Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy belated thanksgiving to everyone out there! We actually had a great Thanksgiving here in the UK, thanks (no pun intended) to a few other Americans in our church who banded together, standing up for the wonderfulness that is Thanksgiving. There were about 20 of us all there, American and British, and I think everyone had a great time. Here's a very few pics:

Proof that we wore our loving Thanksgiving shirts Jason sent us (side note: Seth's hair is so long!!)

Yummy dressing

A mound of meat from the turkey I very poorly carved:

Everyone enjoying the meal:


It was a lovely time. There was turkey, several types of potatoes, green bean casserole, pumpkin pie, even some type of Swedish dish made an appearance! We both really missed our families for sure, but at least we were able to still be thankful for the new friends that God has given us here. Which that's what it's really about, isn't it? Saying thanks for the things you've been blessed with that year. Seth and I have a lot to be thankful for - it's been an eventful year, and we couldn't have managed without God there to watch over us, guiding us along the way!

Of course, there is a small bonus feature to the blog...Seth's facial hair chronicles comes to an end! (for now I suppose)

British Museum and HMA; plus special bonus, The Beard Chronicles Part III: Experimentation

Last week Chelsea and I had a little adventure to Covent Gardens and the British Museum. Covent Gardens just a cool little pedestrian area with a bunch of cafes and shops (there really aren't any gardens). Aside from a little Christmas shopping, which is top secret and thus I am forbidden from discussing on the blog, there's not much to say about that. We did see a ridiculous string quartet there busking at one of the cafes. They were quite extroverted, dancing around and being dramatic. They were also fond of harassing passerbys, getting right in people's faces whenever they walked past and even sitting down with people eating at the cafe. They also sent a separate, 5th person around with a basket to collect money. They were basically the most aggressive street buskers ever.

After that, we walked up to the British Museum, our first time visiting there. We mostly saw a bunch of old Egyptian and Greek artifacts. There was also a pretty large collection of statues from the Parthenon, which was pretty cool. Apparently, the Greek government wants the statues back, and they're pretty angry about it, but the British government doesn't really care at all. We only saw about half the museum, but it's free admission, so we can go back as many times as we want and take our time.

We've also both started volunteering at Harlesden Money Advice (HMA), a debt counseling charity run by our church. Basically, all sorts of government agencies refer people who have major debt problems to the charity, and members of the church who have gotten trained to be a debt counselor go and basically just help them organize all of their finances and help them prioritize them and what they need to pay off first, and then talk to all of their creditors to see if they will accept lower monthly payments. The thing is, whenever they meet with a client, there has to be at least two people from the charity at the meeting, for liability reasons and whatnot. So, obviously, in a charity like that, demand will always outstrip supply, so Chelsea and I have been helping by going along as the second person, with the other person being an actual trained advisor. I'm planning on getting trained in January so that I can help out more as well. So we've only just gotten our feet wet there, but hopefully there will be more to come.

I lead worship again at church this past Sunday, which was nice. Chelsea didn't play bongos this time, but helped with the singing, since I can stay on tune pretty well if I can hear someone else, but struggle a little bit when I have to lead it by myself. So that was really fun.

We're also having church tonight at Westbourne Grove, a church that's also part of the organization of churches we're a part of, called Salt & Light, and also the place where our friend Owen held his photography exhibition a couple of weeks ago. So we'll be in a real church building tonight, with access to a real sound system and stuff, so we're going all out with a full worship band. I'm borrowing our friend Andy's bass to play, while he's playing acoustic guitar, J is playing keyboard, J's wife Chrissy is singing, and Chelsea is playing bongos. So that should be really fun tonight. For me at least, it's been really awesome getting to play bass again.

We're also having Thanksgiving dinner Thursday! Woo! Christin, from Idaho, is heading it up. She's been in the UK a while now, and held a similar Thanksgiving for the church last year. The Brits are all quite excited about it, and I think we're even going to watch A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving to give them a bit of Thanksgiving history. Still, per my general policy on life, I don't think anyone can say it better than Jim Gaffigan.

So we'll let you know soon how the worship tonight at Westbourne Grove and the Thanksgiving dinner go. Then I'll be flying back to Atlanta on Monday, and Chelsea will have to brave the London winter alone for two and a half weeks (though she's already been invited to dinner by two different people in the church after I'm gone, so I don't think she'll be too lonely). Until then, here's your special bonus, as promised:

Guy Fawkes Day, Plus Special Bonus: The Beard Chronicles, Part II: The Downfall

Thus the decline of a great pogonotrophic empire.

