The BEST WEEKEND of My Life

If you have ever met me before, you may know that I love to describe everything as “the best thing in the entire world!” or perhaps, for some variation, as “the best thing that has ever happened to me!” Most people roll their eyes at my obvious enthusiasm and tell me that I am exaggerating and that whatever has recently happened to me is actually not the best thing that ever happened. This then starts the frequently repeated discussion where I explain that it really is the best thing that ever happened, because it was happening at the same time as I remembered all of the other wonderful things that ever happened to me. And if something wonderful happens tomorrow it will be even better because tomorrow I will also have the memories of today and every other day!!

Most people think I am crazy.

On that note, this weekend was possibly the best weekend of my entire life! For one thing, I did not even have to solve even ONE math problem or attend ANY extremely long lectures. Instead I got to spend the weekend learning about the Word of the Lord and fellowshipping with Christian friends (and drinking lots of tea!) At this point you are probably wondering to yourself, how did Holly manage to have such an awesome weekend?? What a great question! Cornerstone St. Andrews (the church I have been attending here in Scotland) decided they would arrange a weekend away for the Uni students and I decided I would go along.

At first that may seem like an easy enough decision to you: to leave on a Friday afternoon and go for a weekend away in Comrie with your fellow Christian students. Sounds easy, but I was really scared. After all, I have only been in Scotland for one month (today is my one month anniversary in Scotland!) and have only known these girls for a couple of weeks. What if they did not like me? What if I had an awful time? What if they all thought my American accent was weird and decided not to talk to me for the entire weekend! I was quite scared about how the weekend would go.

Despite my somewhat ridiculous fears, the weekend turned out wonderfully! We left on Friday afternoon and drove for about two hours to a small house in a small town called Comrie. Let me tell you, Comrie has got to be one of the most beautiful places ever! It is surrounded by rolling hills, forests, and rivers with riverbeds of small stones. It was one of the most beautiful places in the entire world! One of my favourite parts of the weekend was going out to the river each morning to spend a half hour praying and reading the Word.

Honestly, I am not quite sure who WOULDN’T want to live here!!

The theme of our weekend was ‘Facing Reality.’ We talked about how in our Christian lives surrounding our whole selves to God is more than an afternoon walk in the park and much more than occasional afternoon or evening entertainment. In our small groups we talked about how surrendering your life to God is something that is more about asking the Lord to change your heart and your thoughts than just trying to be a “better Christian” by just doing more “religious stuff.” It is about changing your entire outlook on life and living your entire life for God. We also had an amazing speaker (called Laurence) from the Netherlands who came with us for the weekend and shared his testimony about how he surrendered his life to the Lord at the age of 17 and the ways that the Lord has grown him in maturity and understanding since that time.

A favourite memory from the weekend occurred on Saturday afternoon. After lunch on Saturday we were given a free afternoon until dinner. I was sitting there thinking to myself, what am I going to do with myself all afternoon? Everybody here looks like they all are going to have fun things to do, but what if none of them wants to do anything with me?? But before I could worry anymore about how I would entertain myself, the girls from my Bible study group invited me to come the nearby town of Crief with them! And we had the most FANTASTIC time! We went to a coffee shop to have some tea/coffee and then we went to the park. Let me tell you, Scotland playgrounds have the funnest toys EVER! At first I was not sure if they would all think I was crazy if I threw my backpack on the ground and ran over to the swings and bouncy things, but then I decided that the opportunity was too good to miss!

You have got to admit it looks like a lot of fun! We were running around like crazy! 🙂

After this wonderful weekend in Comrie, I am starting to realize that I really love being in Scotland. I love the scenery, and the weather, and the people I have met. I LOVE the girls in my small group and the time we spend studying the Word together every Thursday evening. I am really starting to feel like I am part of a community here in Scotland!

The 8 girls who went to Crief: 4 mums and their 4 academic daughters!

