20-20 cricket

No, I'm not referring to a small insect with good eyesight - Bree & I attended our first cricket match last night... well, we attempted to, but they canceled the match once they knew that two Americans were in the crowd.

Or maybe it was because of the torrential downpour that threatened to wash away "The Oval".

Perhaps others of you could use a cricket lesson - we certainly learned a great deal. Like in baseball, the object is to score points by hitting the ball either far or well placed. Unlike baseball, you can hit in any direction. If you hit the ball and it reaches the rope then you get four points. If you hit it over the rope, it's worth six points. If you hit it in play, you can run back and forth and get one run for every time you get to the other end... perhaps I'll finish writing out the cricket lesson someday.

For now, let it suffice to say that we enjoyed ourselves, but don't understand how people can watch cricket for five days straight. The match we attended would have been limited to 20 overs a side - we saw all 20 overs for one team, and the first 10 overs for the next team (by the way, only one team hits at a time and they do their entire hitting before they go to the field - one team batted for 2 hours!

We feel much more British now that we've been to the Oval - which was nothing like a million dollar American sports complex. The advertising was much simpler, the main part of the structure has to be decades old. But it did have luxury boxes.

Anyway, it's a late night at work, so I'm going to get back to the grind - let the debate continue on the great author Charles Dicken who founded our church - see comments below. It is the best of times.

BBC has more than just sesame street

Well, we've decided that our educational horizons have certainly been expanded in just five months of watching the BBC. It's sort of like a combination of PBS, the Discovery Channel, the Learning Channel, and CNN.
Last night we watched a couple provocative programs on aid in Africa and anthropology.

But despite our interest in expanding our minds, the most exciting thing on television was the season finale of 24, concluding Day 4. Now we're free again on Sunday nights to socialize, explore, or go to bed early.

The church anniversary luncheon was this Sunday - Bree was kitchenmaster. At least that got her out of having to cook anything. I was signed up as church historian, and prepared a video presentation on the founding of our church. It was quite interesting to see a handwritten note from Charles Spurgeon, dated 146 years ago.

It truly was an action packed weekend, as we also made it to the movie theater for the first time in at least 7 months. Batman Begins did not disappoint - in fact Bree and I both really enjoyed it... at least until Bree admitted that her main reason for liking it was the lead male character. But confession is good for the soul I suppose.

We finally have a guestbook at our flat and we've finally used it - congrats to D&A coming down from Oxford to be the first signees. Apologies to all who came before and did not have the opportunity to sign.

Our next educational opportunity will come tomorrow evening when we attend a cricket match... I wonder if they'll have dollar hot dogs and ice cream in the plastic baseball caps?

Getting old

So I was in bed at 10 last night... but at least I woke up a little bit later and read for an hour. Bree was worried I was sick or something, but I guess it's just the fact that I'm almost 23 years old and spending all day at work, slaving away.

We are busy working to prepare for the church's 146th Anniversary this weekend. That makes churches in America sound like brand new - I remember thinking our church's 40th anniversary was a big deal back in the day.

I have finished The Scramble for Africa - it was a very enlightening read. It's hard to believe that atrocious practices of slavery and forced labor were still prevalent in that part of the world just 100 years ago. It's hard to believe that countries like Zimbabwe are just a few decades old but the strife is centries old. Hopefully I'll continue to learn more as I continue to work with colleagues from South Africa and Nigeria about the still evolving history of these nations. The book did paint US as a relative non-player with a bright moment in pressuring King Leopold to cede the Congo to his country Belgium to stop the atrocities occuring in the rubber trade. Now, I can move on to much easier reads that will probably go much quicker - like The Hydrogen Economy.

Everybody's gone surfin...

Well, not really, but we did spend Sunday afternoon at the beach.

In fact, neither of us are used to living this close to the ocean - after church we quickly ate a sandwich and then packed a backpack.

We hopped on a train and an hour later we were standing a short distance away from Brighton Pier. We claimed our place on the rocks amidst half a million Londoners who had the same idea. It was a very relaxing afternoon with the sounds of water, people having a goodtime, and some tunes that we brought along.

I read some, Bree took a nap (no surprise there) and then we grabbed crepes and Belgian waffles for dinner.

A hour and a half train ride back, slightly less pleasant because of the heat and the crowded train, and our mini-vacation was over.

And last night we treated ourselves to dinner on a boat on the Thames, along with two Aggie visitors who had just finished a few weeks of traveling.

Much is happening in our lives - the Season 4 Finale of 24 on Sunday.

Movie Night

We've discovered a 10-step plan to see a movie cheaply:
1. Meet someone who works at a video rental store.
2. Become friends with said person.
3. Meet someone who works at a church.
4. Become friends with said person.
5. Have your church install a media projector and screen.
6. Encourage friend from step 2 to be friends with friend from step 4.
7. Start getting together in a small group.
8. Start brainstorming things to do together.
9. Have friend from step 2 bring item borrowed from step 1 to place mentioned in step 3 and have friend from step 4 use items from step 5 for the benefit of all that are part of the group from step 7 as the result of step 8. Add some snacks and drinks.
10. Watch the movie.

Taxi was much better than I'd anticipated; maybe because it'd been so long since we'd seen a movie on the big screen.