In other news:

Chelsea and I finally went to the museum section of the British Library. We've been there so many times, yet never seen the cool exhibits there. So we saw, among other things, an original copy of the Magna Carta which had been heavily damaged in a fire (like nearly everything in London, it seems), some early Gutenberg Bibles, some papyrus scraps showing fragments of new testament texts from as early as 300 A.D., and all sorts of manuscripts from all sorts of authors like Virginia Woolf and Jane Austen (including a handwritten letter from her dad in the front cover of a journal containing handwritten stories she wrote as a teenager to entertain her family). So that was pretty awesome. No pictures, sorry. They weren't allowed.

Also, we had the joy of experiencing our first Guy Fawkes day in the United Kingdom, which was pretty awesome (Disclaimer from Chelsea: V for Vendetta should not be taken as historically accurate. However, incredibly awesome movie). The closest thing to it in America is Fourth of July, though the reasons for celebrating are totally different, and really the actual end result of the celebration is pretty different as well. Really, all I meant by that comparison is that there are fireworks.

But yea, we had a "bonfire" (sometimes the holiday is called bonfire night, and they make a massive bonfire and burn an effigy of Guy Fawkes on it. Our bonfire was quite small...just a fire in the back yard. Also, I must applaud the ingenuity of the stove itself; they found an old washing machine on the side of the road and now use the metal barrel, complete with ventilation holes all up and down the sides, as a homemade stove). We had jacket potatoes, which you're supposed to cook on the embers of the bonfire, but we just did it in the oven. We also grilled hot dogs and sausages, which was awesome. Though they call that barbequeing - a grill to them is more like what we call a boiler, to be used only indoors. They only "grill" bacon...they think it's very strange to fry it in a pan.

We also tried to teach them about s'mores over the fire...they don't do that here. So us and a few other North Americans (there's a Canadian girl in the church as well) tried to put that together. They only have small marshmellows here though...not mini-marshmellows, but not full-sized ones either. Also, they don't have graham crackers, so we had to use tea biscuits...which are kind of like a graham cracker but different somehow. And, it started raining right about the time we started that. So, the s'mores weren't really a true American s'mores experience. But they still tasted good, and I think all the Brits enjoyed it anyway.

We also had mulled wine, which is basically hot wine cooked with spices. Kind of like mulled cider. A very strange drink, but pretty good too.

That was all actually on the 5th of November, which was a Friday. Saturday, they had fireworks at our park. Not really sure why Friday night was inappropriate for fireworks, but they pushed it back a day nonetheless. So we basically celebrated Guy Fawkes day twice. That was a lot of fun too. They had the entire park decorated, and there were all these stands set up with games and food and stuff, kind of like a fair, but without the rides. A couple of our friends bought "candy floss" (cotton candy).

The fireworks were pretty awesome. We got to stand about 20 yards away from where they were shooting them off, which was quite cool. There were a few close calls with malfunctioning fireworks, which was exciting, and we all had a light coating of ash and sulfur on us by the time we left. We were both really impressed with the fireworks, since they were specifically hosted just by our little section of London...there must have been hundreds of different fireworks displays all over the different little communities all across the city. Yet, ours at least, felt like a main attraction, complete with everything you'd expect from a fireworks show, including a grand finale.

London Safari, Baked Beans, and Square Reese's

So, some updates of stuff we've been doing.

Our friend Owen Roseblade from church hosted the opening night of his exhibition of his photography/graphic design project, London Safari. He's using an exhibit space at a church in Notting Hill called Westborne Grove, which isn't too far from us. So yea, the area itself is quite nice, obviously, and the church is actually sort of related to our church, as a number of our founding members came from there, and we still get advice from them and stuff. We're also part of the same group of churches called Salt & Light. So that was really fun. There was free food and drinks, which is always a favorite of ours, but the art was also really fantastic.

Owen also asked me to document the night, so I took pictures for him of people looking at his pictures. The irony was delicious.

But yea, Owen is an awesome photographer, and hopefully I can learn a lot from him over the next 10 or so months.

Other than that, life has been calm. Our friend Joel had us over for breakfast at his new flat where he just moved in. Hash browns, omelettes, mushrooms, and toast. It was delicious, and his apartment is awesome. He's got a spare bedroom, so he's using it to offer a cheap place to stay for refugees in London who need a base while they look for a place of their own. He's got an Ethiopian refugee staying with him now.

