Photographs From My Travels

Oh, how I long to leave my responsibilities behind and travel the world more. As much as I adore Hawai'i and love being home, I still can't flip through pictures from the past five months I spent living in Europe without getting teary-eyed. I miss it more than I've let myself believe for the past month and a half that I've been back. I miss the tea-drinking, different foods, accents, changing environments, stunning sceneries, and constant adventures. Above all, I miss Oxford and the wonderful friends and memories I made there. The moment I stepped onto the plane that took me back to the states, my mind already began wandering to my next potential travel destinations: Bali, Thailand, New Zealand, Morocco, India...The possibilities seem endless in my mind. And that's the thing about traveling: it's addicting. More so, I wholeheartedly believe traveling is a crucial part in the development of a person. In the words of Mark Twain, "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness." However, at this moment I need to learn to enjoy home and the incredible beauty Hawai'i has to offer. In the mean time, here are 20 of my favorite photographs taken during my travels over the past few years. I have so many beautiful memories associated with each of these pictures. Enjoy!

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“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”                                                -MARK TWAIN                                         

A photograph taken from a train in Germany. The bright yellow flowers captivated me.

The Colosseum | Rome, Italy

New York City, New York

This place made me feel like I was in prehistoric times | Canyonlands National Park, Utah

Halema`uma`u Crater | Kilauea, Hawai'i

The Alps | Innsbruck, Austria

There is something so beautiful about the contrast of the ocean and dried lava | Punalu'u Beach, Hawai'i

A beautiful castle in Scotland

US-Mexico Border | Tijuana, Mexico

Paris, France

Hi'ilawe Waterfall | Waipio Valley, Hawai'i

A photo taken from the balcony of a cruise ship in Alaska

A photo taken on Skid Row on the hottest day in LA's history (high of 113 degrees) | Los Angeles, CA

An island in Greece

Stairway to Heaven hike (4,000 steps up the side of the Ko'olau Mountains) | Kapiolani, Hawai'i

Landscape Arch | Arches National Park, Utah

Found at one of my favorite beaches in the world | Kua Bay, Hawai'i

Yosemite National Park

I pulled to the side of the road to take a picture of this beautiful rainbow in Halsing, Denmark.

My second home | Oxford, England

There is no place like Oxford.

"In spite of the roaring of the young lions at the Union, and the screaming of the rabbits in the home of the vivisect, in spite of Keble College, and the tramways, and the sporting prints, Oxford still remains the most beautiful thing in England, and nowhere else are life and art so exquisitely blended, so perfectly made one."

                                                                            -Oscar Wilde

I cannot believe the time has come for me to leave this beautiful place. As ready as I am to travel around Europe and to eventually go home to Hawai'i, it breaks my heart a little to leave. Looking back at the first day I arrived in Oxford 3 months ago, I was in utter disbelief as I stared out the window of the bus at the endless castles, cobblestone streets, quaint caffes, cozy bookshops, and other beautiful sights. Even from an unbiased view, I really believe Oxford has a pretty strong shot at being the most beautiful city in the world. After traveling around a bit and seeing a few other cities around England, I have come to the conclusion that England is beautiful, but no place has come remotely close to the beauty and artistic perfection found in Oxford. I feel so blessed to have lived here and been able to call this place my home for the past few months. I assimilated into the culture and way of life here with ease, and maybe some day I will return to study or live here again. Thank you, Oxford, for your academic challenges, artistic enrichment, new perspectives, and beautiful culture. You have added to the growing list of places I have made "home" over the past years of my life. There really is no other place in this world quite like you. 

The pain of a goodbye

Even after my constant moving to and from and in between various places in the past few years, somehow goodbyes never get any easier for me. I get sad when I leave Hawaii after summers and Christmas, I cried when I left Yosemite after living there for 4 months, and I get very sentimental every time I leave my friends at APU. Though my semester in inner city LA was the most difficult time in my college life, the hardest part was saying goodbye to my little host sister. Now the time is coming and passing when I am having to say goodbye to Oxford and the people I have grown close to here. I know everyone hates goodbyes (to some extent), but they seem to be a lot more difficult for me than is typical. I tend to love people very easily and openly, and even if we are not necessarily "best friends" when it comes time to leave, I cannot help but simply dread the moment that inevitably comes when we part ways. It does not matter if we are best friends or close friends or even just roommates, I see beyond what the friendship is at that moment and see instead the potential for what it could have been. 

