Lunches and Brain Experiments

Since coming back from Focus we have continued to explore London and to connect with the people of St. George's.  We have also been able to enjoy being in the host city for the Olympics while the great games happen, which has been a lot of fun.  Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the last few days has been our participation in brain experiments...



The Friday evening after we got back from Focus was the opening ceremony for the Summer Olympics 2012.  We stayed up to watch the whole ceremony, which included our new friend and housemate Zhen as one of the placard bearers for the United Arab Emirates.  If you recorded the event, you can see her as the biggest smiling sign bearer of the whole ceremonies.  Our highlights were definitely the Queen's acting debut, Mr. Bean, and the Harry Potter connections.  It was also very helpful to be watching the event with Brits who could explain some more elusive allusions.

Saturday was another day off for us, which we decided to take advantage of by going on a walking tour.  With a guide book lent to us by a friend, we walked for a few hours around and in the area of Lincoln's Inn Fields and Covent Garden.  The tour included the Royal Opera House, famous theaters, and inns of court.  One part of our walk included the Covent Garden Market (pictured here), which is a Victorian style covered market with shops and stands inside.  We perused through the stalls and noticed that, unlike in the States, none of the shopkeepers talked to us while we looked at their wares.  It was nice just to be able to look without having to defend our decision not to buy something.

At the end of our walking tour we stopped for a cup of coffee at Caffe Nero, one of the many coffee chains in London. There we were able to reflect on our walk, as well as enjoy the headlines from that day's paper.  Like us, it seems that most of London was impressed with the Queen's performance during the Opening Ceremonies.

On Sunday, we attended both the morning and evening services at St. George's.  Up to this point we had helped out with the youth during the morning, which meant that we had not seen how they did things.  The style is very similar to the evening service, but with less people in the band, although I'm not sure if that is a consistent feature or just for the low month of August.  In between the services, Brian attended a cake and cocktails party for the birthday of Liz Clutterbuck, the ordinand at St. George's.  Mandy was not feeling well so she rested for the remainder of the day.  As it seems most things are in London right now, the birthday party centered around the TV screen as we watched the Olympic competitions.  However, it was a good chance to have another taste of Pimm's, the quintessential English summer drink of choice, and yummy homemade carrot cake.  After the service, Brian went to the evening service, and then came back to relax with Mandy.

On Monday, we engaged in a new experience for both of us: brain experiments.  One of the St. George-ians whom we have met is doing her PhD in some sort of neuroscience.  Miriam emailed us and asked if we would be willing to help her in an experiment, to which we agreed.  What was involved were two tests that each of us took over two days.  Both tests were on decision making; one was how much delay affects decision making, and the other test was to see how effort affects decision making.  With both of the tests we were paid a certain amount of money based on our decisions.  It was very interesting and we got a chance to sit down with Miriam after we had both taken the tests and she talked us through her PhD project and hypothesis.  Mandy particularly was interested, as she has more of a background in psychology.

Monday evening we had the pleasure of having dinner with the Valentine family and the Terry family.  Justyn Terry is the Dean and President of Trinity School for Ministry and was the man who made the connection for Brian in order for us to be able to be here.  He and his family came to England this summer to visit family and to attend an Olympic football match.  While they were here, we were able to all have dinner together.  It was a wonderful evening, with good food provided again by our wonderful hostess, Catherine Valentine, and we had a great time reconnecting with part of Trinity.

Tuesday we had an abbreviated staff meeting in the morning because so many of the church's staff are on holiday in August.  We met for only an hour to update one another on how things were going, reflect on the Focus holiday, and to pray for one another.  We also celebrated Liz's birthday again and had some lovely cakes.  After this, we walked with John over to the Millman Street Community Centre, which is a retirement community in the parish.  St. George's has partnered with them to offer to help with grocery runs should the center's van not have access due to Olympic traffic.  We are both on the list to help with this, and we may also just go over to spend time with the residents.  We noticed that the center seemed to be not as populated as the retirement homes that we have been to in the US.  We thought that this may have to do with the differences between the health care systems in our countries.  After our quick introduction to the director, we grabbed a quick bite to eat and then went back to the lab for our final brain experiment. That night, we were privileged to watch live Team USA's Michael Phelps win silver and then gold in his swimming events that evening, making him the all-time most medal winner of the Olympic games! Go Team USA!

Wednesday we had two lovely meetings with St. George's friends.  First, we had lunch at a Belgian restaurant with Shiv, the office administrator for the church.  For a few hours we talked about her journey with the Lord, how she came to be at St. George's, what she loves most about the church, and her role as office administrator.  She also gave Brian some handy tips on working in an office with an administrator.  It really was a great time.  After we got back from lunch with Shiv, we had just a few minutes before our next 'appointment' arrived, Hannah Graveling.  We met Hannah at Focus, but she has been at St. George's for eight years now.  She is about to head off to Ridley College, Cambridge University to begin her studies in theology on her way to ordination.  We talked with her about her spiritual journey, about engaging with the Holy Spirit, and how beautiful the vision of a united church is.  We ended by praying for one another as we sat in the coffee shop.  Brilliant!

Wednesday night, to get some time to the two of us, we ate at a small local Italian restaurant called La Pruchetta.  Hannah recommended it to us for its family atmosphere and God confirmed our choice of restaurant by playing on the radio the song to which we danced our First Dance at our wedding, "When You Say Nothing At All" when we first walked in and were seated at our table.  We had garlic pizza bread, lasagna, tortelloni, and tiramisu; all of which were wonderful and everything that our appetites were hoping for.  Bets of all, we have leftovers for another meal!

Thursday, we took advantage of some more free time and went back to the Royal Opera House which is currently hosting an Olympic Museum at no charge to the public.  The museum includes an exhibit on the Olympic games in Greece thousands of years ago, a room dedicated to the man who brought the games to the modern era in 1896, and a sample torch from every torch relay that has happened, since 1936 to the present.  You could also see the gold, silver, and bronze medals for each of the modern summer Olympic games.  Finally, at the end of the exhibition, we got our picture take holding one of the Olympic torches from the 2012 games.  Unfortunately, we have to wait 24 hours to get the picture, but we get the picture free of charge.

Because the Royal Opera House is so close to Covent Garden, we wandered back into the covered market area to again walk through the shops.  We enjoyed looking at many of the knick-knacks for sale and hearing the amazing voice of an opera singer who was performing in the middle of a food court area.  We also found a frozen yogurt shop which didn't look too expensive (so we will return), and Brian found a Games Workshop, the store which sells the table-top fantasy games which took up so much time of his youth.  All in all, it was a good day.

Thursday evening, we headed over to the home of Jonny and Amy West, two parishioners of St. George's and recent friends, for a beautiful salmon dinner. We had a great time getting to know one another a little more, learning about each other's walks of faith, tastes in music, fashion preferences, wedding days, including Jonny's stag (bachelor party) stories and Amy's hen (bachelorette party) stories, and past work experiences and reflections on those. It was really nice to spend time with them and see their cozy flat. We also found out that we are (almost) their favorite Americans. :)

With just over one week left at St. George's, we have much awaiting us this next week. Stay tuned...