(P.S. Another sweet moment occurred on the first night we arrived in Comrie. My small group of 8 girls were all staying in one room together in a set of 4 bunk beds. That night everyone was getting ready for bed when I went to take a shower. I took quite a long time and expected everyone to have gone to bed when I got out. I came into our room to find that everyone HAD gone to bed, but that they had left the light on for me anyways! All seven of them were rolled up in their duvets like little burritos to keep the light out, but left it on for me so I would not have to search for my bed in a strange place in the dark. It was one of the sweetest things ever and made me feel really welcomed and loved ❤ )

We were quite excited to find a sweet shop in Crief! 🙂

 

The liberal arts experience

I would just like to say that I adore going to a liberal arts college.  There is little more exciting [at least for me] than making endless connections among disciplines and having the pieces fall into place. For example: a world civ lecture on Greek philosophers the other day helped me figure out how to finish a paper on Rousseau for my Family Theory class.  A couple of days later, an American Government lecture on Calvinism helped put Rousseau in context even better for me.  I constantly find overlaps with psychology and every other subject.

I also love just learning.  In my Sensation & Perception class, we have been discussing the psychophysiology of the brain as it relates to vision.  I now walk around campus thinking about how the parts of my eyeballs, the optic nerves, and all of the various areas of my brain are constantly working together to make sense of the world.  Our homework assignments for this class are always quite fun as well: for example, last night I got to play with Play-Doh!

Our professors at Erskine are truly an exceptional source of information.  I frequently find myself, on my way to or from class or errands on campus, running into a professor and spending the next 20-60 minutes discussing life, classes, future plans, and almost any other topic you could imagine.  I found my professors in St. Andrews to be quite easily approachable, but not in the unique way that makes Erskine the strong, close-knit community that it is.  My favourite part of studying here (yes: studying can be fun!) is coming across quotes from professors as I review class notes.  My pen is always poised to copy funny comments during class.  I truly love being around sociable intellectuals: they are truly witty.  (I’d like to note that this also applies to so many students here as well.  Academia is wonderful.)

One of my favourite examples of this happened just a few days ago.  Dr. Christie, our acting president and probably the best English teacher I have ever had in my life, gave the address for the formal opening of the college and seminary.  (That’s a lot of words to say that school has officially begun.  Let the work commence!)  I had to laugh when, sitting with the Choraleers in the balcony of Due West ARP church before it started, I saw on the program that the title of his address was “Dude! Alas!”  Only Dr. Christie could tie the word “dude” into Scripture so effectively.  Curious as to how this could be?  Watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eqU7X85GGY&feature=youtu.be.  The Secret Sevens even make their way in to the ceremony.  I much prefer this one to the alarm clocks a few years ago…

I wish I had photos to add to this post, because that’s one of my favourite parts about blogging; alas, I have none.  I promise to make up for it in the next post though!  I should probably go catch up on homework though…being a senior is no easy task.  If you have any recommendations I would be happy to hear them.

A Little Bit of Tradition

If you hear someone talking about “tradition” in the States, it almost always comes with a negative connotation. At least in my experience it has. I am not sure if this comes from the fact that Americans want to be free from the rest of the world or if it is strangely left over from the protestant reformation or the popularity of the protestant church in the States, but people don’t really seem to value old traditions.

Coming to St. Andrews has already taught me an entirely new meaning of the word. People here love tradition and there are plenty of opportunities to participate. Since being here I have already encountered many lovely traditions that I am very excited to participate in.

Some of the traditions are quite random. They have one here called the Pier Walk. As far as I can tell, several Sundays per year students don their red gowns and meet at the pier to walk… on the pier. They start at one side of the pier and walk down and back. No one is entirely sure how this tradition originated, and yet almost everyone participates. St. Andrews also loves it, and takes hundreds of pictures for postcards and advertisements. I am very excited to participate in this tradition!

Students walking along the pier in their red robes!

My favorite tradition is the St. Andrews tradition of academic families. Every year when all of the new students arrive they are each adopted by an academic mother and academic father. Students are not assigned academic parents, but when an older student meets a younger student they like they might ask if they can adopt them. Some people are academically married and adopt children together, but most parents are not. The first night Tiffany and I went out we were fortunate enough to meet some really sweet girls who quickly adopted us, and a few hours later we also met our academic father. So we have the same father but different mothers… lol 😛 Academic parents help their children not get quite so lost during their freshmen year and also throw a huge party for them halfway through the first semester (More to come on this later!!)

