A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words, They Say

I finally managed to get over my jet lag by Sunday or Monday, 16-17 May (I slept in both days to help my body get caught up on sleep and figure out which time zone it was actually in). Sunday revolved primarily around going to the 5pm service at HTB (for an explanation of HTB, see the posts from the fall semester). It was really good to be back. I have truly missed that church and those people, and it was a blessing and encouragement to be back worshiping God with them. Francis Chan was the guest speaker, and I was impressed, encouraged, and challenged by his talk. Here's a link to the video from one of the other services that day if you want to hear a similar talk to the one he gave at the Five. (He gave slightly different talks at the different services, but I'm guessing the gist is the same). Scroll down, it's the video from 16 May.

After the Five, a group of the students went to the pub (as is our custom) for a pint and some quality fellowship. That's right. Fellowship in a pub. The US needs to have a pub category...all we have at home are restaurants and bars/clubs. Nope, no pub category there. Sad day. Anyway, as we sat around, my friend Tye posed the question (I'm paraphrasing), "If you took Francis Chan's talk tonight to its fullest practical application or conclusion in your own life, what would that look like? What would you end up doing?" And about 4-5 of us spent the next 2 hours or so discussing that in great detail. Since a lot of the responses were quite personal, I can't really elaborate here without their permission, but I can say that it was inspiring and convicting as we discussed the possibilities and future realities of the will of God in our lives. Those are the kind of conversations that are truly meaningful, the kind you remember for a long time because they impact how you think--one of those really "real" or genuine moments shared on a human level.

On a considerably less profound level, I had been inadvertently picking up the accent of the people I was around, and was soundly mocked for it at the pub on Sunday night (ironically mostly by the South African and the Brit who spent 8 years living in South Africa, so they both have a different accent from the standard British one. Hmph!).

I found a piano store that had practice rooms for rent by the hour, so I started practicing each day for an hour. It was good to get back into practicing, but I realized just how much work I have to accomplish before I get to Italy next week!

On Tuesday, 18 May, I had the interesting experience of having trouble finding/buying a simple cup of tea on the way to practice in the morning. I stopped off at the Notting Hill Gate stop during my morning commute on the Tube (London Underground) to the Marble Arch area. I walked several blocks in each direction, but try as I might I couldn't find any sort of little bakery or tea shop. However, I did find TWO Starbucks' within two blocks of each other. Sigh. I finally gave up on finding somewhere and went to buy tea from The Man. However, when I tried to order decaf tea, they ended up getting confused and giving me decaf COFFEE which I quickly asked them to remedy. It is a sad, sad day when you can't get a simple cup of tea in London.

I spent that afternoon wandering around Covent Garden while eating a pasty (the "a" is pronounced like "apple") and listening to a busking (somewhat melodramatic) string quartet. I also went up to the Knightsbridge area and--just for fun--wandered in and out of the stores there, even though I can't afford anything in most of them. Sometimes it's just fun to pretend you're posh. I then wandered up to Hyde Park and strolled around taking pictures and suchlike. I also got asked for directions by 3 separate people in the span of 15 min. Evidently it didn't take long for me to look like I again belonged or knew where I was going! I also wandered by my old flat and took a picture for nostalgia's sake. I'm sure the students who came out the front door while I was doing that were thinking, "Who's the creeper girl taking pictures of our building?" but I didn't care. I finished up the evening's outings by going to the university student gathering at HTB (simply referred to as Students) at 7pm and then to the Zetland pub with students after Students was over.

A few more pics from my day of wandering:


Wednesday and Thursday I practiced and spent much of the remainder of each day hanging out with my dear friend Rachel. Wednesday evening, I went to a surprise party/birthday drinks for one of the staff from HTB, then went to see the new Robin Hood film afterwards with some friends from Students. It was quite fun to watch a movie set in England while in London. The irony is that, of the six of us who went to see the film, only one was actually English as far as I know (other nationalities represented: Welsh, American, and South African). After the movie, as if to add insult to injury after my experiences with tea-hunting the day before, the Tube decided to cause me to take an hour and a half to make what should normally be a half hour trip home.
It involved a stop that was closed due to a fire alarm, me getting off at that stop because no one told me otherwise, being told to leave the station by the emergency fire squad (even though there was no visible fire), and having to walk out of my way to another Tube stop to get on a different Tube line to try again to get home. Left High Street Kensington at 10:30pm, arrived home at West Brompton at nearly midnight.

Friday I went down to Greenwich to turn in the paperwork to Trinity College of Music (the same paperwork I hadn't gotten around to turning in when I said I was going to in my last blog post). I then spent the afternoon relaxing and exploring Greenwich. It is a really lovely area. I took lots of pictures and a nap in the park before heading north into Central London again. A few more pictures from my day in Maritime Greenwich (it is clearly an old port town):


Saturday night around midnight, I managed to set off the smoke detector in Tye and Sam's apartment when I attempted to bake scones. This was not entirely my fault.[Pictured is the outside door of Sam and Tye's house] On Friday night, Sam had cooked a fabulous multi-course Italian dinner for Tye, Rachel-the-dinner-guest, and me. The cheesecake from that meal had overflowed some whilst baking and the residue was still on the bottom of the oven. Since someone else had washed up after the meal, I just assumed they'd tackled the spill in the oven as well...which was not the case. Much to my chagrin, I preheated the oven without realizing this and had nice billows of smoke greet me when I went to put the scones into the oven. The alarm began sounding, and we were forced to remove the batteries (Temporarily!) and close the kitchen door to keep it under control. I let the oven cool down and decided to finish my scones in the morning. I did, and they turned out just fine. More on Sunday and the rest of the week in the next post!

Until then, Godspeed.
-Emily