How Big is a Nutshell?

Hmm...
I thought about how I could fit what I wanted to tell you in a nutshell, and I have come to the conclusion that this nutshell will be quite large. The reason for this large nutshell is because I am using a Scottish nutshell, and what most all of you don't know is that the Scottish nutshell is HUGE... so yeah, here is my nut shell (and it really is long).

We have actually slept in Scotland in what we have attempted to claim as our own living quarters. If you were to see pictures of our rooms you might mistake them for prison cells, but do not be fooled! For we are living in one of the sweetest man-caves in all of Scotland! (You'll have to take my word for it) Bed+Desk=Length of room, and Width of single bed+very small night stand+door=Width of room. What a glorious domain! I wish you could all see it! But as I said before, you might mistake it for a prison cell, so we will wait until there is something on the walls before showing off our castle...of sorts.

But how did we arrive at such a wonderful estate, you might ask... Well, I shall tell you! The flight was good. I think we were both very thankful to find that the back portion of the plane (the area that was blessed with our presence) was not crowded in the least. This gave both of us our own row. Oh Yeah! One sad thing was that the plane did not have the personal tvs for each passenger... and before you go judging me for wanting my own tiny tv let me ask you a question. Have you ever been able to sit in front of a small screen for 8 hrs straight with the ability to change the channel between two different movies and some sort of other entertaining channel? At the click of a button you go from watching The Dark Night to lets say the newest Die Hard... and when that gets boring (which it won't) you decide to turn and watch this rerun episode of Friends! I'm really not complaining I just enjoyed bringing you down that rabbit trail... I was disappointed, but God blessed us more than we could have been with some little screen. We were both able to sleep for more than 1 hour, and we felt ready the next morning when we got to Manchester for our connecting flight to Glasgow.
But before I go on I want to paint an image in your mind: Picture a small boy. He has seen this amazing firetruck toy on tv for so long, and all he has ever wanted to do was play with one... his friends have all seen one in person, some have even touched one, but not this little boy. His wish, his dream really, is to play with one of these shiny firetruck toys. Then one day to his surprise his father brings one home! "WHAT?!?!" He rushes to the door as his dad puts in on the ground. His eyes are open wider than they have ever been... wider than one would think possible... he might have even shed a tear of complete joy when he first touched the firetruck... and what he does is turn around to his friend behind him and say, "Aaron, that lady has a newspaper, and the sports section is the Premier League... and the name of the newspaper is Manchester Evening News!"
I hope you catch what I am getting at... I was blessed with the opportunity to witness what some would call history in a young man's life. I was able to see Matt and his first encounter with English football basically on English soil. And we are not going to stop there! We have already bought some tickets to a game next week that will allow us to watch AC Milan (an Italian professional team that David Beckham is playing for on loan along with Kaka and Ronaldinho)! We are pumped!
(I am going to preface the next post by Matt by saying he will correct the title of that Manchester newspaper... all I really remember was the name Manchester in it)

To finish up with the travel I must tell you something about the small connecting flight. God really had His hand on us as we walked up to the plane. As you can imagine it was a much smaller plane than the first because we were only flying for like 40 min to get to Glasgow. The plane was basically built to NOT hold our luggage due to the amount each of us had in our carry-ons, our laptops, and my guitar. We chuckled a little as we walked up to the plane because we knew that there was no way... I mean, I have a backpack that could hold 2 Yoda's, a laptop bag, and a guitar, and Matt is holding something like a small body bag while carrying a computer bag that could pass as an EMT's emergency kit... we were serious, and there was no stopping us. This little plane was going to take us to Scotland. That is all there was to it.