Another thing that is more traditional is the Scottish ceilidh. I have never been to one but… good news! In about two hours Tiffany and I will be at our very first ceilidh for the year! So very soon you will hear all about it! But I best start getting ready before it is too late….. 😛

The First Few Days in Scotland

In case you have been out of the loop on the life and story of Holly, last Friday I left the United States (for the first time) and flew to the UK for my official semester abroad at the University of St. Andrews. I wrote a cute little post right before I left all about how nervous I was and how I thought my heart would beat right out of my chest, but I have no posted since then! Hopefully you were not all too concerned that my heart actually did beat out of my chest due to my lack of posting. Let me assure you, I am alive.

Flying was quite the experience. I had never flown before and I had no idea what to expect. Do you know what happens when you fly somewhere?? You leave the ground! As in, the wheels of the plane are no longer connected to the earth. It is like this: one minute you are just chilling on the runway and the next it is like OMG I AM IN THE AIR HOW DID I GET HERE???? I held Tiffany’s hand and decided I probably didn’t need to worry about a will since I am so young. The whole process from leaving Tiffany’s house to arriving at St. Andrews took about 22 hours and made me wonder how people ever get the motivation to leave their nice, warm, and comfortable beds. I also realized that I could go ahead and cross “flight attendant” and “pilot” off of the list of possible career choices! 😛

Tiffany and I about to leave SC for our flight to Scotland!

Of course, the taxi driver who took us from the Edinburgh airport to the University thought it would be a great idea to drop Tiffany and I off as far away as humanly possible from our dorm! (We live in John Burnet Hall and he dropped us by the David Russell Apartments.) I am shocked he didn’t just drive us back to London and tell us to walk from there!! The walk to our dorm took us over an hour, not only because DRA is a long way off from JBR, but also because we were carrying 70 lbs worth of luggage and we were lost. One could say that we were happy to arrive at our dorm!

Our first day in St. Andrews was spent in town trying to buy things. Because we were only allowed 72 lbs of luggage, we had no space in our suitcases for duvets, sheets, pillows, or things of that nature. We got here at 3 pm and immediately had to leave to try to run and buy things to sleep on before the shops closed in town. Fortunately for us, we still had about two hours left in the day to do this. Unfortunately, about a thousand other students also had the same idea. We went to the local bedding store and found them to already have sold out on every single duvet in the entire store! So we had to run around to other random stores and see if they might be willing to sell us something. We got our duvet covers from the bedding shop, the duvets from a random clothing store, and our pillows from the grocery store (Tesco)!

This week is Orientation (or Freshers) week at St. Andrews. I could probably sum this up by telling you that it is the best experience of my life and also the worst experience of my life. It is the best because I am exploring a new country for the first time and learning to think about and experience things in an entirely new way. So many things that I thought everyone did one way are not done that way here. People here drive on the wrong side of the road, eat strange food, and have oddly shaped currency. (And there are probably many more posts on this subject to come!) It is the worst experience of my life because I do not have any friends yet. Don’t get me wrong, I have met tons of really nice people. But that is the problem. I have met TONS of them! Each person I have talked to for only a few minutes at one social event or the other, but no one for any real length of time. As I am quite an overdramatic person by nature, I am literally quite terrified that I will not make any friends at all here at St. Andrews! Tiffany just rolls her eyes at me and tell me to be patient.

In other news, I have been an absolute failure at life and not taken any pictures since my arrival here at St. Andrews. I hope to begin fixing that, basically, as soon as possible. I don’t own a camera (and the cell phone I got to use while I am here is probably more familiar with communication by morse code than any other form of communication), but Tiffany has offered to let me borrow one of hers sometime!

when worlds collide

I have plenty more blogs to write about Scotland and travels, but since I am BACK at Erskine now (welcome to the class of 2017!), I want to write about my first time back at Erskine since I returned from Scotland. [Note: unless otherwise stated, all photos in this post are by The Mondays Photography, LLC.]

