Alive and Home

I am back at home with my family again. My mom and I got back from England at 1:30am Thursday, 20 December. We had a very very long wait in the JFK airport (6 hours in the terminal and another 2 on the plane), but we finally made it back. In the coming days, I will be looking back to the last couple of weeks that I was in England and telling you what all I did. I hope everyone had a good Christmas!!

Pictures of Scotland!!!

This is a view of a Loch between two old mountains. This was around where the highlands began. I think it's beautiful!
Here is me at Loch Ness! It was pretty cold...but the water was even colder! It was also very very windy. Some of the guys in our group actually got in the water too!!!! They were crazy...

This was a stop we made on the second day on the Isle of Skye. Aren't the mountains beautiful??

There's our bus!! (with the website conveniently on the side.) ;-)


This was the 'fairy castle' that we got to see. There were lots of little hills around it that we had fun climbing on. This was probably our longest stop aside from the hike we took earlier in the day. It was a ton of fun!!

This is looking around from the top of the 'fairy castle'. You could get a very good view of everything around.

This is Angelina, my friend from Alaska, and me on the Isle of Skye right before we headed back to Edinburgh.

Here are two of the 'Three Sisters'. Aren't they AMAZING?? It was so neat to be down in the valley and just look up at them. So majestic...

This is the famous 'hairy coo', Hamish. We had fun watching him eat snacks from one of our more crazy members of the group... :-)

Scotland is an amazing place! I'm sure this doesn't need saying, but if you ever get a chance to go there, definitely go!! :-D

More Scotland! (a little late...)

On Saturday, we drove around the Isle of Skye. It is a pretty big island, compared to the little islands we on our coast. I had a great time! Most of the day it was raining and freezing cold, but inspite of that, we had a wonderful time! We took a long hike up to the Mountain of Storr, through very very dense, quiet woods and we also climbed up on a 'fairy castle' (it was basically a small mesa) and climbed on all the hills around the fairy castle. And of course, our guide, Neil, told us tons of stories and myths to go along with all of the places we saw. We got back to the hostel in time to see three fourths of the qualifying football match between Scotland and Italy. Sadly, Scotland lost to Italy who are apparently great at football. But it was fun to watch it anyway!

The next day was our trek back to Edinburgh. We started off at 8am and we stopped to see the Three Sisters, a group of mountains. That is probably my last and best memory of the Scottish Highlands. They were beautiful! We stopped in a valley that the Three Sisters surrounded. It was gorgeous. I am so glad I got the opportunity to see the Highlands! After that we headed hard for Edinburgh. We stopped at a little gift shop place to see a famous highland cow, Hamish. Some of the people fed him (you could buy snacks for him in the gift shop). After that we went to see the Braveheart memorial. Neil pointed out that it was very ironic that the statue of Braveheart (with Freedom engraved on the front) was locked up behind bars every night to protect it from vandals.

We made it back to Edinburgh at about 5:30pm and I headed back to my friend's flat. We (Becky, one of her flatmates, and I) went to see Elizabeth: The Golden Age. It was a pretty good movie. Probably not the kind of movie I would pick myself to see, but it was better than I expected it to be.

Then I spent the night there and got up early in the morning because I had plenty of things that I wanted to see in Edinburgh. I left at 8am to climb Arthur's Seat. It took me a while to figure out which cliff was Arthur's Seat...I finally had to ask a nice lady who pointed me in the right direction. When I got up to the top, I could see most of the city as the sun was rising (behind heavy cloud cover, of course) and the wind was buffeting me around. It always came from one direction and there was a stone column proclaiming that this was Arthur's seat so I pinned myself to that for fear of being blown off! But all was well and I made it down safely.

Then I went to the Holyrood House which is where the Queen stays when she comes to visit Scotland. It is right across from the .....interesting..... Parliament building. The people of Scotland don't really like the Parliament building...it's pretty ugly and they spent millions of pounds on it, too.

But after I saw that I met up with Becky and we went up to Edinburgh Castle which we explored until it was time for me to meet my train back. So, I went back and grabbed my stuff and left. It was a nice trip back. There weren't as many people on the train so I was able to stretch out some and I think I even slept a little, which is odd for me. :-)

On Tuesday and Wednesday we had classes as usual. Tuesday night Laura, David, and I went to our Connect Group. That has been a lot of fun. We've gotten to meet more British students and really have some fellowship with them. They've always been so welcoming and kind. It's really been great.

On Thursday, we had a Thanksgiving dinner at the University Women's Club. It's a really nice club (Judi Dench is a member!!) and they had turkey (we think..it was all sliced so we couldn't really tell) and pumpkin pie! That was a surprise...but I am spoiled by my mom's cooking so I didn't like the pumpkin pie much...I didn't really eat much... But, I got to talk to my family before I left for dinner!!! It was so much fun to talk to them!! :-D It made me really happy! It also made me miss home more, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make to be able to talk to them! It'll be good to be home...as the end of the semester approaches, we are more and more ready to go home... While I am ready to *visit* home, I am not ready to leave London/Europe for good... It's really been a wonderful trip. I have been so blessed to be able to come on this trip and travel so much!

Anyway, back to the play-by-play. ;-) Friday and Saturday I wasn't feeling to well so I drank loads and loads of orange juice (since Tropicana was on sale!!) and watched lots of TV shows and movies and slept a lot. It was good. Then on Sunday I went to church and then afterwards, I just wandered around for a while since the sun was out. I hadn't realized how little sun I was getting. The sun rises at 8am and sets at 4pm and since we are in class most of the day, I wasn't getting much sun. So it felt wonderful to just wander around a little park/cemetary in the sun for a while.

Oh!!! How did I forget... On Friday we got a tour of the Houses of Parliament!!! O.O It was sooo neat!! It was amazing to get to see where all of Britain's legislature is made and it was really fascinating to get to learn a little about how their government works and some of the traditions that happen. Britain is very very dependent on traditions, we have found. Not that that is bad, it is just very different from the US, perhaps since we are such a young nation comparatively. Sadly we were not allowed to take pictures. But it was amazing just to be able to go in and see that place!! (Especially since there are guards EVERYWHERE around the Houses of Parliament...)

I will tell about this week perhaps tomorrow... things are getting stressful with lots of papers to write so I will make no more promises about when I'll update, that way I won't break any promises! :-)

Prayer requests: Focus and diligence on my papers, strength and less sleepiness (I've been pretty worn out this whole week, perhaps from all the traveling and now the absence of light for the majority of each day...). Thank you so much for all your prayers!!

Scotland update!

Well, this past weekend I went to Scotland for 5 days. It was a great trip! I left London at 10am and took the train to Edinburgh. The train ride is about four hours and forty minutes long. I spent most of that time looking out the windows at the changing scenery. :-D So, I got to Edinburgh at about 2:30. I hadn't had lunch so I went and grabbed lunch at the place that me and my friend, Becky were going to meet. She showed up right as I had taken my first bite. So, we headed back to her place to drop off my bags and then we decided to go down the Royal Mile.

The Royal Mile has the Holyrood House at the bottom, the official residence of the Queen when she comes to Scotland, and at the top is Edinburgh Castle. Edinburgh Castle is at the top of a huge hill and Holyrood House sits at the bottom of that hill, so there is a definite 'top' and 'bottom' of the Royal Mile.

Becky lives right off the Royal Mile about halfway down, so we walked down the rest of the Royal Mile and then we decided to climb Calton Hill. Apparently it is one of the highest points in Edinburgh. We got a very good view of the city as the sun was going down.

Then we headed back and I met her flatmates. They were all really nice and hospitable. Becky and I watched North and South after grabbing some dinner. North and South is a good movie, comparable to the Pride and Prejudice story line. It was a good movie and they have several clips of Edinburgh in it although it is set in a fictional town.

The next morning I headed over to High Street Hostel at 7:30am (just as it was starting to get light....the sun rises at 8am and sets at 4pm now that it's winter here in Great Britain.). Every city in Great Britain has a High Street, it is just like our Main Street in the US, usually the middle of the town with the most shops and restaurants. I had to be there at 7:45am for the MacBackpackers trip that I was going on. It was a wonderful trip! If you ever go to Scotland, I suggest you take one of their trips! They are cheap and wonderful! Here is the website!

