A Proposal

Dear Readers,

It may come as no surprise that someone who maintains (in a gas station bathroom kind of way) a blog online enjoys creative writing as a hobby. I've penned a couple things, though nothing to be too pretentious about and certainly nothing publishable. A couple angry poems, one short novel manuscript in need of serious overhaul and the first half of a dozen short stories. I've recently been encouraged by a friend to get back into it and to invest some more time and energy into my writing. It's good for me. It's a creative release and a little bit escapist without being so dangerously addictive as to pull me out of the real world. And it's productive, of a sort. Making something, I would contend, is a more worthy thing than consuming something.
But true to form, I get stuck. More so than not, recently. But I've had an idea and want to toss out a line to see if anyone wants to bite.
I've been thinking about collaborative storytelling. That it might be a really cool thing to try and it might even be a growth opportunity for storytelling and fiction as an art form in general. The literary community is very individualistic, not unlike painters and sculptors. And I can understand that composing a piece independently is extremely worthwhile. I quite like reading stories that are the product of one mind. You can think all kinds of interesting thoughts about authorial intent. But I believe art, at its core, is not just about self-expression. It's about truth. About saying something that's true and honest and real. Using a lie to tell the truth. Self-expression is a powerful vehicle for that, but I want to believe that art is about more than expression; I think it ought to be about communication.
To that end, why is our storytelling so individual? If the goal is to highlight or communicate a slice of the human experience, is it possible to listen to more than one voice and still hear one message?
There are art forms that do collaboration really well. Music. And by that I mean some musicians in modern bands, who compose and develop music collectively. Jam sessions with pencils. But in many other art media the challenges of presenting a piece that is cohesive necessitate hierarchies and structures that sometimes impose some limits on open idea-sharing. Films and plays have directors and producers. Orchestras have composers. Ballets have choreographers.
The beautiful thing about fiction and storytelling is that it's a product-based art form and not a presentation. Cohesiveness can be applied to the broken parts after the fact before it's shown to the audience. And in the process, the divergent ideas can present a more three-dimensional picture of whatever issue or theme is being discussed than I, as one author with limited perspective, can achieve alone.
To get to my point (yeah, I know only the die-hards are still reading), I'm putting a call out for collaborators. My idea was a kind of loose adaptation of the one word story game we've all played around campfires at camp. Someone (preferably not me) starts a story and carries it as far as they want. Short chapter-ish length as a suggestion, but I want to try being really free-form and not imposing restrictions until we have a chance to develop our own that make sense for us. Then they pass it off to the next person. We all pass the story around for a while until it's done. Or we're bored with the project and have an idea on how to start again better. I think I could learn a lot from working with what other people have given me. Plus, I think this could be a very useful exercise in helping me develop my own voice a bit more.
So, if anyone wants to be a part of this little writing experiment, email me or comment or something. Don't know how many people we'd want or how long it would take, and I'd like to make those decisions, like all the creative ones, collectively.
Any takers?

News Report - early December

Here's wishing you all a very anxious and anticipation-filled advent!
We *just* got back in the door from a very exciting and exhausting shopping trip in Edmonton. We've gathered from Google searches and talking to people who've lived here longer than a couple months that there are actually lots of different places to shop in Edmonton. We've somewhat plugged our tourist ears and sang a noisy "Fa la la la la" on our way to the West Ed.
Which is, by the way, a pretty cool place. Two days in the biggest mall in North America. Did we do any of the fun stuff? Not really, no. We saw a sea lion doing tricks, which was cool. And wished we'd brought our bathing suits to do the water park. But principally we Christmas-shopped. We're proud to announce we are very nearly done our Christmas shopping.
Shopping, in general, is a bit trickier now living off the grid. And we *mean* off the grid. The phone company doesn't even run a line to our house. Anyway, any time we need to do any shopping or errands (groceries, gas, library books, Christmas gifts, etc) we need to either drive 45min and hope it's in Rocky, or suck it up and do the 90min to Red Deer. Which we're happy to say we almost never need to do. But if you need a Walmart, then you need a Walmart.
Save the last few presents and some wrapping, our advent can now relax into a more reasonable and sane pace of counting down the school days left and listening to Burl Ives' "Holly Jolly Christmas" on repeat.
In the interest of throwing cool parts of our life in people's faces, the highlight of our Edmonton trip was our evening at the symphony. We were fortunate enough to arrive in town the night that the ESO was playing Handel's "Messiah". Now, I've had a lot of people who know more about classical music than I do tell me at length all the things that are wrong with the "Messiah". It was thrown together hastily, it's less narrative than other pieces in its genre, it's rough, etc. I've often said that classical music is a big blind spot of mine and I'd like to learn more. But on this subject I think I'm content to remain blissfully ignorant. What I like about the Messiah is that what Handel has done - whether sufficiently giftedly or not - is attached musical cadence and narrative to the grand narrative of what Scripture says about Christ. I can understand why, too. When I read broad strokes of Scripture, especially any of the Old testament prophets or the Psalms, I feel like I notice 'movements' of themes and the tone of prophecy as I read. A kind of wave-like motion between God's mercy and His wrath. Between promise and fulfillment. When I thought about it that way, nothing seemed more natural but to use the evocative power of music to draw attention to the currents of these themes in Scripture. And as an advent devotional practice, it was really nice.
Also in the news: having finally finished registering our vehicle in Alberta and getting Alberta plates, we're pretty much finished the long list of things we had to do to become Albertans. Hooray! At the staff Christmas party this past week we had an experience that felt uniquely 'small town Alberta': we had a steak fry at the legion. We got together at the legion and they gave us raw steaks and side dishes and an indoor grill. Like fondue, AAA Angus-style! Is that a thing at other legion halls?
Keep your stick on the ball. Or your eye on the ice. One of those.