My roommate from freshman year, Megan, married her high school sweetheart on 13 July and I was blessed to be a part of the day as a bridesmaid.  Megan lives in Honea Path, about 15 minutes from Due West, so when I came up for the rehearsal dinner and wedding, I stayed at Erskine.  [Fun fact: Erskine has guest rooms for you to stay in when you’re visiting! They are quite inexpensive, too.]

My guest for the wedding was none other than my academic dad, Lawrence (yes, the Belgian one).  He was in Miami for the summer doing research at a university and flew up to Charleston to visit me for a long weekend.  He got to meet my family, and I had company for my first time driving to Erskine in my new car.

Lawrence and I danced a lot at the reception: no surprise there.

Taking a break from setting up the reception to say “cheese” for the camera. [Photo by Pepper Shrock]

When we got to town on Friday, Lawrence and I headed to Theo’s–one of two restaurants in DW–for lunch with my favourite professor, Dr. Elsner.  I was so excited to see Elsner after such a long time! Our lunch turned into the three of us talking for 4 hours, until I finally looked at my watch and realised that we were late for getting ready to go to the rehearsal dinner.  Elsner and Lawrence got along so well and I really enjoyed catching up with both of them.

The rehearsal dinner was my first time seeing Megan in almost a year! I didn’t know many people there (and Lawrence knew none) but I felt right at home.  Megan and Michael, her husband, both have super friendly, close-knit families.

Friends since freshman year, and now this lovely lady is married! Guess she has a new roommate now, haha.

I caught the toss bouquet! …to be fair, I was one of the only eligible ladies there. I’m not getting married any time soon!

The wedding was Saturday evening, so that morning I gave Lawrence a tour of Erskine.  This will be my fourth year as an Ambassador for the college, and Lawrence laughed at me a few times because I was slipping into Ambassador mode on the tour.  He really enjoyed the campus, though, and seeing all of the places that I would tell him about when we were in St Andrews.  At one point we were sitting on the swing outside of Moffatt Dining Hall and Lawrence remarked, “Now I understand why St Andrews was so exciting for you!”  He was referring to how quiet and rural DW is compared to St Andrews, Brussels, and Miami.  Of course, DW has a lot going for it despite its small size, and the campus and town community is some of the strongest and friendliest I have ever encountered.

Toward the end of the tour I showed him Memorial Hall and we spent about 15 minutes swing dancing on stage.  The floor in there is excellent for dancing, in case  you were wondering.  I also sang a little bit so he could get a feel for the acoustics (also great).

Megan and Michael’s wedding was the first wedding Lawrence had ever been to!  We had to get there pretty early for preparations and photos, but Lawrence was such a good sport about it.  He brought a book and read helped however he could.  Despite having to dodge some rain, it was a beautiful day with a beautiful group of people.

Michael and Megan: look at those smiles! It was such a beautiful day and I am so glad I got to share it with them.

Megan with her bridesmaids. What a fun group of people!

I loved getting to see such a great friend from St Andrews.  Being at Erskine with Lawrence was an almost surreal experience: it was like two worlds, or two separate lives, colliding.  It was wonderful to be able to introduce him to my families, both my actual family and some of my Erskine family.  We also ended up having an unexpected extra day together due to some airport logistics (but that wasn’t too much of a disappointment).

One last photo before I drove Lawrence to the airport. I am beyond blessed to have such a wonderful friend, and to know that friendship endures even over an ocean. [Photo by me]

That weekend with amazing friends was probably the highlight of my summer.  I hope to be able to introduce others to Erskine and I cannot wait to be able to see others from St Andrews in the future.  Well, back to SLA duties and creating more memories of my Erskine experience.  Today is move-in day for upperclassmen as well! So many sweet reunions to be had, and memories to be made!