We drive around on a small coach (bus) that can carry 26 passengers. There were 21 of us plus our tour guide, Neil. There were five girls from Hong Kong and Thailand who were just taking a holiday trip, five students from Illinois who are studying in London, one girl from Alaska, one guy who is originally from Illinois but is now traveling around, three Australians, a couple who were from the US but are now living in Edinburgh, three people from India on the trip and me. I became friends with the girl from Alaska, Angelina, the American who is traveling around now, Tim, and one of the Australians, Al. It was a lot of fun!

Neill, our guide, would tell us tons of historical stories and myths and faerie tales as he drove us around for the next three days. We would pass a lake, a town, a mountain, a castle, or anything, and he would start off on a story about it. He was a good story teller so it was really entertaining to listen to him. We drove up to Loch Ness (Loch means Lake in Gaelic, I found out) and saw a bunch of places on the way there. Loch Ness was HUGE!! It's really deep and really really long (as in several miles long).

When we got into the Highlands, the number of people and houses that we passed dropped sharply and suddenly there were hills and mountains. They are beautiful and awe-inspiring. I'm sure they are even more beautiful in the summer, but they are beautiful in a different way now. I learned that 'iver' means 'at the mouth of' in Gaelic, so Iverness means 'at the mouth of Ness'.

We stopped at a forest called the Hermitage that had been the basis for Shakespeare's Birnham woods in Hamlet. We also got to see 'Dunsinane'. But the Hermitage was really pretty!

Then we got to see the 'hairy coos' (hairy cows) that they have up in the Highlands. Those cows are very very hairy! The hair is in place of a layer of fat to protect them from the cold. Apparently they are very well adapted to the weather in the Highlands.

We also stopped at a battlefield where the British and Scottish had fought over Scottish independence. The Scottish fought under Bonnie Prince Charlie. It is called the Battle of Culloden. It was very flat there and aside from the constantly blowing wind, it was really really quiet. After the battle, the British had made the defeated Scottish bury their dead in mass graves so they had divided them up by clan and then put a stone over each clan's mass grave. I saw the stone for the Clan Donald. 'Mac' means 'son of' so MacDonald is of course 'son of Donald'.

The whole time we were heading for the Isle of Skye, where we stayed for 2 nights and one day. We spent all of Friday driving to Skye and all of Sunday driving back to Edinburgh. The hostel we stayed it was really nice and really cheap.

Tune in tomorrow for the rest of the story! ;-)

Prayer requests: Please pray that I would be motivated to get out and explore London more in the last 2 weeks and that I would be able to focus and get my work done quickly and well. Also, I've been pretty tired out lately. I don't know if it is just from all my traveling or if my body is trying to fight off a sickness. I am hoping and praying that I won't get sick before I go home. Thank you for all your prayers!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I hope it has been a great day, remembering all that we have been blessed with! I have so much to be thankful for! It is late right now and I am exhausted. I had a bad migraine yesterday and when I get a really bad one, it really wears me out. So, I will have to tell y'all all about bonnie Scotland tomorrow. :-) I just wanted to let you know that I am still alive. ;-) Have a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving!

Germany!

On Wednesday I had class and got all packed up and ready to go to Germany the next morning. Then, Thursday morning I woke up at 3am and headed to the airport. It was weird to be traveling around at that time of night. But it was pretty uneventful.

I got to Germany, Dusseldorf at about 9:40am. Jens, my friend from camp, picked me up and we had breakfast at a little town called Kevelaer. After that we went to a bakery to pick up some bread for his mom. Then we went back to their house which is in Duisburg. Then I met his parents and sister. They are all really nice. I've noticed that people in Germany don't speak as much English, in general as people in Holland. After that I took a short nap because I hadn't gotten much sleep the last night...

After that we went for a walk along the Rhine river. That was very pretty...on one side...on the other side it was packed with industrial machines and factories. But the other side, the one we were on had farms and fields and was really pretty. I saw a bunch of different birds!

Then, that night, after dinner, we went to a local school, where Jens's mom works with the kids after school to see the St. Martin celebration. St. Martin was apparently a knight who was riding along one day (I think returning from a battle or something) and found a poor man who was very cold. St. Martin cut his coat in half and shared it with the beggar. But there is a tradition now for the kids to make lanterns and walk through the town singing. After the main celebration, the kids break off into groups and walk from door to door singing for candy. It's kind of like Halloween but with a definitely more Christian slant and nowhere near as sinister sounding. That was fun and I got to see another Fresian horse!! :-D

On Friday, we went to the zoo in the town that Jens will shortly be moving to. It was a lot of fun! It was very very small after going to the Ashboro zoo, but it was really neat. We also fed one of the elephants! And then he stretched out over the moat thing and we got to touch his trunk!!! (we found out later we weren't supposed to feed or touch them...there was a little sign off in one corner.) But it was so much fun!! I took a bunch of pictures! Part of the time it was raining, but I didn't care. :-) Then we went to the place that he has lectures, which is right on the border of a botanical garden. We didn't get to go into the garden, but it was very pretty to look at from the outside! After that we went to see a nearby race track. It was deserted, but it was fun to walk around it in the woods. That night, after dinner, we went to a nearby landscape park with his sister, Lena, and his mom. That was really interesting because it was an old steel (I think) factory which had been made safe for the public and they had put a lot of flourescent lights all over the structures. We went up to the top of one of the huge structures, and we could see several cities....it was crazy! We were so high up.... But it was pretty cool to see! I'll have to put up pictures later.

On Saturday, we went with Mrs. Hilgert to go grocery shopping and after that we went to the Farmer's Market. That was a lot of fun and it took up the whole morning. After lunch, we just hung around the house.

On Sunday, we had planned to go into town and wander around, but it was pouring and the wind was really strong, so they changed plans. We decided to go to the mountains, because it had snowed there the last night!!!! So, we got all ready and then drove up to the mountains and tramped around in half a foot of snow!! I told them that was probably more snow than I would see for a looong time...yay for NC.... :-P But it was a ton of fun!

On Monday, the good weather had returned and so we went into the town and went to an aquarium. That was really fun because they didn't *just* have fish and water animals. They also had some desert animals. It was really interesting to see and they had a lot of funny looking fish there. After that we went back for lunch and then Jens had to go to class so I took a nap. After that I had tea with Mrs. Hilgert and then Mr. Hilgert took me back to the airport and I left for London.

When we were boarding the plane, there was an American guy checking tickets! It was really weird to hear an American accent in Germany and after hearing a lot of German over the past 5 days. But it was also really nice to hear the accent. :-) Then I made my way back to the flat and made guacamole for my dinner. :-D

Yesterday I had class and we went to a concert for a famous string quartet from Budapest. They were really good! Today I am going to Regent's Park to take pictures for my friend! And hopefully, if I have enough time, I might go into the zoo. :-) Tomorrow I leave for Scotland for 5 days! I'm really excited about that! Laura, David, and Mary went this past weekend and they really enjoyed it and said it was beautiful. So, it should be a great time!

Prayer requests: Safe travel to Scotland and around Scotland in the next 5 days. Also, that I'll get enough rest and that I won't get sick. It seems like more and more people are getting sick.

The rest of Holland!!

On Saturday, we got up early and drove to Amsterdam. We parked outside of the city, since it would be cheaper, and rode the metro into town. The first thing we did was take a boat tour of the city, since it has canals everywhere. That was a lot of fun and we got to see a lot of the city in a very short time. The houses are very interesting because space is such a premium that they make the stairs in the houses narrow and very steep, so it is hard to move things, so each house has a pulley at the top of their house, outside for moving furniture and big heavy things up and down stairs. It was really interesting to see all of the different houses. Also, all of the canals are completely man made.

After that, we went to have lunch with Paulien and Gijs's aunt, uncle, and cousin. That was a lot of fun! On the way there we saw the US Embassy from a distance. It looked like small fortress and Gijs told us that it was very very hard to get in there and that the security was extremely tight; that you could only take in the necessary papers and you could not take in even your cell phone or anything like that. But then we got to their aunt and uncle's house. Their son, Sam, is 8 years old and is learning English in school. His dad tried to get him to ask for our help with his English homework, but he didn't want to. But by the end of our visit, he was asking Jemima (my friend from Australia) if she was a kangaroo and if she had a pouch and he was asking me what kind of food we eat in America. It was a lot of fun to see another typical Dutch household and they were very nice and welcoming.

After that we wandered around Amsterdam some more and Jemima and I went looking for birthday presents for Gijs since it was his birthday the next day. We got stuck behind some police on horses (I didn't mind that!!) who were flanking an animal rights demonstration. But finally they moved out of the way (herded by the mounted policemen) and we could continue with our shopping.

