First, I must apologize for not posting for over a week. We are now completely settled in London and we have been busy attending lectures, visiting sites around the city, discovering the nightlife, and mastering The Tube.

I’ve seen many things so far:
St. Joan at the National Theater
The Merchant of Venice at The Globe
John Wesley’s House and museum of Methodist History
Buckingham Palace
Parliament
The Cabinet War Rooms and Churchill Museum
The National Gallery

Basically each day we have lectures for a couple hours in the morning and then we are off to explore the city for the rest of the day. It is a pretty good arrangement. The weather was great the first few days but lately it has been rainy London as expected. The weather held out for our weekend trip to Eastbourne where we saw the chalk cliffs on the coast, quite beautiful. I have noticed lately after browsing through art galleries and taking photos on my own that I love landscape photography. Luckily for me there was an exhibit at the National Theater of the UK’s best landscape photos. If you want to be inspired go here (http://www.take-a-view.co.uk/2007_winners.htm).

One of the main highlights of the week was finding a church community to become involved in. A few us have been going to the College Ministry and worship at Holy Trinity Brompton, an evangelical Anglican Church right down from Harrod’s. Holy Trinity created the Alpha Course which I know many of you have done or heard about it. All of the students there have been very accepting of us and we have met a lot of great people. It is a very international group and it is amazing to worship with people from all over the globe.

I had the exciting opportunity to photograph some monks from Burma the other day protesting in front of the foreign affairs office (pictures will be up soon) and while I was doing so a local man asked me if I knew who was responsible for the current conflict in Burma. I knew what he was going to say before he opened his mouth and I proved correct – it was George Bush’s fault. I asked him how so and he went into a diatribe about Iraq, the Chinese Olympics, Sudan, and brought all of these points together and ultimately told me that the only way the conflict would be solved is by the USA intervening and putting troops over there. I stood there perplexed by his logic and arguments as he quickly moved on. I really was happy he stopped and talked to me. It was a nice change from people avoiding eye contact at all costs while walking on the street or on the train. Sometimes I try to make eye contact with people just so they don’t forget what it is like.

The latest observation Keith and I have had is that bread molds a lot faster over here. After about 4 days (sealed) mold begins to form and we can’t figure out why. All of the loaves were labeled no preservatives but I think we need them in our bread. Is this normal?

We just moved in to our room for the next 39 nights at the Royal National Hotel in London. All packages should be sent to:

Jonathan Andersen
Room 1222
Royal National Hotel
Bedford Way
London
WC1H ODG
United Kingdom

The part about sending packages was a joke, but the good news is I have free internet access from my hotel room, and anyone who knows me well knows how excited I am right now.

If you have been to London before, I would really appreciate an email with great places to visit, eat, travel, etc. so that I can maximize my time here.

We’ve left York and are on our way to the city of Bath. We only had one day to explore York but I was able to make it to Evensong at York Minster and it was a great opportunity. Worshipping in the largest gothic cathedral north of Italy was stunning and the two hour tour I took of it wasn’t long enough to even get a glimpse of its history. Out of all the old churches we have visited, I could feel the spirit and love of Christ in this one the most. Everyone there was vibrant and glad to say that the reason the cathedral was so magnificent was to reflect the glory and power of God and to honor him.

I have been a part of many culture clashes thus far on the trip, but one of the most funny was last night at the Mexican restaurant we went to in honor of Sally’s 21^st birthday. First, there are no free refills like everywhere in Europe so that was fine. Then our group of 20 realized chips and salsa weren’t free so we ordered some ($5.00 for each basket). They arrived and it was a portion big enough for a three year old. We were fine with the lack of free refills on chips and salsa and 2 hours later our food came out. They never separate checks so we all pay in cash in one big pot which always causes drama. But in spite of all the differences I enjoy the culture because it causes us to stay longer, slow down, and enjoy each other’s company more.