It’s a Small School

One of the things that you will find if you attend Erskine is that all of the students are very connected. You may not know somebody, but chances are you will know OF them, and at least know a little bit of basic information about almost everybody you will see on a daily basis. People have a wide variety of opinions on this, but I think it is just a fact considering that there are only about 500 students attending Erskine each school year (aka: we go to a small school!)

Students at Erskine are often willing to go great distances to help each other out. I can give you an example for this one: last year on my 21^st birthday a bunch of friends and I drove a few hours to Columbia, SC to run in the USMC Mud Run. It was super fun! After about two and a half hours of running, though, we were COVERED in mud! I mean, we were swimming in pits of mud deeper than we are tall, so if we came out looking ready for a tea party people might have been a little creeped out!

I mean it… look at the mud all over us… we were SUPER GROSS!

I had asked one of my friends earlier in the month if we could come back to her house in Columbia to take a shower before driving 2-3 hours back to Erskine. She had agreed multiple times, so everyone thought we were all set. So we come out of this race dripping mud and freezing cold and wet and we try to call her, and she doesn’t answer. We stood shivering and dripping mud outside, waiting for her to call back, when she finally texted back about 30 minutes saying we could not come over after all. Everyone panicked… what were we going to do??? (I think it only fair to point out that this friend was not ignoring us on purpose, she was in town to take care of a sick family member and a family emergency came up with another one of her family members that same day, so she was very busy!)

Of course, none of us knew this at the time. All we knew is that we are two and a half hours away from home, cold, wet, and quite uncomfortable! To make a long story short, we ended up calling one of our friends who had graduated from Erskine the previous year and was living in an apartment in Columbia while she attended her first year of med school. She, with absolutely no notice and with finals to study for, let all seven of us smelly students come over to her apartment and take showers one by one in her bathroom. Not only that, Megan took care of us by ordering us pizza and giving us water and towels and soap to scrub all of the mud off! It was one of the sweetest 21^st birthday presents a girl could have 🙂

i stole this from her Facebook profile.. so I hope she is not too mad! But this girl is seriously too beautiful for words! 🙂

Another one of my favorite memories of Erskine occurred my sophomore year, about a quarter of the way through the year. My boyfriend of about six months had just broken up with me, and as a typical college student I was lying around inconsolable because I thought my life was over… (I am known for being extremely dramatic during times of distress, but don’t feel bad for me, this is just a natural part of life that everyone must get through!) My sweet friend Leighton called me the next day to cheer me up, and invited me to come to the Erskine volleyball game with her.

So Heather, Leighton, and I went to this game when I got a random text message. It from a girl named Kristy, who had been my Orientation Staff leader during my freshmen year at Erskine. The previous year she had a great idea that she was going to surprise some of her friends, including me, by knitting them scarves (it might have been all of her freshmen during O-Staff that she was knitting for… I am not sure!) As great ideas typically go with college students, she had not been able to finish it during the busy school year and so most of us never heard about it that year.

Kristy was a softball player at Erskine 🙂

But the next year, my sophomore year, she kept working on it! And right about 2 months into the school year she had finished and was coming to Erskine to attend a sports banquet. She texted me and wanted to know if I would be at the volleyball game, because she had a present to give me. I was a little surprised because she and I had not talked at all since she graduated, so I wasn’t sure if she remembered me. But she did! And she saw me at the game and gave me that scarf she had made and I thought I had never been happier! As an extremely over-dramatic college student, I had been so upset and thinking that no one would ever love me again (wah!) when she came out of nowhere with a handmade scarf she had been working on for months! It was probably one of the best things that has ever happened to me while I was at Erskine 🙂

The point that I am trying to make here is that I did not know either one of these sweet girls very well. Both of them were seniors during my freshmen year, and even though Megan was my SLA and Kristy was my Orientation leader, I did not get much of a chance to spend any time with either one of them. Yet both of them, during the most important of times, did something amazingly sweet and kind for me that I will remember for the rest of my life.

These are the kinds of people you meet at Erskine.

When Your College Friends Graduate

Yesterday was one of the best days I have had in a long time, so I think that I would like to tell you all about it. After all, there is nothing better than the happy story about a happy day!

