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!