fish 'n' chips, crepes, & gelato

Hello everyone out there in digital world! First we must say many apologies for taking so long to update the blog, we have no good reason so we will just use the classic excuse and blame it on the dog. To give this post a bit more flavor we each wrote about a different city we visited, giving you some different perspectives.

Tiffney in London:

We arrived in London late at night but somehow managed to find our way by subway and in the dark to 4 Cranfield Row, home to a very bubbly and extremely hospitable, world changer, named Bremley (Founder of Worldview Impact). After learning a very expensive lesson (£73/$130) on not locking yourselves out of your own room at 12:30am when there is no spare key, we got some much needed rest and got back on track. We also learned quickly that even though things were technically written/spoken in English, nothing was pronounced quite how it looked. We received many strange looks with our o-ver-ley pro-nounced syll-a-bles. For instance Southwark: American = south-wark, British= suth-uck.
In a huge city like London it is very easy to feel welcome and lost at the same time. You wander around and find things like The British Museum, London Bridge, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey and Big Ben easily in a day or two but never really on purpose. We discovered just how young our nation is when reading that one of London's greatest museums is 23years older then the U.S.A.'s Independence. Crazy! After an exciting dose of UK city life we headed to Yeovil, a smaller country town where our friends Jon and Gemma live. They took us for fish and chips and the traditional English pub dinner. We saw a 400 year old castle and a glorious "petting farm" where we were shocked to find exotic animals such as the rare lop-eared bunny, billy goat, wild turkey, and the occasional grazing sheep. We finally managed to tear Josh away from his fascination with farm animals to have a light lunch on the beach and a walk along the harbor in Weymouth. They had a very charming flat where they introduced us to "The Cube" (a reality TV show much like Fox's "Hole in the Wall" but with a glass box) and wonderful British words such as pikey, wanker, and rubbish. So far the trip has been very successful! And now we take an 8 hr. bus ride to Paris.

Nate in Paris:

We were in Paris for 3 days and 2 nights. We went to the Louvre museum, Notre Dame, Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triumphe, ate crepes, french bistro, cheese, sausage, and drank wine. Also we experienced our first real language barrier, and at first it was very scary. God directed our words and comforted our hearts. During our time we had the pleasure of staying with a guy named Dule, who was from Serbia, and his good friend Dave from Switzerland. Our first night there we hung out at Dule's apartment, which was small but very cozy. He made us feel at home as we sat and drank a few Belgium beers and he made us crepes for over 3 hours and they were delicious! We talked about everything under the sun from french culture to politics. Both Dule and Dave we very interesting guys who love to talk and listen. The crepes started with prosciutto and cheese and finished with banana and Nutella, which is very popular here. This whole experience has been very surreal. For example, hanging out in the park in front of the Eiffel Tower in the late evening watching all the people and playing a game very similar to bocche ball. It feels like something out of a movie. Paris has stunning architecture and the people are very proud of there history. Even though our stay in Paris was short, our hosts showed the best the city had to offer.

Josh in Milan(o)/Pavia:

After a stellar 12 hour bus ride through the night we arrived in Milan 2 hours early, apparently our bus driver had seen the movie “Speed” one to many times. So we arrive at this bus station at 5:30am and it seems that we are on the “other side of the tracks”. There is graffiti everywhere, a few run down buildings, and the Bus/Metro station. We figured we would hop on the Metro and take it to the city square but the trains did not start running until 6:30am. Needless to say it was a bit intimidating. Luckily for us there was a group of Phillipino students on our bus who were traveling through Europe on a choir tour, we hung out with them for a bit outside the station, when all else fails go for power in numbers (honestly who would mess with a bunch of choir kids and 3 American tourists <@:)).

Eventually we made it to Duomo (Italian term for Cathedral) in the city center, and hung out for a while enjoying the sun and all of the people bustling about. We really had no plan in Milan so we just walked around for most of the morning looking at all the shops and bars(Italian Café) until our shoulders were burning because of our backpacks. Unfortunately we couldn’t find a Couch Surfing host so we stayed at La Cordata hostel, where Tiff cooked up some pasta and bread with Brie.