Oh, and baked beans. We had them for breakfast at Joel's too. Joel isn't British; from Boston, actually, and went to Harvard of all places. But he's lived here over two years now, so he's adopted quite a bit of their culture. Thus the baked beans (actually, him being from Boston may actually have something to do with this. But I doubt it. It's the British-ness). We had no idea that the backbone of what it means to be English is completely built upon the consumption of massive amounts of baked beans with every meal, on anything and everything. I thought baked beans were like a mid-Western thing, to be eaten with BBQ or something. But no. They are more British than fish and chips. They seriously eat them on everything. Baked beans on toast (a breakfast favorite). Baked beans on a baked potato (called a jacket potato here...no idea why). Baked beans on pizza.

What? Yes, that's right. Baked beans on pizza. Let me explain. Last night, I went to our friend Andy's to play some music (see how I made that transition there? I used the beans to connect all of the recent events of our lives. Perfect score on the GRE Analytical Writing section, here I come). Andy's got a bass and an electric guitar, as well as amps, so we had a little jam session. We played a few songs, and our other friend Gemma (Andy's girlfriend...we know them both from church) sang. It was a lot of fun, and it felt really good to play bass again.

Anyway, after that was all tied up, Andy invited us to watch a movie with him, called This Is England, about skinheads in northeast England in the 1980's (sounds scary, I know, but it was really well done. We loved it). Chelsea was with our other friend Tim from church, helping him with this debt counseling charity that the church runs. Tim is trained to give people debt advice, so he had two meetings scheduled, but they're supposed to work in pairs, for safety reasons, and in case someone tries to sue claiming that they gave bad advice, there's a second witness. So Tim needed someone else to do the meetings with him; thus Chelsea's involvement. I, as mentioned, was already engaged in the music get together. So, while we were waiting on Chelsea to get back from that so we could start the movie, Andy ate dinner (I had already eaten, thankfully). And that's when I witnessed that culinary atrocity (we're finally brining all back around, tying it all together, I promise). He put baked beans on a frozen pizza.

And ketchup. I lie to you not. Baked beans and ketchup on a frozen pizza. And apparently this is completely normal here. So yea. Breakfast at Joel's. Music and a film at Andy's. Baked beans. It's all connected.

And totally unconnected: biking along the canal. I did it the other day for fun/exercise. Chelsea did it for real today to get to the Senate House Library to research her first big paper. So, yes, this post will actually have more than just 100 hyper links. There are indeed some actual pictures.

Also, square Reese's (which rhymes with pieces. Which rhymes with Cheese's (as in Chuck E.) and not with P.C.'s (as in people who are politically correct, which I just made up)).

Apparently British customs officers say round Reese's are NOT COOL. Only square Reese's gettin' in this country. Not sneaking by me. Why may explain why Reese's are not popular here and we can't find anywhere to buy them, which is why Jason had to send us some.

Also, food in the mail; Chelsea's mom sent us two packs of beef jerky and a tube of Slim Jims. Win!

Pictures of the Week

Here's just a few pictures from the last week for your enjoyment:

Chronicling Seth's beard:


Some pictures of the park - beautiful this time of year!




In other news, we have been branching out a little with Spike (the bike). I rode him into town today just to see if I could do it. I did not make it all the way, as I got a little lost and by then was starving for lunch, but now that I've had a look at the map, I'm confident of what to do next time. Most of the trip consists of going down a river canal and it's absolutely beautiful. I'll try to get some pics up of that next time I ride that way.

Hope everyone is having a great week!

Bill Bush: World Race

Sorry, but I'm not going to tell you anything about our lives in this post. Instead, I'm totally going to take advantage of all of you, and use the tiny little bit of readership we have at this blog to support a very important cause.

To refresh your memory (for everyone that has known us long enough), Chelsea and I went on a mission trip to the Philippines in Summer 2009 through the Wesley Foundation at UGA. It was a wonderful experience, and I think God was truly glorified by our actions there, and His love was beautifully spread to people who had never experienced it before. Bill Bush was one of our leaders on that trip, and we really respect him as a man of God.

After the Philippines, Bill basically got home and turned right around, embarking on a year-long mission trip all over the planet through World Race. He's just finished that trip, but God has more work to do with him. Bill is now working full time for Adventures in Missions (who organize World Race). But here's the deal: much like our trip to the Philippines, the position is fully funded by donations (thanks again to everyone who helped make our trip possible!) So, basically, he needs money, and if you can, I'm asking you to give him some.

All the info you need can be found on his blog:

http://billbush.theworldrace.org/

So that's my plug for today, shamelessly asking you for money. But I think God can be glorified in the process, and I wouldn't ask if I didn't believe in it.

Next post, we'll resume taking boring accounts of our mundane life here and attempting to make them sound interesting with colorful pictures and fancy words.

Spike the bike

First, I'd like to apologize for it being a while since either of us last wrote. We haven't forgotten about everyone back at home - don't worry! Seth's mom did say that "inquiring minds" wanted to know what was going on, and we realize that. Sorry about the delay.