And, unexpectedly, the Hot Tamales that Sarah brought over last month that we shared with them were quite the novelty. Friend from step 2 thought they were nasty and questioned what normal person would eat such things. Friend from step 4 loved them, but then she doesn't consider him to be normal.

Now I'm up in Glasgow on my first business trip (excluding training last month. The one thing about business trips is that you eat quite well. And sometimes pick up a few frequent flier miles!

I can't believe it's been a week since my last posting! I've just finished a Burger King lunch and Glasgow walk and now it's back to work.

Thai chef from Amarillo?!?

Last night we met up with our friend from Amarillo - we had no idea he was an amazing chef. Apparently he worked in a Thai restaurant for 3 years. Anyway, I don't even like bell peppers really and he worked them magically in with coconut milk, basil, some curry, chicken, and lots of rice. It was a party in my mouth!

Then he went on to educate us about the Arab world - he's incredibly smart and has learned a fair amount of Arabic during his time here in London. We might have to try to follow suit!

Today was an absolutely beautiful day - my team took a real lunch today and sat outside eating our pizzas.

We're just happy to be back together - sorry we don't have much exciting to write about. We'll try to go on vacation soon or something.

Cheers!

up with the sun

Well, not really, but the sun rises before 6 in the morning, so can you blame us. But this morning was the first 7:00 prayer meeting at church, so we did something BEFORE work for once. I haven't checked with Bree, but I still managed to stay awake. We're also planning an excursion to go to Brighton this weekend - we'll see if we get up early enough on Saturday to actually go.

Cultural note: England is obsessed with Big Brother for some odd reason - it's on almost all the time. I can understand if someone liked watching a season or two of Real World, but how can people still be obsessed with some of these horrible reality shows? But, then, who are we to judge when we've probably seen 100 CSI's - we're planning to reduce consumption, as we've grown weary of the violence and death.

Did I mention that Bree brought back a new air mattress... it's double high! And its giver will be visiting us very soon.

Off to walk across the bridge with a look at Big Ben on my way to eat a Thai meal prepared by a friend.

Bviller in London

Last week I failed to mention that I had my first visitors from Oklahoma. Mandy from my youth group in Bville came through with her family and gave me an update on all the "kids" that I worked with a few summers back, who incidentally are now all graduated from high school and well on their way with the rest of their lives. Perhaps some of them remember a college freshman who grew a goatee and tried to teach them a bit more about the Bible. Who's next to come visit?!?

I love surprises!

The only thing good about being separated again is the joy of swapping surprises. We have new tower fans - one for the bedroom and one for the living room, flowers, a new electric kettle (courtesty of the landlords), a clean bathroom with a sink that drains, and pictures on the wall, including our newest cousin among other sappy snapshots. And imported from the states we have a new airbed and lots of new fashionable ties for me.

Unfortunately one of the surprises was not the hot water heater being fixed - in fact, the plumber kind of made it worse. Now it takes twice as long to get above 50 degrees celsius, which is pretty comfortable for a shower.

Congrats to Caleb, a high school friend, who after mulling it over at my house and for a week up at Oxford, did decide to go ahead with his proposal. Congrats to his bride-to-be Christian as well.

The big thing over here right now is the G8 concert - I think Madonna will be here in London. In fact, over 1 million texts have already been sent in to get in the free lottery for tickets.

One of the items I failed to mention from my Spring Day/Memorial Day adventures in Oxford was our lunch at the Eagle and Child, which is where Tolkien and CS Lewis used to brood over their novel ideas (pun intended). There's even a signed letter on the wall from the two of them, giving a toast to the owner of the restaurant.

And finally, I can't believe that Bree missed two of the best episodes of 24 - I'm trying not to rub it in. Now we've caught up in season 4 to the one I saw in the states a couple weeks ago.

With that, we're off to the Texas Embassy for a nice little dinner.

Can you believe it!

Now I know what Cynthia was referring to a few weeks back.

I'd thought I'd missed 24 this week while I was up at Oxford. But it turns out, not only do they play it on Sunday, replay on Monday, and do several episode catchups on some Saturdays, it's also replayed on Wednesday nights at 11.

So I caught that episode where Chloe... (well I can't spoil it for Bree)

Anyway, I went grocery shopping. I love grocery shopping because you can shop for a long time and still get out for £20 and feel like you found some good bargains. Bet you didn't have steak and kidney pie for dinner last night.

My head is swimming with spreadsheets so I must go home now. England won their match this week by the way - the one they played against the US at Solider Field wasn't televised unfortunately.

In just 15 weeks at our flat...

In just 15 weeks of living at our flat...
-We have spent a total of 21 nights apart from each other.
-We have been to Sainsbury's probably 25 times.
-We have gone down to ASDA (Walmart) 6 times.
-We have had 11 different people (besides us) sleep in our living room on 21 different nights, staying on average just over 3 nights at a time.
-We have watched 20 episodes of 24.
-We have hosted people for a home-cooked meal 6 times.
-We have spent 35 hours on the phone to the states.
-We have eaten 21 frozen pizzas.
-We could have bought a used car with our rent payments.
-We have worked out 4 times.
-We have done major furniture rearrangements 3 times.
-We (meaning Bree) have gone through 60 swiffer wipes and 80 disposable cleaning wipes.
*statistics are unaudited and may involve the use of estimates and probabilities that have not been tested for accuracy. All representations are that of the residents of Flat 3 and no other party.