One of the strangest things that will ever happen to you occurs when your friends graduate from college. One week you are living down the hall from them, going over to their dorms every night to talk and watch movies on YouTube, and the next they are moving to Greenville and getting their own apartments and big-girl jobs. It is quite strange.

The good news I have for all of you right now is that we do not live in 50 BC. In fact, we all live in the marvelous year of 2013 and we have magical things like the US Postal System for writing each other letters, cars for visiting each other, phones for calling and texting each other, computers, Facebook, the internet, and all sorts of other means of communication. So don’t feel too depressed about the thought of your friends leaving, it is quite possible that life will go one without them!

In fact, one of the best things about your friends graduating from college is that your social life can now be filled with planning visits to your more mature friends.

Yesterday I went to Greenville to see two of my friends who have graduated from college. Since graduation (May 18) this was the fourth time I’ve seen Samantha, but actually my first time to see Heather. Needless to say, I was quite excited! My friend Jerod and I drove to Greenville to visit the condo that Heather and Samantha will be sharing for the next year.

It was a lovely day. We went to Mellow Mushroom and ate lunch on the outdoor balcony for an hour. We apparently find ourselves to be quite hilarious, because we were laughing the entire time rather loudly and causing the other outdoor guests to look at us like we were quite strange. (This is unfortunately somewhat usual for our group of friends!) We also went on a short walk through Falls Park, bought tasty treats from Spill the Beans, played Parcheesi, and spent a lovely evening talking and laughing. It was an excellent day well spent with friends! 🙂

One of my favorite things about going to Erskine is having the opportunity to meet people who will be my friends, people who accept me for who I am, yet people who also push me to grow in maturity and in my walk with the Lord. These are my friends who I love and who I can count on to have my back in almost every situation. I may only be able to attend Erskine for four years, but I will have the friends that I make for the rest of my life!

We are a crazy group of friends, but we love each other!

Easter travels, part VII: Herrnhut, Germany

Summer seems to be racing by, yet I continue returning to my spring holiday travel stories.  There are so many to tell though!
I spent the majority of our two-week holiday in Germany, mostly in a small village called Herrnhut close to the Czech and Polish borders.  This town is the centre of the Moravian church (Zinzendorf, anyone?) as well as where the 26-point Christmas star was created and is still produced.
My friend Scott lived here with the Novak family for several months last summer while volunteering with the Jesus-Haus.  Jan and Ulrike were kind enough to welcome us into their home for a week, including an extra six university students for the weekend.  The boys stayed in their attic room and us girls shared the beautiful guest apartment connected to their house.

A peek from the doorway into the guest apartment we stayed in for the week. The bedroom (with a loft!) was straight ahead, bathroom to the right, and kitchen downstairs. Beautiful, peaceful, and cosy.

This was the view from our bedroom window. I never got tired of seeing this!

It was really nice to be a part of the daily life of the family:  helping with cooking, playing in the snow, going to church, and getting to know the family.  The four children–Natti, Hanni, Joshi, and Elli–were so wonderful!  Elli is Scott’s goddaughter and the three of us spent a lovely afternoon building a gigantic snowman in the courtyard of the Jesus-Haus.  Scott did most of the heavy lifting and hard work, while three-year-old Elli chatted away to me in German and built mini-snowmen to be the family of the daddy snowman.  We did help Scott some by making the head and throwing snowballs at him.  Little is cuter than hearing a ruddy-cheeked three-year old exclaim, “Bauten wir eine große Schneemann!” while she claps her hands.

Scott & his goddaughter working together–what a sweet photo!

Scott was, rightfully, so proud of the finished snowman! Elli and I left him with most of the work but he did a great job.

Another afternoon Scott and I took four-year-old Joshi to the Ethnographic Museum in town which was quite interesting despite two-thirds of the descriptions being solely in German. And Hanni and I got along quite well; we spent some quality time together playing with each other’s hair, reading or playing games, and helping Ulri with preparing meals.  Ulri is an incredible cook!  Our first night she made traditional Czech dumplings which were beyond delicious.  We had so much amazing food that I cannot choose any one favourite.  We also gave the Herrnhut baker a fair bit of business.  Aside from France, I’ve never had such good-tasting bread.  It was the week before Easter so Scott and I went one evening and bought some sweet Osterbrot, or Easter bread.

