Reality...

Reality has hit my friends. 28 more days until I will be back home deep in the heart of Texas. I love and miss everyone at home and it will be a wonderful reunion I am so looking forward to! There are many things and places here I still have on the list to see and do before my time is up! And they will all get done if I don't sleep for the next month! haha just kidding. But it really looks like it will be a whirlwind of adventure from here on out.
It also looks like a whole lot of papers and exams and finals will somehow be caught up in the whirlwind of adventure as well. ACU puts the study in study abroad. I am usually a very tidy person but I admit I have so many piles of different things on my desk right now to do that you can hardly see the surface. The saying, "Like mother like daughter" is turning out to be true. Anyways, all that to say that I will do my best to put up pictures and write about things as much as I can. (Stories and pics from my previous trips to Scotland and Italy are on their way I promise!) Here is my pre-apology for doing a poor job of keeping up with the blog. I love you all and I hope to see you very soon and keep better touch when the mountain of homework is lessened.

Shalom

I will tell one short quick story.

Easter was fantastic. We woke up and went to the original Methodist Church founded by John Wesley. Then we went to the street food festival down the road and had a great lunch. Then Kirsten and I went out and took Easter pictures together in the wildflowers to send to our moms. The whole afternoon we cooked up a storm and our kitchen had a dozen people cooking all at once for our Backyard Bash Easter potluck. Kirsten and I made chicken salad and egg salad and deviled eggs and cookie brownies - all like my favorite foods on the planet. I could live off those 4 things. We found little umbrellas and scattered them around all the food everyone made. Everyone ate together in the common room because it started to rain and we ate til we were stuffed. We had so many leftovers that we are still eating today! Everyone walked to church at St. Aldates and it was great to sing Bless The Lord O My Soul again. New favorite song. We really have become a family here- potlucking and churching and watching LOST episodes and complaining about hw together for 4 months. It just has an irreversible effect on people. I am so blessed.

The Beauty of Glass

I learned so much about glass this semester and have been greatly blessed to see tons and tons of it! From stained glass to painted to stainless to intricate and to simple. I have been absolutely fascinated by it because there are no two alike. Styles change from century to century and even over decades. I can't wait to study more about these distinct patterns and how they are made with different techniques.

So why this new fascination with glass besides the fact that I am surrounded by it everywhere I turn here?

Well the truth is that the first time God spoke to me through stained glass was sitting in the Chapel on the Hill at ACU first semester freshman year. I had a big project due for my cornerstone class and the deadline was quickly approaching. I had no clue what I wanted to do. How on earth do I begin to depict my worldview? A series of events and people over the course of my lifetime has shaped who I am today and how I see the world around me. But, God wanted to show me a new way to look at it. As you may know the walls of the Chapel on the Hill are covered from floor to ceiling in a spectacular pattern of stained glass of all the colors of the rainbow. I was just chilling in there and looking at the glass when this thought came out of nowhere.

We as humans are like the colored pieces of glass. Often our lives seem broken and things don't make sense. We don't know where they belong or if there is any order to the chaos of our lives. We are two dimensional and flat. God can see straight through us and all of our pretenses to know what our hearts and minds are truly saying. He is the light and the thing which brings us beauty. Without him putting our pieces together in the right places and choosing to shine his light through us, we would be worthless.

Have you ever seen stained glass at night? You can't. It's black and it's beauty cannot be illuminated when there is no light to shine through it. We are called to be children of the light.

Another part of the window that is unmistakably necessary are the black lines that hold all the colored glass bits together. I see this as our sins. They are in the past, but they are still a part of us in the future. The lines are the lessons learned and the times where maybe we felt alone. God knew that part of our life would be the glue that held us together later on. And He never truly left us at all.

These windows also go to show no one person can do it alone. One "light" or panel of a window can take thousands of carefully designed little bits of glass. God calls his community of followers to work together to bring His Kingdom on earth and to create a beautiful image when we come together in His Name. 

