Boy does time get away from you when you’re studying abroad. I had a moment the other day where I felt this incredible sensation of “I am SO here!” Whatever that means. I’m not sure I know how else to describe it. It was an incredible feeling of God’s presence, His faithfulness, and His goodness. I feel like it’s a miracle that I feel so grounded here. Maybe that’s the right word: grounded. I never thought I’d be building a foundation by leaving one.
It makes me laugh to realize that I must internally think I’m telling people about my days here more than I actually am telling them, because I swear I blogged more recently than I have, but no. I have a lot of catching up to do, but what’s new – so here I go.
Our last two days in London were wonderful. That was last Monday and Tuesday. Monday was a low key day for me. We started out as a class doing a Mrs. Dalloway walk through the first section of the book; and then we split off into groups from there for the rest of the day. I ended up deciding to go by myself to Covent Gardens to find lunch. I ate at a random café called The Charles Dickens Café or something like that. I wandered around the markets, heard a brilliant street performer sing opera, and ended up back on the tube towards Picadilly Circus. Then I used the rest of my afternoon to do some shopping, wandering of some of the central shopping-hub streets of London: Regent Street and Oxford Street. I bought a bunch of postcards, some tea, and a new dress; a successful trip I would say. That night I went out to dinner with my Professor, his wife, and two other girls from our group. Dr. Ritchie’s wife, Judie, has recently joined us and together they’ve initiated dinner nights with groups of us students as a way for them – and in particular Judie – to get to know us better. We went out for Italian and had a fun time.
Most of Tuesday was spent at the Globe Theatre. In the morning, our entire group had a brief viewing of the Globe, followed by a brilliant lecture by an actor/director. I have never learned so much valuable information about Shakespearean theatre in my life; and I now have a new appreciation. With the afternoon off and a series of journals due the following day, Kaari and I took the bus back to our hotel, collected our notebooks, and walked to Costa (a coffee shop) to write productively. (I wish it was as simple as that sounded, but it happened to be pouring rain that day so we got fairly wet coming back across town, had to dry out, hang up some clothes, and grab our raincoats and umbrellas.) Later that night we all went back to the Globe to see a performance of “As You Like It”. I absolutely loved the performance! We were sitting in one of the higher balcony seats under the thatched roofing. Thankfully we weren’t standing around the stage because it continued to rain pretty steadily throughout the performance. It was amazing!
Wednesday we traveled north of London (though we’ll be returning in October) to a Christian conference center called High Leigh in Hertfordshire where we stayed through Sunday morning. Being in a more relaxed setting, we had class every morning, did a lot of reading, and worked on a paper. I also got a chance to write a few post cards. A fairly accurate description of a typical day was: Eat, Class, Tea, Class, Lunch & Dessert, Homework/Free time, Tea, Homework/Free time, Dinner & Dessert, Free Time, Sleep. Needless to say, we did a lot of eating! A couple of added fun things included a Friday night talent party, such as we did at St. Deiniol’s, and our own church service on Sunday morning. We had a blast coming together to prepare and share our various talents for the party; I sang “Someone to Watch Over Me”, another student played a piano piece, there were ‘literary confessions’, haikus, raps, and more! For Sunday, I pulled together a few worship songs and made my second attempt at playing the piano during this trip, with Brian helping me out on guitar. Judie shared with us about hospitality. I thought it was fun to put together a little church with just us.
On from Hertfordshire, we went to Cambridge for two nights (Sunday and Mondy) and stayed at one of the 30+ colleges in the area called Corpus Christi. Soon after we arrived we had a walking tour of the city/colleges and completely fell in love with this city. It somewhat reminded me of Madison simply because of the University feel. I can’t even describe to you how much history we walked through and what a rich centre of education Cambridge is. We saw where DNA was discovered (more accurately, the pub in which the discovery was celebrated in; there’s a plaque), the college where John Milton and Charles Darwin studied, the college were Isaac Newton studied, where Ian McKellen (Gandalf in LOTR) studied, King’s College (where the King’s Singers originated), where Wordsworths & Coleridge studied, where C.S. Lewis lectured, and much more! While I was there I also made it a point to buy a Cambridge University t-shirt at the official store, and visit the official Cambridge University Press bookstore where most all of my class books come from! Also, on one of the afternoons we took a day trip to Little Gidding, made famous by T.S. Eliot’s poem; it was a very serene location where we heard a lecture on the location, read Little Gidding together, and had a wonderful homemade lunch. It also happened to be Judie’s birthday when we were there (and Carrie’s birthday the next day), so we had a little party in the evening as well.
Finally: Today is Tuesday! This morning we drove from Cambridge to Heathrow airport and flew into Dublin, Ireland. We arrived around 4:00 PM earlier this evening, checked-in at our hotel, and scouted out a place for dinner. I went with a group of girls to celebrate Carrie’s birthday, and we ended up going out for some delicious pizza.
Now that we’re in Dublin there’s so much to do right at our fingertips. Tomorrow morning we’ll be taking a Joyce walk together as a class and then have the rest of the afternoon free. I have several sites on my list including the Writer’s Museum, Trinity College, and St. Paul’s Cathedral. To add a moment of reflection amidst this blur of events, I’ll say that I am so amazed at how satisfied I feel here. And by here I don’t really mean the place (Europe, the UK, or whatever), as much as I mean here in time. I’ve known for a while that God had set this semester aside for me to study abroad on England Term, and I honestly have this incredible sense of stability and purpose as I know I’m exactly where God is calling me to be right now. It’s wonderful.
It makes me laugh to realize that I must internally think I’m telling people about my days here more than I actually am telling them, because I swear I blogged more recently than I have, but no. I have a lot of catching up to do, but what’s new – so here I go.
