...and i am still in glasgow!!
...and this trip is unfolding in many ways i could not have imagined. i thought i would be doing more things, meeting more people and really just doing more, but it has been a time of introspection lately. being away from a place i am familiar with and comfortable in has opened my eyes up to my life in general. i have developed a lot of questions that do not have answers and i am trying to find peace in that. i have been walking the streets praying and just taking time to think about what it is my life entails. its been an experience of learning patience and definitely a time of much needed grace. hearing the words "it's ok" has been fresh air for me. this is a more personal aspect to how this trip has been going. it isn't always filled with joyful sounds and dancing feet...there are times i shuffle the pathways. the most amazing thing through it all is that i KNOW God is with me the entire time. even when it feels a bit lonely, He is there carrying me through and also to make jokes with me!! i know for sure that if i didn't have Him this trip would have never even began! He is just so so faithful and i am excited to see what is still to come!
...besides that i have done a few new things...i got my first haircut!! i had an hour to spare before bagpiping lecture so i went walking around and passed a salon and just decided, why not? and it was lovely! when they washed my hair i got to sit in a massage chair...fantastic! i painted my first watercolor (thanks to Sandra)...i was missing home so i got a picture of mom's garden and painted flowers from it...i cant wait for the summer bloom! i started a new sculpture, we are doing just a head now for four weeks-im learning that everything that i want to learn or know does not come to perfection right away. this is where the patience comes in.
...mark and i had an adventure last weekend, crazy God moments...last minute i decided to go to st. andrews on thursday but there was no buses departing out of glasgow so i got on a bus to Edinburgh thinking there would be one there going to st. andrews...well that one was only going so far as Leven (1/2 hr drive from st. a's). my phone didnt work, i was sick, had no money and was pretty much stranded. until the bus driver came and started talking to me and well...i broke down to him...haha its funny now that i think about it but at the time i thought i was a stranded little girl. but he let me use his phone and i called mark and told him what happened and he said get on the bus to Leven and he'd meet me there some way. so i am thinking he is going to have to get a taxi and that would be like 100 pounds, i felt awful...BUT during this time i was on the bus, mark was busy calling people to see if they could drive him and well, either no one picked up or no one could. Until he felt he was suppose to call this women he had meet only through email through a grape vine of young lifers. and so mark called her explaining to this lady who has not really meet mark formally what was going on and seeing if she could drive. well i got to Leven and there was mark in a black van with Jeni Sterling! wow! and during this time God kept telling me it was going to be ok and He had everything situated, i just needed to give up my structured plans...not everything happens the same way every time...not everything happens a certain way either! it was a crazy adventure!
...i also have managed to lock myself out of my flat a couple time (forgot my keys...typical) i have tried to get into the wrong flat and a man opened the door and i ran in thinking it was my flat but it was really the floor below mine...embarassing but again typical! i have ran into many automatic doors when they open...i swear they are different here.
hmmm...what else...its hard to remember everything that has gone on...i need to write more often...but for now things are getting sunny!
Thursday, 26 February 2009
Monday, 9 February 2009
tomatoe soup and royalty.
its been a success...i have stayed in glasgow for a weekend by myself!
details? ah yes!
friday
i went to the Naked Soup cafe because...they had a sign outside their door that read as follows "american style pancakes with syrup, small stack 2.75, regular stack 3.75" and well pancakes and me get a long real well! it was my treat before i started the massive trial of finishing my first essay. one word-'delish' (they didn't have peanut bu
tter so the next i am going to have to bring my own, pancakes are lonely without peanut butter!)
saturday
the journey of the day was for my friend ashley (a stoutie) and i to go to the famed capital, edinburgh. we both claimed we were not into the whole touristy thing...so this is what we did: got off the bus, looked for the nearest map (great for tourists), asked a worker to show us where we were on the map (after some fowl words of frustration he managed to show us), started walking, went to a land of monuments and took pictures (not touristy at all), found jacob's ladder and began our trek up the Royal Mile leading us to the untouristy castle that we have no idea who lived in. we weren't feeling touristy enough so we found a live sculpture and a William Wallace impersonator to take pictures with. oh and of course where Harry Potter was ignited into words on a page...we ate there (elephant cafe). but ashley and i realized we needed some spice in our life so we went off the beaten path to
the courtyard cafe and patiently waited for the best tomato soup ever and ham and cheese pa
ninis! at the end of the day we deemed ourselves pretty successful as not being tourists! :)
sunday
had a lovely sunday morning at Re:Hope Church, its seriously 20 steps from my apartment building door! i meet the couple, sandra and kenny, who were starting a church here. i say 'were' because they have just been told their home church in texas needs them back there, kenny as the worship leader. it was a pretty sad day, as they have kind of been the people to take care of me here. but after an amazing time of worship we had lunch at Curlers pub and great conversation.
something learned or well constantly being relearned: we can't try and figure God out, He has his own way of doing things, such as unexpectedly taking us out of places we thought we were to be. if we try and figure Him out we will only leave ourselves frustrated and in lack of faith. we need to trust that He is a God of good and works for the good of those that love Him.
i also meet some people at the church that i will be getting together tuesday for a bible book club in starbucks.
ben (another soutie) and i have continued our dinners and its been an awesome way to learn how to cook and have good meals and conversation!
its been snowing here, i look at the window and the city is white. sometimes i wonder if i even left MN.
the lattes, cappuccinos and scones have become the culprit for lack of pounds. i may need to start trading off the days i buy them. oh man.