Some of my favorite stained glass pictures from the whole semester have been when the sun shines through the window and reflects the array of colors onto the wall inside. And sometimes even onto certain individuals as they sit in the church pew on a Sunday morning and discover they are a rainbow. How do I interpret this one? Well, we are merely a medium and when we are in position to serve God and bring Him glory, we never know how far His light can shine. It can touch people and places we never dreamed of. It could even start a revolution of vibrant color and passion for our Lord.

If you're curious about the core project I did end up making a stained glass window of my own about the aspects of my life that formed my worldview. It was made out of poster board and tissue paper but it is one of my life goals to construct a mini real stained glass window. All these windows tell a story. A story of our lord. Of Jesus. Of his disciples. Of the prophets. Of the saints. Of me and you.

Mosaic glass globe in front of Peckham Public Library in London

Sainte Chapelle Rose Window in Paris, France

Sainte Chapelle in Paris, France

Rose Window in Notre Dame

Notre Dame Cathedral

Wallingford Church

Wallingford Church

Bath Cathedral, England

Vienna, Austria

Beautiful simplicity - Vienna, Austria

St. Stephen's Cathedral in Prague Castle in Prague, Czech Republic

Vienna, Austria

One of my favorite windows of all time

Birmingham Cathedral

Birmingham, England

Glass exhibit in Birmingham Museum

Edinburgh, Scotland

St. Peter's Basilica in The Vatican

The Duomo in Florence, Italy

6 Days, 3 Cities and 1 Castle!

First of all
The red button above your head means stop. It stops the bus.

Germany

We left at one in the morning and took a bus to gatwick airport in London. Then we caught the plane to Munich!! Kirsten was super excited cause she found a magazine all about the hunger games at the airport!
Incredibly beautiful view watching the sunrise above the clouds. I have never ever seen anything like it. It was so magnificent that it was almost hard to watch cause I couldn't fully absorb it's beauty. It's nice to think that God lives in that environment all the time. Wow. The clouds were so fluffy and with so many colors! The trip could not have started off better.

Cameron getting interrogated on Germany and we got escorted through the airport. He tried to bribe the guy into pretending to tackle him in front of us but sadly that didn't work out. What a story that would have been!
Fart cap at cafe dachau. Yes there is a cafe at the concentration camp even though we were pretty sure there wouldn't be.
My dog will totally destroy your dog - Cam
Yeah probably But my dog will know more literature - Stacy
Honduras email with good news!
Grocery store with chocolate bananas and cheap German twix bars
Went to hofbrahaus beer hall and had great potato salad and bock wurst and ice cream and awful mineral sparkling water.

Friday
Made breakfast and packed lunches
Out to castle (schloss) Neuschwanstein
Uphill buns of steel
Picnic
Mary's bridge and lots of photos
Run back down to catch bus!
Went to gardens and walked around in the dark - sketch city
Marienplatz and ate at Biergarten -great food and pear strudel
Back to hostel and chilled
Caught train to Vienna


Vienna
Managed to get off train at right location even though we were all in different cars with strange language.
Wait outside hostel
Meet drunk and play kick the can
Sleep!!!
Market - scarves and lots of dried food and good chocolate
Shonbrunn place and wander around and take pictures
Opera house and ballet
Awesome random place to eat after getting lost! Huge pizza and baklava

Legs of iron, abs of bronze and buns of steel

Vienna boys choir
Starbucks
St Stephens cathedral
Crazy guy yelling in the metro - nothing more terrifying than someone yelling at you in a different language!
Out to Danube island. Swan encounter. Most jank kiddie play area I have ever seen.
Play and take pics in colorful bench things.
Bathroom adventure and creepy man voice on speaker in restroom.
Music and silence museum
Dinner at weinerwald restaurant
Back to hostel for chill time
Don't forget wombat free drinks!

Flash the world!

Bus to Praha - It is a miracle we have found all the necessary train stations and bus stops at the right times in a foreign country and language. Thank you lord.

