I'm still alive since the Dramamine incident. I promise!
Friday we went to Canterbury in Kent. We saw the beautiful Canterbury Cathedral where St. Augustine (not the St. Augustine of Hippo who wrote Confessions) served. It was so pretty! We saw a man in a giant sandwich costume walking the streets advertising for Subway. That was strange. On the way to and from Canterbury we had the privelege of encountering London's rush hour traffic... especially in Victoria station! They had crowd control that made me feel like cattle! At one point I got separated from the group and had to call them b/c it was mad chaos with people everywhere and going against the stream of rush hour is not a good idea!
On the way home from Canterbury on the train I sat across from a little British girl who was probably 10. She was obviously not raised in London, and only got to go to the city on special occasions. She was asking her mom who the King of England was. Her mom tried to explain that England doesn't have a king, they have a queen. The lilttle girl was so distressed that England doesn't have a king. I was surprised that a British child didn't know more about the monarchy!
Saturday we went to Dover, and took a tour of the underground war tunnels. It was so fasinating! I only get to hear the American side of WWII, but Britian did some pretty cool stuff too! haha... like Operation Dynamo where Admiral Ramsey evacuated over 300,000 exhuasted soldiers from France right before Germany closed in on them. I got to go see where he planned all that underground! They had an underground hospital too. I always had an apathetic interest towards WWII because I feel like it was so long ago, but it wasn't! My grandparents remember it. I was there where decisions that changed the world were made. That's an amazing feeling.
We got to go all over Dover castle, and there was a wedding going on at the church by the castle. The bridesmaids dresses looked like hot pink plastic grocery bags. I don't know what that brides' friends did to her, but I don't know if anything they did could deserve such a horrid punishment as to have to be seen in public in a hot pink plastic bag!
Sunday a group of us went to Hillsong London (church branch of Hillsong Sydney). It was held in the theatre where Queen's "We Will Rock You" is held. There were stage lights, smoke machines, and lasers. The band came out in rock star clothes and the "praise team" jumped up and down and danced all around like Brittney Spears. It was a unique service... they definetly worshipped God. It was not somewhere I was comfortable.... not a "homy" church, but it was a great experience. London has a really low church attendance, so I figure as long as these people are getting into a church and hearing the gospel I guess its okay that they're going because they feel like they're at a rock concert. God just requires us to get them there, He'll do the rest. England spent so many years in the rigid liturgical traditional church people got burnt out, the pendulm is swinging far in the other direction, but I think eventually it will find a balance where it rests in the middle.
Sunday afternoon, Hannah and I went to Kensington gardens to study. After I got back from my jog these Portugese/Spanish/French guys were playing football (soccer) around us. Litterally... we were in the middle of their game. But we were their first, and they didn't want us to inconvience ourselves enough to move. Don't worry... we asked. The interactive football experience with the international boys made it difficult to focus on my birtish civilization text!
I am absolutely loving my classes! Today we had a 2 hour lecture about where the British people came from mixed in with the religious history. No joke... we covered 5,500 years in 2 hours! It was speed history... my kind of history. We learned about St. Patrick, the Vikings, Anglo-Saxons, a guy named Brandon who helped spread Christianity, a guy named Columba who took Christianity from Ireland to Scotland after he caused 1,000 men to die in a battle over his carelessness of loosing a borrowed copy of the Psalms! I LOVE HISTORY! Its so cool, but it has to be speed history, and it has to be told by a cute old Scottish reverend! Precious!
My non-profit management class is so ineteresting b/c we're learing about the origins of Non-profits and why things are they way they are. A lot of the structure ties back to things I learned in my intercultural class, because the structure and values of a culture relate to things the culture is comfortable with, like how much power/responsibility the government should have, how easy it is for entrepenuers to start non profits, and how much the people look out for each other in the community. I like learning a lot. Its fun. Its worth the money.
The washing machine in the house broke. So I had to go to the laundry mat today to do laundry. It was 3.60 pounds for a small load, 4.60 pounds for a medium load, and your first child for a large load. I did one small and 2 medium because I don't have children to sacrifice for my laundry. RIDICULOUS! I spent more on laundry than I did on food this week. I didn't dry my clothes there b/c we have a "working" dryer at the house. So I lugged about 40 pounds of wet clothes 2 or 3 blocks home, and put my clothes in the dryer for an hour. They were just as wet, if not wetter after that hour than when I had put them in! So I wasted money on the dumb dryer that doesn't work even though its brand new, and i layed everything out to dry. Our prof just spent Samford's precious money on a new washer. Hopefully it will work, and hopefully it will be delivered by May.
We went to see War Horse tonight at the theatre. Its obviously about horses... a boy and his horse and WWI. They can't have real horses act, so they had puppet horses, but these aren't just normal puppets. THEY'RE INCREDIBLE! They have 3 men controlling the puppet, two underneath to do the legs/tail/mane, and one to control the head/ear movements. Eventaully you see past the 3 men controlling the puppet and see a horse with real horse mannerisms. When the horse had to gallop or leap they had like 6 men controlling the horse's movements. They had a puppet goose that was hilarious, and puppet birds/crows. They had one creepy little girl puppet. It was such a good play. I cried just a little at the end.
I'm going to Scotland this weekend! Can't wait! I'm going to Oxford and Brighton the week after! YAY!