The next day we hopped a train to Pavia which is a small town outside of Milan, we stayed with a CS host named Marco. He was an ex accountant that was laid off and decided to open a little fruit and veggie stand on the corner near his home. He showed us a great time, introducing us to apperitivo and gelato. Pavia was having a festival at the time so we saw an Italian pop star perform and then finished the night off with the most amazing fireworks display I have ever seen (except of course the fireworks in Edgewater on the 3rd of July). Our time hear was short but great, now we are heading to Marseille for 4 days and then we head back to Rome for a week.

A MESSAGE FROM ALL OF US:

Before we left we all asked God if he would make this time challenging for us, that it would be a chance to break out of our comfort zone and shatter our “little bubbles”. We asked that this would be an adventure. We all agree that He has clearly answered this prayer, while it has been some of the best times in our lives it has also been some of the hardest (we expect it to get much harder). There are so many luxuries that we live with on a daily basis, so many things that we inadvertently put our trust in that now are not there anymore…it is great to learn that as a group our happiness is not determined by the floor we sleep on or the food we eat, but on the relationships we build, the adventures we have, and the God we serve.

Anyways that was a long post but if you are still here, please know that we love hearing random comments and questions, and we love updates on how things are going “back home”.

Hugs and Kisses - Josh, Tiffney, & Nate

Adios America

Well it almost 3:00am and we are sitting in Newark airport waiting to check in to our flight. Of course the actual flight isn’t until 8:00am, but being the thrifty overachievers we are we opted out of staying anywhere tonight so we could save some money and be here early for our flight. To help paint the mental picture: Tiff and Nate are laying here on a concrete floor with a thin layer of carpet trying to get some sleep, unfortunately for them Newark has been testing their fire alarms every 10 minutes for the last half hour. I find it fairly comical because what do you expect when you are sleeping in an airport at 3 in the morning, this is when all the work gets done (I say this of course as the man rides by on his seated floor buffing machine).

While Nate was still keeping it real in Colorado, Tiff and I were spending our time in Illinois with her family doing everything from mowing the grass to babysitting, but mostly eating delicious meals with great company. For the last 3 weeks we have been in Alabama and Illinois visiting family, there is something about being with loved ones that just feels right. I think many times life can get so busy that we forget to spend enough time with family, so if its been a while since your last family dinner I highly recommend it, its good for the soul. Another thing we picked up in IL is bean bag tossing ( I don’t know the official name), I would put it in the same category as washers, horseshoes, or tossticles. You basically throw a bean bag into a box with a hole in it. Simple - yes - but it provides hours of solid entertainment.

Our best discovery thus far is actually a website, www.couchsurfing.org. The basic premise is you create a profile (like face book with friends and references), then you contact people from any city you happen to be traveling in, and see if they have an open couch or room to sleep on/in. It is much more than just a free place to stay, it is a way to meet people, to connect to the “local” resources, and a great way to step out of your comfort zone. Now the first thing everyone asks is, “Is that safe, it seems kind of sketchy?” I would say go on the website and check it out for yourself, so far we have had a great experience with it in New York, hopefully we will have more good experiences in the weeks to come. Our first couch surf was with a guy named Matt, he had an extra room at his place in Upper West Side (5 blocks from Central Park). Matt was so kind and a great host, he even made us some spinach and carrot soup (it wasn’t poisoned) at 1 am so we had something to eat while we sat around listening to classic rock (Bob Dylan/Rolling Stones). The picture above is from the amazing patio on the roof of his building. Our time with Matt was made even better by his Chinese Jewish guitar playing friend named Abraham, unfortunately he is not performing anywhere yet but I told him to keep me posted. For the rest of the time in New York we hung out with our buddy Michelle Woodruff, she was an amazing hostess and treated us to some tapas and Cuban sandwiches.

As I said before we are headed off to London, our first international stop on the journey. We ask that you could keep us in your prayers and that you would let us know if you have any thoughts, ideas or comments (please let us know if there is anything you need some prayer about).

- good night from Newark Liberty International Airport

Josh, Tiff and Nate