Rez Life: the post-university edition

Hey all,

Life goes on here on the reserve. We got a bit of a coating of fresh snow mid week though most of it's melted off by now. And we made ourselves a big belated thanksgiving turkey dinner yesterday. But all told, things are moving right along. Thought I'd pop up some photos of life here on reserve

Squint real close and you'll make out the grey owl that was perching on the teacherage fence just across from our house a couple mornings ago. I went chasing it with my camera but one of the res dogs decided to beat me there and scared it off before I could get any closer.

In addition to owls, there are a lot of horses roaming the reserve freely, sometimes decent-sized little herds of them gathering on or near roads. Which is cool to drive by but a bit nervous walking home past. Not sure how tame they are or who they belong to, if anyone.

The school. It's a really nice building with a nice view and good facilities. The crest/emblem thing there is a sun with a bison in the centre; the Sunchild symbol that's on everything around here. Should come as no surprise that our football team are the Bisons, too.

This is Bear, one of the res dogs that the teachers and some school custodians etc take turns leaving food out for. He's the most useful of the res dogs; every time a bear's been around he barks up a storm and lets us know. Which is worth the cost of kibble if you ask me. Helps that he likes visiting/guarding the kids on recess, too.

Our garbage dumpster. Not exactly wildlife-proof, as the big gouge where the bear pulled it partially apart can attest.

And finally, our house. We're in half of this little duplex, one floor, two bedrooms. Nice spot for us, if a mite tight on storage space. And our living room window (opposite side) faces west to a gorgeous view of the mountains on a clear day. What more can you ask?

Photo clearing

Hey,

While trying to upload some new photos this evening, I discovered there is indeed a cap on photo storage on blogger. Since I'm not really into paying to blog, I will be deleting some old ones from old posts to make space. Hopefully it works. In the meantime, If there was any photos I had up that you want, then let me know and I'll share them.

A New Excellent Adventure

Hello, friends, family and blog-surfers!

We took a summer vacation not only from teaching, it seems, but from keeping in touch with the people we love. Which is kinda unpleasant. I already have a reputation for composing Homeric blog posts; it would probably be a mite unreasonable to expect I would be able to recap everything that's transpired since the last time I e-communicated. But I'm going to survey it quickly and get up to the present. Then, over the next week or so (deo volente) I'll upload some photos and showcase some more detailed description of what our life out here in Alberta is like.

We got back from London at the end of June (yeah, it really has been that long since I updated the blog). We had hoped we could have taken our time a bit more but the schedule got accelerated because I got a call from my old boss at Ontario Parks asking if I could work at the park near North Bay for the summer again. Now, I had been planning to have a restorative and mildly suspenseful summer of seeing people and looking for teaching jobs. But the appeal of having some income was difficult to resist. So our return to North America was a little quick; we had just a couple days to sort out stuff and say hello to my parents in Brampton before hopping a bus to North Bay so I could start work that Friday.

I was doing what amounts to pretty much the coolest summer job anybody could ask for. You know when you go camping and there's the park staff member who runs programs about the nature and history in the park? That was my job. Bonus, though, being that this park is on the historic French-Canadian voyageur route, so we ran costumed, in-character tours in a replica 30-ft canoe up and down the river. So not only did I get lots of sun and exercise, but I was working in an education-related field and I got to do it dressed up like a 17th-century voyageur. Good times. The hiccups, though, were that my weekends were fairly spoken-for and I didn't get a lot of time off. Which left the aggressive job-hunting to Alyssa. I helped, as much as I could. But it should come as no surprise that she managed to get interviews and offers before I did.

It was a really awkward couple of months. The uncertainty of the fall - where would we live, what would we do, what would happen if we couldn't find anything - all of it weighed increasingly heavy on our minds as the summer wound to a close. And then the job came, swooping to the rescue, terrifying and unsettling. Alberta. A first nations reserve school. Alyssa could teach junior high math full-time, and I could do supply work there and in the area to keep myself busy. Good pay. Good school with good resources. So we took it. And packed up and moved to Alberta.

