adventures in england land

wow. the last time i posted, i was telling about the thanksgiving banquet. a lot has happened since then. my apologies. at some point there was a somewhat comical incidence in which the water in the conference hall ran out & i was stuck with fully shampooed hair, forced to shower hop... & faucet hop. not enjoyable, but thoroughly humourous. it was the middle of the night too. that's all i really remember... & i decided one night to take out my nose ring for some reason. getting it back in was painful & bloody... yeah. gross. but i managed to get it back it with helpful coaching from courtney. it snowed/slushed/hailed & everyone freaked out. i passed a test & an assignment & turned in a paper before break. go me. we had our christmas banquet & it was wonderful. afterwards, we sang carols on the big staircase in the main hall. beautiful. my family got a phone card so i was able to have actual conversations with them! i received a package from my grandparents & another one from my family.  they're all the best. the friday before term ended, we had roomie night & ordered pizza. i love that room. we're the coolest. again, everyone ended up piled on my bed. we had to move completely our of our rooms since we're changing rooms when we get back. i have A LOT of stuff. i'm definitely sending some home with the parents.
so, term ended & jamie & i went to phil & audrey's to stay the night. i brought all of my stuff so that was heavy... jamie bought these really awful rollers that she wanted to try out. when we tried to take them out in the morning, they were completely tangled up & it took half the morning to get them out. we made it to the train station on time & got on the train. we changed trains in manchester. we almost missed our stop. we realized that we were at our stop, quickly gathered our things & made it off the train right as the doors were closing. my purse got knocked off my shoulder & onto the platform. fortunately there was a group of people waiting for their train to witness this embarrassing moment. we eventually found our way out of the train station & realized that we didn't know exactly where our hotel was. we asked someone & got some vague directions. we asked a taxi driver & were even more confused. we made it to the road & decided that a taxi would be a good idea since our bags are heavy. we got to the hotel & were early for check in. the lady let us leave our bags & we went to the kfc for lunch & to the grocery store for food. we have mostly been living off dry cereal, bread, peanut butter, bread, & apples. we finally were able to check in & i soon discovered that the internet costs but it was so worth it. we slept the day away then coloured jamie's hair. there was dye left so i coloured a streak of mine on the underside. i can hardly see it, but i know it's there. haha. the next day we slept in way late then went in search of the church in town that has a crooked spire. we ended up going the wrong way & wandered around lost forever. we didn't find it & returned to the hotel. we ate dinner at the hotel's restaurant. we then watched movies & relaxed. the next day, we actually got up & got a taxi to the bus station & almost got on the wrong bus to go to chatsworth house. i asked a kind lady & she pointed us to the right bus stop. we bought bad coffee while we were waiting & had to toss it to get on the bus anyway. the bus took us to the road to chatsworth house. we had to walk this long country lane & there was a lot of ice &i fell once & almost fell a hundred times. we finally made it to the house & part of it was under construction... lame. but we walked the ground for a while. it was gorgeous. {side note, for those who don't know the significance of this place. chatsworth house was used as mr. darcy's house in the latest pride & prejudice movie. & belongs to the duke & duchess of devonshire, for those who have seen the movie 'the duchess'} we froze our buns off outside & i slid around on the ice plenty. we were hungry so we got some bad hotdogs. so classy. when we were sufficiently cold, we made it into the house. it was amazing. our favourite part was the statue room, as seen in p&p. the whole house was decorated for christmas so it was kind of weird though. we took pictures with all the statues that we remembered from the movie. EXCITEMENT. right outside of the statue room was the gift shop. we didn't realize that once you go there, there's no going back. we couldn't re-enter. i think we missed part of the house. we're telling ourselves that we saw it all. we did see the parts that were in the movie. :) we then had to make the walk back, but this time it was even colder & dark. bad news. we made it back to the bus stop as swiftly as we could for fear of losing our feet to frostbite. we almost missed our bus because of a bathroom break in the sketchy bathroom. we got dropped off in the middle of chesterfield & wanted to find our way to the train station to get a taxi. it took a lot of wandering & searching before we could find it. exhausted & freezing, we made it back to our hotel & collapsed into our beds. this morning, we slept in way late, even though we were rudely awoken by something that sounded like a fire alarm but wasn't...  we slowly got ready & went to the grocery store again. after dropping our stuff off at our room, we took a taxi to the church. we only could look around the chruch because tours of the tower were not happening at that time... we shopped a bit & i turned down a lot of lovely clothes {except for one dress...}. we got coffee & had a good talk. then we went back to the train station again to buy our tickets back to manchester & took a cab back to the hotel. we've been chilling ever since. tomorrow, we fly to paris!
i tried skyping my home & those within it but skype is awful & it failed. :( homesickness is an actual feeling of sickness. who knew?
that's all for now. i hope this is sufficient. & i'm sorry if there are grammar or spelling errors. i don't feel like proof reading this all.
i love you all. :)
the end.