....until the next.
we can ask the Lord to fill our hearts with the fruit of His Spirit...may joy fill you!
details? ah yes!
friday
i went to the Naked Soup cafe because...they had a sign outside their door that read as follows "american style pancakes with syrup, small stack 2.75, regular stack 3.75" and well pancakes and me get a long real well! it was my treat before i started the massive trial of finishing my first essay. one word-'delish' (they didn't have peanut bu
tter so the next i am going to have to bring my own, pancakes are lonely without peanut butter!)saturday
the journey of the day was for my friend ashley (a stoutie) and i to go to the famed capital, edinburgh. we both claimed we were not into the whole touristy thing...so this is what we did: got off the bus, looked for the nearest map (great for tourists), asked a worker to show us where we were on the map (after some fowl words of frustration he managed to show us), started walking, went to a land of monuments and took pictures (not touristy at all), found jacob's ladder and began our trek up the Royal Mile leading us to the untouristy castle that we have no idea who lived in. we weren't feeling touristy enough so we found a live sculpture and a William Wallace impersonator to take pictures with. oh and of course where Harry Potter was ignited into words on a page...we ate there (elephant cafe). but ashley and i realized we needed some spice in our life so we went off the beaten path to
the courtyard cafe and patiently waited for the best tomato soup ever and ham and cheese pa
ninis! at the end of the day we deemed ourselves pretty successful as not being tourists! :)sunday
had a lovely sunday morning at Re:Hope Church, its seriously 20 steps from my apartment building door! i meet the couple, sandra and kenny, who were starting a church here. i say 'were' because they have just been told their home church in texas needs them back there, kenny as the worship leader. it was a pretty sad day, as they have kind of been the people to take care of me here. but after an amazing time of worship we had lunch at Curlers pub and great conversation.
something learned or well constantly being relearned: we can't try and figure God out, He has his own way of doing things, such as unexpectedly taking us out of places we thought we were to be. if we try and figure Him out we will only leave ourselves frustrated and in lack of faith. we need to trust that He is a God of good and works for the good of those that love Him.
i also meet some people at the church that i will be getting together tuesday for a bible book club in starbucks.
ben (another soutie) and i have continued our dinners and its been an awesome way to learn how to cook and have good meals and conversation!
its been snowing here, i look at the window and the city is white. sometimes i wonder if i even left MN.
the lattes, cappuccinos and scones have become the culprit for lack of pounds. i may need to start trading off the days i buy them. oh man.
....until the next.
we can ask the Lord to fill our hearts with the fruit of His Spirit...may joy fill you!
Sunday, 8 February 2009
overstuffed stomachs, Irish rocks and firsties.
sorry its been while since i've updated my blog...
but last weekend I went on another adventure with mark...operation...
Northern Ireland.
it was a lot of fun with many surprises!
what it entailed:
!) running around the airport to catch our flight at 6:30 am.
@) walking the streets of Belfast with a handy tourist map, waiting for our hostel room to be ready (first time in a hostel...interesting)
#) claiming the first startbucks we'd both been in over here to have the most genuine barista ever. then also claiming the best scones to be occupying cafe renoir.
$) stuffing our faces the night of mark's birthday with an amazing meal cooked by his Irish friend Andrew's mom in Crossgar.
%) experiencing the first of "warming rooms" where tea and biscuits are offered. (fires were feed with coal...neat)
^) the most touristy thing we probably did: went to Northern Ireland's must see Giant's Causeway. Huge rocks that apparently giants used as stepping stones across the ocean...who knew. best memory made there: it was freezing/windy and we had to walk super far down this hill to get to the place. So to get our minds semi-off the cold and the drudgery of a mountain climb we skipped/ran up it! of course laughing.
&) we wanted to see an opera or a play or something but most of the places had no showings or mysteriously were being renovated and opening later in the spring...our cure for that: lion king in London! (at some point)
even though the weather has been hiding the sun there were moments where it would peek through the clouds and i just knew that new days are always here and the past (such as aged rocks) can be stepped on to be written in a new light.
but last weekend I went on another adventure with mark...operation...
Northern Ireland.
it was a lot of fun with many surprises!
what it entailed:
!) running around the airport to catch our flight at 6:30 am.
@) walking the streets of Belfast with a handy tourist map, waiting for our hostel room to be ready (first time in a hostel...interesting)
#) claiming the first startbucks we'd both been in over here to have the most genuine barista ever. then also claiming the best scones to be occupying cafe renoir.
$) stuffing our faces the night of mark's birthday with an amazing meal cooked by his Irish friend Andrew's mom in Crossgar.
%) experiencing the first of "warming rooms" where tea and biscuits are offered. (fires were feed with coal...neat)
^) the most touristy thing we probably did: went to Northern Ireland's must see Giant's Causeway. Huge rocks that apparently giants used as stepping stones across the ocean...who knew. best memory made there: it was freezing/windy and we had to walk super far down this hill to get to the place. So to get our minds semi-off the cold and the drudgery of a mountain climb we skipped/ran up it! of course laughing.
&) we wanted to see an opera or a play or something but most of the places had no showings or mysteriously were being renovated and opening later in the spring...our cure for that: lion king in London! (at some point)
even though the weather has been hiding the sun there were moments where it would peek through the clouds and i just knew that new days are always here and the past (such as aged rocks) can be stepped on to be written in a new light.
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