After that we went and looked at the flower market. That was a lot of fun! They had a lot of tulips, but they also had other flowers and plants including bonsai!!! I looked for a long time at the bonsai but finally decided not to get one for myself.

When we were done with that we went looking for an Indonesian restaurant, but couldn't find one that was any cheaper than 15 or 20 Euros per entree. So we finally ended up going to a Mexican restaurant where we ran into their uncle and cousin! They ate with us but finished before us and headed out. After dinner, we headed back home.

I have noticed that traveling around Europe, whether on the train, plane or by car, I always watch the countryside. Sometimes I try to sleep a little or something, but usually I watch the countryside go by. I think I am trying to absorb as much of it as I can in the short while that I am here. It's also very interesting to look as because it is so different from what I am used to seeing. And, because Holland is so flat, you can see a lot of stuff as you drive around.

On Sunday, it was Gijs's birthday so Paulien and her mom spent the morning making good snacks for all the relatives who were going to arrive in the afternoon. When they were done with that, Paulien took Jemima and me to see one of the windmills that was close by. It wasn't running that morning (everything shuts down on Sunday in the whole of Europe, it seems) but thankfully it was open so we climbed up and saw how it worked and got a picture of us there and all that. It was really neat to see how they grind up the grain using wind power. We also got to see the kitchens where they make different breads and pasteries every day.

After that we headed back and got ready for the relatives to arrive. While we were waiting, Gijs, Paulien, Jemima, and I started a game of Monopoly. Soon the relatives started arriving so we put it away for later. For a while Jemima sat around and greeted the guests, but Paulien said we didn't have to stay and could use the bikes (everyone in Holland has bikes, we've found) to ride around. Jemima was getting restless so we headed out for a while. We tried to go to another mill, but it was closed so we rode to another close by town to look for a present for me to Gijs, but all the stores were closed. So we just rode around for a while. It was a lot of fun despite being pretty chilly.

Once everyone left, we had some good tomato soup with some good fresh bread. Taoh, their dad made the soup and it was very good, if a little bit spicy. But I found out why it was spicy...he had put sambal in it! Sambal is ground up red peppers (the really really hot kind) with oil that you can get in Indonesia. After dinner, the whole family went to watch a show they watch every week about an emergency room. It was really interesting. It was a Flemish show with Dutch subtitles...and I could still understand what was going on and what they were usually talking about!! It was fun to watch it. :-)

After that we continued our Monopoly game, until only Paulien and I were left. :-D Then we headed to bed.... I went very reluctantly, knowing that I was leaving the next day. I definitely did not want to leave... I had a fantastic time there and it was so much fun being with my friends and seeing their way of life and getting to meet their family.

The next day, everyone but Jemima and me had work so we headed to Eindhoven, where I was flying out from for the day. I finally was able to find a present for Gijs and gave it to Jemima to pass on. We wandered around town, having lunch in a nice little park. At 4:15 we went back to the train station and I got on the bus to the airport and she got on the train to go back home.

I was very sad to be leaving them all. I had such a good time there and it had really begun to feel like another home to me. They were all so very kind and seemed to really enjoy talking to me. Coming back here was hard because I don't have anyone as close to me here as Jemima, Gijs, and Paulien are. But I am so glad that I did get to see them! And hopefully I will be able to visit again soon.

Well, today I had music class and science class. They were both good. Afterwards, I met up with David, Laura, and Shannon and we went to Nando's which is a sort of typical American restaurant and got food and FREE REFILLS!!!! (which are almost unheard of here....) and after that we went to our connect group for church. I don't know if I have told you, but we are going through the Purpose Driven Life book as a church and we have connect groups which meet during the week and we watch a DVD by Rick Warren, the author and discuss what we've learned. Laura, David, and I have been meeting each morning to read each days reading together and talk and pray about it. That has been really good and I've enjoyed it a lot. I believe we're all going to learn a lot from this.

Tomorrow I have Shakespeare class and WWII class and then some of us are going out to eat or get coffee with Heather's parents who are here visiting. They want to meet us all. That should be fun! And then after that I will finish packing for Germany since I am leaving at about 3 in the morning to get to Stanstead Airport at 5 for my flight at 7:05am. Apparently, my friend, Jens, has my visit all planned out. It should be fun!! :-)

Prayer requests: More sleep since traveling is pretty tiring and safe travel to and from Germany. Thank you so much!!

Holland!

Sorry I haven't been updating recently. Until November 1, I was working on a paper and not doing much else. But on Thursday, I left for Holland to visit 3 friends from camp! I was really excited!

I left at about 1:45 to get to the Liverpool Station to take the Stanstead Express (a train that goes straight to Stanstead Airport and back) to the airport. I sat around waiting for the plane for a while, having to get there 2 hours early... I thought about changing my money (from pounds to euros) but decided that I'd do it when I got there because I thought I'd have more time. Anyway, the flight was very very short. We had been at cruising height for about 20 minutes when we started descending.

When I got out of the plane and into the tiny, tiny airport at Eindhoven, I was kind of overwhelmed by the language change.. I knew it would be weird, but I was tired and so I was kind of overwhelmed by it.

My friends were not able to pick me up at the airport so I had to get a bus to the train station and then catch a train to a town closer to them. But, there was no place to change my money there since it was such a small airport!! Thankfully they had an ATM and I had my credit card... To make a long story short, I had a lot of trouble getting a bus ticket, getting in contact with them, and getting on the right trains...but I finally made it! And I was sooooo happy to see them!!!

We went back to Gijs (the closest American's can get to saying his name is 'Hi-sh') and Paulien's house, going through Belgium--I was in 3 different countries in 1 day!!! I met their parents and they heated up some food for me since I hadn't eaten since lunchtime. And then we headed to bed.

On Friday, Paulien had to work so Jemima and I went to a town in Belgium called Brugge. We took a boat tour of some of the city since it was interlaced with canals. Then we wandered to the city centered and looked around. As we were heading back to the train station, we had some Belgian waffles and Belgian chocolate! They were both really good! It rained about half of the time we were there, but it was a London sort of rain, really really light with tiny raindrops. We found a shop devoted entirely to TinTin, the cartoon character who originated in Belgium. We had a lot of fun just wandering around aimlessly.

When we got back home, Paulien's mom fed us a late dinner. She gave us mushroom soup, which I was rather wary of at first, but it was wonderful!! It was very creamy and had chives, bits of ham, and slices of mushroom in it. It tasted great after wandering around in the cold, wet all day. Then we had some more typical Dutch food, mashed up carrots and potatoes with sausages. It was really good too! Then we headed to bed for an early night so that we would be well rested to go to Amsterdam the next day with Paulien and Gijs!

I'm going to finish my Holland update tomorrow...I'm tired from traveling and need to get my clothes washed in time to be ready for Germany in 2 days!!

Prayer requests: that I would get enough sleep and that my trip to and from Germany would be safe and go well. Thank you!!!

Senate House Library

I have finally convinced myself to go to the library...don't ask me why it was that hard, but for some reason I always have a hard time convincing myself to come to libraries... I get more work done in here, but I can't be persuaded to leave the comfort and distractions of my own room... :-)

Anyway, on Monday and Tuesday we had classes (Music, Science, and Shakespeare) like usual with one exception. Our WWII teacher is out of town (in Florence) and so we didn't have that class, sadly. He is very entertaining and of course the subject is very interesting.

Recently I have been reading the Harry Potter books...and they have devoured my life! Once you start one it is very difficult to put it down before you have finished it entirely... But I am between books right now. :-)

Yesterday I came into the library to work on my science paper. When we got a tour of the library, it seemed so complicated and confusing, but I have begun to learn my way around and it was not difficult to find books. Just took a little searching. But it's a great place...especially if your computer does not work... :-P But hopefully I'll be able to get it fixed soon.

So, not too much going on here right now. Just working on a paper and on Sunday afternoon I may go to either Regent's Park or Kew Gardens. Haven't decided which. That's about all for now! Sorry there haven't been any pictures in a while... Since my computer is shot, I can't upload any yet.

Prayer requests: Focus (working on my paper) and sleep. That's about it! Thanks so much for your prayers!

Yay! An update!

Hey, I'm updating on Laura's computer while she's gone. (Don't worry, I asked ;-) ) Just wanted to let y'all know that I am alive and what I've been doing the past four days...

