It's Okay To Be A Tourist Sometimes

Hello again! I'm back once again to update you all about my exciting adventures in London. I believe that I left off on Thursday, so I'll start this update from Friday!

On Friday, my day was much like I explained in the last post. However, on Friday evenings the campus ministry has what we call a devotional – basically a time where all of the campus students come together to hang out, chat, socialize, hear the Word of God, and meet each other's friends. They're always really fun and a perfect way to start the weekend. This devotional was especially fun though, and let me tell you why. So, as I'm sure most of you probably already know, I play the drums – I've been playing for about seven years now. When I moved to NYC for university, I began to play this instrument called the cajon for our church worship every Sunday – a cajon is that box that people sit on and play like a drum, it's a really cool instrument, I love it! And if you're still not entirely sure what a cajon is, you can check out this song that our church did a couple months ago (skip about 2 minutes into the video, I'm on the left playing the mahogany drum): http://vimeo.com/94020845! Anywho, I've been dying to play my cajon since I left NYC for the summer, but I didn't bring my cajon home with me to California. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get my hands on one in London either. However, this didn't stop me, I was determined to play some type of drum for the portion of devotional when we sing songs. As we were searching for a makeshift drum around the room that we were renting for devotional, we came across a first-aid kit. Still determined to get some sort of drum sound into the worship, we emptied out the first-aid kid to give it a more hollow/drum-y sound. Low and behold, it sounded really good, almost like a real drum. Thus, Friday night was the night I played a first-aid kit as a drum. It'll probably be the only time I'll ever do that, but it's definitely an experience I'll never forget. I mean, how many people get to say that they played a first-aid kit as a drum? The worship (song) part of the devotional that night was infinitely more fun and amusing for everyone.

Saturday was HOPE Day of Service! Every year, the London International Church of Christ sets aside a day when each region is able to serve the community as part of the HOPE worldwide UK effort. I'm currently living in South London, so I helped the South Side region on this day. We went to Sutton Community Farms and helped pick weeds out of the tomato plants. Although this might sound boring or bland or unappealing to some of you, I actually found it quite fun! The time went by so quickly, and I found the weed-picking quite therapeutic actually. The only downside was that there were a ton of spiders among the tomato plants, and I absolutely hate spiders. But other than that, I quite enjoyed serving – it almost made me want to work on a vegetable farm during the summer holiday. I also loved the beauty of the surrounding land – Sutton Community Farms was quite cut off from anywhere urban, so there were loads of fields filled with vegetables, fruits, flowers, etcetera. It was so amazing and beautiful, it reminded me a lot of the time my family and I spent in the English countryside several years back. I would love to experience more of the English countryside.

Nonetheless, my service shift was only from 9:30am until 1pm, so I still had about half a day ahead of me. This is when my friend (Jessica) and I (who is a fellow North American) decided that it's okay to be a tourist sometimes. Luckily, Jess is staying with a British family during this internship, and there is a girl our age among the family (Becca). We decided that Becca would be our tour guide for the evening. We met up around 6pm at the London Bridge Tube Station, and this is where our tourism began. We took the Tube to Waterloo Station, and from there we walked to the London Eye (about a half-mile walk) along the Thames, stopping at markets and stopping to take pictures along the way. Then we walked across Westminster Bridge while fawning over the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. We then walked past Houses of Parliament/Big Ben, still taking even more pictures, and walked over to Westminster Abbey. Of course, we took more pictures, and then walked from Westminster Abbey to Buckingham Palace. After fawning over Buckingham Palace for a while (taking still more pictures), we walked from Buckingham Palace to Trafalgar Square. There, we rested for a bit before heading home. Yes, this was an incredibly long walk (my feet hurt so bad and my legs were sore the next day), but we did all of this in less than 3 hours! However, we did make sure to take the time and really appreciate everything that London has to offer. It was such a wonderful evening, filled with great conversations, great sights, great pictures, and even greater friends. I'll post some picture from the evening down below this post. And like I said, it's okay to be a tourist sometimes!

On Sunday, we had a London-wide church service, so it included every church region in London (over 1,000 people)! It was amazing seeing all of the London's disciples together in one place. After church, a couple interns and I headed over to Camden Town to explore the markets. To be quite honest, I wasn't exactly a fan of Camden Town – I found it too overcrowded and too touristy, but I did have fun with the interns. After that, we all headed to one of the interns' flat, and we all had dinner together. Then we headed home for a good night of sleep before another busy week started. Toady (Monday) was about the same schedule that we've had the other days. Except this time after Bible discussion, instead of going to a park, we all went to the British Museum (which is really close to UCL). It was so amazing, and it was kind of déjà vu since I went with my family about six years ago – as soon as I walked in, all of these memories swarmed back. At the time, little did I know that I would be back in London in six years doing an amazing internship. God is so good – He's constantly blessing me with incredible opportunities.

