Well, When I lived in London..

11.38am. Somewhere between London and Manchester, UK.

Knowing that you all feast upon my every word, I must first apologize for my lack of posting. I hope that you can understand that I have been very busy living experiences as opposed to writing about them all the time. I'm sure we will all have plenty of time to recount our favorite "Well, when I lived in [London | Barcelona | Florence | Flint]..." stories. That's not ever going to get old. (I wish there was some sort of sarcastic font I could use.) Anyway, when I lived in London, it was amazing.

Right now I am traveling from London to Manchester by way of a Virgin Rail train. Usually, I have lecture everday for three hours (from 2-5) and class in the mornings for and hour (11-12). As you might guess, this leaves very little time for tomfoolery during the day, and indeed excludes the option of a long weekend thanks to Friday class until 5. We did recieve a warning on the day of our orientation that this was not, by any means, a holiday. Great! But I decided that since I haven't yet missed a class, I deserved at least one, especially to tour Old Trafford: The Theatre of Dreams.

I really have learned a lot in my class (Judgement and Decision Making for Managers) but have learned as much or more in the pubs. The pubs are a huge part of their culture and I wish it was the same back home. Here are some things that i have been taught by my friends from around the world.

Americans love marshmallows.
We love PB&J.
We dress poorly.
We don't know how to dance properly.
We are loud.
Many Europeans pay more attention to our politics than theirs.
George Bush is a Methodist (They really pay attention.)
We are narrow minded.
Obama is everyone's favorite.
Everyone in France knows about Paris, Texas.
Most people love Texas.
Texans often say, "Hey y'all why don't you come to my ranch and eat beef jerky."
Also, "Later Alligator."

Those are just a few of the many things the Europeans have told me about the US and Texas. It's fun to hear what they think about us, although its not usually very good, but perhaps very true. The pubs generally lend themselves to great conversations, I don't know what it is about them but that's how it seems to work. For example, I was at the pub the other night with Dixie Houser, Abbey Konz (who were both traveling through), and some of my friends from the LSE. Two of the people there were Alexander from Spain, literally one of the coolest people that I know, and his equally cool girlfriend Anna, from Canada. They met in Paris while they were studying two years ago and now both live in Spain, no big deal. We were talking about her thesis on religion and propaganda in politics when the conversation turned to each of our religious beliefs. Both of them, being terribly smart, were asking very deep questions and were genuinely interested because they had never really heard it before. The level of questions was that of Predestination vs Freewill and the Perseverance of the Saints. They kept saying things like "You don't have to talk about it, if we are offending you by asking please let us know." Very cool. They just kept asking and asking and we got to tell them all about Christianity and the whole Gospel story over a beer (don't tell Grandma.) The funniest part was when they asked if we believed in abstinence and we said yes, Alex put his hands up and said "Wait wait wait, you.. (pointing at me) you believe in this?" I had to laugh while saying "I do indeed." It was a really fun conversation and they seemed genuinely interested. Amazing how God works.

Although class takes a lot of my time, I've managed to still have fun. I've seen all the touristy things, I've played soccer in Hyde Park, I've gone shopping, I've gone to Hillsong Church London, and I've hung out a lot with my friends. Sunday, while taking a stroll through Hyde Park I happened upon Speaker's Corner, an area of the park where people stand up on small ladders, or hang from lampposts (pictured) to rant and rave. (They stand off the ground so they can talk about the Queen. If they speak poorly of the Queen while on British soil, they can be arrested.) It's a really cool place. I walked up on the first speaker (the one pictured) screaming in a Middle Eastern language, turns out he was screaming about politics in the Middle East. I walked about to the back to take some cool pics when one of the men pointed at me and shouted something in his language. At that point, all of them turned and looked at me. So there I was, most obviously an American, with my camera, and around 100 Middle Eastern men looking at me. Having no idea what was just said I did the only sensible thing: slowly raised my hand and gave a sheepish wave. Something else was said and everyone laughed. I left shortly after that.

The next thing I saw was a man in a wheelchair doing the ol' fire and brimstone speech. He had engaged two or three Muslims and was telling them how they were sinners. I stopped to listen for a bit and more and more people gathered until there were about 20, mostly men, mostly Muslim. At one point a Muslim man name Arif said "Well even you're Bible says that Jesus was a sinner," to which I had to speak up and say, "Excuse me?" From that point on it was me and him for about 2 hours, with up to thirty Muslims looking on. It was so much fun! He was very polite and we talked sensibly for a very, very long time about Jesus and what they believe. I will tell you what, they know the Bible in a way the few Christians do. He was quoting, referencing, and giving me history of the language of the verses. I was amazed. It's a shame we don't do the same, but that's a whole other post. Somewhere in the conversation he half jokingly said, "I hope you aren't an American, because I'm an Iraqi." I said, "I am, and I'm from Texas!" He laughed and patted me on the shoulder, someone in the crowd formed their hands into dual handguns* and made shooting noises. God bless Texas. Needless to say, he didn't convert and neither did I, but hopefully I left him with some things to think about, as he did for me.

I later got into another discussion, this time about 10 clearly Muslim men surrounding just me as it was getting dark. All in all a pretty good day and something I'll never forget.


For those readers who are still with me, I hope you have enjoyed my recounting of a few of my adventures. Soon I will be posting pictures of my trip to Manchester and the tour of the stadium. I'll also keep you updated about Monty Python's Spamalot, which I am going to see on Thursday. I can't wait to get back to school, I hope you all plan on coming back early so we can party like its Freshman year. I'm so grateful for such a solid group of people surrounding me, I have indeed missed that.

To all you lurkers: come out of the woodworks, I miss hearing from you.




Until the next time I see you,

aaron




*get it?