/C is set a little lower. I know where blankets are stored at most of my friends houses…it’s gotten pretty comical actually.

2. I am a refrigerator regulator….like an out of control one. In Africa (if our frig was actually working), we would open the frig minimal times a day to keep the coolness in, and we would have to know exactly what we were getting out to minimize “door open” time. I am constantly closing the frig door if one of my friends keeps it open to long. It’s like I have radar and know it’s being open too long. It doesn’t matter that America has awesome electricity and it would be perfectly ok if the frig door stay open for a few extra seconds….but I usually can’t handle it. I do it to myself too…if I think I’m taking too long to find something…I make myself close the door until I figure out what I need…it’s such a weird quirk…but it has definitely stuck with me.

3. People look down all the time….at their phones. I can’t handle it….talk to me….look at my face….don’t keep checking your phone. It was just weird to me at first. Africa is such a relational culture and no one is concerned with who has commented on their facebook status. I like technology as much as the next person…its just something I still notice being really different from when I lived in the desert.

4. I love rain! In the land of the desert I used to long for rain. I would go out and play in it. The Africans would always look at me like I’m crazy, but I never cared. It hasn’t changed since I’ve gotten back. Give me a gray, rainy day and I’m a happy girl.

5. I turn lights off. Throughout my childhood, my parents did their best to make me turn off lights when I left a room…but nothing ever really worked. I would just forget, or didn’t care, or maybe it was my rebellious teenager attitude. My dad would joke that he could always tell what I had been doing by looking at the lights. I took for granted electricity plain and simple. Now…I’m always cutting lights off. I cut lights off on behalf of others…even if they’re not ready for them to be off yet. I get out of my bed at night to make sure all the lights are off. Congrats mom and dad…Africa finally made the lesson stick.

So I’m still African in some ways, and despite loving America…there are times when it’s painful because I miss Africa so much. I wish I could just walk down the street and be there. Here’s to another culture becoming ingrained in my heart.