In the way of news, we do have some. We got a bicycle! For FREE! And it works!! This is absolutely amazing news, especially here in London where bikes can be fairly expensive and are NEVER found for free. We found the bike on a website call Freecycle which is amazing and a great place for people like us who are just temporarily settling in a place but need a few things to get by. Seth went to pick the bike up from an older man who seemed glad to get rid of it. God truly did provide for us in this instance! Yes, we have a helmet and all safety precautions...don't worry. But here is the bike (that I have now named Spike) in all it's glory whilst resting in our hallway:



The idea behind getting the bike is that hopefully I can ride it at least to and from the British Library. Apparently this is a pretty easy ride (according to some people in our church) that goes down a canal rather than the road. I just don't think I'm quite ready for the road itself yet. Maybe never. Those double decker buses are pretty scary and aggressive!

In other news, last night was pretty eventful. We spent the entire day at the British Library (so studious on a Saturday) and then traveled into the center of the city. A girl in the church was having her birthday party in Covent Gardens at a place called "Roadhouse." Before we went there, we decided to go by my college so that I could take a few pictures of the building. I have been wanting to do this for some time, but during a regular school day it is so crowded I think I would get run over if I stopped somewhere with a camera. So stopping by on a Saturday was the perfect time to get some pictures. They are a little blurry as the lighting in the building isn't the best, but here's a few pictures:






English department wing:


The Chapel:



After leaving the college, we arrived at Covent Garden a bit earlier so that we could explore. It was dark by this point, so I couldn't really take any good pictures, but I definitely plan on visiting there again. For those who don't know what it is, Covent Garden - not a garden at all. It is this big cobblestone block with several covered markets that selling, well, basically everything, and has been since the 17th century. Usually those kind of places are disappointing to me - nothing that great and everything overpriced, but this place was great! I eyed several things that would be excellent Christmas presents for some of my favorite people. They had handwoven everythings, cool leather journals, every kind of decoration you could ever want to put in your house, food markets, herbal soaps and remedies, and so much more (including street performers, as always). I could have spent longer exploring, but they were closing down for the day. Perhaps another time!

Roadhouse is in the main square of Covent Garden and is a somewhat satirical take on an American bar. There was plenty of neon everywhere and pinball machines. For the most part, it was as close to an American bar as you will ever get in London. They took it a little far with these huge neon signs just displaying words like "DRUGS" in huge letters. Seth and I found this pretty funny. The food, also American, was so good though. Seth and I got a "plate for two" with ribs, chicken, salad, fries, and onion rings. So delicious! We missed the fried up taste of the South!

The party was a great time, and after that we decided to take the long walk to the tube station. We walked up Waterloo Bridge and had a look at the city at night. It was absolutely beautiful - here's a few pictures that truly don't capture it, but I tried:





As we were standing on the bridge, I had a sense of purpose while we were here. Was a weird inspiring moment, I suppose. Looking out at the city, I just thought about all the culture and history that has come through it, and knew for that moment that I was in the right place at the right time. I have struggled with being homesick, and wondering if this was the right thing to do. I know in my heart that God willed for us to come here, that this is His purpose, but I suppose I needed that moment to see the city in its beauty - so quiet and peaceful, twinkling with lights, the river still and placid, the hustle of the day gone and forgotten - as a boost to remember all of that.

Our next adventure? St. Paul's. I'll keep you updated! Love and miss all those that love us enough to read this! Peace :)

Dandelion and Burdock

That's right. There's actually a soft drink here flavored with dandelion. And burdock too, but no one knows what that is, so who cares. Dandelions is all you need to know. Yard weeds in a soft drink.

Apparently it goes all the way back to the 1200's or so, when apparently people were terribly desperate to find things to put in their drinks. So it's a very traditional British drink, and we had to try it. Though I don't think there's really much of the tradition left in what we bought...it's carbonated, and all the flavors and sweeteners are artificial. So there's not actually any dandelion in there. The worst part about that is, that means someone actually had to go out of their way in order to artificially mimic the taste of dandelion.

Let's just say, it's about as tasty as it sounds. So the fact that someone thought it was a good idea to artificially create such a...unique...flavor, is, well, quite ridiculous.

Anyway, strange soft drinks aren't all that's going on around here. I finally got my guitar in the mail from my parents! Woo!

They were quite paranoid about the case getting damaged in shipping, so I had quite a task in unwrapping it upon arrival:

Once I managed to cut my way into my mummy guitar though, it was quite a joy to have my guitar in my hands again. I've been playing it quite a lot, and Chelsea's even been trying to learn to play it upside down (she's left handed, and already knows how to play a left handed guitar). She's coming along quite nicely. Such a fast learner!