Easter bread from the friendly baker in Hernnhut! Literally some of the best bread I’ve had in my life.

Friday night the members of the Jesus-Haus celebrate [a slightly Christianised version of] Pesach, the Jewish Passover.  Our friends from St. Andrews had joined us by this point and the eight of us spent Friday afternoon cooking and baking dishes before celebrating a trilingual Pesach.  (If you have never made an apple pie from scratch, you are truly missing something in life.)

We had so much fun making all sorts of goodies. Who says college students don’t know their way around a kitchen?

We met everyone in the Jesus-Haus and talked a bit before it started.  Jan and Ulri had their turn leading the celebration that night and words cannot express how moving it was.  I felt connected to God and His people through thousands of years, through all of our history.  It wasn’t just living history, it was living part of the Bible.  It’s truly an experience that I will remember and treasure forever.

Jan and Ulri have a huge heart for the Jewish people, culture, language, and history.  Both of them study Hebrew (and know quite a few other languages) and have done a lot of work with Israel.  I learned so much from them! It is always inspiring to talk to people about the opportunities they have had in their lives and to hear about their passions.  It was also really interesting to hear stories and perspectives from a couple who grew up in eastern Europe during Soviet times.  Walking around parts of the former USSR made a huge impact on me: history became much more real.

One of the most exciting parts of our stay in Herrnhut was when I learned to ski! On the Saturday we were there, the eight of us university students, Ulri and her father, and the three oldest children spent the day in the Czech mountains skiing.  None of us girls from St. Andrews knew how to ski so after everyone got fitted for boots & skis, we made our way to the baby slope.  Scott, James, and Nick took turns coming over to give us pointers; none of us were too horrid, but let me just say that learning to ski in jeans means extremely cold, wet legs.  I absolutely love snow and the day was great bonding time for all of us.  We even managed to order ourselves food and drinks from the little café in Czech! Cultural experiences for the win!

Sarah and I all bundled up for a day in the snowy Czech mountains!

This is the longest icicle I’ve ever seen in my life!! Don’t worry, no one was harmed in the taking of this photo. (pictured: Scott & James)

We were so blessed to be able to live, work, pray, and fellowship with this wonderful family and other members of the Jesus-Haus.  They were perfect examples of hospitality and love and I will always be grateful for that week.  I dearly hope to return some day!

I took this in the kitchen while we were making food for Pesach. Even though it was almost Easter, I felt like we needed to have Christmas carols on!

getting my toes wet

(This post continues where my previous entry left off.  Corny title, I know.)

We dropped my luggage off in my room and then headed to Joanna’s room for some proper British tea.   I met quite a few people along the way,  including my new friend Rebecca from Sarah Lawrence College.  After tea, the three of us walked to Tesco in town to buy some dinner.  Rebecca and I decided on frozen pizza (typical college student meal, I know, but we were too tired to cook properly).  As we were looking at the different options, one caught our eye because it looked like it had noodles on it.  Rebecca and I asked Joanna if it was a British thing to eat pasta on pizza and she gave us a very confused look, then looked at the pizza and started laughing at us:  it was margherita pizza.  What we thought were noodles was actually cheese!  We laughed about this the entire night.

the pizza that we mistakenly thought had noodles on it when we saw it on the shelf. that’s what jet-lag does to you!

When we returned to Melville, we realized we had no plates, cutlery, or cooking utensils, so we improvised with what we could find in the kitchens.   It took us a little while, but we figured it all out on our own and the pizza was delicious!  As we were finishing up, a few guys came by to invite us across to K1 to meet people, but the group quickly became too large so we made our way to the middle common room, 1 of 3 in the hall.  (Melville has 3 kitchens, labeled K1, K2, and K3.)  There were so many people in the common room!  Everyone was incredibly kind and welcoming and I surprised myself by how many names I managed to remember.
After staying up MUCH later than anticipated, I finally left and went to sleep around 2 AM (which is 9PM for the Eastern United States).  I did not wake up until lunchtime the next day, and only then because I needed to eat.  Lunch was great though!  I spent the afternoon at an informational session for new students and then attended a reception with all of the JSAs (Junior Study Abroad students) where we had the opportunity to meet and talk with professors. I met so many people and learned a lot about the psychology department, which is the best in Britain.  I also found out that the psychology building is in one of the most beautiful locations in town.  Tough life, I know.

