Greetings, dear reader!
I can't believe it's the end of another incredibly awesome weekend (it does seem like I'm having a lot of those types of weekends, these days). Don't get me wrong, I love ministry, and what the LMD has been doing since the school started. I must say that I've enjoyed working with the King's Kids children the most (I just don't like teaching). It's just that YWAM Urban Key's day and a half off (yesterday afternoon and today) have been really crazy good. Yeah, a moment of bad grammar there, I know, but it's true. I have sore feet and legs now, even though I was wearing flat boots. Now before I muddle you up further with my ramblings, I should explain in better detail what I've been up to over the last few days.
Yesterday (Sunday) evening was the Life Line church, at the pub at Notting Hill. I really enjoyed it, despite being quite tired. It was drizzling a little when I left the Dartmouth house and, because I was traveling alone (the other girls were biking), I went with the Tube (I blipped the above picture), and returned afterwards with one of the LMD staff. The discussions were interesting and I really enjoyed listening to what the others had to say and occasionally giving my opinion. I like knowing what others opinions are about the question that's been asked, and some of these questions have a number of different answers, also other people have grown up in different environments than I have and have experience in other areas, so by listening, I've been able to pick up a lot. Sometimes, I'm just quiet because I'm tired after a busy week. Another thing that made my weekend was that last night I was also able to have a really good chat with a British friend of mine, without having to worry about my internet being totally drained by the call (even without webcams).
Yesterday afternoon, I decided that I really should enjoy living in London and see what I can. So I crawled out of my nice warm bed and went sightseeing. Yes, we went on a LMD tour of London when the school first started, but today I took advantage of my day off and went to the Tower of London. It's one of the oldest buildings here and has strong historical sagnificance. It's somewhere I've really wanted to go to for a while now. I've had a deep love of history, which has been passed down to me from my parents, who used to take us to castles and manor houses whenever we were back in England and the Netherlsnds as a family. So I spent about three hours there and I was also able to pay the student fee, which was about £4 off the adult fee. It was amazing!
I then went to the National Art Gallery, which was free. However the exhibit I wanted to see was closed. They were hanging a painting and thus the general public weren't aloud in. So I wondered around and then left. I then decided to go and see Buckingham Palace. It was quite a walk, there and back, but I had my iPod. Though sadly, I missed the changing of the guards at the Palace. You see, they change in the morning, not in the evening. I'm still new in London, so I don't really know where places are, so I do find it quite amusing that people ask me where places are and then give me weird looks when I tell them, in my very English accent, that I have absolutely no idea how to get there from Buckingham Palace.
Despite the fact that I'm totally exhausted, I'm thrilled that I was able to do what I did today. It was so worth every penny I spent and every footstep I took. It was well worth the early start and the sleep I could have had, but didn't end up getting (I went to bed too late last night because I just couldn't fall asleep and ended up watching a documentary on BBC iplayer about South Africa and writing some stuff). I want to quickly progress through the photograph captions, as I'm suddenly quite tired and my iPad battery's about to die. The first photograph is of the famous Traitor's Gate, the imfoumous gate through which traitors to the crown were taken to the tower and, usually, to their deaths (Traitor's Gate is no longer accessible to the river but as you can see there is still water there); the Bloody Tower, in this tower a lot of the tortures took place; The Tower of London, taken from outside the tunnel to Tower Hill Underground Station; Buckingham Palace in her splendor; and, on the right, the angel monument that stands in front of Buckingham Palace.