WEEK 4 -aka 1 whole month!!!

Greetings from our lovely land of England!
It's amazing that today marks the end of our first MONTH here!! yikes!
The internet connection is allowing me to upload pictures at the moment so I will put up as many as I can! =)

As a briefly mentioned at the end of my last post, on Monday we decided to put all this rain to good use and run wild in the mud!
This is our "before" picture. We already have a bit of mud on our pants because it was really messy even just getting to that spot.

And we're off! by the way, this is not a lake, but a huge puddle that was created in the middle of one of the pastures. it was actually not very muddy at all, just very wet! It was so cold we were already shivering before we went in the water! There are some things that photos simply can't convey adequately, including wind and temperature. It was so cold that we hoped we would go numb so we wouldn't have to feel how cold we were! We had to climb over some of the sheep fences to get there and I later discovered that I had cut my foot on the barbed wire fence (when I saw red on my foot and wondered what it was...haha) but not to worry, by that time we were back in the castle and I got it all cleaned up! =)


Then right before we started having frostbite, we made a quick pyramid and then ran back to the castle to take warm showers and go to dinner! =)



Every once in a while, we have a brilliant sunset. Here is one of them -I didn't touch the picture, this is non-edited so you can image how beautiful it really was in person! We had just walked out of the dinning hall after dinner (so yes, the sun sets very early!) and I saw how beautiful the sky was, so we ran up to the tower so we could have a better view!


The fields are so lovely to just walk through. There is a walking path that goes around part of the property dubbed "the loop". however, I prefer to put on my rainboots and walk through the constantly muddy & wet grass. It's so much more freeing and whimsical to not follow the designated path!


This is the Conference Hall, where we have all our lectures, Church services, and sometimes watch group movies on the screen projector. We have assigned seats and sit in the same spot every day. My seat is on the right side of the picture, kind of in one of the middle rows, and on the aisle. I sit next to a guy from Oregon named Collin.


Here is the dining hall. we eat our meals here. go figure =)
the quietest meal is always breakfast because even though it is the only mandatory meal, people sleep in past it or just wake up before it so they're still half asleep and don't talk too much. When I'm awake enough to observe all the half-asleep people, it is pretty comical.


Here's Maggie, my 20 year-old roommate from Arkansas in our room trying to climb into the mysterious storage compartment. She eventually succeeded in accessing it from the room next door whose cabinet is closer to their door to it. It was pretty funny.


This is Erin and me during the dance maybe 2 weeks ago? Erin is good friends with my roommate Korina. We were all so hot and sweaty, it was disgusting but we were having so much fun!

Speaking of dancing, last Sunday after church, Korina asked me if I'd teach her some ballroom dancing so Korina, Erin, and I went to the gym so I could teach them. On our way we mentioned what we were doing to a few people and by the end of my lesson, we had about 30 there! So tomorrow, I am going do another group lesson, this time on swing. I found a guy named James who has done some swing before so we practiced yesterday and will be teaching tomorrow. =)I am by no means an amazing proficient in ballroom but am enjoying and looking forward to passing my knowledge onto others because that means we can then dance together! =)


These 2 pictures are from when we went to the Lake District 3(!) weeks ago on our first full Saturday at Capernwray! You can see better here how much water there was to walk through! It was not like this the whole way but we did cross several "streams" like this. Thankfully I wore rainboots. I felt bad for the people wearing sneakers because they were probably carrying an extra 2 lbs or water around in their feet! =)


The area really was pretty when you stopped to look. the key was to remember to stop and look! =) (instead of concentrating on how much your feet hurt, how hard it was raining, how wet you were, etc.)

Regarding my plans for Christmas break, I don't have anything in stone yet. But both my non-American roommates have invited me to come stay with them in Austria and Holland. Another girl here named Rebecca is from London (we have 3 girls from Britain who are all named Rebecca!!!) and she also invited me to come stay with her. I have also been talking with the Wells in Spain and hope to visit them too! I have been really surprised at how many students are going home for Christmas and so that decreases the number of students I could possibly travel around with. If you could just keep the planning of timing of everything in your prayers that would be most appreciated!

Well it is almost brunch time on my Saturday morning so I need to run. I have a full day of activities but will write sometime later about what I've done this past week!
Blessings and love to all!
~Sarah