Sorry for not updating this earlier - this past week has been so busy, I've hardly had time to sleep.
Last weekend started off with a day trip to see Stonehenge and Bath. Stonehenge was...large. It's much more impressive in real life, but still not worth the 5 pounds it costs to go inside, which is why my friends and I admired the large rocks from outside the fence, sipping our lattes. Dont' worry - we got lots of pictures, fence and all! The city of Bath was really neat! We ate in a small cafe called Sally Lunn Bun's, which is in the oldest house in Bath. We went inside the Bath Abbey, which was huge! There were vendors lining the streets of Bath, selling overpriced trinkets to the naive tourists. Poor saps. (We don't really consider ourselves tourists anymore: we know to look to the right first when you cross the street, and we walk fast so that it looks like we know where we're going.) We took a tour of the Roman Baths, which was really neat. Apparently the people who lived there associated a god with the hot natural spring that they transformed into an ancient spa. So they would write down curses on pieces of parchment (?) and throw it into the springs, hoping that the god would act on their behalf. They had some recovered "curses" on display, and it was humorous to read them. Almost all of them read something like this: "so-and-so has stolen my gloves. Make sure that they pay with nothing less than their blood." A little intense, don't you think?!
On Saturday we went to our very first football (a.k.a. soccer) match. I have seen few people in my life as excited as these fans were. Imagine this combination: Robert (Ray's brother from "Everybody Loves Raymond") plus the most outrageous sports fan you know plus a lot of alcohol = the guy sitting in front of us. He was a Manchester City fan sitting in the middle of the Fulham section, and it was very hostile situation, to say the least. He would run up and down the bleachers when his team scored, and I'm pretty sure he started every chant that would eventually echo throughout the entire stadium. What a fun game!
But it was back to the grind on Monday. One of the coolest things about studying here is that we have class in museums sometimes. When I first considered studying here, the draw for me was NOT the museums, and all that "history coming alive" junk. But there's nothing like hearing a lecture on Medieval Europe and then hopping on the tube (the subway) and hearing an explanation of the Medieval altarpiece sitting right in front of you.
On Thursday night 33 of us went to the Apollo Victoria to see "Wicked." Oh. My. Word.
I saw this piece of musical and theatrical genius in L.A., and this time was just as good! The British accents shook it up a little bit too. (If you've seen it, trying imagining Fiyero singing "Dancing Through Life" with a British accent, and you'll have a good laugh). If you haven't seen it, drive to the nearest booming metropolis and go see it! The best part of it was that after the show we waited outside the stage door to meet the cast. Fiyero was greeted by the 8 of us girls screaming "Marry Me!" It was truly "swankified." (if you don't understand that word, that's another sign that you need to see this play.)
Tonight was another exciting night. Bear Grylls - as in, THE Bear Grylls, the "Man" from "Man vs. Wild" was speaking at the church that I go to as an outreach event, so we went to go hear him talk. If you know my youth minister, Jon, you've probably seen an episode of his show. So you can imagine how excited I was to meet him. I mean, this is the man who drinks water from cow dung, drinks his own urine, guts animals to sleep inside of them, and traps wild animals using only a piece of string and a stick. He is the MacGuyver of the outdoors. He spoke candidly to a full house about his job, the recent controversy that has surrounded the show lately, his family, and his faith. It was a great night!
Well, as I finish up this blog, I have a long night ahead of me. I have a 2,000 word essay to write (the 2nd one I've been assigned for the same class). I think someone forgot to tell our teachers that we came here to travel and see Europe, not do homework. Oh well.
Don't forget to look at the new pictures I uploaded!
Thanks for listening, and thanks for holding down the fort!
