Suddenly I See

What a lovely day and weekend! Sometimes alone/quiet time is just so nice. I remember going bonkers at the nunnery in Geneva when I didn't feel like I was ever alone and then finding this place in Neuchatel on top of a roof of some building where I was completely alone for about 10 minutes and those 10 minutes were just heavenly. I love people, really, I do. But sometimes, it is oh so nice to be alone. Likewise, while I love the people that I have met here (for the most part), being mostly alone this weekend was a much much needed break. Jamming out to some Paul Simon and Ani and other random stuff. Singing my heart out when no one could hear...love it!

So today, after freaking out about my thesis for awhile (what's new?), my roommate, Sandra, and I went out to Santo Domingo's Botantical Garden. She is equally obsessed with orchids, so it was a good time. We took the train around to see various parts of the garden, stopping in the Japanese part for a bit. There was the most incredible tree there...it was kind of like that tree that was in the middle of Odysseus and Penelope's house in the TV version of the Odyssey, or that's the way I remember it anyway. I took about 100 pictures of orchids...I will refrain from posting them all...but my god. Life is so good when surrounded by orchids. And it was so nice too because there were tons of Dominican families out enjoying the gardens and children running around and whatnot. Lovely. Next post will have more pictures - I'm really struggling with the formatting of putting pics on the blog thing. Tips?

When I was going through my pics, I was thinking about how I tend to take the same shots. For comparison: Loving the flowers 2009 and then me with some trumpet vine flowers in Budapest in 2006. Hello flower obsession.