From the Desk of Kate Jones: Travel

Did I mention we don't have an oven? Well, we have one, but it only heats to about 150 degrees. So I've had to get creative with dinner. The other day I threw some chili in the crockpot, and of course I whipped up some cornbread to go with it, forgetting about the state of our oven. To the rescue came the toaster oven, and a glass tupperware dish. It was totally worth baking four different mini loafs one at a time, and washing the tupperware in between bakings.

In an effort to stay away from meals requiring the oven, I began sorting through every single one of my recipes, including the ones I made in Germany. And I found a 3x5 recipe card, smeared with tomato juice, for ratatouille. The dish that makes you feel so good about yourself not only because it's cool to cook French food, but also because you're being good and eating lots of veggies. This is the recipe I follow.

Of course, eating ratatouille reminded me of France, and made me want to share one of my favorite French towns with you. Welcome to Colmar.

The first time we visited this delightful city, we were perplexed to see a miniature replica of the Statue of Liberty gracing the park. It made more sense when we learned that Auguste Bartholdi, the sculptor of the original gift given to the US from France, was born in Colmar. I guess the town found that they liked Lady Liberty so much, they wanted one of their own.

Now, if your goal is to climb to the top of the statue, and stand inside her eye, I suggest you head to New York. But, if you're content with a smaller version, and would enjoy eating a crepe while strolling down cobblestone streets, admiring half-timbered Alsatian homes, I'd head to France. Specifically, to the Alsace region, far in the eastern side of the country, only minutes from Germany. Colmar is five hours east of Paris, three hours south of Frankfurt, and it took us only forty-five minutes to drive there from Kandern, Germany.

Many highway signs in France have pictures of the historic sites available off the exit, hoping to entice you off the highway with their charm.

Sunlight on Saint Martin Church

Saint Martin's church, built somewhere between 1235 and 1365. Evidently, they weren't concerned with exact dates.

Doesn't it make you want to sauté some ratatouille?

If munching on a carrot isn't your thing, hundreds of soft pretzels are for sale at the covered market in the old Fishmonger's district.

You may even get to see some authentically dressed Alsatian dancers.

"Little Venice", is the name given to every city neighborhood in Europe that has a river running through it, because everyone loves Venice and they believe the name will lure in the tourists. Colmar thought this was a good idea, and followed suit.

Insider tip: Free bathrooms down the stairs on the northeast corner of the Champ de Mars--complete with pink toilet paper!

By the end of the day, you'll likely collapse from all the fun, and the park at the Champ de Mars is the perfect place for a nap/picnic.

On your way out, don't forget to drive by Bartholdi and give a salute to Lady Liberty, who's perched on his shoulder. Go ahead and thank him, not only for giving America the larger version of the statue, but also for giving us the best recipe for sautéed vegetables known to man: ratatouille.

One of my goals for this blog is to document some of the towns and cities we visited in Europe last year, to serve as an online scrapbook until I can get my act together and create an actual photo album. Before embarking on a trip, I always searched google images to make sure our destination did indeed contain crumbling walls covered in ivy, soaring church steeples piercing the sky, and other photogenic offerings.

Perhaps, if you're thinking of traveling, these posts can serve as your google image evaluation, thereby avoiding five million identical pictures of the most famous fountain in the town, or the random shot of someone's French Bulldog they couldn't bear to leave at home. And if I spend enough time thinking about it, there might even be some sort of encouraging learn-from-my-mistakes lesson at the end of the travel posts, so you can better justify the ten minutes spent roaming my corner of the internet, during which you could otherwise have been exercising, or water coloring, or attempting some other more productive endeavor.

I love traveling, and there is something so enticing about exploring another country. But I learned an important lesson early in my travels, voiced by my dear friend, Rebecca, who spent a year living in Spain, traveling on the weekends, and ended the year backpacking Europe for three weeks with me. She said something like this, "I've realized that the joy in traveling is so much less about where you are, and so much more about who you are with."

Rebecca was right on the mark. I look back on our backpacking trip with fondness, in small part because of the gorgeous scenery and excitement of discovering new places, but mostly because of the memories we created together on that journey, and the ways our friendship deepened. (You can read more about Rebecca's adventure in Spain here.)

So before I share any of the quaint French villages, or bustling German metropolises, I want to share one of the most meaningful trips I've ever taken, not because of the place, though it is very dear to my heart, but because of the people, who mean more to me than any European adventure ever could. This past summer, Jordan and I spent five days with our friends from college- 10 of us piled into an island beach house in Florida. I knew it would be fun, but I was unprepared for how life-giving and soul-filling it would be. It was one of the best weeks of my life.

You know how Amy Grant used to sing about her grown up Christmas wish, not for herself, but for a world in neeeeeed....? Well, this is my grown up Christmas wish- that everyone could experience community like we have with these dear people. I feel so known and loved by these friends of ten years. We've watched each other grow up, and fall in love; we've held each other's hearts through deaths of loved ones, marital struggles, job changes, and cross country moves.

The week was reminiscent of our college days as we spent afternoons at the beach, ate family style dinners together, and played mafia and poker into the wee hours of the morning. I made a picture slideshow and Becca brought home movies of our Thanksgiving feasts and our epic treasure hunt.

We spent the week celebrating life...eating Bubble Room cake on Becca's birthday, gathering around Lindsey in prayer when her Aunt passed away, skyping with Annie and Eric, who couldn't be there, the night before baby John was born, delighting in sweet Caleb, alongside Jake and Kristin, while remembering precious Ava, and wishing she was there with us, and rejoicing with Keelan and Maria when they announced that Finton Patrick O'Carroll would be joining their family in December.

One afternoon at the beach was spent affirming each person- an impromptu encouragement circle-noting what each individual brought to the group, what we love about them, and how they've changed over the years. As the sun set, and the hot breezes became warm, the boys pulled out guitars and we sang hymns and songs to God under a blanket of shooting starts. I can hardly explain how full my heart felt that night. I thought I might burst with happiness, but instead it came out in waves of tears--tears of gratitude and overwhelming love for the friends who were surrounding me. When it was black enough that we could barely see our hands in front of our faces, we all ran into the ocean for a midnight dip.

Later on that evening, we snuck onto a bayside dock and released Chinese lanterns. The last one, dubbed the friendship lantern, unfortunately took off before the flame was big enough and it crashed into the water where the light was quickly extinguished. And we all cracked up because nothing could have been a more paradoxical symbol of our friendship. Though we no longer all live in the same dumpy college apartment complex, the bonds that were created through surviving caf food and hurricanes together were strong enough to keep the flame of friendship burning strong through the years.

Lindsey summed it up well after Keelan sang us the song he wrote about our college memories. The chorus goes like this: "mansions of philosophy/life comes now so quickly/college days have come and gone/how do we move on?" "Well guys," she said, " Obviously we don't."

PS You should stop reading at this point and have a listen to Keelan's song. It makes this post quite the tear jerker if you listen while you look at the pictures.