There's been a fair share of tricky bits that have come up from our migration. Getting our stuff from the movers was an adventure. We still have a spare room full of boxes, piles and unsorted stuff that'll probably go to the salvation army. And there's some paperwork stuff - change of address, banking, health cards, yada yada yada -  that's taking time to get put through.

This weekend we are celebrating our first anniversary. One whole year of being married. And what a year it's been, too. Full of experiences and living. Ups and Downs. Anxieties and Problems and a lot of Grace and Provision. In a few minutes I'll be running home to pack up and clean up, and then we hop in the car for a scenic and gorgeous drive through the mountains to Banff. Where we'll chill out and be in a gorgeous place for a couple nights. Since it's just right here.

As always, we appreciate your prayers. Alyssa's first year of full-time teaching is coming with the customary share of challenge, exhaustion, and burning out. And I need inspiration and motivation to keep writing, to keep in contact, and keep everything else together while we ride out the dying gasps of autumn (we've been snowed-on twice already). We'll bring a camera this weekend.

Almost There...

Friday morning and not a lot of people are sick so I get a few minutes to breathe. Is it irresponsible? Probably. I'll keep it short.

One day. And then we get a really busy but nice weekend. And then one week. And then we're done teaching in the UK. Which is definitely coming with its share of perks. No more scary standradized tests. No more school uniforms worn defiantly sloppy. No more quite-unpleasant teenagers (at least for a little while, we are teachers). No more houses, form tutors, and A-levels. No more b-tec verifiers and no more target grades.
Are all these things bad? No. Travel broadens the mind and I think I really do understand now why they're done. I can see how they contribute to one of the better education systems in the world. But they're not like home and they, like every good idea a person has, come with their own share of problems and unpleasant side-effects. It hasn't taken me long to figure out that you don't get very far trying to explain to British people that education here may not be naturally superior to that in every other country on Earth. I had one teacher I chatted with about it keep trying to steer me towards acknowledging that education in Canada was probably on its way to developing into the more mature British system. Like some kind of cultural evolution. Ugh. But, then again, maybe they have good cause to be a bit defensive; this is the standard by which education worldwide is usually judged.

Anyway, we're excited about a week of cleaning, packing, seeing our last few big things and then coming home. Pray for us. That we would finish well. That we would hold up through rough kids and demanding conditions. That we would keep our heads. And that we would find a way, somehow, to say goodbye to all the places and people we've grown quickly to love here without disintegrating.

News from Away - May 16

How's she goin' dere b'y?

Very pleased to announce there IS some news! Hooray
Gonna make you work for it though:

Work - is work. And some days it's more work than others. Today things were pretty light but that has more to do with Wednesdays in general than anything else. Alyssa's school is slowly dropping classes from her timetable one by one and sometimes giving her cover lessons to fill the gaps. There's a weird kind of staggered finish thing going on here; not all students go until the "last day of school" - the yr10s and 11s are writing their big standardized tests and finding out if they've passed their classes now. So the final half term in June-July (i.e. when we'll be gone) will be spent revving up for next year and complaining about not getting part marks. Younger kids have lots to do until mid July. I have no idea what the A-level kids are doing in yr 12 and 13; killing themselves over the stress of tying all their academic achievement up into 3 or 4 big tests, probably. I don't mean to sound too much the cynic, but if I don't rant about what I miss in the Canadian education system to someone else every now and again, I might really aggravate my poor, patient, long-suffering wife.
It seems like every week I'm feeling more involved in church than less. Odd, but I don't mind. I am clinging doggedly to my decision back in the fall that I wouldn't hold back from doing life with the people God would bring us to just because it wasn't forever. If you let that be a reason to not pour yourself into relationships, you won't do it. And though it is really, really, really going to hurt saying goodbye to our new family here, I'm happy we came and did it anyway. There will be plenty of time for catching up later.
Of course, we've been doing a study in homegroup on heaven and misconceptions thereof, which has been really enlightening. Last week was a discussion of why the classic "left behind" model of the rapture might not be the best biblical interpretation of how the last days will go. Blew our minds. It's good to challenge your preconceptions. Like any growth, though, it can sometimes be a bit painful.
Travel - Last weekend we went on a really lovely sea side day trip with Helen and Anthony down to Bournemouth on the south coast and a country drive back through the New Forest. Photos and more detailed story-telling pending another good opportunity to write and upload, hopefully soon. We were lent a couple passes that will get us up into St Paul's Cathedral free (each parish gets a couple, apparently. They say we're "welcome guests". Cool!) that we plan to use Saturday, hit the london eye around mid-day, and then maybe hit the imperial war museum, maybe just go home. Depends on our legs.
Our big exciting weekend plan still is the following Saturday - we're going to try to do the monopoly day and it looks like we'll very likely have at least a couple friends available to come with. We have to have a chat tonight with some of them and send an email round, though. Anna had a great idea that we do a kind of theme thing where we carry around facsimiles of the monopoly pieces; someone with an iron, someone with a top hat, someone with a...scottish terrier?

