December 18-19

       This is when the desolation sets in. It's empty around here, like hauntingly empty. I don't get lonely often, but this holiday business will do it to ya. Instead of hanging around on campus a.k.a. ghost town yesterday, I went to the city. My destinations? Portobello Market and Borough Market, both of which came highly recommended to me by some of my friends. There were some engineering works on one of the tube lines (of course - it's the weekend), but I managed to manuever my way around town even through a massive snow storm that hit a couple hours later. At Portobello, I walked out of the tube station into snow, and it only got worse. Thankfully, I was bundled up and didn't get that cold. I'm starting to get the hang of this layering thing. The snow was falling so hard that I literally had to shield my eyes to see where I was going.
       The market is basically just a long street with tons of vendors and shops with antiques, secondhand goods, and souvenirs. I loved how many "highland shops" they had with tons of Scottish and Irish stuff! I didn't get any, but I might go back for a thing or two. There were a lot of people there despite all the snow, even a man playing an upright bass on the street corner = hard core. I wandered around for a couple hours and really enjoyed myself. I tried to find Kensington Gardens which should have been right down the street, but I couldn't find them. Oh well, another day. I still had a good portion of the day left when I finished at Portobello, so I headed to Borough Market which is a large food market across town. There are 3 smaller markets within the whole market, but altogether the place is relatively small. There were so many specialty foods there that I felt a little out of the loop as a college student. I still enjoyed walking around, and I tried some mulled wine for the first time. It tastes just like apple cider with that cinnamon taste except it tastes like old grapes instead of old apples. On my way back, I nodded off a bit on the tube until I got to the stop where I needed to buy groceries. I stocked up on goods, ran into some girls from campus in the checkout line, and we all shared a taxi back to halls. I fell asleep listening to Barbra Streisand around 9:30 last night - what a wimp! But it was awesome.
      Today wasn't nearly as awesome. It started off well though. I woke up at 7:30 feeling fully rested which is always a nice feeling rested. After a shower, throwing in some laundry, eating some toast (with butter and nutella), and making some tea, I sat down with my Bible. I love having time for reading at a leisurely pace. When my laundry finished washing, I had to hang-dry it all over my room and on my radiator because I didn't have enough coinage to pay for the clothes dryer! Wow - college stereotype, ha. My room smells like cheap laundry soap now. I miss Arm and Hammer.
       I'll admit right now that I spent way too much time on Facebook today, so just know that up front. I did get to facebook chat with my sister for awhile which was lovely. She was randomly awake at like 3 am California time - perfect for chatting with a sister who is in England! I also looked into flights to and from Dublin for when Ash comes, but I didn't book anything yet. Good thing, considering what I learned next. In the middle of my jolly conversation from my sister, I get a text from Natalie (my friend from CA) whose flight was supposed to arrive tonight. As you might have read or heard, the weather over here has been worse than usual for this time of year, and the snow it totally throwing off the transportation systems - including airports. Heathrow has been freaking out, and people have been sleeping inside the terminals. Anyway, Natalie informed me that she had to cancel her whole trip because she couldn't get a flight until the 21st but even then Heathrow might not be accepting arrivals. They called off ALL their arrivals today and only let out a select few departures. Natalie was already in Chicago on a layover and had to turn back for CA. EPIC BOO FAIL. I'm not sure how she dealt with it, but I definately had myself a cry (which is very rare for me), cuddled up in my bed, and fell asleep. We already had out trip to Edinburgh booked too, and now I have to figure out if I can get our money back on that one. What a mess. I didn't want to deal with it, so I just moped around for the rest of the afternoon/evening until church. Darn weather.
       I've been in a really funky mood ever since I got the news, but at least I was able to get out and go to church so I didn't feel so alone. Even though none of my friends went with me, I still got to be in a room with lots of people which helps the loneliness a little. (This is starting to sound pathetic, sorry) They were having one of their candlelight services that started earlier than the usual services do, so I walked in about halfway through. Bummer. The place was packed, so hardly anyone noticed, and I had to stand in the back. (I forgot to mention that my knee has been hurting a lot today. I don't know if it's from my skiing spill or from an older injury or both, but I'm not diggin' it and standing up wasn't fun). The message was a wierd. It was one of those where the speaker tries to formulate an objective/statistical argument for the authencity of the gospel and Christ's birth, but the reasoning was poor, in my opinion, and the message was rushed. Whatever. I wasn't really in the mood for a candlelight service anyway. One of the girls kindly invited me to the pub afterwards with some of her friends where I had a lovely hot chocolate and just enjoyed being around people even though I didn't know them very well. By the grace of God I managed to make it back to the tube station 1 minute before the last shuttle bus left for campus! Yay! That cheered me up a little bit, and then I got to talk to my family for a little while when I got back to my room. I'm thankful for cell phones and Skype to Go numbers.
       Now, I'm cozy in my bed and ready for a snack and a movie.
       Even though I'm still having a hard time believing Natalie is not coming (and Ashley might not be able to come either) and I will probably be spending a lot of time alone, I know in my mind that God knows what He is doing (I'm just trying to convince my emotions of that at this point). You know all those worship songs that go on and on about God and Jesus being "All we need"? I think those are kind of annoying to be frank because we rarely experience that kind of desperation in our everyday lives as well-off Americans, but maybe this is a test to help me realize that it's true. He will sustain me, and He will watch over me - always. Even when I am alone, He will take care of me. Even when my plans fall apart, His don't. I might not be "feelin' it" with God's plans at the moment, but I'm clinging to what I know of His character because I trust that He knows best. I'm just along for the ride. Drive on, God.

Prayer Request of the Day: You can probably come up with a number of them if you pick through this post close enough.