Genesis
I had small group tonight and we were studying Genesis 2. We got distracted by the inconsistancies and scientific problems of Genesis. I'm not sure if the group was interested in the distraction, but I saw it as a good opportunity to go for a bit of digging and challenging of the status quo.
We spent a bit of time where we tried to reconcile the issues, but we never came to anything statisfactory. At least not for me. I sent us all off to discover what we could about the whole thing and how we could understand Genesis. How do we reconcile the fact that things in Genesis 1-3 (and I reckon up to 11 at least) don't really work with what we see in science and history? And how do we figure out why things in Genesis 1-2 just don't match up?
Whenever you talk about it everyone has a different theory. There are all sorts of ideas that people have, some of them are good, some of them seem to be just clutching at straws. What I love about the whole discussion within a teaching context is that it challenges us to keep the Bible as the Word of God, even when the it doesn't seem to be fitting in with our ideas about how infallible history should be written. I love the offensiveness that it just doesn't seem to work. The challenge to look deeper, keep questioning, because the answer isn't apparent at first reading. I love the mystery that we may never be able to answer the questions of creation, yet we still can come to the Bible with faith that it is God speaking. It creates a healthy distance between we who are seeking answers and He who gives them. It keeps us on our toes, it makes us stay alert, we can't just take it at face value. The truth comes to us but it doesn't come without our searching, asking and trusting. Genesis asks us to give up our need to have the exact answers to the beginning of man, but instead it shows us where man begins.
I guess I'm rambling. But as you may be able to see, I really like what Genesis does because it doesn't work the way we want it to, it works the way God wants it to.
Hungary
These are the Hungarian photos. This is the fruit of a free afternoon. I know there are a lot. I hope you can cope. I'll do Austria and England later. Maybe next week.
The Car we traveled to Hungary and back in. The hottest car eva bro!
Our flats in Budapest. Pretty swish. We were on the right-hand with the balcony but our windows were around the corner.
The stairwell in our units
The memorial for the Jews who were shot into the Danube in World War 2
Jo, Valentina and Grandpa on a bench outside the Hungarian Parliament House
A building Budapest. Lots of them were still like this, a bit decrepit and filled with bullet holes from WWII and the 1956 revolt.
Grandpa
Dancing on Margrit Island
St Stephen the Angry
At Statue Park where they keep all the old Communist statues.
Who knew Communist Statues could make me look so good?
At Lake Balaton, Hungary's premiere holiday location!
The view was always good in our car
Lag
The jet lag hasn't been too bad. It just tends to hit me every now and again and I fall asleep like a small bout of narcolepsy. But then I wake up and I'm all good for a bit.
Ryan and I bought a big sound system for our house yesterday. It's fun to have, but I haven't really got to fully love it yet. I guess when I to hang out at home with it I'll love it. Especially when we hook it up to the computer so we can play iTunes through it. That'll be spec.
We hooked up our computer at home to the sound system in 1998 and I remember that playing SimTower through the sound system was wonderful. I just loved the sound of those noisy elevators turned up loud!
Going back to work was fun. I liked seeing everyone again. People make my job good.
Now I should leave because I have early morning 21sts tomorrow. Actually just one so that's a rather fallacious pluralating "s". Sorry.
Russian Photos
These are the last of my Russian photos. Only Hungary and England to go. Sorry there's a lot. I hope you don't have dial up.
This is a church in St Petersburg. It's built on a piece of ground where one of the Tzars got assasinated on his way to getting the new constitution signed. His carraige got blown up.
Inside St Issac's Catherdral
Sexy Russian Attire
That's 9:53pm.
At Peterhof. Built by Peter the Great, the man who loved spurting water.
Summer fun in the Baltic Sea.
Jo, Valentina and Tanya at Peterhof
Waiting to cross the St Petersburgian road
A grave at the burial place for the 1941-45 siege. There were fields and fields of mass graves like this. So sad.
Jo's bored of planes
Pad Thai!
I'd been craving Pad Thai since I was in Budapest. And last night I had it for dinner. And this morning I had it for breakfast. Oh yes. It's good to be home, if only for the multi-national cusine. But that's not all. There are people here that I like. Lot's of people.
And there's my bed.
And there's my new t-shirts.
And there's cable internet.
So I'm pretty happy.
I didn't go to college this morning because I didn't want to. And found out from a letter that I opened before breakfast that I passed college last semester with a credit so I felt like going even less.