The big news, however, is what's coming, and not just us to Canada.
I got a job. For the summer, mind you. I got offered a spot doing the interpretive natural heritage education thing at the provincial park I did two summers ago. Not only is it a lot of fun, but the pay isn't depressing and it is actually a really nice opportunity to use my qualifications and education in an unconventional environment. I am very seriously keeping an open mind to non-classroom teaching-ish work. Could be a future here.
That notwithstanding, I start almost as soon as we get back. Which means our detour through Brampton en route to North Bay will be less of a pit stop and more of a bounce. The scheduling of errands and seeing people has commenced quite furiously.
SO, if you're in Southern Ontario and you want to see us before we go 4 hours out of reach, the suggestion: come to my parents' house, dinnertime, Tuesday the 12th. We'll do a BBQ, and hang out together. If you can't make Tuesday, you're welcome to crash the quieter, less-extravagantly-catered Monday night homecoming. And we MIGHT be staying in town on Wednesday, but that's pending some schedule-shifting. That, I'm afraid, is all the South gets. Just like the civil war.
We'll be heading to North Bay for the summer. We'll work, we'll go to whatever bible study might be running that fits our time off, and we'll be in a good spot for camping trips, visits, and hurling applications at schools in every corner of the country.
And then we don't know. God's been working on me and my faithless tendency to keep worrying that we don't have teaching jobs. He's set a road before us and all we need do is walk it, and I'm learning that I can trust Him not only because He's never let me down, but because He really does know better than I do.
If you need any details (timing, arranging a visit/excursion, my parents' address, etc), then email or message me.

I think that about wraps it up. Phew. Tired fingers.
Dreading leaving but can't wait to come home. Peace.

News and Musings: May 8th

Hey,

If you're strapped for time and can't afford to read the whole thing, here's the spoiler: not too much is new. Life goes on

Work is OK. We had a couple shaky weeks the last couple but both mine and Alyssa's situations seem to be on the upswing. Which is nice. The more optimistic we can feel about teaching now, the less hopeless the job-hunting process for next fall seems. So far there's not much, but the postings don't really come out until pretty late. We are strongly considering places other than Ontario, though, which opens up possibilities. I know it seems a mite odd to come back from England just to go far away from friends and family again, but coming home really is more about settling down then being with family. There are hiring freezes in my hometown and there's never any jobs in North Bay, so the likelihood of either of us living close to family wasn't going to be really great either way. We're still hopeful to find something somewhat close one of our sets of family, but if we have to head out west or something, we want to be prepared.

We're fresh off the heels of a bank holiday weekend (read: long weekend), which had - among other things - the added bonus of being able to go to the Sunday night post-church pub night. We almost never go because hitting the pub Sunday night seems to be a recipe for a killer Monday morning, but since we could sleep in yesterday, we took full advantage of the opportunity. I realize that we miss out not doing it, and we're thinking about sacrificing some sleep to make that investment in the relationships we're building here. I spent most of the evening in a really great conversation with our minister about denominations and doctrine and traditions and other some such things. Which is *so* much better with a pint of bitter. I had a thought this morning (I'm on a free period right now; not slacking off) that if we overextend Paul's metaphor of doctrine as spiritual food - that the base doctrines and the gospel are like milk and more difficult teachings like solid food - it may not be useless to think of denominational doctrinal differences as different foods as well. That we were all raised and nourished on the same root sustenance; the gospel. The same nourishing, life-giving milk that every human being gets (or used to get in the pre-formula age). But after that we develop and we differentiate. In food this has a lot to do with culture. But in many ways I think that our denominational emphases are dependant on a kind of spiritual culture. If you grow up as a conservative evangelical, then you're going to gravitate towards substantial, meaty, tough to chew and nourishing food. If you grow up charismatic, your religion might naturally be a bit more firey. Does that make it wrong? Bad? No. All Christian denominations have some bitter and some sweet; it's the interplay between flavours and differently-balanced emphases that makes for the difference. Lots of people switch. When I was a little younger than I am today I pursued a much more dense diet than in my childhood, and recently I've started experimenting a bit with small samples from other palates. My point, I think, is that so long as the food is nutritive and substantial, it's good. Some might be better than others. Some might be good for a season but not as a steady diet. But it's all food. Naturally, to extend a metaphor is to invite errors, so I think I might cut it off there before it gets too out of control.

What was I talking about?

