February update (and xmas break cont.)

Sorry everybody that I haven’t written in so long! Life here is busy and getting busier as we approach the end of school (even though we still have 6 weeks left, we’re all aware they will go really quickly).

Before I continue my travel log from over Christmas break, here’s a brief update of what I’ve been up to lately:


~on Friday night, we had a "British night". It was an evening hosted by our 6 British students here at school full of quizzes about British history, geography, pop culture, etc. Since I didn't have any clothing with a British flag on it, I dressed in British colors (red and white) and painted a flag on my face =)In this picture I'm with my roommate Kaylene from Canada (in the middle) and our good friend Faye from Britain, who lives just 15 min. from school.

~All the students have been split into teams for our “10 day outreach”. We have teams of 4-12 students going all over the UK, some to Wales, some to Scotland, most to various places in England. Each team is partnered with the local church and helps them in whatever way the church chooses.

~I am on a 12 person team (the biggest team) to a town named Morley about 2 hours east of school. Our team will be doing a lot of school work (conducting assemblies and Bible classes in schools), distributing leaflets, inviting people on the street to free coffee and tea where we’ll have the opportunity to talk to them about Jesus, among other activities.

This is our team with the mayor of Morley. We went went to Morley for the pre-trip a week ago (January 31-Feb.1) to meet with the church and discuss what we'll be doing during the outreach itself. During the church's nightly prayer meeting, the mayor came by to have her picture taken with us for the local newspaper. =)

~This week, we have no “normal” lectures. This week is dedicated to preparing for this outreach (which we leave for on Feb. 27th). We have classes on all the many aspects of our outreaches, on everything from playing games with kids, to preaching.

On my birthday, Friday December 26th, Karena and I went to the train station only to find we were one of the many privileged travelers to be stuck in place by one of the many famous French strikes! Eventually we were able to get on a very slow train and finally arrive at our destination, our friend Anne-Sophie’s house. Anne-Sophie wanted to show us the place where she rides horses, so we biked to the field about 30 min. from her house. I brushed a horse for the 1st time in my life and discovered something that you don’t get a good feel for in movies, horses are very dirty! In fact, they get their hair and mud all over you too! haha Since we didn’t have enough horses available for all 3 of us girls plus Anne-Sophie’s friend to ride at the same time, we took turns. So I road a horse bare-backed with Anne-Sophie, holding on to her for dear life (falling off the horse didn’t sound too appealing)! But I survived and enjoyed my 1st real horse-back riding experience. Then the 3 of us biked back to Anne-Sophie’s place (even overcoming the obstacle of a flat bike tire) and had a small dinner at her house before getting back on the train to go back to the Lippoldts where we were staying on the other side of Paris. We arrived back at midnight, very exhausted due to all the train delays!

Here's me, Karena, and Anne-Sophie from the time we visited Anne-Sophie the 1st night we were in Paris.

Saturday the 27th was one of my favorite days. Karena and I went to Versailles, the famous French palace, (only about 20 min. from where we were staying). Even in winter, the grounds were so pretty and peaceful.
As we walked around the property, I had flashbacks of when I had been there when I was little with my family when we lived in Paris. I remembered one particular picture of my brother and I posing in front of what I thought was Versailles, but I looked for the spot and couldn’t find it. So who knows where we are in that picture!

That evening, Karena and I stayed in a small hotel and enjoyed watching a little bit of television for the 1st time in 4 months, even though it was in French. =) we had a good time making voice-overs for French shows which we couldn’t totally understand.

Sunday the 28th, we woke up bright and early to jump on an early morning train to Luxembourg! Since we purchased a rail pass to the Netherlands that included the small countries of Luxembourg and Belgium, we thought we’d make the most of our money and visit those 2 countries briefly as well! So we spent 1 day in Luxembourg and were really surprised how quickly we saw all the city’s sites (Luxembourg is both the name of the country and the capital city) while lugging our luggage around (since it was too early to check into our hostel). The city wasn’t quite as small to Karena who is a small town girl, coming from a town of 15,000. but believe me it was small for being the capital and only main city of a country! Then again, it is Luxembourg…
We enjoyed going to a museum which had information about this small country’s history and getting to see a wall from Babylonian times! Unfortunately the caves were closed. =(
These are part of Luxembourg's pretty ruins. =)

We left the next morning on another train to Brussels, Belgium. While in Brussels, we had some delicious Belgium waffles, walked around the town square, and saw the famous “peeing boy” statue.