I also got to play at church this past Tuesday night, with my friend J, from church. He plays keyboard (and drums, but since it's a house church, his keyboard is the only thing portable enough to bring to church). So he lead the worship, and I backed him up with guitar. It was a lot of fun, and it felt really good to play in a corporate worship setting like that again.

I've also been asked to lead worship this Sunday for our gathering as well. All by myself! Scary! Though Chelsea's gonna play bongos with me, so that'll take some of the pressure off. Sunday's are also more like the equivalent of Wednesday night services at churches back home (Tuesday is the main gathering), so there will be less people there and it will be a little more laid back. But I've been practicing quite a bit anyway, and we're both really looking forward to playing together again.

We've also been helping J and his wife Chrissy with renovating their house a little bit. They're really cool people, and it's nice that we both have enough free time that we're able to help them out every now and then. J, if you remember, was one of the first ones at the church to reach out to us (though they've all been incredibly welcoming and made us feel so loved), and he and I got pizza together and went back to his house to play Wii the very next day after we first met, after our first visit to the church.

Speaking of the hospitality of the church, this happened a while ago but I don't think we ever wrote about it. Our friend at church Rachel invited us over to her house for brunch one Sunday before church. The plan was for everyone to make a little something and bring it over. So it was us, her, and the Roseblades (Owen, the photographer I did the shoot with, and Ruth, his wife). We decided we would represent the South with some good ole' biscuits and gravy.

Well, that was quite an undertaking. First of all, biscuit here means cookie. They don't really have anything like what we call a biscuit. Scones are sort of close, but they generally have fruit in them and are really more like a stale biscuit. So, there was no hope of finding canned biscuits or even a mix. So we had to do them completely from scratch (of course the first time we made biscuits and gravy from scratch was in the U.K....we have habit of doings backwards like that, of waiting till we come here to do very American things...I had my very first Big Mac the last time we were in the UK, for example). That was quite an undertaking. Thankfully, we did a test run the night before, because the first batch was awful. Turns out, if a recipe only calls for flour, that specifically means don't use self-rising flour. We didn't know that. Apparently self-rising flour already has baking soda in it, and we added even more as the recipe said. So, those biscuits tasted kind of like a metal parking meter. Not good. We figured it out though, and found another recipe that called for self-rising flour, and the next morning it was much more successful. We couldn't find like American breakfast sausage for the grease, so I made bacon (which here is like a cross between real bacon and Canadian bacon...the strips are thicker and wider, but still more bacon-y than ham-y). Apparently making lumpless gravy is a gift in my family on my mother's side, as everyone has always seemed to be impressed with her gravy and her mother's, and I, without having any clue what I was doing, was able to make a perfectly smooth, lump-free gravy. So it must run in the family. Anyway, it turned out great, and they were quite intrigued by them at brunch, and Owen especially loved them.

Bringing things back to the present, Chelsea and I also went to the National Gallery yesterday, and saw a whole bunch of art. Seriously, we've seen so much art already in the course of our marriage, it's a bit overwhelming. But, though it's quite a large museum, it's not the Louvre, and we weren't rushing around trying to cram as much stuff as possible into one day like we were in Scotland. So, we were able to take our time a bit more with this one, and were able to see everything at a leisurely pace. We even took a long lunch together out on Trafalgar Square, which was really nice.

After that, we took a nice walk through nearby St. James Park, which is really lovely. I remembered it as one of my favorite things we saw in London the first time around 2 years ago, and it definitely lived up to my memories.

In other news, I've hit some major writer's block recently, so I've diverted my attention elsewhere. I've almost finished all of the photo editing, and my biggest new project has been building a website for my hopeful photography business. This has been quite a task, as I'm having to teach myself everything from the beginning, and I'm trying to do it using only free software.

So there have been quite a few frustrating moments and changes of plan. However, I've pretty much finished the all-important homepage, which I think looks quite nice and professional, coming from an ignorant amateur. Here's a little sneak-peak screenshot:

That's all for now. We're celebrating Dave's completion of his PhD tonight at the Mason's Arms pub, so we're pretty excited about that. Dave is the titular leader of the church, whatever that means, but he's a really cool guy and fun to hang out with. Hopefully he actually has completed his dissertation and turned it in. When we last saw him on Tuesday night, he was still finishing it up. So, he said tonight, if he has indeed succeeded, he'll be at the pub celebrating. And if he hasn't, well, then he'll still be at the pub, only much sadder, and for a different reason. Hopefully it will be a joyful occasion!