Right, news! Besides the above, we haven't done much travelling. We spent the bulk of our holiday weekend sitting inside glaring at the weather and listening to me cough. I'm almost over the cold that flattened me a week ago; I like to think I've won the day but I still have to drive it from the field so that it never dares rise against me again. If nothing else comes up (HINT, London people!), then the plan is to do our round-the-city Monopoly excursion on Saturday. When monopoly came across the pond, they didn't cling to the absurdity that we do of keeping the chicago street names. They picked London ones. Londoners have never heard of Boardwalk and Park Place. Cool, huh? Anyway, our plan is to do a photo scavenger hunt of all the spaces on the monopoly board, pick up a box of london trinkets for all the pieces and then, once we're home, put together our own UK monopoly game. A home-made souvenir. We aren't desperate to do it by ourselves, though (HINT!), so if anyone wants to come along (HIN...well, actually quite explicit now) then that would be brilliant.

Running out of time. Thank you, friends and family back home, for your prayers and well-wishes. You're in ours. Peace.

The Tower of London

Our time here in London seems to be drawing to a close. We only teach for about 5 more weeks, take a little time off for the Jubilee and then, Deo Volente, hop a plane for home sweet home. Our list of things we can’t wait to do when we’re back is growing by the day.

Of course, this all means we have to get through our list of things we can only do in London rather quickly. The number of weekends we have free is painfully inadequate to see and experience everything people have told us to and that we’ve wanted to. But, in the spirit of getting through as much as we can, we’ve decided to - as much as possible - get out and be touristy just about each chance we get.

Last Saturday’s manifestation of this impulse was a trip to see the Tower of London. Now, I did something very foolish this time; I forgot my camera at home. None of the pictures you are about to see are mine; they’re courtesy of Google Image search and I deeply hope I’m not violating any really important copyright law by republishing them here.

Also, I’m writing now, not only because it was only yesterday someone recommended I write a blog entry in spite of the absence of authentic photos, but also because I’m home sick. You can chalk up any longish pauses between sentences to orange juice and kleenex breaks.

For most North Americans, the Tower of London is something you feel like you’ve heard of but you don’t really know very much about it. Many people connect it with prisoners and torture, which is certainly the main selling feature. For centuries, important political prisoners and more than a couple big famous people were imprisoned and/or executed here.

The first misnomer, though, is to call it a tower. When I hear “tower”, I think one solid high structure. Not a multi-building complex enclosed by walls that looks a bit like this:

When I see something like that, I think “castle” or “fortress”. I think both would be good ways to describe the “Tower”.

Of course, the name comes, I think, from the first component that was ever there, built by the Norman William the Conqueror when he became King of England in the 1060s. He built a ring of larger castles outside London to control it, but put a fortified royal palace, the White Tower, right on the edge of it overlooking the Thames

Today, the White Tower is home to some really cool winding stone staircases straight out of the movies as well as one of the world's best Medieval armor and weapons collections. Highlights included a full suit of armour for a small child (think 3 years old; that's how big it was) right next to the largest suit of armour on Earth; more than 7 ft tall. Also, a couple cool interactive exhibits where you get to see how bad the peripheral vision in a helmet was and how heavy a matchlock musket is to lift. I think they might have been for the kids, but Alyssa just kind of smiled while I tried them out.

For me, though, the big highlight was the guided Beefeater tour. The Beefeaters are a real life military order in the British Armed Forces (though their real name is Yeoman Warders)

Most of them are veteran servicemen and war heroes, mainly from the army. But they're not retired. Every now and again, Yeoman Warders get taken off tour guide duty and put into combat situations. Not often, I don't think, but sometimes. They are a fighting wing of the military.

Ours was awesome. We got to it a bit late and so didn't catch his name. He was a little gruff and a lot of his jokes were just edgy enough that you worried he might actually offend someone. But I felt like that was part of the experience. That's who these men are, and who they always have been. Army guys. Who better to show us around?

The tour started by the entrance. There is only one land-based entrance to the Tower complex, a bridge that runs over the moat.

Somebody asked why the moat was so wide, and the Beefeater said it was because this was not Disneyland. The Tower was surrounded by a real working moat that, before the wharf was extended, connected to the waters of the Thames. The Thames essentially flushed it out. Today it's a gorgeous and lush green lawn that encircles the tower, and this might have something to do with the fact that several hundred people living inside the tower and around the moat used the moat as a septic tank. Apparently, and I'm not making this up, it may have once contained some polar bears, too. The royal menagerie was kept next to the moat and so any unhappy peasant who wanted to defy the monarch was in for a bear-dodging, poop-pushing, arrow-evading swim.

If you could get across the river of nightmares, you still had not one but two lines of defensive walls to scale or break down; the interior one higher than the exterior. The Tower is ringed with towers; including a few Muslim-inspired circular ones that were better at absorbing shock and could have heavy weapons like catapults mounted on them. Our Beefeater led us to see this tower, with a big main gate to get into the inner courtyard.

