anxiety overcome

Monday afternoon, I was biking up a steep hill on San Juan Island looking out over the Sound, hoping to see a whale. I didn't see any whales, but I did have a small panic. I had to stop to catch my breath.

The northwest is the most beautiful place I know, the place that feels most like home. Why am I leaving it? I couldn't come up with any good reasons.

Since Monday, I have.

Yesterday, I ran into a girl I was in church youth group with. KA is two years younger than me and getting married next summer. She had just left an appointment with her wedding florist. Do I really want to be in a place where people consult with wedding florists a year in advance?

Today, my mom took me to World Wide Books & Maps, an amazing store in Wallingford. Walls filled with travel guides and travel fiction and non-fiction. Hundreds of maps. It was where my mom went to get a road map of Costa Rica last year. I went in search of a guidebook for Serbia. I have had a lot of trouble locating one earlier & would much prefer to have a guidebook that extensively covers where I'll be living - not just 5 pages in someone's Eastern Europe guidebook. And I found it. Bradt's Serbia, the first English language guidebook for Serbia. It was first published in March. There is something so exciting about going somewhere that has only had an English-language guidebook for 4 months.

Apparently people eat a lot of pizza in Belgrade. And beer costs less than a dollar. I think I can handle that.

Now I just need to track down a Serbian-English dictionary and some Serbian language tapes. . .