And the plane trip? Well it was long. I slept some, ate some dodgy food, and didn't get a window seat. We had a two middle seats all the way from Vienna to Sydney which was a different experience. The only advantage being is it's easier if you want to get up and go to the toilet or chat up a flight attendant.
There was a man sitting near me who looked like the music teacher in The Simpsons.
I'm Home
Ok so there were no airport blogs because everytime I got of a plain the next one was boarding so there wasn't much chance.
But in KL I did leave my angry airport authoritarian captors to find free internet, but the computer didn't work.
And now I'm here and I'm trying not to fall asleep. But I'll write more later. But not much more because there's not much to say about being stuck on a plane for 24 hours.
Leaving Soon
We're leaving here at 3:15am to drive out to Heathrow. We fly to Austria, then KL then Sydney at 3pm Wednesday. My brain's going to be wasted.
Anne has steep stairs in her house that make you feel like you're in the Ministry of Silly Walks if you take them two at a time.
She also has a shower head that falls off mid-shower and attempts to knock you unconsious. I shower with one eye on it the whole time just incase it leaps off the wall at me, sly bugger.
Since going away I haven't showered in one shower with a fixed shower head. They've all been these silly things that you can mount on the wall or hold in your hand and spray yourself that they have in retirement villages. I'm looking foward to showers that work normal and are screwed into the wall, and if you want to spray yourself you go get the grarden hose.
I'm off to keep reading. I'll probably see you all in Austria.
Billy Elliot and the International Air Guitar Star
It's been a long time since I blogged. I'm a bad person.
I realised the other day that I don't know who won the the State of Origin. What a bad Australian. I better go find out.
Oh it was Queensland. Shame.
So I think I have to talk about the weekend. I can do that.
Friday
Jo and I headed into London. We're getting very good at all this train business. We pay through our noses and get to sit on an uncomfortable train for a while. Yay!
Anyway, we went to visit the TATE Modern which wasn't too bad. I'm getting better at the whole art thing this trip. There's lots of art that doesn't really excited me, like cubism, I skipped through that room pretty darn quick. But other things I liked. I enjoyed the Pop Art a bit, and the photography. I always like the photography. I'm so cultured now. I do art galleries.
We were going to go to the British Museum but we were stick of walking around big buildings and staring at things so we decided to give up. I went to the movies because I was craving movies. I saw an piece at the TATE that was a montage on four big screens of lots of different little bits from movies of people making music. It was pretty cool but it made me crave the cinema. So I went. So sat in a park I think.
I went and saw Thank You for Smoking at the Odeon in Leichester. The cinema was cool. It was skinny 4 level building with 5 skinny little theatres stacked on top of each other.
The movie was a bit of fun. Politically incorrect satire. Just me stuff.
After the movie I met Jo and we wandered down...
(I'm starting to get bored now, so if you're not reading this, I understand)
...to the Victoria Palace to see Billy Elliot the Musical. Apparently it's the musical to see in this town. And we had tickets, we're so special.
And it was pretty damn good. The kid who played Billy was fantastic. He could dance the socks off a dancing sock. He was great. It was worth seeing the show just for him. And the other kids were good too. The kids made the show.
Other than that it wasn't great. The whole musical bit, like the songs (music and lyrics) were rather forgettable. But that's no worries. You didn't really notice that.
If Billy comes to Australia go see it.
Saturday
Anne and I went to a big old house called Knole. It was big and old and full of old things and old people who would tell you about the old things. But it was fun.
Then we came home and sat around for a while, had dinner, then watch Billy Elliot on TV. Hooray! BBC 2 was having some kinda dance fever thing going so Billy the movie was on. I'm pretty much all Billyed up now.
Sunday
Went to church with Anne in the morning we did. She goes to a little local church in a big church building, with about 25 old people who sit near the back. There are usually more people there, but I was told not many people came that morning because the preacher is boring.
After the service we met some older men (one of whom was the preacher) who wanted to tell Jo and I jokes about Australians, New Zealanders and Jews. They weren't very funny, but we were polite enough to smile painfully.
One of the men also got on his hobby horse to talk about how terrible he feels that the colonies (Australia, New Zealand and Canada) have been left out of the EU. I can't say I'm too cut up about it myself, but I think he wanted to be able to eat New Zealand lamb.
We met a very fun Nigerian family there too. They had an eleven-year old daughter who I told about my connections to people on Home and Away and she got so excited she started fanning herself and said "Wait till I tell my friends!"