 The Bloody tower is where, allegedly, the little princes were murdered during the wars of the roses. This is one of my big historical blind spots and so I know almost nothing besides what the guide said; the boys were a political threat and went missing. Not long ago an excavation found two child's bodies who are believed to be the princes. No progress yet on determining the culprit, but our guide gave us his theory.

This is the Traitor's Gate. This was where many prisoners entered the tower. The grate opened up onto the river (before the modern extension of the wharf). Famous prisoners include Queen Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII's second wife imprisoned and executed for treason (i.e. cheating on him). Also, Captain John Smith in Pocahontas II. All told, the Tower of London was not mainly a prison. It had a busy period of a couple hundred years, including Henry VIII's lifetime and a bit before and after. But it's also one of the least secure prisons in Britain; there were a number of successful escapes; something like 4% of prisoners put into the tower actually got away. This is because it's a small sample size; over its whole lifetime the Tower only housed a few hundred prisoners. 

 One kind of kitchy bit of Tower folklore is that London will always be safe so long as the ravens are in the tower. So they built a cage to keep a few of them there. And, according to Rick, had to install some big complicated apparatus to help them mate because their numbers were dwindling. We saw a couple. We see ravens all over London; it didn't feel like a big deal. But we saw the cage.

The last really cool thing they have inside the Tower is the British Crown Jewels. The exhibit itself is really nicely put together, with this warm-up video getting you thinking about the monarchy and the emblems of the monarch's authority and responsibilities, lots of video of Queen Elizabeth's coronation, and then the main event; a few well-lit display cases with a moving floor beside them to keep traffic moving. Which felt a little weird. We took a couple passes to figure everything out. 

The jewels include some of the most impressive jewels on earth, including the 530+ carat Cullinan I diamond (aka the Great Star of Africa) in the scepter and the Koh-i-Noor diamond (105 carats) set in the Queen Mother's crown. Very shiny. The Cullinan is, right now, the second largest diamond on earth, I think. Which is nothing to sneeze at. Oddly enough, despite the immense value of the things there, I didn't feel bombarded by security. We didn't even go through a metal detector. I'm sure there was something subtle and yet ruthlessly efficient set up in the shadows. Very English.

After strolling about to our hearts content, we decided to bid the Tower farewell. Thanks for joining me on this google-sponsored blog post. 

Oh, a random request for those people who agreed to take a look at my novel manuscript a couple months ago: it would be nice to hear back from one of you. Even if the book is crap, just let me know you read it. I know it's crap; my feelings won't be hurt. I'd just like the feedback before I get very far into something new I've been thinking about.

Euroadventure: Last stop: Amsterdam

Amsterdam was always our if-we-can-find-time-at-the-end stop. We were only there a day. But I think, all things considered, we did a pretty good job of squeezing a full day of Dutch sightseeing out of our one day and our four tired legs.
We started the day with a walk through the Red Light district to some famous churches and squares, since we did want to at least see the infamous neighbourhood for ourselves and we thought it would be pretty empty and lifeless in the early morning.

Amsterdam is a city built on canals. It actually has more canals than Venice! And it has one of the most 17th century-esque townhouse collections in all of Europe. Big parts of the city have gone unchanged for centuries.

Oude Kerk, or "Old Kerk" A big cathedral/church in the heart of the Red Light district, although I'm given to understand the church predates its slightly more risque neighbours.

A flower stand in Nieumarkt. Lots of - surprise - tulips!

This one might need some explanation. When I saw this corn-on-the-cob seller in Nieumarkt I almost laughed out loud. My Mom told me an old story about how her Dutch immigrant mother never gave them corn on the cob when they were little because Dutch people didn't think of corn on the cob as people food. Corn on the cob, according to my Oma, was pig food.
Well, guess what, Oma? Apparently there are enough Dutch people who disagree to keep this vendor in business.
Then again, it's easy for me to be brave about it; I'm pretty sure my Oma doesn't read the blog. Not unless my Mom shows it to her.

This is our only photo of the Red Light district. This little church was set up right next to a big sex club and paraphernalia shop. I wonder what the story of the place was.

Eventually we got tired of walking back and forth so we decided to splurge on a canal boat tour of some of sites. Plus, the lineup at the Anne Frank house was so long we would have wasted half the day there.

This is a bicycle parking garage next to the central train station. It houses about 3000 bicycles. Regardless, another 9000 are still parked illegally around the station on average EVERY DAY. Plans are in the works for a big bike garage upgrade. Nuts.

 The boat tour was nice but we eventually saw a neighbourhood nice enough to explore that didn't make us feel seedy. The big parks and nice little cafes was a much more serene and peaceful way to spend our day.

 We rounded it all off with a big classy dinner at a nice Indonesian place near the hostel. For those of you who don't know, this isn't cheating. Eating Indonesian in Holland is like eating Indian in England. Or eating American in Canada. It's so commonly consumed it's practically local cuisine. We had a full Reistafel (spelling?) with all the fixings just for the two of us. Some of it was great but I think I prefer how my Mom puts it together.

