The Christmas Season in London

I am into my last few days in England before jetting home to South Africa. I am looking forward to coming home after being away for so long but at the same time i am having too much fun here to want to leave. It is the ever exciting run up to Christmas and London is no disappointment. The Christmas lights and atmosphere here are amazing.

I am staying with a friend called Paddy and we went on an amble yesterday to look at the light and take in the atmosphere. We went to a Christmas fair and ate candyfloss and chocolate and banana pancakes. After that we went out for dinner with some friends from Iona and caught up a bit which was really great.

Today Paddy and I decorated his moms Christmas tree which was so much fun and really reminded me that Christmas is only a few weeks away. How the year has flown by.

peace,love and joy

jess

Last Stages of this Adventure

Well the time is coming for me to fly home.......
But for now that party is still going on!!!! I am helping out in a local York High School and it has been a real eye opening experiance. I leave York on Tuesday and head down to London where i will spend a few days with friends. After that i hop on a plane and 15 hours later am back home with my wonderful family, ready to celebrate the joy of christmas! Exciting times!

peace,love and joy

jess

Life Goes ON

After Iona i spent two weeks in the Lake District with three friend from Iona. we had the best time ever. Walking about, sleeping till after three and partying.
Those two week are now over. How time passes when one is having fun. It is strange to think that my year away is now over and i will be going home in two weeks. I never thought i would be ready to leave and go back to the real world but now i find my self wishing it over cause being in limbo is no fun.
I will be spending a week working in a high school's music department and a week in London with friends. Then it is the flight home.

pease,love and joy
jess

THe End Of An Era

My time on Iona has come to an end and I have returned to York. I left the Island on Tuesday morning along with all 26 other vollies. We left on the on the 9 o'clock ferry and took the bus over mull and another ferry over to Oban. As we went along we were constiltaly saying goodbye to friends and that was really hard.

Eleven of us were spending the night in Oban together and nine of us were staying in the same hostel room. That night we all went out for dinner in a pub and tried to get used to the ammount of people, cars and street lights that there were in Oban. We were all so shattered after three months of little sleep and lots of fun that we were all in bed by midnight (yes that is early for us).

The next morning we all went out for breakfast together before going our seperate ways. This last split was by far the hardest and it lasted all day. Seven of us went to Glasgow together then four of us to Edinborugh and only me to York. "Then there was one" as they say. Splitting from your friends and community is always hard but now i have 26 reasons to travel the world.

peace,love and joy

jess

Camas Holiday (17 October 2007)

Wow!!!

I have just been on an amazing holiday all the way over to Mull. Alright it is not very far but I went to Camas (one of the Iona community centers) and that it a fair walk. Once you are on Mull from Iona you have to walk just over two mile to get to the top of the track, then it is another mile and a bit to Camas. The walk was amazing thought and it is always good to have a change of scenery.

I stayed at Camas for three nights and the weather was amazing for October in Scotland. IT WAS SUNNY FOR ALL THREE DAY'S, alright it did rain very heavily at night but that meant wonderful night by the fire reading and playing games.
It was not all fun and games we did do a bit of work. we had to walk up the track to collect massive big planks!!! and carry them back down the track. It was fun though cause we sang all the way there and all the way back. We had to wear our waterproofs all the time cause of the mud, mud, muddiness of the track. We also went trekking over the hills to find a secluded beach called Market Bay which was just beautiful. When i say we i mean Bec, Adam, Dario, Paddy and myself. We all had overlapping day's off so the others( besides Bec and myself) came and went throught the days.

It does feel good to be back on Iona though and i am ready to go to work today.

peace,love and joy

jess

Life and times on Iona

I can't believe how fast time here fly's. I have been here for almost seven weeks!!!!!!How crazy is that? As to what i have been doing, well that seems to fly by just as fast. I had a day off yesterday and i went on a major adventurous trek through the Hills and the wilderness of the island. That is the kind of things we have access to here. We are safe enough to just disappear into the wild for the day and no hard will come to you. it is so cool. I wondered around making my own paths for three hours and jumping over any fences that stood in my way.

Even though it is October here i am sitting in shorts and a shirtsleeve shirts. the sun is shining and the sea is Cristal blue. No one can imagine this kind of life unless they have been to a place like Iona. The real world does not touch you here. We live in a protected bubble but will have a major culture shock when we go home.

On a normal day I drag myself out of bed in time for work at 9:30 and cook all sorts of wonderful things until 2:30 then have a break till 5. In that break I chat with all the amazing people i have met here or we go walking or swimming if the weather is really nice. Then it's back to work till 7:30ish depending on how fast we can wash up. Then i am free to do what ever i wish, such as going to the pub or playing silly games or sitting on the beach in the dark. We had a really cool bonfire on the beach a few nights ago. That was real fun until we let the fire die and walked home, then it was freezing cold! It is now about time for me to roll into bed and catch a few hours sleep until it is time to start all over again.

Over all i am loving it here so much. This is the best kind of life!! We have so many laughs and fun times but it is also really hard. There is almost no space to get away from people and everything happens in intense amounts. You are either intensely happy or intensely sad. There are no half measures.

peace, love and joy

Jess

Birthdays and fun times

I had my birthday a few days ago and a birthday on Iona is celebrated in style. After a medieval banquet for the whole center where everyone dressed up, we had loads pf party games to keep us entertained for hours. It was a 60th birthday cause i shared my party with a guy turning 41 (19 and 41 is 60). it was so cool to play old-school party games and just act silly. Then it was off to the pub to toast the moment of 19ness. Then it was down to the jetty to go crab fishing. Over all it was so much fun!!!!

The kitchen gets better and better by the day. I love cooking and am learning so many things! Everyday brings new challenges and new things to cook. I am gaining confidence in my ability to cook and loving it!

Thats all for now. No time to relax!

pease,love and joy

jess