Well, upon entrance to the glider.. I mean.. plane I am met with this large pair of eyes... The stewardess met me at the door as I walked awkwardly up this set of stairs that was probably no wider than my Econ book. She was just standing there with what I would call a worried look on her face..one that would say something like, "We're planning on flying today, and with luggage like that we wont be able to, sir." I greeted her with a smile and she said that my guitar was too big. I asked if there was a closet of some sort, but as I was asking this question I noticed that the only extra room that this little plane had was used to put in her little retracting seat... so yeah, my guitar was too big. I knew it, but I had nowhere else to put my stuff. She said some things about me having to purchase a seat for it or check it a while back, but what she didn't see was the huge bag that Matt was carrying behind me. Ha ha... but she eventually noticed a bit of a line that was forming due to our little conversation. She sent us to our seats (which were thankfully in the back) and told us that there might be extra seats so we'd have to wait with our stuff back there... well, people kept pouring in and Matt and I became a little nervous about our mound of stuff seated in the two seats in the row behind us. To clarify again how small the plane was I will give you the rows... there were two sides to the plane. On one side there were rows of 2 seats. The opposite side only held rows of 1 seat... to put it shortly I could place my finger tips on both sides of the plane if I stretched my arms out in both directions, but back to the luggage dilemma.

We were watching as people kept coming on the plane until it looked like the only seats were remaining were the seats behind us, which were currently occupied by our needed luggage. One more person came on, but there was somehow another seat somewhere in front of us... so our bags kept the seats! God gave us the second-to-last row on the plane so that our luggage would claim the last row. He is so good!

We were picked up by a friend that had participated in the Study Abroad Exchange program with Mercer and was Scottish herself. Matt had met her last semester when we heard she was from Scotland and we knew we had been accepted into the program. She is a very nice girl named Jacqui. Her accent definitely fits that of a Scot. God blessed us with her, because she drove us around basically all afternoon to the different offices, international affairs at the university and the residence office, and then to the store to pick up cell phones, bedding, and other necessities. She was truly a blessing! Praise the Lord!

We were then able to set our eyes on the apartment building that we would be living in. As we walked by it I noticed that the corner window to my left had a Pringles can hanging from the top of it... I was thinking, "thats a weird sight... I wonder if they have that up there for some funny reason..." Then I became excited to meet our new roommates and make things like that for no reason and hang them up on our walls... just because we could. We opened the main door to the apartment building and then saw our apartment main door. We went in and inspected the rooms for the first time. We then went into the next room and looked at the common area and the kitchen. To Matt's surprise we had a tv in the corner of the room! And to my surprise I saw nothing else connected to the end of the antenna than a pringles can hanging from the top of the window! When I passed by the window with the Pringles can and laughed at the guys that had a Pringles can hanging in one of their rooms I didn't know that I was one of the Pringles can guys!! Ha ha!! It apparently gets us the 5 channels that we have, so it does serve a purpose.

We have 4 other roommates, and Matt and I are so excited to see what God has in store for all of us! The other guys are from all over. One is from England, two are from Spain, and the last one is from France. All of that plus two Americans will make for an interesting time!
One thing that I was reading last night was from Matthew chapter 5. It reads, starting at verse 15, "Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." Amen! We are here as lights. A light that is only supplied by the Creator and Lord of the universe! And when light is turned on darkness must flee! 1 John 1:5 says that "God is light. In Him there is no darkness." It is impossible for darkness to be in the same place as the light and that is why I am excited! God's light has now been turned on and we will see the work of His hand as we continue to be faithful to Him. Please continue to pray for our new roommates and the friends that we continue to make!

I can't write in here without telling you a little about our difficulties with accents.... yes, it has already happened several times both days. When we hear things like "Himfeer en ladel minesker oofdamedoow" we smile and say "yes, we are students from the US studying here in Paisley." If you are trying to figure out what I typed just stop now while you're still ahead. That was gibberish and sometimes we just have to accept what we hear and go with it... if they laugh we laugh, but if they wait for a response we think about the sounds they made, gather some possible sentences that they could have said, and then ask them to repeat what it was that they said...