In the past few years, after studying abroad for 3 of my 6 semesters in college, I have really begun to understand just how realistic (or unrealistic) it is to maintain a long distance friendship. Friends I thought I was really close to when I left APU (or Hawaii or LA or High Sierra) simply would not make the effort to stay in touch. There were times in LA when, even though I was only a 35 minute car ride away from APU, I felt so disconnected from most friends at APU that I honestly might as well have been halfway around the world. Despite how hurtful it sometimes is and how much it forces me to question a lot of my friendships with people, it really does show you which friends care and are there long-term. It distinguishes those friends who will remember you and are willing to put actual effort into the friendship from those whose attention is dependent upon physical presence and whose biggest effort to stay in touch consists of a FB post once every few months. Excuses of having difficult classes, working extra hours, or doing extra curriculars have all come to sound the same to me. In reality, we're all busy, and I've come to discover that busyness is actually quite irrelevant in determining whether or not a person will stay in touch or put effort into maintaining a long distance friendship. You'll make time for those people you care about and want to make time for. And for the others, distance will likely cause you to simply forget. There are a few friends in my life who, after managing to put up with my study abroad addiction and life in the far off land of Hawai'i, I am actually very confident will be important people in my life for a long, long time. As hard as studying abroad continues to be on my friendships with people, it has made me so much more thankful for those certain friends who have consistently made an effort to stay strongly present in my life through it all. 

I think a lot of the anxiety and sadness I feel when saying goodbyes simply stems from the fact that I know when I say goodbye to many of these people, it really does mean goodbye. I've been forced to learn that not everyone stays in touch as they claim they will, and even with skype, facebook, and other technological inventions, distance really is one of the biggest challenges in a friendship. I don't think the day will ever come when I get better at goodbyes, but thank the Lord for people in my life who make it so difficult to say goodbye to.

A Last Glance

Goodbye…

Tears come streaming

And my lips start trembling;

I guess I always knew it had

To end.

Kimberley Winther
March 2011

Highlights From Oxford Thus Far

Here are some highlights from my last three weeks in Oxford, England:

1) Wrote 2 poems for my poetry class and wrote a paper on social class in America and how it affects academic achievement. Both really interesting topics!

2) Visited CS Lewis' house, home church, and gravesite (and sat on the bench overlooking the pond where he and Tolkien met to discuss their works)

3) Had dinner at the Eagle and Child, the place where the Inklings (including CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, Charles Williams, etc. met to discuss their writing)

4) Ate an authentic kebab from a street cart in Oxford-so good!

5) Went clubbing for the first time

6) Joined my college's rowing team (which comes with EARLY morning practices)

7) Went to a Union debate regarding University fees

8) Had a pigeon literally fly into my head on Cornmarket street

9) Heard Sir Ian McKellen (Gandalf from Lord of the Rings) speak about his life as an actor and his struggles with and acceptance of being gay

10) Went running along the beautiful Thames River

11) Booked a trip to Scotland for a week to go on a backpacking/bus tour. Awesome.

12) Booked a trip to Lithuania to visit my best friend the week after classes get out! More awesome. 

These are just some highlights that come to mind at the moment. It's starting to really hit me just how amazing and unique this experience is from anything I have even remotely done before. The university makes so many things and resources available to you-it is literally limitless. I live with amazing roommates, in a perfect location, in a shockingly beautiful city. I am able to choose the topics I want to study each week and am taught, one-on-one, by some of the most brilliant people I have ever met. I still walk down the street and have moments when I honestly cannot believe I am here. Even though I have months left here, I still get a little sad when I think about the fact that at some point I will have to leave. I can wholeheartedly, without any hesitation, say that I am completely and utterly in love with this place. 

The hardest part about being halfway around the world...

are those random and sudden moments when I am reminded of how much I miss my sister.