Friday, I went to the Greenwich Observatory with my 'History of Science in London' class as well as Jemima. It was a lot of fun and really interesting. We got to see all the original models of the first clocks (and most of them were still working!!). We also got to see (and stand on!) the Greenwich meridian!! It was a lot of fun and Jemima and I got to hang out more and talk. It was so good to see her again!

Then, I went to see the opera, Carmen, with the rest of my program. It was good and bad... The music was good, of course. But, it had been translated (badly) into English and in addition to that, they had a little screen at the top of the stage that projected the lyrics...just in case we couldn't understand the ENGLISH.... It was very very distracting... Also, they used cinematography that was odd and just suceeded in confusing us rather than adding to the opera. The director (who is actually a film director who was chosen to put on this opera) had cut out a lot of the dialogue (read: ALL of the dialogue) and that made it very confusing a lot of the time. So, while the music was good, that was about all that was good... :-/ But I'm still really glad that I got to see it and hear it. I recognized several of the songs...I'm guessing I've heard them at home. :-)

Saturday, Jemima and I got together at 10:15 to watch the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. It was a very elaborate and long performance to change TWO guards who stand in front of the palace... But it was really fun to see all of the people dressed up and to see all the horses. :-D After that we went to the Royal Mews which is where the horses for the royal family are kept as well as the carriages. We found out that mews comes from mutare which is Latin for 'to change' and a mews was where the falcons were kept when they were molting. Once, the Royal Stables, which were at Charing Cross, burned down and King George III moved the horses and carriages to the Mews which was closer (right behind Buckingham Palace). Over time, the mews became associated with horses rather than falcons. But, we got to see some of the horses (!!!!) that served the queen by pulling carriages and things like that. It was really neat! We got to see a bunch of the carriages, too.

That night, I went out with a friend to watch the Rugby World Cup Final between England and South Africa. My friend is from South Africa and they won, so he was really happy. :-) It was a lot of fun to watch a rugby game! I'd never seen a whole game before and it was really interesting and fun to watch. I'll probably try to see UNC's rugby team play when I go back.

On Sunday, I went to church. We had a Filipino guy, Rico, speak and he was really good! We also met some people who were from North Carolina! We found that we had several mutual friends and they invited us to have Thanksgiving dinner with them! Carol, the lady, had gotten pumpkin pie filling, which is unheard of here, sent to her from America. So I'll get to have pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving!! Then we headed back here and I made some more Apple Beth. :-D

Today I haven't done too much. Jemima and I had planned to meet up, but sadly, it didn't work out. But I'm not too worried, because she is going to be visiting Paulien and Gijs at the same time that I do. So, I'll get to see her again! :-D I'm really excited about gettting to see them!


Prayer requests: That I'll be able to get my computer fixed soon. It looks like I'm going to have to find a IBM repair center around here. Hopefully I'll be able to find one and hopefully it won't be too expensive. So, you can pray for that. Also, it wasn't the best time for my computer to die, because I have a bunch of papers coming up in the next couple of weeks. Other than that, stuff is going pretty well. Thanks so much for your prayers!

Computer

Well, my computer died.. Something about a User Interface DLL failure... I'm not sure what it is, but I am trying to figure it out. But just to let you guys know, my updates will be sporadic until I can fix it or get it fixed... Just wanted to let you guys know!

Jemima!

Today I didn't have any classes and Jemima called me up to tell me she was in London. I met up with her at Big Ben and then we wandered around Buckingham Palace and Hyde Park for several hours, finding several different places that I could see horses, including the Royal Stables!!!! I am so excited about that!! We were going to go immediately to see it, but it had just closed a couple of minutes before we got there, so we are going to go again later. It was sooo fun to talk to Jemima again! It was good to see a familiar face and to talk to her about stuff and not have to explain who each person was every minute.

We talked about camp and about London and all sorts of stuff! We ended up having a couple of slices of cake on the edge of the Hyde Park pond and then I took her back to Victoria station with plans to meet up both tomorrow (she's going to Greenwich with us!!!!) and on Saturday to see the changing of the guard and the Royal Stables!!! It was so nice to see her and get to talk about camp and all our friends there. It was good to hear about her travels and all that.

Tomorrow our History of Science in London class is going to see the Greenwich Maritime Museum and Observatory. That should be so fun! And it will be awesome to have Jemima along with us!! I'm really interested in seeing all the stuff they have, especially the chronometers. I think it'll be a fun field trip!

Prayer requests: I got a good night's sleep last night!! It felt really good and my tendonitis hasn't been hurting today! It was so good to see Jemima! And I'm really excited that I'll get to see her again tomorrow and on Saturday! Thanks so much for your prayers!

Exploring London

On Saturday I had to register for classes so I decided to stay close to home. I went to Pollock's Toy Museum which is just a couple blocks away from me, I found. It was rather disappointing after all the other museums that I've been to. It was a bunch of toys crammed in a small house, normal size relative to houses here. The toys were all crammed in small cases and covered with dust. But it was still a lot of fun to see all the old toys and all the different countries that they were from. Then I headed back to the flat and registered for classes at 1:30.

Sunday I went to church and then headed back to the flat. That afternoon I made some Camper Stew (which is not made of campers, contrary to the apparently popular belief) and some Apple Beth. It actually turned out much better than I had hoped! I didn't have the right sugar for the 'Yucky Dough' that goes on the Apple Beth, because apparently our 'powdered sugar' they call 'icing sugar' which I found out after the fact... But it ended up very good anyway. I just have 4 different types of sugar on my shelf now...

On Monday I went to the London Aquarium. That was a ton of fun! They had a huge tank in the middle of the whole building that you could see on both floors. There were several places on both floors where you could see the tank. In this tank were maybe half a dozen sharks as well as lots of sting rays and other larger fish. I believe that there were several different types of sharks. Some looked more different than others. They also had freshwater fish, rainforest fish, and tropical fish and there were also small jellyfish and seahorses! There was also a 'petting pool' where we could pet sting rays. I got to pet one, on the top it was rough and felt a bit like sand paper and on the bottom it felt like jello. It was really neat! I had a lot of fun wandering around and looking at all the different animals.

That night, everyone came back from Ireland and France. It was interesting because I had gotten used to having the room to myself and not really ever talking to anyone so it was a shock when I suddenly had 2 roommates again. It took me a bit to readjust and get used to having to talk and having to share 'my' space with 2 other people and having to relinquish the idea that it was 'my' space. It was an interesting adjustment.

On Tuesday I had music class and then we went to a vocal performance at the Royal College of Music by Jennifer Smith and some of her students. It was a very good performance of a bunch of French poems. After that I had science class. We talked about our field trip for Friday. We are going to the Greenwich Maritime Museum. I am excited about that! It'll be interesting to see all of the old chronometers and other developments as well as the Greenwich meridian.


This morning we went to the Cabinet War Rooms which is basically a bunker that Churchill and his close cabinet worked in during the entirety of World War II. That was amazing!!! After the war was over, they had taken only what they needed from the bunker and then sealed it off. Then a while ago it was opened back up and people set it up the way it would have looked with some of the original furniture and wax figures and opened it up as a museum. It was amazing to walk around in there and imagine what it had been like. They even had most of the original maps still on the walls from 1945. Someone had drawn a Hitler on one of the maps in one meeting room and in another room you could see pin marks in the maps marking the progress of sea and air craft. It was awe inspiring to see all of that and imagine Churchill walking around in the halls and talking to FDR on the secret secure telephone that Bell Telephone had installed in a room that had been a broom closet. I spent about 2 hours wandering around and looking at stuff... I was so absorbed by it all that I forgot to take pictures until the very end and then went *back* through and took a couple pictures. It was really amazing.

After that I had Shakespeare class and we talked about King Lear and then we had WWII class and talked a bit about the Cabinet War Rooms since that had been a class field trip. Then we talked about the Italy front during WWII.

And I just finished talking to my sister on Skype. It was fun to talk to her again and catch up. :-)

Prayer Requests: Patience and more sleep. I think that's about it. Thanks so much!!

Craziness!

Tuesday we had music class and after music class, Laura's parents took us (Laura, Heather, David, and I) out to eat! They were really sweet! After that, I had science class and our teacher postponed the field trip. Which was a bit disappointing because that was the reason I was not going to Dublin with everyone else, because I want to go to Greenwich. Everyone had already made their plans for the weekend. So, all of my friends are gone this weekend.