merry sinterklaas!

i should really post more often. i feel like i'm forgetting a lot of stuff. whoops. time seriously flies here.

so, we had another project due last week. we had to make a gospel tract. mine wasn't very creative but i'm sure it was fine...  also, homework means no exercise. i'm legitimately more tired when i don't work out. who knew?

anyway, i believe saturday was where i left off....

sunday was the usual. monday, tuesday, wednesday were spent trying to be a good student & working on my project. i got it turned in on time. jill & stuart briscoe were our lecturers all week. if you don't know who they are, google them or something. they're amazing. thursday was spent doing nothing & then getting ready for 'special night'. i'm sure you've seen the pictures by now. if not, go look.... cute, hey? well, that was fun. it was technically not for american thanksgiving, but it totally was. turkey & potatoes & green beans. {the green beans didn't have those french-fried onions on them though... } we took a ton of pictures after. then, we had a dance in the gym. people here have been doing ballroom & swing & latin dancing, so that was happening...someone else started a better dance party in the basement of the castle. it was fun. we danced 'til lockup. on friday, we had a seminar about personal finance. i seriously hate money & i'm terrible at managing it, so i wasn't a fan. friday night, we helped this organization called radio bible class do a huge mailing. they distribute gospel tracts & devotionals & such. on saturday, we went to a premier football game in bolton. we got cheaper tickets for promising to cheer for the home team. our team lost... disappointing. it was fun though. legit. on sunday, my friend did the sermon. it was great. after church, we were all sitting around being boring in our room & then we decided to decorate our room. we raided the craft closet upstairs & made snowflakes & paper chains. a tree branch & some holly in a vase is our christmas tree. it's lovely.  last week, one of the staff here did a lecture series about the holy spirit. {i'm sorry, i really don't remember much about last week.} monday night, we all put our mattresses on the floor & had a slumber party & watched a movie. wednesday was my roommate brittany's birthday. & noodle night. what is noodle night? well, a bunch of the guys collected money & bought a ton of ramen noodles & cooked them all. yep. that's it. it was delicious. then, we had a dance party & treats in our room. dance parties are kind of the norm in here. on friday, i went to the town of kendal for some shopping. we bought this trip at the auction. did i tell about he auction? raising money for the kenya missions trip? i don't remember. well, it was just a few pounds & we got to go to kendal for a few hours. my roommate victoria needed a dress, so that's all we did. friday was family night. i can't remember if i've talked about family groups... well, we're all split up into groups here & there are a few members of staff for each group to be the parents. we have family nights where we all get together & do something. this time, we had a pyjama {proper british spelling} party & made gingerbread houses & watched home alone. i love my family. :) on saturday, our boys' football {soccer} team was playing a game in carnforth so jamie & briar & elyssa & i went after brunch to cheer for them. it was freezing & windy & we won. that night, we had a three-on-three basketball tournament. we made signs & screamed loudly. 

by the way, no-shave november is over. there are many mustaches & soul patches around here. too good. 

i got a christmas package from my family. it made me this happy :))))))))))))

this morning, we had church in the lounge. there was a fire going & the entire study body was packed in there.

{i meant to post on wednesday but the internet has been mostly off all week. it's actually not working as i'm typing this. so, frustating. nothing like missing multiple skype dates with my sister...}

today is dutch christmas. merry sinterklaas!

the end.