Prague

Word of the day: interesting

Buildings in Prague are like a poetry anthology - Stacy
All so different and packed with so much intricacy and detail

Escorted out of bus station
Could not find here arrow on the map - need to practice with Waldo more
Walked to find apartments and found right place but no key and no one there. Looked like we would be homeless for a while. Went to the ibis hotel and called apartments and found the guy with the key! Apartment was posh! Jackson and I tricked the guys that it was jank and I was so proud I pulled it off! They had trailed us from in front? Interesting.
We were all so pumped that we found our place to stay that it took us a long time to fall asleep.  Party til the AM!!

We slept in the next morning and then walked around old town square eating and souvenir shopping. Really sweet buildings and steeples in old town square. Ate a langrose for my first meal which is like a pizza with ketchup and cheese and garlic on it. A large version of a pizza lunch able. Surprisingly tasty. They also served hot wine kinda like Wassel- interesting.
Prague has more souvenir shops than anywhere else I have ever seen. And they had good gifts! Plus it felt like the money was monopoly money so it left my hands quickly! Things were oddly priced too. T shirts and paintings were like the same as a fancy meal.

Roamed around kind of on our way to the hall of mirrors but never got there.
Along the way we found: pee sculpture, a grocery store, the John Lennon wall, a huge hill and lots of incredible views overlooking the city. We committed to climbing and we went as far up as we could go. Cameron the wilderman slipped and got his  bum all muddy going down part of the hill. We wont tell vance tho so he can keep his wilderman card. We stumbled upon a posh restaurant and ate while we overlooked the city lights at night. It even had a fire! We split a really great dessert  between the four of us with pineapple ravioli and chocolate cake and creme brûlée.  We walked back across charles bridge and saw the city and the castle in the distance all lit up at night. The boys went and did a ghost tour of the city after that and the girls had girls night! We had a second dessert and got massive crepes. Best one I have ever had! Chocolate and strawberry. Now that I think about it we could say that this trip centered around eating lots of chocolate! We devised the perfect plan to trick the guys into believing that we lost Kirsten. We got in place for operation stinker and waited for the guys to return. Sadly they didn't believe us with the Kirsten thing but they did believe that I had gotten bird poop in my hair and had to take a shower. At least part of what we thought was a brilliant plan was believable.
Then we wet out to a jazz club and listened to some incredible music in a great atmosphere. One of my favorite parts of Prague. They feel the music and it is evident in the joy and improv they play with.
After the jazz club we went back to our posh apartment and stayed up talking until three am. I crocheted half of Lindsay's scarf! I definitely think better when my hands are kept busy. Deep conversations and crocheting is where it's at.

On Tuesday :( our last day. We woke up and made breakfast in our wonderful kitchen! To make things even better we had eggs and toast and tea! I have come to the conclusion that eggs will be a part of my life til the day I die and I will always love them!
Then we traversed the city to Prague castle - we never once had to take the metro! Yay! - and bought a ticket to tour the whole area.
The windows in the st. Vincent's cathedral  alone were worth the price of the ticket. They were painted mosaic and stained and the rose window was painted and one of the largest in central Europe. My mind was blown! Blog all about stained glass coming up soon! Pictures just cannot capture what we saw there and in the streets of Prague as a whole.
So next we got boondaggled because our ticket said we could go up into one of the cathedral towers but when we got there they make you buy another ticket fortune same price just for the tower! No way! What a crock. We had seen incredible views of the city the night before so we did not go for that. The rest of Prague castle was cool but not much compared to neuschwanstein castle. Nothing  will beat that one for me!
We Happened to arrive at the right time to watch the changing of the guard in front of the castle and later found it was a pretty big deal. Very similar to the Ones outside of buckingham palace and others around Europe.

Then we walked back to the old town square to grab some food. It was so cool to have our apartment right by the gothic steeples that you can see from the whole city. I got a czech dessert roll kinda like a cinnamon roll except better! Then we toured the cathedral next to our house and lit a candle for Kait's mom. She is not forgotten and neither is Kait even though she went back home for a time. God be with her.