 We didn't get a good look at the Dutch countryside on our way in, but the way out was much nicer. I got a couple blurry photos of windmills, but the fields of multicoloured tulips are what really blew me away.

We got to Brussels in time to catch our train back across the channel and back to the UK. All told, we had a lot of hours on trains and a lot of diverse experiences to chew on for the foreseeable future. Our holiday here ends on Monday, and I think we're both happy to be back in an English-speaking country and cooking our own food for a change, but I'm proud that we were able to see so many different places - albeit briefly - in one excellent 10-day adventure. Thank you all for your prayers of safety. If you have questions, etc. let me know. Til we get around to updating again, Ciao!

Euroadventure Stop 5: Bern, Switzerland

 We arrived in Bern off the train early afternoon on Saturday. Waiting for us on the platform was the smiling, familiar face of our much-beloved friend Brad. Man, was it good to see a familiar face after so long! And so refreshing to speak Canadian again, too.

Brad's working and studying with YWAM in a small town called Wiler outside Bern, so he toured us around town for a bit before bringing us back to Wiler for dinner and beds at the base.
Bern is one of the three largest cities in Switzerland, even though it's less than 400,000 strong. No city in Switzerland, not even famous ones like Geneva or Zurich, has half a million people. The whole country is about 8m, which means that they're really evenly distributed and many of them live in quite small towns. By all accounts the Swiss enjoy a really high quality of life, and Brad showed us all the pretty and impressive things, but he showed us the dark side of their prosperity and where the gospel is still needed in a place like this.

These gardens were all spread out behind the Parliament buildings

Ironically, even though we were still just a stone's throw from the capitol buildings, this park is a major hub for the Bern sex industry. Brad's team is working on issues of social injustice and so he had a wealth of information on the subject of the dark truths behind Bern's smiling wealthy facade.

This gorgeous river runs through town, and we took a very nice stroll along the river bank. it was nice to breathe fresh air again.

Along the path by the river were a whole bunch of these things: workout and gym equipment with little signs showing how to use them. As if joggers are meant to stop to do some parallel bars before continuing their routine.

When I saw this I could hardly resist snapping a photo. We haven't been to Amsterdam yet, and already European attitudes towards cannabis were showing themselves. The laws there are similar to the ones in Canada, but I guess relaxed enough to allow pot drinks in vending machines. My question: why are the labels only in English when the Swiss speak German and/or French?

 On Sunday, Brad took us to an international church in Bern. He and his fellow students/missionaries usually go to the English service, but since it was Easter the English congregation was doing a joint service with the German and French congregations that use the same building. The result was a multilingual, multicultural worship experience like I've never been in before. It was so cool to sing songs you know but in words you don't. Singing worship in German, praying in French, hearing teaching in all 3; it was quite an experience.
After service, we and Brad's team were invited to the English pastor's cottage out in the country for Easter lunch. I got a few more shots of the beautiful Swiss countryside and we got to meet some really really cool people doing ministry in this place.

I think it's safe to say we enjoyed Bern and Switzerland way more than I thought we would. I thought it would be nice to see a friend and take a break on our way back to the UK. Instead we were encouraged, refreshed, and invigorated by the beauty and the energy of the place we were in. It was awesome. If any NCCFers reading this haven't been keeping touch with Brad, fire him an email. The work he and his team are doing is really awesome and I'm sure he'd be happy to tell you about it if your ask.

Euroadventure stop 4: Rome: Days 3 and 4

For our third day, we decided to do less trucking around and more soaking and being. We started the day getting to a little park overlooking the Colloseum, which took us conveniently past the church of St Peter-in-Chains

Moses, by Michelangelo. This photo is awful. Hard to do a good shot from a point and shoot with no flash or tripod. What i can't figure out is why Michelangelo gave Moses horns?

These chains are actually two sets; one from Peter's imprisonment in Jerusalem and one from his imprisonment before his execution in Rome. According to sources, when the two relics were brought together, they supernaturally snapped together to form one solid line of chain. Are they real? Dunno. Are relics an important part of my faith in Christ? Not really, but if anyone wants to explain it to me I'm open to being convinced. Fire me an email.

Our picnic spot. Yep. That's the Colloseum in the background. We're like, totally over it by now.

 For the late afternoon/evening, we decided to take a walking tour from our guidebook through the "Heart of Rome"

Piazza Navona. Not only is it huge, interesting, and filled with gorgeous fountains and enigmatic street performers, but half of it is swarming with street artists. This used to be the site of a roman race course and is allegedly, I think, either the site or near the site where Caesar was assassinated.

We were really really impressed with this fountain in the piazza. The four figures on the base represent rivers from the four known continents: The Nile for Africa, The Indus for Asia, the Danube for Europe and some random one we've never heard of for South America, 'cause they hadn't found the Amazon yet.

