I'll Be Home For Christmas.....I think

Well, unless this crazy fog sticks around, I plan on being in Canada from December 25 until January 3rd. Yes, my flight home is on Christmas Day. Why you ask? Ummmm 200 pounds is why. Much cheaper to fly on the 25th.

This is the last time I'll be using my computer as I am locking it up at TPHQ (TimePlan Head Quarters) for the holidays. I am spending Friday night and Saturday cleaning up around the house, and packing up.

On Christmas eve, I'll be going to church and then spending Sunday and Monday with a family from chruch. I am very excited and grateful for their hospitality. It should be a good time. And should be great food!

Then, I fly home, see the family and friends, attend my cousin Sarah's wedding, all in a whirlwind of a week. Sooo....although it may not be a Canadian white Christmas, I look forward to seeing many of you and can't wait to be home!

Merry Christmas!

Faces

Since last post, I've been starting to think about coming home for Christmas. I've had an offer to spend Christmas eve and Morning with a family from church. It was very thoughtful of them to ask. I have only 7 more days of work, then afew off for shopping, relaxing, cleaning up, etc. I'm pretty excited to see everyone even if it's only for a few days.

I thought I'd post some pics of my friends here and tell you a bit about them. Here are some of the fantastic people I've met.

Jacqui

Jacqui is from Australia. She loves Australia. She misses the temperatures in Australia. She loves to have fun, and be crazy. We just celebrated her birthday this weekend with a trip to Oxford, a night out on the town, bowling and homemade pancakes. Jacqui would never let a birthday go by without a large amount of partying. Jacqui is also about 5 feet tall. Not even probably. This helps her be able to relate to the students in her class better! Jacqui also loves to break out into song at random times. We have been known to sing happy birthday to Martha on packed subway trains, as well as singing Hey Jude at the top of our lungs on the Tower Bridge in London. Jacqui and I also have a weekly cleansing cook-up ritual after eating greasy weekend food.

Martha

Martha is from Canada. Near the Thousand Islands. Martha loves to take pictures, write in her journal, read and loves to talk. She loves telling about her home and her family who she loves very much. Martha loves doing things for people. Buying gifts, making dinner. Martha loves to take care of her friends. We joke and call her 'mum' sometimes, but she really does make sure we are all ok. Martha and I often rent movies and chill together when we just need a night in relaxing. We also love to eat good food together whether it's Indian, Balti, Cantonese, it's all good.


Dave
Dave is the housemate that I talk to and hang out with the most. He is an engineer and designs plans for heating and cooling systems in buildings. Dave is good at virtually everything. Sometimes it drives me crazy. He goes to the gym all the time, cooks fantastic food, plays guitar very well. He has shown me amazing paintings that he has done, and he knows tons about art, engineering, religions, politics, movies, music. Ya, that's Dave. Oh, he does alot of hiking so he has taken me and the girls out a bunch of times in the beautiful hills near where he is from in Shropshire. Dave is great company and always has lots to talk about for interesting conversation.


Angela
Ang is one of the nicest people I know. She is a very good listener and genuinely cares how you are doing. She has a crazy sense of humour and loves to be silly. She loves to dance and has coined afew of her own moves. She has a knack for loosing things like keys, subway tickets, bus tickets, her mobile. It's pretty funny. She also enjoys taking photos of herself and has got me into the habit of doing self photo shoots. Ang loves to have fun and gets along with pretty much anyone she meets.

Hope this helps put a face and some details to the names.

Oh ya...one more famous face.



Insert your own bio of Rachel here. haha

Off to London...

Sooo...although I had one of the roughest weeks teaching thus far...I survived, and had a fantastic end to the week (aka weekend). It was Martha's birthday on Sunday, and it was her choice to go to London. You'd think we'd have been already, seeing as it's London and all, and we live a two hour train ride away, but this was our first visit. We pretty much just hung out, walked around the entire city and enjoyed being out of doors during daylight hours. It's funny, we are quite high here (longitudinally speaking) which means it gets dark REALLY early. So seeing the light was pretty special.

On Saturday morning we went to Notting Hill to spend some time at the famous Portobello Road Market. I can say by far, it was the best market i've been to in terms of shopping. I've been to some pretty crazy and amazing food markets, and I have friends who have recently seen some pretty shocking things in African markets, but for your regular North American stuff, this was awesome. Antique jewellery, bags, leather, unique clothes, food, scarves, hats, telescope parts, china, compasses, antique art, maps, you name it. We spent the entire morning there and spent most of the weekends budget.



For the afternoon, we walked along the Thames past the Tower Bridge, the Tower, St. Pauls, Millenium Bridge, Westminster, Parliament buildings. Ya know, pretty much the usual. Until we were exhausted. We found a place selling cheap theatre tickets and got the only one left. It was called Six Dance Lessons in Six Days. It had Billy Zane in it (from Titanic) and was fairly funny and enjoyable. We took Martha out for a drink for her birthday, got kicked out of the pub at last call, and went back to our hotel.







Sunday was pretty lazy, just strolling around Hyde park, checking out the shopping area at Oxford street and Regent Street. We sat down for a coffee before the girls left me to stay in the city on my lonesome. However, having just dropped my bags off at my hostel, I noticed in a brochure that St. Pauls had Sunday 6:00 services, and seeing as it is first advent, hey why not go. I rushed and pretty much ran across town to be the LAST person they let have a seat in the church. the 60 people behind me had to stand at the back the entire time. Sweet. SO I enjoyed hear the choir sing, people read, and join in a few hyms while thinking how great it was to be sitting in the church while it was being used for what it was made for. I was blown away to think of the thousands of people sitting in this masterpiece of a building worshipping God and anticipating the celebration of Christs birth. How exciting to experience that in a place where the next morning would be filled with tourists there to see the ornateness and spectacle of the building and possibly passing by the thought of the purpose and intent of the building. Wow. So I guess the thought I came away with was...am I, Rachel, allowing myself to be used for what I was made to do. Am I being used for the purposes God intented when he 'built' me. In some ways I think yes. In others, probably not. I don't just want to be a spectacle, that is nice, and pleasing, and made with good intentions, but that people pass by and don't see the real purpose for my creation. Guess that's something to think about.

And finally, the reason I stayed behind for an extra day was to see a good friend who was flying through Heathrow and had the day to spend with me! I got up early and tubed/walked into the city to meet Mark at 9ish. I got to be the tour guide (cause I know London and the tube sooo well) for the day, and we just walked and talked for a few hours. Got lunch and Mark had to be back to the airport. He was pretty alert and talkative for having just left 8 months in Kenya and just having spent 8 hours on the plane. It was sooo good to be able to talk to someone from home, that knows me very well. Thanks Mark.


And that was pretty much it. Got on the tube from Heathrow for an hour after dropping Mark off. Got my luggage at my hostel. Got back on the tube to Euston train station. Got on the train for 2 hours. Got on the bus for 20 min and was in the door by 8. Great weekend. Now back to it.