Chocolate museum here we come and we saw our good friend charlie again who gave us free hot chocolate coupons. He said he recognizes Americans by our friendly smiles and white teeth :) he ran to give me a hug when we left today. He spoke seven languages!! We saw how chocolate was made and got free samples. Jackson and Cameron showed me lil chocolate duckies thy had for Easter but I resisted buying them. So proud of myself! I took pics with them tho.
We walked around the town square one more time and someone told us about a restaurant on the second floor of a building overlooking the square. We went for it and never would have found it on or own. The best things that we do tend to come when we are not looking for them. I had soup and mashed potatoes :) and I was able to save every coin denomination to give to Michael for his money collection! I can't wait to show him and explain them all to him.

Then we said goodbye to the apartment and roamed the streets of Prague again looking for the office to return the key. It was quite an adventure finding the bus station and then the right bus out to the airport from there. Let's just say we are getting really good at looking for certain signs and navigating based on signs when there are language barriers. I think alot of chance is on our side too and we just roll with our gut feelings. Go team!! So proud!! Best teamwork I have experienced yet this semester and even times of confusion were so filled with joy.

Things we learned: how to make chocolate and how to traverse gigantic hills and how to commit to decisions to climb them.

Steven - always wants a travel buddy :)
Kirsten - where is she?? Lost??
Jackson - your bus is that way but we are going this way
Lisa - I told you not to do that while shaking her head and laughing when Jackson committed and slipped on the rock at Danube island.
Stacy - I have band aids :) put it in my backpack. Cameron hates everything stacy loves.
Megan - yeah you are! Tell me my hair is luscious!
Cameron - I don't wanna! ( complete with shoulder slouch) Par cor! I'm a wilderman!
Me - flash the world! With my sweet under fanny pack so no worries :)

Headed back to Oxford and ready to be home. I loved every minute of this travel break and I cannot believe it is already over. Thanks to the best group ever and to God for giving the world these beautiful places and for blessing us with the  ability to experience them.

6 days, 3 cities, 2 castles, 1 jazz club and countless death threats between Kirsten and Jackson.

Extended version 5 beds and 4 cathedrals. Bam!

Chips from Ali's and chillin in the common room. Still on vacation.

Rest and Joy

Slept til one - extremely rare but very necessary. It was funny because Katie and Kirsten thought I was sick  cause I am usually the first one awake.

Ran with Megan for an hour and a half in Port Meadows. It is heaven for dogs, kids, and ducks alike and it is beginning to be my own as well. We had quite an adventure today trying to explore new paths and find our way around the lake that somehow always covered the path we needed to go on. We turned around so many times, laughing more each time. We saw other people doing the same and helped a few girls in dresses who were in a pickle with some mud and their bikes which was hilarious. There was a little boy playing tug of war with his stick with his dog and dozens of people picnicking with their loves and families. We walked right through the middle of a herd of horses close enough to touch them and they hardly took notice of us. Megan and I saw our swan friend again who nearly attacked us on our first trip to Port Meadow. I think we negotiated a peace treaty with him today cause he turned around and left us alone.

After Port Meadow I ate a box of cereal from Evan :) He knows me so well. We drink milk like water here and we are almost out of it even though we bought it yesterday. This either means I need to cut back on the cereal or that England needs to make bigger milk containers. I think its the latter.

I also did laundry today and clean clothes are always nice to have! There is nothing like feeling warm clothes freshly dried!

I made guacamole tonight and ate it too Mom :) Crazy I know but I actually like it alot now and it makes me think of you. I shared it with the girls when we went to Dr. Shilcutt's flat tonight to learn how to play Kanasta. It is the card version of 42 and I understood it right away! I can't wait to teach my family and play 42 with Ome this summer. It was great fun and we are going to get together every week to play now here. I love me some card games and board games!

Then we went to the late service at St. Aldates and the songs we sang could not have been more perfect. Hard to describe but so true.

Lastly, everybody watched Ferris Buler's Day Off in the common room and I skyped with Mom and Dad and Michael.

Days like today are one of a kind and I am so thankful for them. A perfect day of rest and rejuvenation.