On Friday I managed to wake up for breakfast, which is 8-9 every day, and then I went to matriculation at 10AM.  There are a lot of JSAs here this semester!  They had a very helpful team directing us to where we needed to be and answering questions.  Staff members checked our passports and finances and advisers from each department helped us register for our course modules.  Everything worked out really well, thankfully.  Friday evening, in honor of Robbie Burns’s day, I attended my first ceilidh [pronounced Caley] with my new friend Scott (from Scotland).  If you have ever done English country dancing, it is somewhat similar.  We danced for several hours straight, and I even tried haggis for the first time; surprisingly, I really liked it!  I talked to the two callers after and they told me I should come to the weekly intermediate ceilidh lessons.  I have added that to my list of potential clubs to join!  I learned later that it is compulsory for all Scottish primary school students to learn ceilidh dancing.  A member of the Celtic society read Robbie Burns’s famous poem, Ode to a Haggis, before we ate and then we enjoyed a traditional meal of haggis and neeps & tatties.  Neeps and tatties are some kind of turnip-like food and mashed potatoes–different but good.  On the way home, Scott gave me a tour of St Andrews and told me loads of stories about the history of the uni and the town.  After dancing all night and then walking for an hour my feet were extremely sore, but it was entirely worth it!

I am standing on the Swilcan Bridge between the 1st and 18th fairways of the Old Course in St. Andrews. this bridge is at least 700 years old!

When I woke up for lunch on Saturday, I met a group of JSAs who invited me to come explore the town with them.  We spent all afternoon being touristy, taking pictures, sharing stories, and getting to know each other.  It was so beautiful outside but the wind here is so cold, especially along the shore!  I shared with them all of the stories and tidbits that Scott shared with me about the town and uni the night before.  My next blog entry will be entirely photos from our adventures.

Saturday evening I finally started to unpack my suitcases!  My first couple of days were so full of excitement that I neglected to set up my room.  But it feels quite cozy now and Melville truly is like home.  I have my own sink in the room, but I have to go up- or downstairs and through about 4 doors for the toilets or shower.  Our hall is built to resemble a ship and we have 5 blocks of rooms; it’s a very interesting setup.  Melville is not very pretty but it certainly has character and the people more than make up for it!

As I have no class on Fridays, I will post pictures soon and try to write down some more stories.  Every day is filled with exciting things to talk about–the difficult part will be deciding what to share with you!  Until then, God bless and keep you and know that I am sending my love and well-wishes from Scotland. Cheers!

looking out to the North Sea and the night glow of Dundee to the north

Me, My Camera, and a Volleyball

Everyone wants something to rally behind. A team they can cheer for, a cause they can support, a movement that’s bigger than themselves on their own. And I’m no different. Sure we have sports teams and groups on campus, but so far, nothing had really stuck with me. Enter men’s volleyball. New on campus this year, all the players are freshmen or transfer students, which means they could either fail miserably at adjusting to life in Due West, or they could take a nod from the Thrive initiative and, well, thrive. And thrive they have! Bonded yet not exclusive, the team seems to be making its home here at Erskine. The team came back from their fourth game on Tuesday with yet another win, and is scheduled to play – get this – Harvard later this season!

I’ve been to half of their games so far, the most recent being their Tuesday win over Emanuel in Georgia. Three friends and I drove down to watch them bring the fleet heat to the Lions, and I got to test out my new camera! It’s a Cannon Rebel DSLR… and I think I geeked out… just a little. Anyways, here’s to the Flying Fleet! I think my camera and I have found something we can rally behind.