 That is, until we strolled a few blocks further to find this:

Trevi Fountain. It was swarming with people but still very impressive and very romantic.

 After taking in the fountain we strolled just a few blocks further to a little high-class restaurant where we celebrated Alyssa's birthday belatedly but in style; with a sumptuous Italian feast. We practically rolled home, we were so full of good food and wine.

The next morning, our last full day in Rome, was another slow-itinerary day. We made our way back to piazza navona to read and soak up as much hot Italian sun as we could. Then, it was some market shopping and rustic Italian pizza in Campo di Fiori before retiring for a siesta in the hotel and prepping for the evening

Trajan's column. I took some other photos the first time we passed by, but this is the one that turned out

 It was Good Friday, and we stumbled upon a nugget of information: the pope does a stations of the cross service at the Colloseum on Good Fridays. So we jogged down to the Colloseum one last time in the evening to try and catch a glimpse.

Which is precisely what we got. Just a glimpse. This is the undeniable best of 5 or 6 awful photos. The crowds were massive. But it was him, alright. If we get to see the Queen this June, it'll be a really big year for world leader encounters.

The next morning we were up and early to catch our train to Switzerland. We bid farewell to the Eternal City with a heavy heart, but excited about the prospect of spending Easter weekend with the closest thing to family we have on-continent.

Euroadventure stop 4: Rome: Day 2

Day 1 was classical Rome. We decided to start Day 2 off with the Vatican City (since we didn't want to put it off until the weekend; God only knows how crazy the Vatican would have been on Good Friday) A short, crowded tube trip away we joined the thronging pilgrim crowds on their way to a very long lineup outside the Vatican city walls to get into the main attraction: the Vatican museum.
Now, many people are not huge into museums. I'll confess to being a museum geek, but this is no ordinary museum. The Vatican museum is literal kilometres of gallery space including original renaissance masterworks and some of the best ancient artifacts in collections anywhere, too. And it has the main event: Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel! The museum is actually the big unused parts of the old papal palaces; from back when popes weren't just religious leaders but also civil and military ones, too.

 The wall. A little weird that a place meant to be so holy would seem so foreboding. But we decided to take it as more a reminder of the papacy's history than a disincentive to visit.

 First was an Ancient statuary section, including this one strikingly realistic Egyptian Anubis. I mean, except for the dog's head thing.

The grounds were gorgeous, and this was just one view from the galleries. The boards set up around the perimeter are diagrams of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, and tour guides take their groups here to the picture to explain before they go to the chapel since it gets so super-crowded.

The Laocoon. Troy's high priest and his sons are devoured by snakes. Seeing it in person, you get nervous and uncomfortable on their behalf.

When I say kilometers of gallery space, I mean it. LONG hallways full of paintings, tapestries, and statuary.

The Vatican City parking lot. I'll bet the red Fiat is the pope's.

Wall painting depicting Constantine's victory

St Peter being freed from prison.

Raphael's school of Athens. Yeah. THE school of Athens, on a wall in this building. The tragedy: by this point most people were so tired they were just shuffling through to get to the Chapel.

Now for the bad news: no Sistine photos. It was against the rules and I don't blame them. It was an absolute ZOO in there. Suffice to say we had cricks in our neck from staring at the ceiling, but it was super-gratifying to see it with our own eyes.
 After the chapel we shuffled back out of the museum, grabbed a panini for lunch, and then strolled round the corner to St Peter's Sq and Basilica.

Most of my attempts at using the panorama feature on the camera have been a bit wonky. It's a bit distorted, but I hope it helps capture how big the space felt.

You can always tell which one is Peter, because he's got keys.

Chairs were set up, empty, from this morning's papal audience. We went to the museum instead, trying to avoid the crowds.

The Swiss guards. A passer-by who heard me wonder aloud confirmed that they are still actually Swiss.

The basilica facade.

The line was so long and the sun so hot we decided that, at best, St Peter's would be just another big, impressive old church and decided to make back towards central Rome to spend the afternoon living La Dolce Vita. We hopped back on the train and got off at the Spanish Steps

The Spanish Steps

Piazza del Popolo. This Oval-shaped plaza was, in days of yore, the fancy entry point for pilgrims coming from the north of the city.

There are three streets leading south into the city here, bisected by these 2 churches. the centre strip runs to the Colloseum and the Forum. The left avenue runs to Santa Maria Maggiore (a big pilgrim church and, incidentally, right next to our convent), and the right one down to the Vatican.

 We decided to camp out here in the piazza for a while. We found a bench in the shade, read our books, and enjoyed the sounds of street performers and pushy flower salesmen. We'd planned to take in the haute couture and fine dining off the main street here from the piazza in the evening but the later it got the more the last two days' adventuring got to us, so we trucked back to our home neighborhood and went out for really really nice pizza, instead.