-Rachel

It's so funny how God surprises you sometimes. I had a whole set of ideas of what I thought Londoners were like and how things were going to be here, especially in relation to church. I had this idea in my head that all the churches here were going to be stagnant. For some reason I thought that passionate Christians didn't live in London. I've quickly learned that my stereotypes about London were wrong. On Sunday night I attended one of the most passionate church service I have ever been to, rivaling that of the Moshi Town Church of Tanzania that I attended for 6 weeks this summer. As a Church of Christers, I was a bit shell-shocked, I'll admit. There was dancing ... boy, was there dancing! People of all ages were worshipping freely with one another. The 75 year old man was raising his arms and jumping up and down in joy just as much as the 20 year old girl standing next to him. It was amazing! I can't express how encouraged I am by the church here. There's a college group that I'm going to start going to, and I went to a worship team meeting on Monday night. The worship leader at this chruch (Holy Trinity Brompton) is Tim Hughes, who is a huge name in contemporary worship music. He wrote the song "Here I am to Worship" and "Beautiful One," and I'm so blessed to have the opportunity to learn from him! In fact, the most exciting thing that I got out of worship team on Monday night was a booklet that they handed out. It was written by Tim Hughes and Al Gordon (another worship leader at HTB and an awesome guy!) and it was entitled: "Worship leaders remember the poor." It's about how God's heart aches for justice and for his people to work for justice, and it talks about the ways in which we as worship leaders can do that and enable people to do it too. As I was reading it I was so overwhelmed because they were combining the two things that I'm passionate about: music and injustice in the world. Those two things have always been mutually exclusive for me, and it's so cool to see people who are combining them in meaningful ways!

http://www.htb.org.uk/
www.tearfund.org
www.invisiblechildren.com

Last weekend was my first trip outside of London. 15 of us took an overnight coach on Thursday coach to Edinburgh, Scotland. Most of us (including me) weren't able to sleep on the coach, so we arrived at 8am very groggy, and some of us quite grumpy. The only thing we had when we stepped of the bus was the name and address of our hostel. Our plan was to go where the wind carried us...and carry us it did. hahaha.
We finally figured out which city bus to get on that would take us close to our hostel. We then asked the bus driver which way to go, and he very wisely *insert eye roll* suggested that we take the short cut "across the way" that would take us right in front of our hostel. Great idea! So we proceded to hike through a field, take the first dirt path we could find, and we somehow ended up in the middle of a golf course. I can only imagine what this must have looked like to the poor chaps golfing there: 15 sleep-deprived, backpack-wearing teenagers walking out of the woods, very confused. But not to worry: after 2 more miles of walking we finally found our hostel, which was surprisingly very nice!
The first thing we did was to take a bus up to the Royal Mile and walk around the "city." We took a free three hour walking tour (sounds appealing, doesn't it?) of Edinburgh. I've never really been enthralled by history or guided tours, but I have to say that this was very interesting! We saw the coffee shop where J.K. Rowling penned "Harry Potter," and saw some old stuff too. I had been running on 5 hours of sleep in the past 40 hours, so that day was mostly a blur to me.
On our second day in Scotland we went on a tour of the Scottish Highlands. This tour was one of my favorite things about my time overseas so far! We practically had a private tour, since there was only one person in the van who wasn't in our group, and our guide was hilarious! We went with the "Highland Experience" tour company, which I would highly recommend! The company formed because they decided that they wanted the people who came to Scotland to know the real history of Scotland, not the sugar-coated version that is widely circulated. Our guide told us stories of clan life, battles, and the very dark history of Scotland. He was really passionate about his country's history, and it really had a profound impact on all of us. I really have a new appreciation for my heritage now, thanks to our awesome guide. There were also some humorous moments on our tour. We passed a whiskey distillery with metal pipes running down the face of the mountain, and someone asked what it was. Our guide replied "Well, that is actually the world's largest water slide!" We were thrilled to hear this and wanted to know how we could go on it. Apparently he was just kidding, and he told us what it really was: in the event of a natural disaster, it was an escape route for the sheep." Again, we were enthralled and wanted to know more about it. Well, he was kidding that time too. He then proceeded to tell us that it was a porridge shoot, and that they used the proceeds from the porridge business to fund the "Gullible Students Fund." Most of us caught on then.

