Memory Cards

Hello all! It feels like I've hardly been back to write anything worth reading and now I have to head out again. Oh well, so goes the life of the traveling gnome! (Yes, I just referred to myself as a gnome and no, you may not as well.) Before I left, though, I wanted to share my personal project with you all. I've meant to before now, but unfortunately my recap posts were just too long so I thought I'd tack it onto this farewell post.

When we first moved into the dorms over here I was astounded at the size! Honestly, if the dorms at Baylor were this big I'm not sure I would have left them. I could have done some major decorating/ picture hanging, but this is Europe and not Texas. I was a bit confined to what I could bring with me and pictures and trinkets were not high on my to do list. I certainly brought enough books to make my bookshelf look rather homey (though it still looks a little skeleton like compared to what I'm used to), but there was this magnet board hanging right next to my desk. I didn't have anything to put on it! This certainly would not do. Empty space such as this tends to be cold and I wanted this place to feel like home, so I started brainstorming. I thought of printing some pictures off my computer, but at the time I didn't have a printer and didn't know that I'd be getting one. Then someone suggested I write quotes over it with a dry erase. I considered it, but in the end was afraid that wouldn't be able to get it off in August. Then, right before our London trip I had a great idea.
I'm collecting postcards from all the different places I go. It seemed like the perfect choice. I really can't get a souvenir from every place like I'm used to (usually these comes in the form of books, which are heavy and hard to lug home, not to mention on the expensive side for a summer of traveling). Postcards are fairly cheep, they average around .60 Euros here, easy to get or mail home to myself and they'll fit into a photo album at the end of the trip so I can store them. I believe I fell a little behind on the group trip because I didn't always have time to stop and select a card (which is proving to be quite a process), but I did manage to get a card from some of my favorite places so I feel this is enough. Besides, I think that I'll restrict myself to one per city. I look forward to finding how many I have when I get home!

So there's my project for the summer. Anyways, I'm off again this weekend. We take the 6:30 (11:30 your time) train from Maastricht and will be in Salzburg, Austria about 8:00 tomorrow morning. Wish us safe travels!