That night we (the whole program) went to see MacBeth at a nearby theatre. I was interested in seeing it because Patrick Stewart was playing MacBeth. It was a very good interpretation of MacBeth. It was set in communist Russia. They had a very stark looking set: a very bare room with white tile walls, a sink, a counter, and a refrigerator with a television on top. It was a very scary play with a lot of blood and a lot of loud sudden noises. I enjoyed it as a play, but it is definitely not something I would have chosen to go to on my own.

On Wednesday I had Shakespeare class and we talked about MacBeth and Love's Labours Lost. I ended up telling our teacher that I went twice and she was very happy that I liked it so much! Then we had a short break so I came back and made guacamole for dinner. :-) Then we had WWII class.

Thursday we (Heather, Chris, little Katherine, and I) had been invited to have dinner with Dr. Oehler and his wife. He gave us some things to get for him. He wants us to get to know our neighborhood better so he sent us to get cheeses and dessert. He sent us to two different places to get each thing. We got to taste cheeses at the cheese monger. It was fun.

Dinner at Dr. Oehler's flat was a lot of fun. At first we were pretty stiff and uncomfortable but after a while we relaxed and had fun talking to Dr. Oehler and Alice, his wife.

Yesterday pretty much everybody left for Dublin (and Tracy left for Paris). I decided that I wasn't going to sit around here the whole weekend and miss them. So I made a plan for myself to see different places that I probably wouldn't go with my friends here. Yesterday I went to the Museum of Natural History. It was a lot of fun! I probably only saw about a fourth of the museum, but it was the fourth that I really wanted to see. Perhaps I'll go back with Jemima when she gets here.

I really loved seeing all the mammals and the birds (surprise, surprise). I also listened to a little recording about the sounds and songs that marine mammals make. It was really interesting to hear all the different sounds. Did you know that whales sing songs that have themes and different phrases within the themes? It was really neat to listen to a whale and hear the theme and the different phrases!

I also spent a lot of time in the bird room. It was a lot of fun to see all the different birds there. I also got to see a bunch of hummingbird nests, which were amazing! But it made me sad when I saw a huge display of hundreds of hummingbirds that had been someone's personal collection. They had tons of the same kind of hummingbirds. It made me sad that so many little birds had to die for someone's whim.

Today I am going to go to Pollock's Toy Museum. I found out that it is really close to me! After that I have to register for classes for next semester. I also might call up on of my friends who is here in London now and get together with him. I haven't seen him since summer 2006, so it'll be neat to see him again.

Tomorrow, after church and lunch, if there is time, I want to go to the London Aquarium. On Monday I am planning to go to see the London Zoo! I wanted to go horseback riding in Hyde Park, or in any park that I can in London, but I am finding that it is extremely expensive. I guess I'll just wait until the end of the semester to see if I have enough money left (which is looking very very unlikely) and then I might be able to go... We'll see.

Prayer requests: That everyone would have safe travels this weekend. That registering for classes would go well this afternoon (morning, EST). Thanks so much!!!

Tower of London, the Ritz, and Spamalot

On Monday I met Papa and Ann at their hotel at noon and we went down to the Tower Bridge and had lunch at a little restaurant. I had Shepherd's Pie, which was really good!

Then we went to the Tower of London and got a tour with one of the Beefeaters. He was really funny and told us a ton of interesting stories about the people who had lived and died there. It is really interesting because all of the Beefeaters who give tours actually live in the Tower of London, so it is still making history.

After the tour, since it didn't cover everything, we went to see the Royal Jewels. They were beautiful! We went on the Tower Walk and saw where different people had been imprisoned. We also saw several crowns that had had borrowed jewels in them that had been removed. They looked so sad. They didn't look at all like what they should have been. They were pitiful to see.

After the Tower of London, we went to high tea at the Ritz! That was a lot of fun! The food there was great and so was the tea! We had a bunch of different finger sandwiches as well as scones and pastries. Ann told me that the original reason for high tea was because back when women wore corsets, they were so prone to fainting (because they couldn't breathe) that they had to eat before the regular dinner around 8 pm, or 20:00 as they would most likely say here. The Ritz was very very fancy, of course, and they had live music.

After high tea, we went to se Spamalot. That was a lot of fun and very funny! It was the basic plot of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, only with more songs and with a few minor changes. It was really funny! We really enjoyed it.

After that, I got the stuff that Mama had sent me :-) and then said goodbye to Papa and Ann since they were leaving on Tuesday and I had class then.

Every Nation and Cheese

Today, I went to church with Papa and Ann. Some other people from the program showed up, Katherine, Katlin, and David. Laura also showed up with her parents, who are very sweet! Church was really good. It was very refreshing and afterwards I got to briefly meet some other students. I am thinking about going on their student retreat, but it costs 40 pounds and I don't know if I can afford that. I am thinking of making a budget for myself so that I know I can make it through the semester. That will be interesting.

After church, we went out to eat at the Hamburger Union. It was very good! We all enjoyed the food and it is really close to my flat, so I might end up going there again, providing my proposed budget will allow it. :-)

After that, they went back to the hotel and I came back to the flat and read some more Bleak House and then took a little cat nap while Tracy banged around. Then I made a quick spaghetti dish for myself and then headed over to the Winston House.

Tonight Dr. Oehler and his wife, Alice put on a little cheese tasting. They had four different kinds of cheese from around England. They were pretty good although there was really only one that I really liked. It was called Seator's Orkney. It was soft and buttery and didn't have a strong bite to it. I enjoyed it. Ann and Papa came and got to meet a bunch of the people in my program. Then there was a movie that they were going to show, but Ann and Papa decided to head out since they were so tired and I decided I didn't really want to see another war movie... Since I've been here, in the last two or mabye three weeks I have seen: The Gladiator, Braveheart, and The Wind That Shakes The Barley. I figure that is enough gory, violent movies to last me for quite a while. So I came back here and watched Evan Almighty and was very happy to get look at my cousin. :-) Yay, Jesse!!!

Prayer Requests: That Ann and Papa's luggage will get here....very very soon...before they leave... Because it has a bunch of stuff that I need and they need clean clothes... I think that's all for now. Thank you so much!

Love's Labours Lost...Love's Labours Lost....

So, Thursday night I went to see Love's Labours Lost at Shakespears' the Globe with everybody in our program. It was fantastic! I really enjoyed the whole performance. I was really disappointed when it finished. I wanted to see it again....so I decided to go again! I went Friday at 14:00 to see it again. It was just as good the second time around.

But there was one hilarious incident in the second showing... At one point the actors are throwing bread around on stage and then they stand still and talk in small groups because they have heard sad news. Well, since it was during the day, some pigeons spied the bread and started landing on stage! At that point, the actors had completely lost our attention, so the girl who was in the middle of her monologue stopped and walked over to the pigeons and stomped to drive them away. They all flew away in a flurry and she returned to her spot and waited until we had finished laughing and then said, "As I was saying..." and continued with her monologue. It was fantastic. I really enjoyed that moment and admire her presence of mind.

Today Laura and I got up at 5:15 to go to the airport to meet her parents and Papa and Ann. Her parents got in about 5 minutes after we got to the international arrivals part of the terminal, at about 7:50 or so. Then they decided to wait with me for Papa and Ann to arrive, which was supposed to be a 8:00 originally. We decided to get some coffee and sit and talk while we waited for them because they had moved the flight up to 9:03. Well, we waited until about 10:00 and then talked to the people at information who told us to wait 20 more minutes... We waited until 10:30 when I decided to find the DELTA information desk and make sure Papa and Ann were actually on the plane that had landed at 9:01, allegedly. They told me that Papa and Ann had been rerouted and that they had just landed. Well, I went back and we waited until 11:30 or so when they finally appeared, without luggage... Their luggage has been lost. It is supposed to be delivered to their hotel tomorrow morning.

I had a lot of fun talking with Laura and her parents. They are such sweet people! They were so friendly and very talkative. :-) I really enjoyed talking with them.

Once I got Papa and Ann to their hotel, we decided it was time for lunch since it was about 1:30 and I hadn't eaten anything aside from a croissant and some tea on the train, the Gatwick Express at about 7:00 or so. We headed to the Thai restaurant that I went to on my first day here and we sat down and had a really nice lunch. While we sat there, some guy walked in, sat down for a minute and then walked out. We all wondered what he was doing... We found out when Ann went to get her wallet out to pay... He had lifted it from her purse that she had hung on the back of her chair. Papa was able to go get some money and pay for lunch. They went back to their hotel and I came back to the flat.