First I'd like to start off with a disclaimer: for those of you family members who read Kristen's weekly e-mails about her time in London, prepare to be disappointed.:D I'm going to try my best to keep this updated, but I'm not sure how this all is going to go down. Also, I'm not an English major, so disregard any grammatical errors. I'm really excited to be starting this so that y'all can "travel with me" and hear about and see what I'm doing here.
So....
Week one:
I started off my trip here very apprehensively. I was really sad to be leaving everyone behind. In fact, I told my friend Matt who took me to the airport to take me back to school because I didn't want to leave. To my chagrin, he left me at the airport with 39 other people I didn't know. That really wasn't a great day - in fact, I was crying so much on the airplane that right before take-off the flight attendant got out of his make-shift seat and brought me a kleenex box. Embarassing! Anyway, after the 9 hour flight we arrived to Heathrow Airport early in the morning on September 5th. The first few days were a blur to me. I was still sad after leaving home, but we were doing things all through the day so I didn't really have time to be sad. And thanks to skype and AIM, I've been able to audio and/or video chat with most of my friends and my parents, which has been such an encouragement.
Despite our jet-lag, we filled our first few days with exciting activities. We went on bus tours of London, went to see the Prime Meridian, walked around Greenwich, and sat through hours of informational sessions - everyone's favorite activity...just kidding. I'm rooming with Elizabeth, our RA, and she is amazing! I didn't know her two weeks ago, but I've gotten to know her and have already been blessed by her Christian character and her sweet personality! We have our own room in the basement, complete with our own bathroom (which includes the world's smallest shower) and a disco light! Apparently the previous room renters were avid dancers, so maybe we will aquire some similar skills this semester, thanks to our disco light. On our floor we have the house kitchen, common room, internet cafe, and laundry room. Needless to say, our floor is pretty busy all the time, but I like it that way. The London House is, in a word, breathtaking. It's located in the "posh" area of London, only a five minute walk away from Harrods. The house is very Victorian looking, and our "classrooms" are gorgeous rooms with intricate ceilingwork and chandeliers! Our program directors are amazing, too. Thomasina is the assistant program director, and she is a native Londoner (accent and all). She is definitely the mother figure of the house, and is a comfort for those of us who miss our moms (me!).
As far as classes go....well....I have a lot of them. I decided to add another class, so I now have a full load of 18 units. But I feel like I can handle it since we only have class four days a week (They give us Friday through Sunday to travel). I anticipate that Science will be my hardest class, considering that on the first day of class our professor assigned us a 2,000 word essay to be turned in the next week. And the day that we turned it in he told us that we were to give 10 minute presentations the next class period. Sounds like a fun class, doesn't it? I do really like my English class. Part of the requirements for my English is that we have to go to plays. Sweet!!! Anyway, I won't bore you with classroom talk anymore.
My first week here I tried to get out of the house a lot. I'm starting to really value time to myself, so I've tried to take time out of my day to journal or go to a coffee shop to do homework and such. I've really enjoyed exploring the city by myself - I truly feel like a real Londoner, especially with my new boots! Speaking of boots, fashion here is very unique. The only fashion rule is: if you have confidence, you can wear anything. In fact, I've rarely seen a Londoner NOT wear straight-leg jeans. I could be wrong, but I feel like it takes a lot of confidence to pull of straight-leg jeans.
So now that I'm onto cultural differences, here are a few:
-As you probably know, cars drive on the wrong side of the road. So to help out the rest of the world, they've written "Look Right" or "Look Left" on the crosswalks (called Zebras). It makes the foreigners pretty easy to spot, though, because they intently stare at the road when they approach a crosswalk. I think it's pretty hilarious.
-You're not supposed to make eye-contact with people as you walk down the street. That is actually considered rude. Weird, right?
-And since tip is already included in the bill at restaurants, waiters really have no incentive to be, well, good waiters. So you'd better have a good two hours to spare if you eat out.
-And how could I forget to mention the extreme difference between the dollar and the pound? Basically, all of us here are in shock at how much money we've already spent. I'll go to Starbucks and spend 2.50 pounds on coffee...and then I leave and realize that we just spent over $5 on a tall latte.
Okay, well that's enough for now. Hope you enjoyed reading!