The Most Beautiful City on Earth

It has been exactly two weeks since I arrived in Oxford. What can I even say about it? Where do I possibly begin? It is without a doubt the most beautiful city I have ever walked through, and I have strong suspicions that it is also most likely the most beautiful city on earth. I have only been here two weeks, but I can say in all honesty that it feels like I've been here for many, many months. I still feel like I'm walking in a dream, yet in reality I'm halfway around the world studying at one of the most renowned universities in the world. Strange. 

Port Meadow

Our flat

Well, to give you an idea of what my life here is like, I live in a flat with five other students: 2 girls from APU, 2 boys from Virginia, and another boy from Boston. I love all of them, and even though we are all quite different, somehow it just works. Our flat is literally just down the street from the city center of Oxford. Oxford University Press is in our backyard, The Eagle and Child (the meeting place for the Inklings, including CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, Charles Williams, etc.) is just down the street, and the there are moments where, as ridiculous as it is, I feel like I'm walking through a scene from a Harry Potter movie (which is actually quite possible since many of the scenes were filmed here in Oxford). There is a wide meadow just a few minutes walking distance away that stretches out for acres and acres with the Thames River running through it. Even the high expectations I arrived in Oxford with did not even remotely match up to the utter beauty that is found in this city.

In Jericho

As for my classes, I absolutely love them. Since the University of Oxford uses the tutorial system, they are not exactly "classes" per se. We meet one-on-one with our professor, someone who specializes in the exact field and topic we want to study, once a week for one hour. He or she then gives us a reading list of books (which we can find at one of the endless number of libraries at the university) and the topic for our next essay. It is very independent, and you have to be quite self-motivated. But honestly, I love this style of teaching. Because the tutorials are designed to fit your interests and what you want to study, you are never stuck reading about something you don't care about or have no passion for. I have sat in the library and read for hours upon hours without even noticing how much time has gone by. You have an endless amount of resources the university makes available to you. It is heaven for those who love learning and have a hunger for knowledge. 

Thames River

Even though I have only been here for a couple of weeks, I am already scheming in my head different ways I can return here to study later in life (no, not next year). Maybe graduate school? Who knows. I feel so thankful to have been given this opportunity. I feel like it really is an "opportunity of a lifetime" kind of thing. After only two weeks, I am already falling completely in love with this place. 

And off to Oxford I go..

Well, it looks like I will be spending next semester studying at Oxford University in England! Oh, how plans change.

How did this decision come about? Since freshman year, I had always planned on studying at Oxford during the fall of my junior year. Last semester I applied and was accepted into the program, but obviously God changed my plans a bit since I am now here in inner city L.A. doing LA Term. Once I had decided to do LA Term this semester, I planned to do the Oxford Semester next fall (of my senior year) instead. But a few weeks ago, the idea to go to Oxford next semester was suddenly planted in my head. My best friend, Sean, told me he is most likely going to be going to Lithuania next semester, meaning that if I went to Oxford in the fall we would be apart for 1.5 years. This is what sparked the idea in my mind to go to Oxford next semester instead.

However, soon after I began considering this, I discovered that the deadline to apply to the program had passed a week earlier. Because of this, I decided to drop the idea of going next semester and just apply to go next fall as I had previously planned. Yet I simply could not get the idea to go next semester out of my head. I regretted not thinking about the possibility earlier. Though I had already been accepted into the program last semester, they had told me several times that if I wanted to go at a later point in time I would need to completely reapply to the program; they could not defer my application. I talked to a few friends about it, and every one of them thought going in the spring would be a better idea. This way, I could spend my entire senior year on campus rather than continuously moving on and off campus as I have been doing.

By this time, it was about 2 weeks after the final deadline to apply to the program had passed. I considered emailing the Oxford Study Abroad program coordinator to ask if they would possibly consider allowing me to apply even though the deadline had already passed, but I was unsure this was even a reasonable possibility. And I wanted to be absolutely sure I wanted to go next semester before sending out an email.

So, I prayed. I told God that if I am supposed to go to Oxford next semester, then He really needs to make it clear to me and somehow open the door for me to do so (because at that point, I didn't see much of a possibility). So I prayed, and a couple of friends prayed for me. And guess what?? God answered.