We arrived in Rotterdam, The Netherlands late at night and were so happy to see our roommate Angelique and her dad ready to greet us on the train platform!

We stayed with Angelique and her family for a full week. Karena and I really enjoyed the comfort of staying in a home with a family where we would talk together and drink tea often, or watch a movie together, have a family dinner, etc. It was the most relaxing week I had had in months.
Constance, John, and Angelique Van de Heuvel, and Karena, and me in their living room.

While in the Netherlands, the Van de Heuvels took us to see their local windmill. It was unique in that it is one of the few mills that is still working and producing flour in the Netherlands. Fortunately, the day we visited, the mill was turned off so we got to have a tour of the entire insides of the mill.

We also visited 2 beaches on the Dutch coast. It was so cold that there was frost on the sand! (I didn’t even know that was possible!).

Karena and I were staying with Angelique over her birthday and celebrated it by going out to a tea shop with her and her best friend.
This was a true tea party: we had 5 courses of tea and 3 courses of mini sandwiches, snacks, and desserts. We were all so stuffed that we couldn’t fit our 6th course of tea in!

We were also in the Netherlands over New Year’s and celebrated this in the comfort of Angelique’s home. We watched the London fireworks display on TV, and Dutch concerts in celebration of the New Year on TV. But the unique element of the evening was watching neighbor’s fireworks from the comfort of Angelique’s living room window! In the Netherlands, large fireworks are legal for individuals to put off. i.e. the kind of fireworks that we would consider large and for professional use only is the kind that everyone is allowed to use in the Netherlands! So many people put off their own fireworks that we had more fireworks to watch than we do at professional shows!

There are so many more things to share about our time over vacation! Next post I summarize the last leg of the trip in Austria. Until then, you can check out my 2nd travel photo album on facebook which has more (a lot more) pictures of our time in Luxembourg, Brussels, and the Netherlands.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=86304&l=f0822&id=720019947

A little bit more about activities since break:

This past Saturday I went on a walk with friends (below)to what we affectionately call "the ruins" (it's a stone house that's falling down and in reality it's probably not too old, but it's much more exciting to pretend it's an old abandoned castle or something).

The ruins are about a 20 minute walk from campus and you have to walk through a field of “highland cattle” to get there. (below) They remind me of bison from old west stories.


We decided to make the walk more exciting by creating a whole pretense for our adventure. So we made up a mission and each of us had a special power and character name. We also saw horses in the field and stopped to pet them and try to feed them grass.

We had a great time using our creativity and going walking around in the fields and then we all went back to school, had hot chocolate, and wrapped ourselves in blankets and watched a movie! =)

Spring must be on its way (even in England) because over the past 2 weeks, we have signs of new life on campus! The “snowdrop” flowers are sprouting up in fields (delicate, little, white, bell-shaped flowers) and lambs are being born! Last week, I visited the barn where are dozens of expecting mothers (sheep) waiting to give birth. There were already a few, I even got to see one sheep with triplets that were born only 30 min. prior to my visit! (Sheep typically have 1-3 babies in each litter, 2 is most desirable) It was amazing to see baby sheep that were walking only minutes after they’d been born!

This is the farmer Ray (whose wife Rachel went to winter school with Steve in '92-93) who takes care of all the sheep on campus. It was wonderful to see God’s creativity and power displayed in His creation, even in something as small as a little lamb.

Two weeks ago we had a live game of “Clue”. It was like the children’s board game clue using real people that we had to question in different rooms all over campus. It was a very inventive evening. The staff staged a little skit to introduce the Manor’s lord and his family and staff. Then suddenly the lights went off and we heard a gun shot! The lights were turned by on and a man lay “dead” on the floor! We then split into teams and had to question staff members in various locations: there was the cook in the school cafeteria, the groundskeeper in the library, the maid in the lounge, the gardener in the tower, the doctor and the crazy old lady, the lord’s daughters, etc. My friends Kaylene and Faye and I dressed up as detectives to celebrate the evening. We each wore a trench coat, slacks, heals, and sunglasses. I even borrowed one of the guy’s fedora hats. =) Then we saw that 2 of the other girls had had the same idea and dressed up so the 5 of us took some detective pictures together! =) (below)
Well that's it for now! I hope you are all well and look forward to sharing the next part of my experience with you on here soon. =)
Love to all,
Sarah