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.