In the afternoon we went to the birthday party of some funny distant cousins who gave me Diet Coke and Mineral Water to drink. They were, well English. All the women sat inside and talked about wall paper, caravans and Cornwall and exclaimed "Marvelous" and "Delightful" about everything. The male host sat outside got a little bit sloshed and as he did he regaled the gathered guests with the wonders he discovered in Australia when he came to visit, namely drive through bottle shops and Leagues Clubs. Definitely the pride of Australia.
Once we escaped the clutches of these blood relations, we headed off to Watford to visit Soul Survivor.
Once we got to the station we caught a cab. We made the cab drop us at the top of the street, because me in my insecurity didn't want to be seen getting out of a cab out the front of the church because I thought people might judge me and laugh at me. You can never tell when these Christians are going to turn on you and attack you. And they're especially thingy about people and taxis. Better to be safe than sorry I say.
Church was good. I got to shake hands with the fellow Sydney-ites that were there. And it was good to sing songs that I knew rather than have to try and mumble out strange hymns which I have been doing for the past month.
When we walked in Mike was up the front saying "Hello" and my heart sank a bit. For some reason I thought Mike was going to be away. But he wasn't. Don't get me wrong. I love Mike, I just had the feeling that if Mike knew I was at his Church he might do something to me. A chance to embarrass Donny Jaffa on home territory. And, well, he did.
He asked if there were any visitors from far away. And well funnily enough there were. There was a guy from Nobbijukistan or something and some Australians in the corner, and "Oh my..is it?...It can't be...It's Donny Jaffa! I didn't know you were going to be here, come up the front."
So I had to go up the front and talk about what I was doing there (Tour of distant relatives), why is bacon a vegetable (Because I live with 5 vegetarians and I'm asserting my meat eating nature - that got a cheer) and what I do for a living (I'm a youth minister).
Then he said "Now something about you is that you're famous for playing the guitar aren't you?"
And so Mike got the band up and made me do an impromptu air guitar performance in front of the whole church.
He's a mean man. I had to jump around the stage and play the air guitar with my teeth, and I didn't even have my Donny suit. It was a difficult experience.
Afterwards Mike asked me if I knew Layton Hewitt to which I said "We had a falling out. I stole his girlfriend" and some how I managed to tell the whole church that I engaged in adultery with Bec Cartright be cause has kids and I like kids. It was a bad moment of being put on the spot and not having planned a joke out.
Oh well. I survived. I think Mike won that one though.
The rest of the service was good. It was like going to Soul Survivor only a little smaller. I liked it. I did enjoy being at church that felt like home.
Monday
Today Jo and I are spending our last here in London. We went to the British Museum. I thought it would be fun because it's famous, but it turned out to be a big building full of really old things. It wasn't all that interesting. But I probably needed to know my history a bit better to appreciate it. Oh well. At least I can say I've done it. And I liked seeing the Rosetta stone because at least I know what that is.
Jo is now wandering around markets and I'm at a internet cafe. Tomorrow we fly out at 6:30am. Hoi! It's going to hurt. Oh well.
Farewell fair England. You've been good.
We spent most of the day on trains again. But we managed to find where were going easily this time. I read a lot today. And we went to visit a wonderful old village where lots of the bulidings were built in the 13th century and crooked. I like crooked buildings. The house I live in is a little crooked. Which is fun, except it makes wheely chairs a lot of work because you keep sliding away from the computer desk.
My house wasn't built in the 13th century though, probably the 19th, so I'll check up on it again in 600 years to see how well a wheely chair works then!
Actually I lied.
Yesterday was only the hottest July day in 100 years. And the top temperature in England was 38 degrees.
Did you know...
Yesterday was the hottest July day on record in London?
We survived, it was like Sydney summer.
Trains the Way to Go
We made it to Sudbury Suffolk which, I'm still not sure where it is. Maybe North-East of London. I'm so disoriented here. I've been staring at maps all holiday and I think I've probably properly navigated with them 1 in ever 8 times I've used it. I feel quite dumb.
Anyway, James threw us on a bus in Oxford which took us into London. Victoria Station to be precise (unless Ben corrects me) and brought two return tickets to Sudbury. Because London has such accessible public transport it only cost us AUS $82.50 each. I reckon the equivalent ticket would be like going from Sydney to Newcastle which would cost you $24 at home. It really makes you want to get the most out of your experience.
Anyway, we caught a tube train to a station we needed to be at. Went and bought lunch, missed our train, had to catch a different train, then arrived somewhere other than Sudbury where our great Aunt Claire picked us up in the metallic green Volvo.
