Saturday, September 25, 2010

Eat, Pray, Love: One woman’s search for everything across Italy, India, and Indonesia – Elizabeth Gilbert

Elizabeth Gilbert went through a tough time when she and her husband got divorced. She felt as though she needed something more in her life and she set out to look for it. This true story follows Gilbert’s travels from the best places to eat to a medicine man’s home while meeting a handful of the most interesting people.

I thought that this was a fantastic book. It’s an emotional roller coaster just reading it and I can’t imagine actually living the events. What made it even better for me is that I love to travel and traveling alone is something I’ve heard that everyone should do. I was a little leery about that idea, I still am to be honest, but if I were to ever work up the nerve to go that far alone I can only hope that I meet as many funny, witty, and insightful people along the way.

I do have to say that, although it grabbed my attention at the beginning, near the middle it started to slack for me but then it picked back up near the end. But overall it was a great read.

Eat, Pray, Love was also recently made into a movie titled the same as the book. I haven’t gotten the chance to see it yet but I just might have to check it out.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Where were you today?

Nine years ago today two planes hit the Twin Towers in New York. I thought because my usual posting day fell in line with this I would share my account of this event. It might be a little off topic perhaps but it is a story. I’ve seen this done before and I just thought I’d like to have some written account of that day from my view.

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I was still in junior high or middle school back then. Mom was getting ready to drop me off and we were late, as usual. I remember being in my room, just getting dressed, and Mom called to me from the living room. It was something like this:

“Sarah!”

“What?!”

“Come here! Get in here! Quick!”

She probably knew that this would be a historic event of sorts, something that I’d want to remember. So naturally I come running into the living to see the television showing a camera feed of two tall buildings, one with black smoke billowing from it. I don’t remember exactly what I was thinking or what was being said but I do remember watching as another plane came and crashed into the other building.

I went to school and I seem to have a faded memory of radios being on in the classrooms so we could listen to the news. There might have been a television too. What stayed with me the most was a bit of conversation I heard from some classmates.

“What if this is the rapture!?”

“If this were the rapture then we’d all be gone by now.”
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My sympathies go out to those who lost someone that day and overseas.