Today was our longest bus ride, 9 hours since we left now, but we try and make the time pass by sleeping, reading, and playing games. We just finished a makeshift game of Family Feud where I was Pat Sajaks and I got to choose the top 5 answers for each question. I’ll be in London in two days so all you cultured people reading this who have been to London before please email me all the sites I must see.

I had only seen one sunrise since we had come over so I decided to set it out my first morning in Edinburgh to watch it and try and take some good photographs. Bridget, who is always up for an adventure as well, came along with me and after asking the bell clerk at 6:00 am where the best spot to watch the sunrise was he directed us to a place called Calton Hill. The sunrise was beautiful and up on this cold hill full of monuments we saw a man who had a camera as well. He was also packing up a tent so we talked to him and found out his interesting story. His name was Youseff Shiban, a Christian Palestinian who went to university in Germany. (His blog http://visitingthekingdom.blogspot.com )

After hearing his story Bridget and I no longer felt quite so adventurous. Youseff and his friend were literally backpacking all over the UK living in tents and staying in people’s houses while hitchhiking rides everywhere. He informed me that in Scotland anyone can sleep on public property so he just set up his tent in different parks that suited him. Luckily, he didn’t have to do this often since he and his friend were “couch surfers”. I was familiar with this concept but I’m sure the general public is not. Basically, people all over the world post on the internet that they have an extra couch for anyone coming through town to use and travelers call them to see if its open at that time. (http://www.couchsurfing.com) Nana and Papa, I know you have a lot of extra rooms in your house so I went ahead and listed that you had 3 rooms ready for anyone coming through Conyers.

I saw all the major tourist sites in Edinburgh like St. Giles cathedral, the castle, the Walter Scott monument, and lots of others. The ugliest site I visited was their parliament which looked like a new age coffee shop turned into legislative chambers. You should look it up on google images. Keith, being the rugby expert on the trip, found out that a match of the Rugby World cup was being played in the city one of the nights we were there so we got tickets and watched Scotland tear the Romania team to pieces. At the end a streaker ran onto the field – of course he was quickly detained by police.

Living out of a suitcase is getting old as well as washing clothes in a sink. London will be here soon enough and I can’t wait.

After riding the coach around so much in the coach we were all starting to feel pretty lazy since none of us have been exercising much and we constantly eat out. Any laziness was kicked out of us today as our strong and fearless leader, Dr. Pate, led our expedition to the top of the third highest mountain in all of England – Helvellyn. I know many of you reading this have been to the Lake District and you know that it is impossible to put into words what it looks like. Everywhere I turned mountains surrounded me and lakes dotted the horizon. Since it rains all the time everything is green and I wanted to take 1000 pictures, but I tried to limit myself. Every landscape is a piece of art and it has probably been written about, photographed, or painted before.

The hike was optional but about 20 of us took the challenge. Dr. Pate gave a foreboding speech about how tough the hike would be and how good shoes and warm clothes were mandatory – some people thought she was joking. When we were halfway up the weather turned very cold and it began to rain. Persevering on we made it to the summit and the view from the top was magnificent. I know I’ll be back here to hike around one day. Be sure and check out the photos.

I’m now on a ferry leaving Belfast to head over to Scotland where we will proceed to the Lake District of England. After visiting some terribly boring prehistoric ancient mounds we toured Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Many neighborhoods are still sharply divided between Protestant and Catholics this city, but in the main part of the city there seemed to be little conflict. Belfast had a much more religious feel than the previous cities I visited. There were Protestant churches all over the place and even a few evangelical bookstores. It was very much a college city hosting thousands of young students. We got to tour the site where the Titanic was built as well as City Hall. Then we visited some murals throughout the city – including all of the ones dedicated to George W. Bush and American foreign policy. I wish instead of wasting colorful paint on murals regarding us, those artists would instead try to fix all of the dilapidated buildings throughout the city and focus on unity in their own nation.

I am starting to notice how all of us on the trip are repeating outfits multiple days in a row and one kid supposedly only brought one pair of underwear, but I won’t type his name.