And that was pretty much the day.
In the evening we had dinner with Claire and John (My Grandpa's brother) their kids, Nick and Suzanne and their kids, Mac and Toby. Everyone was fun.
As soon as I arrived Mac (who's almost 3) met me and took me to play football in the backyard with him. He stuck me in goal, kicked the ball at me for 10 minutes, got bored and walked off.
We ate our dinner in the backyard till it started to rain. So we finished eating inside.
At some stage in the evening we went to bed, and I got put on the biggest bed I've ever slept in. It wasn't King sized it was King, Queen and their three kids sized. I only used a third of it and I felt a little lost. The should hand out maps when you get into the bed and stick emergency exit signs on the four corners.
Anyway, despite sleeping in a small continent of mattress, I survived, slept very comfortably and found my way out. They look after me well here.
I'm about to eat a beautifully laid out breakfast with Jo. All these folk over here give you wonderful breakfasts. It makes you feel special.
Doing the Toff
After an extended sleep-in we (Jo, James and I) went into Oxford to walk around and see if there was anything free we could go to. Alas, there wasn't much. There were lots of 16 year-old Americans on summer school but no free colleges to visit.
It was rather hot yesterday. Not like unbearable, but hot like a normal Sydney summers day. But the locals are getting worried. There are warnings on the radio to stay inside, take cold showers, drink lots of water and put sun-screen on your skin "in a thick buttery layer" and the newspapers are advertising tips to be there "100 degree heat wave" (which is 38 degrees Celsius if you're wondering). But I'm not sure it was 38 yesterday.
I heard one man earnestly tell another yesterday that he's "been trying hard to stay out of the sun".
Anyway, we wandered around the colleges, all these big, old spired buildings. It's a bit like a whole town of Hogwarts. Unfortunately I was wearing my Hogwarts t-shirt yesterday so I felt like a little silly. But I wasn't really thinking when I got dressed in the morning.
We picked up Bec in the arvo and retired to a little pub called The Mole Inn in Toot Baldon. That was cool just because we were in a place called Toot Baldon.
In the evening we ate some dinner at home and watched Goldfinger on TV. That was cool. I was just thinking that day "I want to watch James Bond again". The Lord provides.
Today we're leaving Oxford to visit some relos in Sudbury Suffolk, wherever that is.
I just ate a cereal called Cinnamon Grahams. I ate them because of their name. Who wouldn't want to eat a food called Graham. Unfortunately they were rather unpleasant.
James Makes my Life Look Good
This is James' photos and recap of yesterday's Cotcwolds shinannigans. He does good.
Fame
When I woke up this morning and I got a message on my phone that said:
"Tom please call Kate on [number] from Australia's Got Talent... new tv show for Channel 7... re air guitar...thanks kate"
I'm staying up late so I can call. I think they're going to ask me to audition, which doesn't really interest me, but I'm curious. I actually am not all that keen to be on TV. But where there could be a good story...
All About Towns
I'm wearing smelly socks in Oxford.
Yesterday Jo and I went off to London. Anne gave us splendid breakfast then packed us off with all our stuff to the city. Two trains and a little confusion later we were in London. Hooray!
We whacked our backs in some locker service thing then headed out to "do London". And did we do London. In the space of about two hours we saw, at least from the outside, Buckingham Palace, Piccadilly, Leichester Square, some gallery place, Westminster Cathedral, Trafalga Square, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliment, the Millennium Eye and Westminster Abbey. It was a rather whirl wind tour of the city seeing all this stuff that I've seen pictures of, and heard about, and then there is all was. It was lots of fun.
We also bought tickets to see the Billy Elliot musical for Friday night. We'll be back to see the city in a little more depth that day too.
That afternoon we jumped on a bus to Oxford. There were some French girls on the bus who thought my accent was very funny. They went into hysterics every time I answered the phone. The bus should have taken about 1 hour 40 minutes but took about three hours because they're building a new round-about just outside Oxford. Because of the round-about we missed church. Sad.
We were picked up at the bus stop by James in a little red Mini Cooper. Which, when we traveled in it with all our stuff was, cool on the outside, and rather resembling a vacuum sealed bag of people on the inside. When you take out a few people and all their luggage it's cool on the inside.
James is housesitting for his Uncle and Aunty in a little place just outside of Oxford. It's cool it used to be a pub and a Methodist chapel but it's been turned into a house. Very funky. We're staying here with him.