The next day, I received an email from the Oxford Program coordinator saying that they still have my application and they want to offer me the opportunity to go to Oxford next semester if I am still interested. All I had to do was resubmit a paper requesting which classes I want to take. I had not emailed her about going, or even told her I was interested. She just emailed me out of the blue the day after I asked God to open the door. I tried to reason out the cause of this miracle. I thought maybe there were a low number of applicants and they just desperately needed students to go next semester, but I found out that there were many applicants and people who got denied the opportunity to go. So, why me? I have no idea. I believe this is God telling me to go. And I feel at peace about the decision. Sean may or may not even end up going to Lithuania next semester, but it isn't really about that anymore. Maybe that was just the circumstance I needed to prompt me in the direction or spark the idea in my mind. I prayed God would open the door if He wanted me to go, and He pushed the door wide open without me so much as lifting a hand. He never ceases to surprise me and mix up my life plans. And so, off to Oxford I go.

Moab 2010.

I cannot believe Spring Break has already come and gone. Last Saturday at 4am (yes, that would be 4 in the morning), I was getting into a van with ten other people about to embark on a wonderful adventure in Moab, Utah. I spent my entire Spring Break week on a backpacking trip with Outdoor Adventures, an organization here at APU. We camped along the Colorado River for the first two nights and hiked through the beautiful Arches National Park, seeing the famous Delicate Arch and Landscape Arch while there. I also saw the Grand Canyon and Rocky Mountains for the first time. For the next five days we backpacked through Canyonlands National Park. We covered approximately 28 miles in those five days, all while each carrying close to 50 pounds of extra weight on our backs. It was challenging, but so completely worth it. The land contained a type of beauty I had never seen before. It looked like we had traveled back many centuries and stepped into prehistoric times. I was in complete awe of what was before me.

Though our time in the back country was challenging, it was also a time of great encouragement for me. The night before I left for the trip I found out I had been accepted into the LA Term study abroad program. I cannot express to you how excited I was about that. But more about that in another post. I also brought Shane Claiborne's book "The Irresistible Revolution" on the trip with me and was reading it a lot during the free time we had out there. It is such a challenging book to read. It makes me feel so uncomfortable, not that this is a bad thing. Thoughts about wealth, comfort, the suffering, the poor, Jesus' commands, and change swirled around in my head every night. When Jesus says to sell all you have and give to the poor, what does that mean? Am I supposed to take that literally? How far does that go? And even if I knew that He whole-heartedly meant it, could I do it? Would I do it? What would my life look like if I took half the things Jesus said seriously? These thoughts are still being tossed back and forth in my mind, trying to find some relief and answers.

Despite all these challenging thoughts, I found a great deal of encouragement through the many times I saw God throughout this trip: in the beautiful scenery, in the celebration of getting into LA Term, in the deliberations and longing in my heart for truth and understanding, in the laughs of the wonderful people in the group. I could not have possibly asked for a better group of people to go on this trip with. I love being around people, and this trip only further reminded me of that. We had so much fun together and laughed at such strange and wonderful things.

On a side note, something interesting I noticed on this trip was how quickly you adapt to life in the wilderness once you are put in the situation. When you hear about not taking a shower for a week, having no bathrooms, sleeping on the ground, and eating strange foods, many think there is no way you could happily do that. It is surprisingly not that hard. Sleeping on the ground becomes possible because you are so exhausted from hiking all day. Using the bathroom in the wilderness and not wearing makeup or taking showers seems somewhat more normal when everyone is doing it. And you pretty quickly adapt to the eating conditions. Dirt gets in your food and you eat it anyway (in fact, you use dirt to scrub out your dishes afterwards). You realize that 90% of the foods you are eating probably has trans fats or msg in it and you suddenly don't really care (or maybe you didn't care to begin with). And suddenly, "spam melts" for dinner sounds like a delicacy. Strange.

Overall, the trip was amazing. I would do it again in a heartbeat. Spring Break went by all too fast, and despite how happy I was to take a warm shower and sleep in an actual bed, I was genuinely sad when the trip ended and we were back at APU. The hardest part was leaving the other wonderful people I had grown to know and love over the past week. Even though I see them around campus (and oh, how it brightens my day), I will still miss being stranded out in the wilderness with them and laughing with them around campfires. I am so thankful that I was willing to step out of my comfort zone and have a part in this wonderful experience.