One instance could not be translated. We were having our first dinner here. After a search for the right place we found this nice little pub (it basically looked like a normal restaurant with a bar on one side). We sat down without any direction to do so, just an assumption because no one was there to show us where to sit. We sat and looked at the menus that were on the tables until we were both certain about our choices (like 20 min). We began to think we had to go somewhere to order the food, perhaps the bar or something like that. So we decided that I would ask the family behind us if that is what we do. The father said "yes," and it seemed like that was it. We looked at the menus again for like a minute and then I heard someone saying "Excuse me boys..." I turned and it was the father. He looked to be in his mid-late 50s. He then said something like "Are you boys lenlieries?" or maybe it was lemparies... either way, we had no idea what he was saying. I tried the ole ask to repeat it gig, but after two of those and still not figuring out what he was saying I just answered a question that he might have somehow been asking. I said, "No, we are both students from the United States studying here in Paisley." He nodded his head and said thats great and then one of his sons (probably about 11 in age) said "see dad, I told you they were American." The dad confessed that he thought we might be from Australia or New Zealand. I still do not know what exactly he was asking us, but I found something that would count as reasonable information.

I want to comment briefly on our day today, which was the first day of meeting the other new exchange students. We went to a session that started at 9:15am and finished at about 11:30. We found out, after everyone went around telling where they were from, that we were the only Americans! It was kinda funny actually... From then on we were being singled out every now and then...it was interesting for sure. One thing that was really cool was someone that God brought up to us. A guy named Stefan came up to Matt and I during a break. He asked us if we knew where Carolton, Ga was located. We both looked at each other and then responded "Yes, we've been there." He said that he had a friend living there! We talked the whole 15 minute break about where he was from and things of that nature. He is from the Netherlands and he was at the session with one of his roommates from Denmark named Dennis. After that session was over the four of us went and grabbed some lunch in a random cafe before our 1:30 session for module selection (choosing our courses). Anyway, we had a great time at lunch and the four of us went around town after the 1:30 session and into some shops. We exchanged numbers and ended up helping him with his internet later.

We were able to pick out some classes and try and piece together a schedule that would work for us. The minimum classes that you take to be considered a full-time student is 3. The classes only meet once a week, but the trade off there is the 3 hour time length of each lecture. We were looking for classes that were at the beginning of the week in hopes of a long weekend every weekend. Well we found classes that meet in the morning and afternoon of Monday and another in the morning of Tuesday. This means that we have Tuesday afternoon-the next Monday every weekend! OH YEAH! I am excited because I brought like 10 books that I was wanting to read, so that gives me the time to do that. And we're both wanting to travel so we have the ability to do that.

In all of this craziness keep us in your prayers. The weather hasn't been bad. God is really watching over us. One thing that is weird is the fact that it starts getting dark at 4:30. So halfway through the day the constant lighter gray color is traded for a blackish tint. Pray for our roommates (Paul-England, Julian-Spain, Nacho-Spain, and Julian- France), pray for our new friends Stefan and Dennis. Pray that Matt and I will challenge eachother as we both walk daily with the Lord.

Until next time.... and sorry the nutshell was seriously huge

Skipping The Pond

Hey, everybody. This is the blog Aaron and I will be posting to while we're studying abroad this Spring semester at the University of the West of Scotland (UWS for you texters out there) which is in Paisley, right outside of Glasgow. Hopefully, you'll enjoy what we have to say, and we'll try to keep things light for you all. I mean, when we eventually write about awesome stuff like looking at the Highlands from a castle or Aaron schooling a Scot at soccer or my first trip to a Manchester United match (Aaron might have dibs on that one, but I'm sure I'll have to say something, too), it's going to be a little difficult to keep a straight face.

In addition to our adventures, we'll be keeping you up to date on how God is using us during our time in Europe, how he's working in our lives and those of the people we come in contact with. Obviously, without him, we wouldn't be anything, so we have to give him all the praise and thanks for this opportunity. Even though this isn't a "mission trip", we really want to make an impact for him while we're over there through the friends that we'll make and the other believers we meet. We know there are certainly challenges that lie ahead of us, but we're excited about them! We really appreciate your prayers.

Well, 48 hours from now, we'll be somewhere over the Atlantic on our way to Paisley to do some shopping and check into our hall of residence. Next time you hear from us, that's where we'll be! Have a great week, and feel free to comment and tell others about our blog! Off to sleep before packing tomorrow...