Our last two days in London were wonderful. That was last Monday and Tuesday. Monday was a low key day for me. We started out as a class doing a Mrs. Dalloway walk through the first section of the book; and then we split off into groups from there for the rest of the day. I ended up deciding to go by myself to Covent Gardens to find lunch. I ate at a random café called The Charles Dickens Café or something like that. I wandered around the markets, heard a brilliant street performer sing opera, and ended up back on the tube towards Picadilly Circus. Then I used the rest of my afternoon to do some shopping, wandering of some of the central shopping-hub streets of London: Regent Street and Oxford Street. I bought a bunch of postcards, some tea, and a new dress; a successful trip I would say. That night I went out to dinner with my Professor, his wife, and two other girls from our group. Dr. Ritchie’s wife, Judie, has recently joined us and together they’ve initiated dinner nights with groups of us students as a way for them – and in particular Judie – to get to know us better. We went out for Italian and had a fun time.
Most of Tuesday was spent at the Globe Theatre. In the morning, our entire group had a brief viewing of the Globe, followed by a brilliant lecture by an actor/director. I have never learned so much valuable information about Shakespearean theatre in my life; and I now have a new appreciation. With the afternoon off and a series of journals due the following day, Kaari and I took the bus back to our hotel, collected our notebooks, and walked to Costa (a coffee shop) to write productively. (I wish it was as simple as that sounded, but it happened to be pouring rain that day so we got fairly wet coming back across town, had to dry out, hang up some clothes, and grab our raincoats and umbrellas.) Later that night we all went back to the Globe to see a performance of “As You Like It”. I absolutely loved the performance! We were sitting in one of the higher balcony seats under the thatched roofing. Thankfully we weren’t standing around the stage because it continued to rain pretty steadily throughout the performance. It was amazing!
Wednesday we traveled north of London (though we’ll be returning in October) to a Christian conference center called High Leigh in Hertfordshire where we stayed through Sunday morning. Being in a more relaxed setting, we had class every morning, did a lot of reading, and worked on a paper. I also got a chance to write a few post cards. A fairly accurate description of a typical day was: Eat, Class, Tea, Class, Lunch & Dessert, Homework/Free time, Tea, Homework/Free time, Dinner & Dessert, Free Time, Sleep. Needless to say, we did a lot of eating! A couple of added fun things included a Friday night talent party, such as we did at St. Deiniol’s, and our own church service on Sunday morning. We had a blast coming together to prepare and share our various talents for the party; I sang “Someone to Watch Over Me”, another student played a piano piece, there were ‘literary confessions’, haikus, raps, and more! For Sunday, I pulled together a few worship songs and made my second attempt at playing the piano during this trip, with Brian helping me out on guitar. Judie shared with us about hospitality. I thought it was fun to put together a little church with just us.
On from Hertfordshire, we went to Cambridge for two nights (Sunday and Mondy) and stayed at one of the 30+ colleges in the area called Corpus Christi. Soon after we arrived we had a walking tour of the city/colleges and completely fell in love with this city. It somewhat reminded me of Madison simply because of the University feel. I can’t even describe to you how much history we walked through and what a rich centre of education Cambridge is. We saw where DNA was discovered (more accurately, the pub in which the discovery was celebrated in; there’s a plaque), the college where John Milton and Charles Darwin studied, the college were Isaac Newton studied, where Ian McKellen (Gandalf in LOTR) studied, King’s College (where the King’s Singers originated), where Wordsworths & Coleridge studied, where C.S. Lewis lectured, and much more! While I was there I also made it a point to buy a Cambridge University t-shirt at the official store, and visit the official Cambridge University Press bookstore where most all of my class books come from! Also, on one of the afternoons we took a day trip to Little Gidding, made famous by T.S. Eliot’s poem; it was a very serene location where we heard a lecture on the location, read Little Gidding together, and had a wonderful homemade lunch. It also happened to be Judie’s birthday when we were there (and Carrie’s birthday the next day), so we had a little party in the evening as well.
Finally: Today is Tuesday! This morning we drove from Cambridge to Heathrow airport and flew into Dublin, Ireland. We arrived around 4:00 PM earlier this evening, checked-in at our hotel, and scouted out a place for dinner. I went with a group of girls to celebrate Carrie’s birthday, and we ended up going out for some delicious pizza.
Now that we’re in Dublin there’s so much to do right at our fingertips. Tomorrow morning we’ll be taking a Joyce walk together as a class and then have the rest of the afternoon free. I have several sites on my list including the Writer’s Museum, Trinity College, and St. Paul’s Cathedral. To add a moment of reflection amidst this blur of events, I’ll say that I am so amazed at how satisfied I feel here. And by here I don’t really mean the place (Europe, the UK, or whatever), as much as I mean here in time. I’ve known for a while that God had set this semester aside for me to study abroad on England Term, and I honestly have this incredible sense of stability and purpose as I know I’m exactly where God is calling me to be right now. It’s wonderful.
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ReplyDeleteI'm very glad to hear you feel grounded and right where you are supposed to be. That makes me happy. I also loved the bit about Cambridge - what a way to make history come alive for you...and us! Love you! Hannah
ReplyDeleteIt's so great when we have those moments of really feeling like we are right in the middle of God's best plans for us and we are in the part of it that we delight in and can rejoice in. That is the kind of joy and contentment that I think God wants us to feel. Glad to hear you are in that place!
ReplyDeleteCould you be feeling...rootedness?? I think of myself as a tree. It's only when I'm grounded yet exploring further with my roots, becoming connected to more and more, that I feel at home enough to leaf out and reach towards the sky.
ReplyDelete