A Day of Free Fun - Colloquium in Birmingham

Birmingham  is said to be the shopping center of the world And now I believe it because I have never seen so many shops in my life!! There was an old church in the middle of the bullring shopping center and it was funny cause it was a direct contrast to the modern buildings surrounding it. We roamed around for a bit and went into the Birmingham museum. There was a special exhibit of drawings by Leonardo da Vinci and reading about each specific drawing was fascinating. He dabbled in such a wide variety of subjects and he was so great at all of them! I want to be that intrigued by so many different areas of study!  Next we went to the BBC studio located in The Mailbox. We began our tour at noon and our two tour guides were Tim and lee. I had no idea all that is involved in broadcasting a single radio show. Quite literally every second counts and you cannot leave a second of dead air time or overlap by even a second without getting in big trouble.




Things I learned:
- how they screen callers for the air and to protect listeners in audience
- how cameras use wide angles to make very small studios seem larger
- how weather is the elastic in a news broadcast and the weather forecasters learn their scripts and are told seconds before they go on how long they get. Talk about talent!
- how to make all kinds of different sound effects

My favorite part of the tour was exploring The Archers studio and learning how they make all the sound effects for the radio show. It comes on every day for fifteen minutes and is about a regular country family. Examples are the horse hooves disappearing in the foam outdoor room and the three different sounding stairs in one staircase and Legos for ice cubes in a glass and hot water sounds different than cold water. So many things I had never thought about or realized before! An ironing board sounds like a gate and they recorded every sound of an actual car and that a bucket of old film touched gently sounds like the ocean. Stacy and I took pictures in the car and we actually realized that it was set up like an American car with the steering wheel on the left side.

Then at the end of the tour we got to record our own radio show with actors and sound effects. I was one of the actors and it was hilarious. I wish I would have exaggerated my Texas accent!  I will hopefully post in on here in a few weeks cause they are sending it to shilcutt. I can't wait to write and produce our own in a few weeks for our final project for the class.


The control room of the tour was also incredible because each person had such a specific role and if you hit one wrong button then 6 million people see your mistake on tv!!
Stacy was super excited all day because there was dr who stuff everywhere! I am watching it with her soon so I can understand all the insider info. It's kinda like if you have read Harry potter or not, you just plum do not 
understand what people are saying if you are not in the know.




We found the  cheapest place I have ever seen for lunch today and it was fantastic food! I got a jacket potato with cheese and beans which doesn't sound that incredible but I can promise you it was! I was sad to finish the last few bites cause I knew I wouldn't have any more after that! We even went back before we left to grab a baguette for the ride back :) it doesn't get better than a 99 pence sandwich baguette.

Then we went to the Birmingham cathedral and it had huge marble pillars and stunning red stained glass. I took another picture of the colored light reflecting through the glass like in the Prague castle cathedral and they are my favorite ones now. That stained glass blog is in the making!!Especially since I stumbled upon an exhibit in the museum all about stained glass! 
I learned that each pane of a window is called a "light". And every window was explained with the time period, what was depicted and what style of glass. I played a little game with myself to see if I could guess what I was looking at. I got alot of them and Iearned a whole lot more! Yes I am a nerd. I admit it and accept it. New bucket list goal: make my own stained glass window. It will happen.

I also wandered into a tent of all fair trade tables and Stacy got fair trade chocolate - in her words "you can taste the fairness" so cute! I also met a very interesting young woman who started a project to help a group of women in Ghana use their own trade to use scrap materials to sell and support themselves. Beautiful handmade bracelets and necklaces and I had a great conversation with her about how she got it started all by herself after volunteering in Ghana. I asked if I could email her if I have more questions because I am interesting in learning more about Non profits like that and seeing how it relates to my upcoming trip to Honduras. I feel like God is teaching me so many new things in this area and there are so many possibilities.

I spotted a huge rubber duck on someone's desk with big recording headphones on it and it was killer that I could not take a picture cause it was in a restricted area.  :( I'll find one for myself someday!

All in all a wonderful day!!