Sometimes my plans don't work out… but then something awesome happens anyway!

Big Ben

http://www.caminandosinrumbo.com/england/london/bigben/bigben4.jpg

Good Evening! Over here in the UK, we have just changed our clocks this weekend! For some reason North America set their clocks ahead 2 weeks ago! Anyways, I am exhausted right now and it's only just passed 9:00 pm. *yawn!*

So, the plan for this weekend was for Aussie and I to attend the Everything Conference in London on Saturday with my church, meet up with Stefa for a dinner party, stay over in a hostel and visit Hillsong in the morning.  But Aussie and I just didn't plan very well. On Friday, I decided to look for a hostel to stay in… but every hostel I called was either much too expensive or booked up!! We had to come back to Birmingham. In the morning, we set out to find the park where we would catch our coach to London. We ended up being half an hour late because we were looking at the wrong park on the map! Eventually, we got on the bus and left Brum. When we arrived, we were one of the last groups to be seated. Pretty soon, I began to feel pretty bad about holding up the bus ride… it turns out, since we were late, we couldn't get in to the seminars we wanted because we hadn't come soon enough to choose. So, instead of hearing a talk about the Gospel & Arts and Media, I ended up sitting in on a talk about the Gospel & Work in general. It was still a great talk and I definitely made some relevant notes, but it was a shame to go all the way to London to not hear about arts and media… Oh well. I was a bit disappointed to miss seeing Stefa, but I had a great chat with a few people on the bus ride home and Aussie and I decided to get some curry upon our return.

One of our friends from church suggested a local Balti house and we decided to give it a go. But there turned out to be a queue when we arrived— the wait was 45 mins! Luckily, a couple offered to share a table with us! (Let's call them Poppy and Mick). I have to admit, although I was quite grateful to get a table so quickly, I was a little wary about sharing a table with strangers. But we got into some small talk and 'what do you do's' and Mick mentioned that he worked in the media and had interviewed some obscure Canadian bands. Then he asked me 'have you heard of downhere?' Now, you probably haven't heard of downhere, but I LOVE THEM! Their album 'Wide-Eyed and Mystified' is actually number 2 on my desert island list, no joke. I said 'yeah, I love downhere!' and looking to Aussie 'they're that Christian band I'm always telling you about'. We had just found some common ground. Mick and Pippa turned out to be Christians as well! We ended up having a lovely night of good food and great conversation. Hmmm… I have just read that back and the way I have written it does make it seem as if I can only enjoy meeting new people if they are Christian, which is not the case at all. And certainly, good conversation can be had with anyone of any religion… but it was a nice surprise, I guess.

Not staying in London overnight also meant that I could help out with the kids at church this morning. We had an Easter party, complete with 'pin the egg on the Easter bunny', egg rolling competitions, crafts and lots and lots of chocolate and sweets. It was pretty fun to run around with a bunch of kids that actually want to play! It reminded me of camp *tear*. There are these two boys whose Dad is a real Brummie and they just have THE BEST accents you have ever heard. Oi reellay luhv the why thay spayk! After church, I was invited over for lunch to the house of a couple in church who are in leadership. It was great to sit around and chat with them and some of the other kids' work people that joined us. It was a lovely relaxing afternoon.


In true Sunday form, I didn't arrive home from lunch until nearly 5pm!