Let the tour begin!

After waking up at my hostel in London bright and early I made my way down to the hostel to meet my 48 other travel mates. As soon as I stepped foot into the lobby I was directed towards the tour guide to check-in. To my surprise, our tour guide that would be leading us on this 23 day adventure was quite a cutie. This would be my biggest crush of the entire trip (while I'd usually be embarrassed to share this, it wasn't a well kept secret).

48 of us piled on a bus that took us to Dover where we boarded a ferry to Calais, France (where I could begin using my broken french). While most people became very sea-sick on this ride, I spent most of the time peering out the window and hopping around the ferry. Once we arrived in France we were greeted by our bus driver, Dave, who would be responsible for carting us around Europe. Dave asked for a show of hands of people from each country and mine was the only one for the U.S., to which he responded "don't worry, we'll take care of you".

Shortly after arriving in Paris, we went to a nice little french restaurant and I tried frog legs for the first time. As you can see, I was pretty skeptical about them...

We took a bus tour of the city and ended at the Eiffel tower... just in time for the light show :)

The next day we woke up bright and early and were free to explore the city on our own. A group of us toured Le Louvre and then made our way down to the finish line of Tour de France to watch the finish, which was an awesome thing to witness... (how often am I in Paris for le Tour de France?!)

While waiting for the cyclists to come through I had a hotdog on a baguette and an orangina.

That evening the entire group met underneath the Eiffel tower to have a picnic.

After the picnic many of us changed and attended the Latin Cabaret. It was on the way back from the cabaret that I danced my way down the aisle of the bus on only the 2nd night of knowing my travel buddies. We returned to our hotel and went to a bar across the street... they were closing the doors as we walked up but opened just for us and it was like our own private party. We danced and sang and got to know the people that we would be spending the next 3 weeks with.

Run, run, run away...

Half marathon completed!! 2:07 was my official time. I did a poor job of training before the race... but miraculously made it to the end (not without feeling like my legs were going to collapse at mile 13).

I spent the majority of Sunday and Monday recooperating, because I could barely walk. Running the half marathon brought up a lot of feelings and thoughts for me...

It felt good to run for Susan G Komen. I've been really wanting to get involved in more volunteering opportunities lately, and this was the perfect motivation/jump start.

I felt accomplished... a year ago I would have considered myself a pretty healthy person, but I was not active at all... I was always "too tired" to work out or go for a run. This year I feel brand new as far as fitness goes. Running the half reminded me that I really can do anything I set my mind to. I hope to run 5 miles at least 3 times a week and keep up with a healthy diet.

With all that said, there's still an emptiness that resides in me. There's still that piece of me that wishes that person would have been sitting in the back of the audience somewhere at my graduation... would have been wishing me the best of luck on my national counselor examination, and would have been cheering me on in my first half marathon. And its embarrassing to admit that during these great accomplishments sometimes I just want to breakdown because at times they mean nothing to me without that person. With my heart breaking over and over again, its hard to accept that someone can stop loving and caring for another person in the blink of an eye. Tonight I thought to myself that I hope the next person I end up in a serious relationship with has experienced heartbreak (and recovered, of course). I think for anyone that hasn't experienced it, it just seems like such a teenage cliche when someone says "it's the end of the world". No, of course not, but it doesn't mean that sometimes it doesn't feel like it is. It doesn't mean that sometimes the pain isn't unbearable, and that the only person you think could take that pain away has caused it and will only continue to contribute to it. I never thought anything would have me, as cheerful and optimistic as I can be, aching for nearly a year. And I guess, on the bright side, this experience has inspired me more than ever to help couples and individuals in pain due to relationships. It's hard to believe that during the hardest 4 months of my time in grad school, I was counseling couples and even being told that I was the best therapist they had ever had. I put a smile on my face, and they never would have guessed that every day my heart was breaking. As a counselor, its nice to know that I can play a role in helping some couples develop the skills or insight that they need to repair their relationship, instead of just giving up on it.

So for now, I'll keep putting a smile on my face. I'll keep doing the things that make me happy. And I hope that I can make other people happy in the process. Sometimes I'll fill the void, and sometimes it will be empty again, but I'm hoping that as time goes on the void will get smaller and smaller until all of this is a distant memory.

Tomorrow morning I'm looking forward to a large glass of homemade iced green tea and the feeling of fall. Goodnight friends.