Holy cow, the past few days have been INCREDIBLE! Here is a quick summary:
Thursday: Well, I started off the day with the writing of a core paper. Yuck. Then I went to Greek. Now, I really don’t mind Greek. Given it’s a lot of hard work and the concepts can be really difficult and frustrating at times (like today), but it’s not terrible. After Greek, I had two more classes, and then we rushed off to go to a candlelight service at St. Magdalene’s college. This service was AWESOME! It was a bit of a walk and it was FREEZING, but the whole experience was totally worth it. This whole service was to commemorate the official end of the Advent (Christmas) season and to celebrate Christ’s circumcision in the temple. I had no idea that the advent season stretched out this far! It started with the chorus of boys singing, ranging from around 2nd grade to college age. Wow, these boys can sing! The Latin songs were absolutely gorgeous! We then moved into the chapel and experienced more singing, reading of prayers, and chanting. The liturgical style is not what I am used to, but I absolutely loved it! Now, the chapel itself was absolutely breathless. I could sit there and stare at the architecture for hours. Communion was different than what I was used to, but it was very cool and I learned a lot from it. Overall, the experience was something that I will absolutely never forget! The rest of us walked back, and then Cameron and I stopped at Hussains ( cart on the side of the road that has seriously the best chips, aka fries, that I have ever had. EVER.) for dinner. That night, about 11 of us played apples to apples and laughed our hearts out!!! Then, over a cup of tea, a couple of us ended up talking until about 2am… again. These conversations are so life giving and deep, and seeing God at work in all of my friends is such a blessing. Then, I went to bed and got just a few hours of sleep to prepare me for my day in London!!
Friday- Let me warn you, there was so much that happened this day that I won’t be able to write it all down, so ask me later if you want to hear more stories! We left for London around 8:20am. Now this group trip was paid for by our program, and we were all split up into groups that went to different parts of London. We have to do a power point presentation over it, but hey, I got a free trip to London out of it and had a BLAST! We did the research for our “project” in the morning, then had the rest of the day to do whatever we wanted, which was nice. This was my first time in an actual train station and on a real train, and it was greatness! The group I was in went to Camden, and it was so legit. The markets were so cool, and our group learned a lot about community by observing and talking to the locals. The last thing we did was go to the British Library… which was the highlight of the morning! Well, almost. I saw a firetruck and a firestation on the way there, which was the real highlight of my morning! Haha Anywho, seeing all the old documents that were there was unreal!! There are so many I could list, but just a couple of the things that I saw was the Magna Carta, the gutenburg bible, Chaucer’s “Canterbury tails”, Leonardo Da Vinci sketches, the lyrics of beatles songs that they wrote down on paper, and the oldest fragments of the gospels that are still in existence (from the 3rd century)!!!! There was so much more, ranging from medical books to Handle’s “messiah”….it was overwhelming and amazingly cool! After this, we attempted to all meet up with the group… epic fail. When no one has cell phones and is all scattered around London, this is very hard. Our meeting place only kind of worked, for we ended up waiting for about 2 hours for people to show up (they never did). But we sang Veggietales and danced while we waited, so it was fun! We then tried to get tickets to a play that night, but we waited too long and the prices were either too high or they were sold out… this was a bummer, but hey its only like 45 minutes away and I will be here for 3 more months. I will go to see a play eventually! Haha However as we were walking around the central area of London, we randomly ran into our other group of friends!! Hallelujah, Praise the Lord!! This was such a blessing. We then went to M&M world (4 floors of greatness) and to dinner at Spaghetti house. We had our own room and had a wonderful dinner full of relaxation and fellowship! Afterwards, we wandered around the streets of London. It took me till about 8 that night for it to hit me that I WAS IN LONDON! HOLY COW!! There was so much to do!!! Just to name a couple of things, we went to see Big Ben and the London eye at night… absolutely breathtaking. A bummer of the evening however was that it was so cold. SO cold. I have seriously never been that cold in my life. At one point, my feet were frozen to the point that it physically hurt to walk around. But it is all apart of the experience!! I normally don’t mind the cold, but holy cow this was ridiculous! After several more hours of experiencing the night life and wandering around London, we picked up our friend from another group and headed home! On the train ride back, we hit our point of exhaustion. Around 12:45am, the snorting began and didn’t stop until we pulled into oxford at 1:15am. We were all so tired and cold, and we BOOKED it back to the house! It’s usually about a 30-35 min walk and we made it in 20 min. I slept soooooooooooooo well that night!! What an incredible night it was walking and experiencing the streets of London with my friends! And we didn’t get lost or anything on the Tube station… I think that is an accomplishment.
Saturday- Today has been a wonderful and lazy day! I slept until noon, got up and went shopping for tea, and then came back and chilled with my friends! Tonight, we were supposed to go to a mosque, so a couple of us walked to where we thought it was, but it wasn’t the right event so we left haha Now this wouldn’t have been that big of a deal, but it is like a wonder wonderland out there tonight because IT’S SNOWING!!! It is the most beautiful sight in the world. The whole trip there, the five of us had a massive snow ball fight! It was SO much fun! I also made a snow angel, which was beautiful if I do say so myself. We all looked like cold, wet puppies when we got back, but it was totally worth it. Now we are all inside in the warmth, drinking tea (yes, again) and getting ready to watch a movie! What a fun and relaxing day!
I am so unbelievablely thankful to be here in Oxford. This is an experience that has changed my life already, and its only been 3 weeks! This week we go to Paris, so get ready for the many stories that will happen there!
Blessings and Peace!
No comments:
Post a Comment