Hanging out with James and Bec (his girlfriend) has been cool. It's funny because I've only met James once before we arrived and I'd never met Bec but I feel like I know them quite well because of reading their blogs over the years. It's the power of blogs, new people seem like old friends. Although it probably has something to do with James and Bec being real friendly too. I remember once when I was 15 or something I went to the birthday party of a girl I knew only exclusively through ICQ. We got on well in ICQ but when we met we had nothing to say. It was rather sad.
Anyway, it is fun to be here with friendly people our age.
I'm staying in the room of a kid names Jono who is about 11 I think. It's weird because I don't know this kid at all but I'm sleeping in his room and staying in his bed. I'll probably never meet him, but I've lived in his stuff. I'm like Goldilocks.
Today Jo, James and I went for a walk out in the Cotswolds. It was very typical English country side. It was very cool. We wandered through fields, forests, over stone walls and into and out of tiny villages. We met friendly locals and got lost a little. We scaled 2 metre walls, almost got hit by cars so climbed back over again. We ate lunch as a quaint little pub and wandered back to where we started. It was most lovely.
Today was about 30° and England got a heat-wave warning. National Crisis! It's been a source of amusement for us hardened Aussies. But you should see us reaching for the jackets on these cold summer nights. Brrr. Gets cold here.
Anyway the sun was hotish and good.
We ate stir-fry for dinner.
I love Superman
Now Jo and I are staying with our Great Aunty Anne in Grays, Essex. It's odd to be here in Mother England. I saw a policewoman today and felt like I was in The Bill. Probably like when English people come to Australia and see beautiful, dumb suburban families and feel like they're in Ramsey St. I bags being Toadfish.
When we went up to Passport Control at Heathrow last night the man said to us "You here to work?"
We told him we were here to visit friends and relatives. Then he said "And you're here two weeks? Is that right?" (Or something like that)
So we replied "Ten days."
And then he stamped our passports. And as we were walking out with thought "We never told him how long we were staying in here. How did he know it was around two weeks."
Very odd.
Today we spent the day recovering from non-stop doing stuff. We lay about sleeping, reading, writing, praying, talking on the telephone, eating with Anne and her old school friend and trying to plan the next ten days. They are now semi-planned. At least, we know where we're sleeping most of the time.
It was a lovely relaxing day.
Tonight Anne went out to a dinner, so Jo and I went to the movies and saw Superman Returns. I was so excited. I was so upset when I realised I was leaving Australia the day before it came out. And all through Russia and Hungary I carried a longing, deep within, to be watching Superman. And tonight I got to see it.
I loved it. Yeah. It was really good. I love Superman, and Bryan Singer is a champ! I loved the way they used the original John Williams theme. And the original opening titles look. I loved the new costume. Kevin Spacy is a champ. It looked good, the action was good, the story was good. It was almost all good.
Superman is a little bit of a cad when it comes to love. He gets a little stalker-ish, doesn't mind cutting another man's grass. He should remember that possession is 9/10ths of the law. That's not a flaw in the film, except perhaps that the film seemed to endorse his behaviour.
Kate Bosworth was a little bit flaky. She was too nice, too immature. She didn't have the roughness of Margot Kidder, and she didn't have the grown-upness of Kidder's Lois would have had after losing the love of her life and having a kid. But you can forgive Bosworth because she looks good with Superman.
And I think I would have laid off the messianic referances a little. Some of the time I felt like the script was written by the Apostle John.
But these are little things. I had a lot of fun. I'm happy.
Tomorrow we're off to see London, and we'll probably end up in Oxford. We were going to visit Soul Survivor Watford, but we couldn't figure out how to make it all work. Oh well. Maybe the Sunday after. Hopefully, or I won't be able to show my face at church without much shame. It'd be like being a Muslim and going to Mecca but never making it to the Ka'bah.
Being here reminds me of Biggles. And everyone's accent makes me want to laugh.
Anyway chaps. I'm off to bed.
I'm in Vienna again with their crappy keyboards! Arrgh!
It's funny never been to Veinna in my life, now it's three times in three weeks!
They smoke a lot here. I think the whole of Europe will die of lung cancer soon and we can send all our boat people here. "Nauru sunk, but here, we'll lock you up in Paris."
Jo and I checked in at the airport this morning then caught the train to the city to "do Vienna". So far we've read and slept in a park, eaten lunch and come to an internet cafe. I reckon you could say that Vienna is now well and truly done.
Tonight we'll be flying again. I do love to fly.
