i can't believe....

...it was ten years ago in January that I headed to Oxford for a semester. I wandered cobblestone streets, old bookshops, and ancient colleges. I learned to row on the Isis. I went to a rare book library for the first time. I ate a lot of curry and pasties. I traveled to seven other countries. I met some of the coolest friends ever. Oh yeah, and I studied.

This photo was taken just a few days after we all got off of the plane, on a field trip to the Tower of London. I am so grateful that ten years later, these girls are all still a big part of my life.

...AND it was five years ago that I arrived in Japan. I was cold and hungry for a few months. Then I was happy. Really happy. I loved onsen baths, sashimi (raw fish), festivals, Japanese pottery, Tokyo, architecture, trains, rice fields, the bamboo grove behind our house, my orange bicycle (until it disappeared), Kyoto gardens, ryokan inns, my students (most of them!) and cherry blossoms.

This is the first picture of Jesse and me in Japan, on the grounds of the temple in Narita. It's also clearly (...or rather, not clearly) the first arm's length picture that we took with our first digital camera.