Well, now that I'm all caught up, enjoy some pictures from my touristy Saturday! Have a wonderful week everyone, and I'll try to post again when I can!

Week One: [Almost] Done!

Hello there! I do apologize for my absence – I've been quite busy these past few days. I've also been running into trouble with acquiring wifi. I can only get wifi every so often, and when I do get wifi, I don't have much time to post. So my posts might be a bit more spread out than I first thought, but bear with me.

Anywho, where shall I begin? I believe the last time I posted was on Sunday, and it is now Thursday. Oh, dear! I've done so much in these past four days, and as I said in my title: I am almost done with my first week of the internship! I can't believe how fast it's going by, but at the same time I feel as if I've been here for ages. Tomorrow will mark a week since my arrival, but I feel as if I've been here for a month. It's weird how quickly you can become accustomed to a new place or a new way of life.

So let me tell you what I've been doing during this internship so far. We start everyday at 10am – not too early, which is wonderful. I'm not a morning person, you see. We start every morning with a lesson to set our minds and hearts on God for the rest of the day and for the rest of the internship, really. Then, we get some time after the lesson to talk amongst ourselves about how we can continue to grow in our faith and help others grow in theirs as well. Usually we finish all of this at about 12pm. Afterwards, we have lunch together as a group until about 1pm. We then head over to University College of London (UCL) to share our faith with other university students until Bible discussion (which we hold in a University of London café area at 3pm everyday). Then round 3:30pm, we (everyone who joined Bible discussion) all head over to a park to either hang out, play some football (also known as soccer for us Americans), or play some games. I pretty much summed up everything in short, because it would talk too long to describe it ALL. But each day is quite exhausting – we do a lot of walking and a lot of talking. My feet definitely hurt by the end of each day, and I sleep like a log every single night. And so far, the other interns and I have been able to see God really work in our lives and the lives of others as well. We are constantly having great conversations with others about God and the Bible, and we always have wonderful time together (as interns) as well. I already feel so close to the other interns, and I know they will be friends for life. There are 15 of us, but we've become such tight-knit family in such a short amount of time. Oh, and I've finally got a hang of the Tube system, which makes getting around London much, much easier now!

Now, let me tell you some interesting things that I've learned about London this week! Let me start off telling you what I dislike most about London, and one of the most appalling facts about London I have learned thus far: they do not serve iced coffee here. Can you believe it? No iced coffee. None at all, zip, nil. Sure, they'll serve you regular hot coffee. However, if you ask for iced coffee, they will either serve you an iced latte, an iced cappuccino, or a frappuccino of some sort. The closest you can come to iced coffee here is an iced Americano – they simply will not ice the coffee here. In fact, when I asked some of the other interns about this (most of them are from the UK), they didn't even know what iced coffee was. No, I don't mind drinking hot coffee, but I do love my iced coffee. So much, in fact, that I used to get an iced coffee everyday at NYU during the school year, even if it was -10ºF outside. But let's move on from this iced coffee dilemma and talk about other things, because I'm starting to crave iced coffee. So another interesting fact: UK students who want to go into medicine go into medicine straight away. They don't have four years of undergraduate pre-medicine and then four years of a separate medical school like we Americans have. They apply to university as a medical student (right out of 12th grade) and stay at the same university for a six-year medical program – from the moment they enter their first year of university, they are considered a medical student. And once their six years are over, they are doctors (considering that they passed all of their required exams)! It makes our process to become a physician seem so long and tedious. Also, since they don't have pre-medicine here, it's quite difficult to explain to the Brits what I'm doing at university – I end up telling most of them that I'm majoring in biology and on the road to becoming a doctor.

So there are some interesting facts about London/England/UK! There are many more interesting facts, of course, but sadly I can't detail them all. It is quite different here than America, but I absolutely love it. I wasn't so sure about studying abroad in London before I came here – I was kind of on the fence about it. However, after spending only a week in London, my desire to study abroad here has been completely solidified. I've already started my application for the spring semester study abroad program, and it's not even due until September! I hope (so badly) that I will be able to come back to London in the spring.

Well, I must be off, I need to get my rest, but I hope this post will suffice for now. I'll be sure to post within the next few days. But for now, enjoy these lovely photos of the Tower Bridge and the Thames! The other interns and I had lunch in Potters Fields Park today, so I made sure to grab some photos. The weather here has been quite beautiful, and it's only rained a few times. But I don't want to get sidetracked right now, I need sleep! Goodnight all – I hope your summers are going as lovely as mine.