You'll Never Walk Alone

Sorry for not posting anything in a while. We’ve been keeping busy here and I’m really good at procrastinating everything. So last time I blogged I had just started classes. Now it is the end of three weeks of actual class and everyone at home is starting their fall breaks already. Extremely weird to think about. Classes are actually pretty good and they’re really interesting. Its odd having class for three days a week though. As of today I’ve been gone for a month. It feels like just yesterday that I was in Cleveland. Ok, so here are some of the highlights from these past weeks.

This is Anfield: On Sunday October 4, my friends and I went to Anfield which the stadium of Liverpool F.C. As most of you know, I have an insane passion for football (soccer to all you Americans) in general but especially for Liverpool F.C., so today was a great day. When we got to the stadium, we spent some time in the store looking at merchandise before the tour. Talk about temptation to spend money. Once the tour started I was pretty much out of my mind with excitement. We got to enter through the player’s entrance and walk through the interview rooms. The tour guide described what the players and coaches do on a match day. We went through the dressing rooms of the home and away teams and also saw the referee room. In the home dressing room we got to sit next to the players’ jerseys and take pictures. After that we got to walk out onto the pitch and touch the This is Anfield sign which is iconic and the players touch it before walking out onto the pitch. Then we got to sit where the substitutes and staff sit as well as sit in the Kop. Then we went through the Liverpool F.C. museum and got to see the club throughout the ages. In the store, I bought Fernando Torres’ book which I totally love. The last thing we did at the stadium was go around to the Shankly Gates and see the Hillsborough Memorial which was created in remembrance of the 96 Liverpool fans who died at a match in 1986.

Jesus Culture: On Wednesday, a group of us went to a huge church in Liverpool called Frontline for something called Jesus Culture. The people who run it are Americans and they have this tour across the U.K. with a conference and nights of preaching and worship. The worship was absolutely wonderful and the message really moved my heart. It was so amazing to see the work God is doing in this city as well as in the United Kingdom. It was great to be able to spend time with other believers in another country and make connections with other brothers and sisters in Christ.

On Sunday October 11, a bunch of us went to the International Slavery Museum and Maritime Museum in Albert Dock. The museums were extremely interesting and it was cool to see the impact that Liverpool has had as a port city. The slavery museum moved through three different areas allowing people to get a sense of Africa and then the slave trade and then how race is viewed today and how far things have come. Also, we viewed part of the Maritime Museum that dealt with the Titanic, Lusitania, and other sunken ships. That night Emily, Hannah, and I tried to walk to Frontline Church from Aigburth and after about an hour and a half of walking we made it for the last 15 minutes of service but hopefully we’ll make it for the whole service soon.

Those were some of the highlights. The weather here has been absolutely wonderful and its only rained like twice that actually impacted us. It is actually warmer here then it is at home which is absolutely awesome. Tomorrow I’m going to Dublin and Cork so I’ll have another update about my first travels. I also bought tickets to Rome last night, so I’m really pumped for that. Love you all!