indiana, canada, indiana

I started this a week ago and forgot about it . . .

It's 8 p.m. on Sunday night, and I'm sitting in my sister's living room in Kent Hall at Grace. I think this is the 9th time I've been back at Grace since graduation, and each time, it gets a little less surreal. I realized today as I walked around campus that I've now been gone from Grace for longer than I was here. Weird.

Steph and I left school early on Thursday to begin our trek to Indiana. Why? To join 22 others on a trip to Stratford, Ontario, for the Shakespeare Festival. We left Central City shortly after noon, and we arrived at Grace just before 2 a.m. The trip took us 13 hours instead of the normal 11 to 12 because we had a bit of car trouble. Nothing major, but it served to freak me out, nonetheless.

So we arrived at Grace at 2, and we had to load the vans for Canada at 4:50! I normally can't sleep in cars, but I had no trouble when I was running on less than two hours of sleep!

Canada was awesome. We saw The Taming of the Shrew and Hamlet. Hamlet was my favorite. It was set in the 1910's . . . some people with us were unhappy in the change of setting, but I thought it worked wonderfully. Plus, the guy who played Hamlet and the girl who played Ophelia both did an amazing job.

We had great seats for Hamlet--I think we were about 12 rows from the center front. A few minutes into the play, I looked over to the left and saw . . . at least I choose to believe I saw . . . Ryan Reynolds! Admittedly, the chances of Berg being at a play on a Friday night less than a week after his wedding are slim, but this guy looked exactly like him!

It's now one week after our trip, but I feel like it was months ago. I guess that's what happens when you go back to real life! Anyway, back to Canada . . .

We skipped the after play dessert basically because I was exhausted. We stayed at the Stratford Hospital Nurses' Residence Hall . . . it was fine for a night, but I'm oh so thankful for Grace's dorms! I was totally spoiled!

On Saturday, we spent the morning and early afternoon shopping in Stratford. Val and I went on this trip two years ago, and we found this adorable shop that sold cute dishes and had cats roaming the store. I fell in love with a set of dishes but didn't buy them--and I've regretted it ever since. We went back there on Saturday, and while they didn't have any place settings left in that pattern, they did have soup bowls and two serving dishes. So I bought the soup bowls, and Steph bought the serving dishes for my Christmas present. Yay!

We got back to Grace late Saturday night, and Sunday we went to Christ's Covenant. The sermon was good, the worship was great, but my favorite part was slipping into the row next to Sarah, saying "good morning," and seeing the look on her face when she realized it was me :-) I'd intended to tell her we were coming, but I forgot . . . and I think it was more fun this way!

Steph went on a campus tour on Monday, and we drove home. That's our trip in a nutshell! You can see pictures here.