We met up again at 19:30 for dinner. Ann and Papa had wanted to get naps, but had to spend all that time contacting credit card companies and getting all that straightened out. We had a nice dinner at an Indian place. It was a nice little place and the food was good, if a little spicy for me.

Tomorrow they are going to church with me and then we are going to the British Museum. That should be fun!

Prayer Requests: That Ann having her wallet lifted doesn't make this a bad visit... :-( Also, that she is able to get all of that stuff straightened out. All three of us are pretty exhausted, so you could pray for a good sleep for all of us tonight. Thank you!!

Class and the London Symphony Orchestra!

Tuesday I had class as usual: music class and science class. Yesterday I only had one class: Shakespeare. We did not have our World War II class because we were all going to hear the London Symphony Orchestra play!

We heard a violin concerto by Elgar and we heard Mozart's Requiem. The concerto was alright...the solo violinist got kind of squeaky at points, but overall it was pretty good. But I loved the Requiem! It was beautiful. The soloists were really good! The soprano was my favorite. The tenor was probably the worst...he was kind of reedy and didn't seem to know the music very well.

I just got back from a free concert at Bishopsgate where they have free lunchtime concerts. It was a violinist and pianist playing Bach's Partita for Solo Violin No. 2 in D Minor, Beethoven's Violin Sonata No. 7 in C Minor Opus 30 No. 2, and Tchaikovsky's Waltz-Scherzo for Violin and Piano Opus 34. They were really good! Sometimes the violin was a little shrill, but overall they were great. Both the violinist and pianist are 21. I thought it was interesting that the pianist was born in Israel and had come to London in 2002. I thought they both did very well considering their age, but then I'm not an expert on how good people usually are at that age. :-)

Tonight we are going to see Love's Labour's Lost at the Globe which is right on the other side of the Thames from us. I've walked past the Globe a couple of times. We will be groundlings, so we will be right up near the stage and we will be standing the entire time... Thankfully it is not one of his longer plays. But I am excited to get to see a Shakespeare play in the Globe! :-)

Prayer Requests: I am still really tired. Andrew got out of the hospital yesterday afternoon and was able to go with us to hear the London Symphony Orchestra!

Pictures from Canterbury

This is the Canterbury Cathedral, right inside the wall that surrounded it.
This is Laura, David, Heather, and Mary! You can see some of the fish and chips which were mostly consumed at that point. We ate that "junks" up fast! :-)

This is the 'Rose Compass' alter cloth. It was on the alter in front of the quire, where the choir sits.
This is the cloister at the Canterbury Cathedral. Cloisters always look like such quiet peaceful places to be. They are always very very green, too.

This is the oak ceiling in the Chapter Room. It is made of oaks that grow very very slowly, making them very hard hardwood. I think they were brought from Ireland.

This is part of the shrine to Thomas Becket. It was a rather scary looking shrine and I decided to play with my black and white setting on my camera... I think it makes it look even more dramatic. The two smaller swords with their shadows are supposed to represent the four knights that killed Becket and the large sword is supposed to make a cross with the thing that holds all three actual swords.

We saw this on a truck (delivering muffins, I assume) as we got out of the tube station back in London. "Hey, driver, give me all the muffins in your truck!!" :-)

Canterbury Tales

Yesterday we (Mary, Heather, Laura, David, and I) took the National Express bus to Canterbury. We left at about 9:30 and it took about 2 hours to get there.

When we got there it was rainy and pretty miserable. But we grabbed some brochures and things from the information center and decided to get some lunch as it was past 12 at that point. We had lunch at a little fish and chips place that seemed to be a local favourite. Next to where we had lunch was a exhibit for the Canterbury Tales. We looked at it and Laura, who had seen it before, told us it was odd and an a bit funny.

After lunch, we got tickets to get into the Cathedral and then decided that we wanted to have a guided tour. The next guided tour was at 2:30 so we bought our tickets for that and then left to go see more of the city. We wandered around a bit and talked about what we thought would be fun. The Canterbury Tales place kept coming up in conversation...

So we finally decided to go into the Canterbury Tales exhibit. It was hilarious! It was a series of rooms, in which was a different story, or tale. They all contained wax figures and it supposedly smelled the way that it would back then. It was a very musty, dank, and stifling smell. But it was a lot of fun. It did not have a lot of light, each room would light up a bit as we went in it. It was rather scary to see life-sized wax figures and hear voices in the low lighting...and when they shout behind you...that can be rather scary as well... But we had a lot of fun in it and talking about it afterwards. :-)

Then we went back for our tour of the Cathedral. It was a very interesting tour. Our tour guide talked a lot about all the archbishops of Canterbury who had been killed (totaling 5). He told us the story about Thomas Becket, one of the archbishops, who was killed in the Cathedral. It is a beautiful cathedral with lots of different styles of architecture and lots of different styles of stained glass all over the place.

Afterwards we all went to get coffee, tea, and hot chocolate at a cafe chain that is everywhere in England it seems, Cafe Nero. It was very good and our servers were nice and very generous. We sat around and talked and laughed and warmed up for a bit.

Then we wandered up and down the cobbled roads for a bit longer until 5:30ish when David, Laura, and I decided to go to Evensong at the Cathedral. It was beautiful! They had a good choir and I really enjoyed the service. It made the Cathedral a resting place for the soul. It was really refreshing.

Then we met back up with Mary and Heather and decided to get supper before heading back to the bus station. It took us waaaay too long to decide where to eat...everyone had to compare prices of the little pubs and cafes along the road... We finally decided on a nice little Italian restaurant next to a small river or stream that went under the road. The food was really good... Then we went to the bus station and headed back to London. It was a really fun day trip to take!

Prayer requests: Andrew is still in the hospital. They are planning to discharge him on Wednesday at some point. We are hoping that they won't have to push the date back any more. Papa and Ann are flying out to visit me this weekend so you can pray that they get here safely. Also, I've been pretty tired and a lot of the people in the program are getting sick... So you can pray for sleep and that the sickness won't spread. I think that's all for now. Thank you so much!!

Sorry....

I'm sorry I haven't written in so long! I don't really have an excuse aside from general laziness... Anyway, Thursday I didn't do too much. One of my friend's parents ordered a cake for the first day of school. But she didn't get around to picking it up and giving it out until Thursday. We had it at the Winston House before the Politics class. That night we (Heather and I) watched You've Got Mail. That was a lot of fun!

Friday I stayed at home while some friends (Laura, Mary, and Heather) went to Notting Hill and shopped some. I was waiting for some friends from camp but they found out too late that the tickets they needed would be waaaay too expensive. So, I decided to get some groceries that I needed and a blanket. I searched for so long to find a simple blanket...apparently they prefer duvets here... But I was finally successful in finding a nice fleece blanket that will (hopefully) match my stuff at home. I was pretty disappointed that my friends from camp couldln't come, but I guess that's how things go sometimes. That night we (Laura, Heather, Mary, Katherine, Katlin, and I) went to a free concert (music class requirement again) at the National Portrait Gallery. It was a good concert and it was in interesting venue to have it in.

On Saturday we (Laura, Heather, Mary, David and I) went to Hampstead Heath. It's a large heath right on the edge of London. We finally rode in a double-decker bus, since the line (the subway line, that is) that we would have taken was shut down for the morning. It was a lot of fun to ride in the top and look down on everything. On the north end of the heath there is a large house that is called the Kentwood House. It has a ton of paintings put there by someone who bought the house solely to display his collection of paintings and books, etc. It was very impressive and very quiet as those sorts of houses are apt to be. Sadly, I had the hiccups almost the entire time... And David continued to give me funny looks every time I hiccuped which made me laugh and then I would do a sort of laugh/hiccup/laugh... David also brought a friend (Shannon) with him who is also studying abroad in London. She was a lot of fun and very sweet. I think we'll be hanging out with her again. After Hampstead Heath we (David, Shannon, Heather, Laura, Patrick, Chris, Mary, and I) went to visit Andrew in the hospital. Andrew had a blister on his toe that popped and got infected. He had to be hospitalized because the infection got so bad. He is still in the hospital, hopefully for the last night. They are hoping to discharge him tomorrow at some point, tomorrow being Monday.

