Foggy LONDON Town

Josh here. We just arrived in Germany but I'm going to tell you about our time in England. Val and I left Pennsylvania on Monday afternoon, had a lay over in Washington D.C., and left for London Monday night. Val slept a bit and I watched several terrible movies (without sleeping) on the 7 hour flight, which put us into London at 6am. This was Val's first ever international flight, so we were both pretty excited. We were picked up at the airport by our good friend Jonnny Simpson, who interned for SFC this past winter. We met Jonnny's family and friends, all of whom were incredibly hospitable.
That first day we got situated and were introduced to the Finch's, the family that would be hosting us for the 4 nights we would be in town. Their house was incredible and every house we visited there had a proper "English garden", but the Finch's was the most amazing. Then, Jonnny and his older brother Tim (I call him TimBo) and I had planned this surprise for Val. When Val and I originally planned to travel, I asked her what one thing she really wanted to see in Europe, to which she responded, "Ummm...where is Stonehenge?" I told her I didn't know and then in researching it, I came to learn that it was about 45 min from Jonnny's house. So, we told Val we were going for a "nice country drive." Stonehenge is cool because you drive over this hill in the middle of nowhere and there are these huge towering rocks on the hillside. It was soooo incredible to be there and feel the "mystery" of the place. Of course no one knows exactly who built them or how or why, but there are several theories. It was a great way to start our tour. Seeing these ancient works takes you out of your world and out of your reality and you just step back and look at things from a much broader perspective. We were very glad to have that opportunity.
That night we had dinner with Jonnny's family and we had a blast. We had curry and Val really liked it! I was so proud of her. Val and I, having had no sleep the night before were a little delirious, however, and had a nice long sleep the next morning. Also, the next morning, we headed to a local English town and had a relaxing walk in some more beautiful gardens and saw an old castle, that was rather quite square and bland, but it was a good first. We got a taste for some English shops and had a wonderful English lunch of "pasties" (a sort of flaky croissant bread filled with meats and veggies). We also saw Jonnny's church and their town of WOKING. That night we played TOP GOLF with Jonnny and his friends, Emily and Ginny. TOP GOLF is a driving range set up with targets (large holes) that give you points and keep a running tally. It was so much fun, and we actually played again Friday morning because we had so much fun...oh, and because Jonnny and I wagered coffee on each game (because he works at a coffee shop). Thursday we got up early and traveled with Jonnny and his friend Esther into downtown London for our "tourist day". We saw the big wheel, the modern art museum (with tons of random works - some of which I refer to as "questionable art"), a cathedral that costs like $20 to get into (imagine paying money to get into a church - we didn't), the Tower Bridge, the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, Covent Garden, Camden and it's crazy shops, Big Ben (which I wanted to film so badly and when we got to it my batteries died) and we ended our day with a show. Jonnny had been talking about how awesome Les Miserables was and how we had to go, so we had purchased our tickets ahead of time and went. I wasn't expecting much as I've never been fond of musicals, but we all actually really enjoyed it. The theme through the entire show is one of Grace vs. Law and Judgment. It really is a very good metaphor of the story of Jesus. I'm not going to preach, but if you never saw it, at least rent the movie. I really enjoyed it. We took the train back to Woking pretty late that night, and with sore feet we had a well earned night sleep.
Friday was our last day in England, so we had a long TO DO list, and we got started early. As I already mentioned, we went to play Top Golf...again. Which I beat Jonnny at...again. Ha, so then we went and he got us the coffee (my winnings) and on the way picked up a snowboard that someone was loaning us, bought a classic English children's storybook for Val 's school, made Pimms (an English beverage meant for summer) and drank it in Jonnny's garden, watched a few episodes of the English TV show "The Office", washed and packed up our clothes and said our goodbyes as we departed for our last English experience - the indoor ski hill!! I know, I know...Jonnny made me do it. No, but seriously, Jonnny had asked me if I wanted to go snowboarding in true English fashion while I was there and meet the guys who were running SFC UK. I didn't even know there WAS one, so I obliged. Jonnny's friends Stephen and David Wythe drove and we all packed our gear and ourselves into David's car for the two hour drive north out of the city. It was situated in a huge mall and was much like snowboarding on fake (Pennsylvania - feeling) corn snow in a three story WalMart. You can't even justify comparing it to Colorado, but it was fun and I wore boots two sizes too big on a snowboard twice as wide as my feet in rolled - up jeans with a rental helmet...and HAD A BLAST!!! It was soooo fun and we met Jeanne Luc, the guy who runs SFC UK and his wife, Katy and one of their members, Neil. (I'm sorry if I misspelled your names...) And we played and had fun and ended the night with a quick prayer and several hugs before we all left on our long late-night journeys. David and Stephen offered to drive us to the airport, which was WAY out of their way and wouldn't even accept our gas money...and that's amazing because gas prices in England are sooooo absurd, like $12 a gallon - no lie!!! They were so gracious and dropped us off at the airport at like 2am before continuing the hour and a half drive home. We said our goodbyes, found our way into the airport and found a nice comfy spot on the marble floor and tried desperately to close our eyes for a few hours before our flight at 7am.
We flew for $20 US dollars total to Frankfurt, Germany on Saturday morning and took a bus from our destination airport to THE OTHER Frankfurt airport an hour and a half away to meet our friends Shane and Lauren Horton. We know them from our Australian connections, but they lived in Breck this past winter and we had planed to meet up and rent a car to drive south to another mutual friend's house in Bad Berneck, Germany. We're here now in Germany and the country is beautiful; green rolling hills dotted with tiny little villages and the occassional eco-friendly windmills. The language sounds harsh at first and then gradually begins to grow on you. I really like it here. More to come. Thanks for reading.