The Most Snowfall Britain's Seen For 6 Years

At least that's what the BBC are telling us anyway. Snow's coming down pretty intermittently right now, but it looks like it might get worse tomorrow. Needless to say, Aaron and I are pretty excited to see the most snow fall we've ever seen in our lives. The picture above is looking out the window from our flat. Pretty wild stuff. If you've seen a picture of Aaron lately, at least you know his face is in zero danger of getting cold anytime soon.

Alright, so I'll try to get you up to speed on what's been going on since Aaron finished his Encyclopedic entry on Friday. Saturday, we had great intentions of getting up around 11 and catching some football at the Wallace. (Our "favorite" pub so far...I put it in quotes because, as you may know, Scotland has its fair share of pubs, so to designate a favorite this early in the game would be somewhat of a false start. But it is pretty homey in there.) Well, after we woke up 40 minutes past eleven, we decided that we could at least throw a hat on and make it for the second half, which we did.

We watched the team from Paisley, St. Mirren, draw 1-1 at their brand new stadium after a late equaliser from the home side. (Sorry if there's a lot of soccer jargon thrown around in here.) It was a great experience for me (I can see your eyes rolling from here) because I got to be around other guys and grown men who made funny faces and weird noises at the TV (it's still not a telly) when someone came agonizingly close to scoring. And the cheer that went out when St. Mirren finally did was still an adrenaline rush even though this was the first match of theirs I'd watched. Sorry. I've been hooked for a while now. And I don't even have to tell you whether or not I have their jersey now or not.


We hopped back on the bus and decided to take a little stroll/hike on the path that's immediately across from our flat at Thornly Park. And what an adventure it was. From the slippery depths of the Muddy Hill (we're talking Nesquick muddy, here) to the mysterious Policeman's Jacket we found (promise) and even to Aaron's domination of the Thorny Bush (If you haven't seen the video yet, please, PLEASE go HERE), it was a mighty fine outing. It sufficiently wore us out.

So when we headed back down our little mountain, what time should it be but none other than that of the Manchester United v. Everton kickoff! (I can hear your groans from here.) So what else would two strapping two lads who just did their best I-wish-I-were-William-Wallace-but-I'm-slipping-down-the-chocolate-milk-muddy-Muddy-Trail do at a time like this? Yeah, go catch the match at the pub. But when we got there, turns out I was wrong about the start time (darn time difference), but we still made a pretty solid trip of looking around some shops before that Cinderella-esque hour of 6 o'clock when everything quite literally shuts down (except pubs, naturally). But just as we were waiting for our bus back to the flat, we saw the match coming on a big projection screen in no other pub than the Wallace (cue Aaron's description of my "toy fire truck" eyes). So we may or may not have gone in and watched the whole match. (Solid 1-0 win for United.) Again, lots of fun, but United has its fair share of haters ('cause I need something else for people to give me garbage about), so my celebration was somewhat subdued. Bottom line: Go tell your friends Matt and Aaron went to a pub twice in one day. See if they believe you.


Then we missed the bus. The almighty 1 Bus that is our only means of transportation on that cold night blew right by us, despite me waving it down as it just blew on past without so much as covering the brake. No matter. We'd just walk. And (let me check) yep, Aaron confirms that it was 0 degrees Celcius that night (that's freezing for you Communications majors out there). No matter, we used the 2.5 mileish walk back to burn off the ribs we had in the pub. Good thing our dumb jokes kept each other warm because not much else was.

Sunday morning we decided to check out Laigh Kirk, a local Church of Scotland we pass on our way into town. All in all, our visit to the church was labeled "pleasant" by concensus. It's still just crazy to hear hymns and a message and even pulpit jokes with a Scottish accent. It really was a solid message from the pulpit about putting your faith into practice. James 2:26 says, "As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead." Definitely a message that we are doing our best to take to heart as we continue to meet new people from (literally) all walks of life.

Other than the children who came in at the beginning of the service and the relatively young pastor and his wife, we were the youngest people in the sanctuary. That, paired along with our American accents, got us plenty of attention from the congregation who invited us to "a cup of coffee or tea and a biscuit" afterwards. The warm coffee and conversation went a long way in keeping us insulated on our walk to the supermarket before we went back to campus. By the way, it is a sad truth that they just don't sell peanut butter over here. Try to hold back the tears for us.

When we did arrive back, we saw the university's American football team, the Paisley Pyros, about to start their match. After we dropped our food off at the room, I went down and caught some of the live action on SuperBowl Sunday. It was really funny to see a sport very much American being played by guys who very much weren't. And in an interesting juxtaposition, the university Gaelic football team was having a match on the field adjacent to the Pyros. The connection that sport has with culture is one that continues to fascinate me, and it was neat to see my own paired with the one I'm currently in so seamlessly.



We chillaxed most of the rest of Sunday, getting things "done" around the flat and hanging out with our flatmates Julian and Paul, who Aaron mentioned earlier. It's been a lot of fun getting to hang out with them and share stories from our respective homelands. Everything from TV gameshows to weather to how sweet tea is nothing like English tea is discussed, and I think we all really enjoy that time. God has truly blessed us with some fun guys to hang out with, and we continue to ask you to pray for us as we try to influence them through how we live our lives: called to a different purpose.

Today was the first day of class, so a vast majority of our time was spent at the university as we dipped our feet into the waters of these "modules" as they're called over here instead of courses. I met a really nice Scot today named Ryan who i have class with. Believe it or not, his dad actually has friends in Macon! Talk about a small world moment. Anyway, pray that he would be another one of those people that the Lord has put in our sphere of influence.

And, of course, it's been snowing! It has been really mesmerizing to stare at the flakes outside. It's Julian's first time to ever see snow, so things have been pretty jovial around here. We love you all back home and we thank you so much for your thoughts and prayers. They've really helped us get off to a good start, and we know we'll need them more and more and the semester progresses.

And now I feel like a hypocrite for calling Aaron's post long. Such is life.