Today we (Laura and I) went to church at the Every Nations church with David again. It was good again and again we were invited to have lunch, but once again we had to decline. Laura was going to meet her aunt, who lives in London and David is sick and wasn't feeling up to it. After that I made a quick pasta dish for myself to use up the alfredo sauce (I made some from scratch yesterday!!) and then I proceeded to break my glasses while making another batch of congo bars. I also talked to my twin, which made me very happy! :-) It was so nice to talk to her again. I also got to talk to Mama (yay!!!) and get an update on a little of what's going on at home. We also got the glasses stuff worked out. Then I went to watch a movie with Dr. Oehler and his wife and Laura, Chris, David, Heather, and Mary. We watched The Wind That Shakes The Barley.... That was a horribly depressing and violent and gory movie... I would not, could not recommend it... Then, because it was so depressing, we (Laura, Mary, Heather, and I) watched Bridget Jones' Diary to end the day on a slightly happier note.

Tomorrow (again, Monday) we (Laura, Heather, Mary, David, and I) are going to go to Canterbury and explore it all day long. :-) That should be fun!

Prayer requests: That David would recover quickly from his cold. And that Andrew's infection would heal quickly and that he would be discharged tomorrow. I have been rather tired and blue this week. I don't know why, but you could pray for that as well. Thank you!!!!

Tuesday and Wednesday

I foresee Tuesdays and Wednesdays providing little material for a blog... I had class both days. Tuesday I had 'The Active Art of Listening and Public Performance in London' and the 'History of Science in London'. Wednesday I had 'Shakespeare and Drama' and 'World War II'. We went to a free concert for the second half of our music class. It was several pieces by Haydn and Mendelssohn. I enjoyed it.

Other than that I did not do too much aside from read more Bleak House and cook congo bars. For anyone who doesn't know what those are, they are essentially chocolate chip cookies in bar form. They are *amazing*! I couldn't find semi-sweet chocolate chips so I had to use milk chocolate chips...I like the semi-sweet ones better... I'll have to look around and see if I can't find them elsewhere... :-) I am really enjoying cooking in our kitchen! Also, since I didn't buy much of the same stuff at home, like potatoes, rice, meat, and other foods, I can't compare the prices which probably lends a lot to me staying sane. :-)

Prayer Requests: Creecy heard back and heard that the surgery went well. Thank you, God! I have had a three day migraine and I'm not really sure why. :-/ I think that's all. Thank you so much!!

Pictures from Stonehenge, Salisbury, and Bath

Here are some pictures from our trip on Monday!
This is me at Stonehenge! The wind blew all the time...
Here is another picture of some of the rocks. You can see a small bulge on top of the tallest rock; that was a woodworking method they used to make the rocks on top stay up. They pounded a hole the same size and shape as the bulge in the rock that went on top to make it stay.
This is Salisbury Cathedral. You can see the scaffolding on the sides. They are working on a 29 year project to renovate it. They started in 1986 and are planning to be done by 2015.
These are two Cedars of Lebanon that were planted in the cloister in Salisbury Cathedral a long time ago. It was amazing to get to see two of them up close! The Bible talks about Cedars of Lebanon a lot and it was neat to get to see some!
Here are some of the shops around Salisbury. They look so typically English. Many of them, like many in London, have not changed very much since they were built.
Here is a view of Bath from our bus. It's not a very good picture, but the best one I could get. Bath is very large and sprawls over several hills and down into the valleys between. It's also a very pretty town. Sometime in the next couple of months, I am going to go back and explore it more. The river that runs through the middle is beautiful! I want to wander up and down that as well.

Stonehenge, Salisbury and Bath

Monday we all met at the Winston House at 7:30 to go to Stonehenge, Salisbury, and Bath. It was pouring down rain, our first day of rain! It was really pouring and some of the people in the program were afraid that it was normal English rain but our professor assured us that it normally did not rain this hard. Our bus driver showed up about 45 minutes late... But no one seemed to mind once we were on our way. It took a while to get out of the London traffic, but once we were out of it, we set a good pace.

The highways here look pretty similar to the highways in America, lined with trees and guard rails. But there were two noticeable differences: we were driving on the left hand side and the trees were different from the ones in America. I don't know if many people in my program noticed the second difference, but I enjoyed looking at the different trees. There was a type of white barked birch and there were some trees whose branches spread out flat making distinct layers. I wish I could have gotten some pictures of them, but I'm sure I'll have an opportunity at some point.

The first place we went was Stonehenge. It was really neat to see it in person. Sadly, they have it roped off so people cannot walk among the rocks, but can only stand at a distance and look. This was because people had been vandalizing the rocks and chipping off pieces of the rocks for keepsakes. It was very interesting to hear about the history of the rocks. A lot of the group was disappointed because they had imagined a grander looking site. I was a bit disappointed at first, but it was amazing to hear about the history, where the rocks had come from, and how they thought that the people had brought them over. The wind blew really hard and constantly up on that hill. I am really glad that I got a chance to see it!

Then we headed to Salisbury to see the cathedral. The Salisbury Cathedral was so beautiful! We got a small tour of it. In the Chapter Room, there was an amazing relief of Genesis and Exodus all the way around the circular room. In that room was also one of the original copies of the Magna Carta! It was really interesting to look at the document and be able to discern differnet words and phrases. It was written in Latin and it was written in very tiny handwriting to be able to cramp it all onto on side of the vellum. There was also an illustrated Bible in the Chapter Room!! I looked at that one for a while. It was amazing to be able to see those documents that had been written so long ago but had made such an impact on both England and the world. After the tour that we had lunch in Salisbury.

Then we headed to Bath. We had to go up and around hills or perhaps they were small mountains... I'm not really sure. But it was beautiful! We passed several towns that were down in valleys below us. Being able to look down on the towns and farms that we past was wonderful! They were so beautiful! Sadly, we got to Bath right after the Roman Baths had closed. We still stayed in Bath for a little while. I wandered into Bath Abbey and looked around there for a while and then wandered up one of the hills a little ways, looking at the shops. But I didn't get to see as much as I wanted to. I would like to go back there at some point to see the Roman baths and to wander around a town that I have read so much about.

It was a great day! It was so nice to get out of London and to see some of the countryside and some other towns. I love London, but I love the country as well, so it was nice to finally get to see some of that! :-)

On Friday, some of my friends from camp, Lyndsay and Jemima will be coming to visit me!! I am really excited about that because I've been missing my friends from camp since camp has ended. They will be staying around here through Sunday and then Lyndsay has to head back to school and Jemima is staying with her for her visit to England.

Prayer requests: Tracy's (my roommate) sister has had a minor aneurysm and will be having surgery soon. Also, another girl in my program, Creecy's mom has cancer (I'm not sure what kind) and just had surgery. So you can be praying for both of them. I don't think either Creecy or Tracy are Christians. You can pray for me in knowing how to support them. Thank you so much!!

Church!

Well, today Laura and I went with David to the Every Nations church here in London. I really enjoyed it. I knew a lot of the songs and it felt familiar. Also, when David and Laura were getting tea and coffee and I was waiting for them, someone just walked up and introduced themselves and started talking to me and introduced me to some other people who also talked with me. It was really nice. That's one of the first times that has happened to me when visiting a new place. It really left me with a very favorable impression of the church.

Then we came back and I made a pasta dish for lunch. I think I am doing a better job of making pasta dishes now, after having some practice. It is still a sort of haphazard throwing together of ingredients, but I have a better idea of what will taste good together. It's also really funny because my flatmates have started asking me for advice on cooking different things. A lot of it is what seems to me really basic stuff like cooking rice, pasta noodles, and eggs. But I enjoy giving them advice. It makes me feel very accomplished. :-)

Then tonight, we (Laura, David, Andrew, and I) went to church at All Souls. It was pretty pale in comparison to Every Nation. The preacher was very good, but the music was lacking in a big way. I think part of it was that I didn't know the songs, but they were really lacking in any kind of feeling. It felt like they were just singing because they had to. That was a bit disappointing. But afterwards we went to a coffeehouse for the college students and I met a bunch of college kids and I can't remember half their names... And so the search for a church continues. They are both good churches in their own right.

Well, tomorrow we go to Stonehenge, Bath, and Salisbury. I'm sure I will have plenty to write and plenty of pictures to show! :-)

Prayer requests: Safe travel tomorrow. I've also been pretty tired recently, so getting good rest would be another. Thank you for praying for me!!

