April Showers...

well, almost april.

This past weekend I went with two friends (Martin and Debie) up to London to see the sights! It was a very good trip to say the least. We left Friday morning and arrived in London just around lunchtime. I was a bit queasy from the car ride, but I soon got over that (thankfully keeping down the pie and mash we had for lunch).

After lunch we took a walk in to more of London, starting at Tower Bridge. Shortly before we got to the bridge, I was inspired to sing and dance to the song "my little buttercup" from the film "The Three Amigos". This set a trend for the weekend that came to be called a "pob" (public out-burst). We made our way down along the thames river and arrived at the Tate museum of modern art. Me and my friend Martin were quite amazed at the large main hall, and while it probably would have been nice to browse the galleries, we were heavily distracted by the overwhelming need to go down the immense slide (debie took one look at the slide and decided it wasn't her cup of tea). There was a curly slide that went from the 5th floor all the way down to the ground floor- totally free to ride. We had to go and get tickets for it (tickets told us what time we would need to line up for the ride) and we had a little over an hour to kill before we had to be back for the adventure. We took a walk aross the Millenium Bridge and went around a local market for a bit and then made our way back to the museum. After standing in line for the slide, it was Martin's turn. As we were in line the man who wa taking tickets said it was a good idea to wear elbow pads. When asked why he replied "because you can get up to 30 miles per hour in there, and you don't want that kind of skin burn!" I was laughing at that. The ride took a little over 10 seconds, and it was quick. Quite fun too. We also found out it's the longest slide in all of England!

Friday night we went to go see the Lion King on stage. A very good show, and even though we were at the last row of the balcony, it was still a great show and took me back to being 9 years old and going to see stage shows with my family. I even found a 10 pound note on the floor at the theater! It helped later when we took a taxi back to the flat where Debie's mom lives.

Saturday We went and saw the Natural history museum and the Science museum, both really close to Hyde Park (made me think of Chicago!). We got lunch and ate near the water in Hyde Park even though it was a cold and windy day. I don't know if I'll opt to do that again...

We left London at about 3:30 and drove over to Greenwich and saw the Cutty Sark (a famous ship) but it was under construction, so we walked up the hill to the meridian line (where time zones "start"). Took some pictures and then had to be off again!

We were back to Bognor by about 7:30 or 8, went to rent a film (The Prestige) and got some dinner. We watched the film at my place and had a nice time hanging out before our short weekend trip was over.

The rest of my week has been good so far, with various activities with friends (uni students, homegroup friends, and friends from church). Some of the young people from church have left for a missions trip to South Africa for two and a half weeks, so the Thursday night group is off for a bit. In place of that, I have started to attend the Alpha course here, and am looking forward to gaining experience and ideas before we set off to do the Youth Alpha course at the end of April. Along with this, there is a two week break for University students, so some of my friends have gone home for the break. I am looking forward to having some time to do different things and plan new things for the next few months. To top it all off, I turn 27 in less than two weeks!! Wow, my first birthday overseas! Sure to be one to remember...

That's life in a nutshell here. I hope this finds you all well and happy where ever you may be!
Please do drop me a line sometime and let me know how you're doing!

Till next time!
~Paul