Thursday, Friday, Saturday

Thursday morning we (Heather, Laura, Mary, and I) went to the National Gallery and wandered around looking at the paintings from 1700-1900 for a couple of hours. The Gallery is so huge that they have a map of the building and they have divided up their collection of paintings into different time periods with certain artists in different rooms. The rooms are huge and have paintings everywhere. It was great to see them! I really enjoyed looking the art. I just looked briefly at Monet's work. I am saving that up for a treat later on in the semester. :-) After that, they had class so we all headed back to Bloomsbury and I went and got some groceries (surprise, surprise).

That night we all met up at the Winston House to hear a friend of Dr. Oehler's talk to us about Stonehenge, Bath, and Salisbury. It was interesting to hear about the history that they have constructed about Stonehenge from looking at all the things buried around it. It looks like an amazing sight. I'll be excited to see it on Monday. He talked to us about Bath as well and about the Roman baths that were there. He told us about how the Romans heated their floors (I wish I had heated floors...) and about how they used a natural hot spring to fill the baths.

Friday (Heather, Mary, Laura, and I) went to a cello concert at the Royal Academy of Music. It was an interesting concert using a lot of modern technology and pre-recorded sound. I didn't really like it. But I guess it is good to be exposed to different types of music. Then afterwards, we sort of split up and I was going to head straight back but then decided that since I was so close to Regent's Park, I might as well wander around in there. And I am so glad I did!! It is beautiful there! I went and sat in Queen Mary's Rose Garden for a while and looked at the birds there that I had never seen before. Then I wandered by a pond with lots of ducks and what looked like some type of black swan. It was so quiet, it was hard to believe I was in the middle of the city. There weren't many people there; enough that it wasn't deserted, but not too many. After that, I headed back and grabbed a couple things from Tesco. Then, after Mary, Laura, and Heather got back we all headed over to the Winston House and watched the first half of Braveheart with Chris and David. It was an interesting movie. Very sad.

Then, at 7, we (Heather, Mary, Laura, and I) went to another concert, only this one was a choral concert by the BBC Singers. They were recording the performance to play on the radio on Halloween. It was a great performance! I really enjoyed that one. They sang 2 of what they called "Plainsong" processing in and out. They were beautiful and reminded me of monks singing. The whole concert was unaccompanied by any instruments. It was beautiful. It was really nice. Afterwards we went out to eat at a rather nice Italian restaurant. It was a lot of fun.

Today, we went to a football match! It was really neat! It was a small stadium, kind of like Cameron Indoor Stadium, but without a roof. The home team, Queen's Park Rangers, were not expected to win; apparently they aren't that good. But we actually scored and it ended up as a draw at 1-1. It was a lot of fun to watch and fun to hear the crowd. After the game, we (Heather, Mary, Laura, Chris, David, and I) decided to watch the rest of Braveheart after we all went back and got some dinner. We just finished it a little while ago; the ending is so sad... Not really what I was expecting. I was expecting justice to win out in the end. That's how it is supposed to end. Isn't it interesting that it is written onto our hearts that justice and mercy HAVE to win in the end? "He has also set eternity in the hearts of men." (Ecc. 3:11, NIV)

Prayer requests: Still searching for a quiet time and place. We are traveling to Stonehenge, Bath, and Salisbury on Monday, so prayer for safe travels. Thank you for your prayers!!! :-)

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday

Monday we didn't do much of anything. Most of us went to a free concert at the Royal College of Music. It was the opening of their term-long series. It was given by the faculty. There was a quartet that played some pieces from Hyden and then a septet played some pieces from Beethoven. I enjoyed it a lot better than the last concert we went to. After that I went grocery shopping... I feel like I go shopping every other day! But apparently that is normal here. I heard from a friend that it is normal for people here to have tiny fridges and to go shopping most days. I mean, it makes sense because it means that all your food is fresher, but it is rather tedious...

Tuesday we had music class and then science class. After that, I had a quick dinner and then we all headed off to see A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Richmond Theatre. It was a very interesting performance of Shakespeare. It was set in India and they had acrobats that came in on ropes and long reels of cloth. Apparently this is a highly controversial, but it was also a lot of fun. The only thing that I didn't really like was the fact that half the time, they lapsed back into Indian or Sri Lankan. That seemed to take away from the play and even though I had read the play, I was still confused at some points. But overall, I really liked the interpretation.

Today, we had a make up World War II class since we haven't had one yet and couldn't have one at the normal time today since we had a dinner to go to. But our professor is a really funny guy and I think it will be a lot of fun as well as educational. Then we had a quick tour of the British Museum and learned a lot about where it came from and how they got a lot of their collection. It was really interesting. After that we had our Shakespeare class and had a really interesting discussion about the play we saw last night. It was a fun discussion.

Then I went shopping...of course. And after that I got ready for dinner. Tonight we had dinner with the Winstons who gave a lot of money for our building, both to buy it and to re-do the interior. They were such nice people! We also had the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at UNC there. It was a nice dinner and I enjoyed talking to the Winstons and the dean's wife. They were so nice.

I didn't realize how much I missed southern friendliness. Here, when you go to the grocery store or when you go to a pub for lunch, you don't get the same kind of service as in America. In the US, people are told to be nice and to be welcoming and say stuff like "Have a nice day!" and things like that. I didn't realize how much of a difference it makes. But once I got here I realized how different it is. Here, people just do their job. They don't really make any effort to smile or talk to you much. I am not trying to say it's not friendly, it's just very different after growing up in the South for so long. I think I have adjusted to it, but it was really nice to talk to such nice southern people again. :-)

Prayer requests: I am still trying to find a regular time and place to have my quiet time each day. Tracy is much better, still a little sick, but getting better. I am getting more confident in getting around the city by myself so I might try to take a trip to the Aquarium or the London Zoo or Hyde Park soon. :-) The weather just got a little colder and it started raining tonight, but it is supposed to be nice this weekend. So, a praise that it's been so nice and seems to be staying nice for a while yet.

Church, lunch, and the Thames River Festival

Today Laura and I went to All Souls Church; it was a good service. The normal pastor was gone to another city so we had another preacher. He was pretty good, but both Laura and I got lost in the middle because he just kept repeating himself. But it was still good and it was really good to be in church again since I didn't get to go last week.

After church, there was free lunch for returning students. We (Laura, Andrew-who we found after the service, and I) had lunch at a guy, Josh's house. He was another guy who works with the college students. There were a bunch of other college students there. There were so many college students that they broke us up into groups and sent us off to different houses. We met several people from Northern Ireland and there was one guy who had just gotten there from Germany and was only going to be there for a little while. Afterwards, people were going back to meet up and play frisbee in Regent's Park. The three of us bailed because we were rather dressed up and had homework to do. But, it was a lot of fun and I think we will be going to the evening service, at 18:30 on Sundays, because apparently a lot of the college students go to that one.

I got to talk to my good friend and sister today, on her birthday. It was really fun to get to talk to her! I've really missed her and the Aussies from camp since camp ended. But it was good to talk and laugh for a while with her. Hopefully, we'll get to talk more in the coming months.

After that, a bunch of us went back to the Thames River Festival to see the Night Carnival and the fireworks. We started out with most of the people in the program, but most of the group walked really fast and got way ahead of the normal six of us (Andrew, David, Chris, Laura, Heather, and I) and so we just left them to their own devices and took the tube down to the river.

We wandered around for a bit and then watched the Night Carnival. It was really neat. It was basically a parade at night with lots of different little groups performing.
After that we stood at the edge of the river to watch the fireworks. Apparently, all six of us went to watch the fireworks believing that they wouldn't be very good. But they were spectacular! We had so much fun watching them! It was really neat to hear the big 'BOOM' of the fireworks reverberating off of the buildings on the other side of the river. There were two barges in the middle of the river that were shooting off fireworks at the same time. It was beautiful!

Tomorrow, I am going, it looks like with several other people to a free concert given by the faculty at the Royal College of Music. For our music class we have to go see 20 concerts over the course of the semester, as I might have said before. So, we are going ahead and getting a start on that. I might try to head over to the National Gallery for a little while, too.

Prayer Requests: Tracy lost her voice and now Mary seems to be getting sick. I am having a hard time finding a good place and time to have my quiet time. The six or seven of us are having a lot of fun exploring the city and getting lost together. :-) The weather is still beautiful; getting a little cooler, but still gorgeous. I don't think I'm as tired tonight as most nights. I think that's about all for tonight! Thank you so much!!!