Sunday, July 25, 2010

Day of Rest?

It sounded simple enough. Go to Glasgow, go to church, go home.

But nooooo.

It was right outside of Glasgow that the tire blew out. And oh buddy was it a blowout. The rubber around the wheel was all off. In a perfect circle. All shredded. Completely intact but not attached. Kind of a problem when you need to be at church in 15min. So there we are, on the freeway, or the M8 as they like to call it, freezing our butts off, while cars are passing at 70 miles an hour, watching Dad fight with the spare.
It would of been entertaining if it hadn't of been so dang cold. I can't even imagine what winter is like.
Anyway, back to the freeway.
After standing in cold, wet grass for what seemed like forever, Dad beat the spare and got it on the car. So we all piled back into the car and start the engine, which is ironic to say here because the engine wouldn't start. Woohoo. Dad goes to pop the bonnet (aka the hood) but British cars seem to want to make life difficult since it was incredibly hard to find the spare (it was rusted under the car) and incredibly hard to find the button to pop the bonnet (we had to look in the instruction manuel). Shouldn't it be pretty straight forward?
*Scottish accent*: "Here you go. The button's here. Its big, red and says 'Pop the Bonnet' ". *American accent again*: No. Of course not. Cuz we're Scottish.. so we have to have not one button but two. It's the hood guys. It's not that hard.
Thennn Dad was like "Stay in the car" (there was no Chuck with me, which was sad) and started walking away. Well, there, on the freeway with cars driving at 70miles an hour, you have 4 girls with anxiety problems. Having Dad walk away was not necessarily a comforting thing. But he came back 10ish minutes later saying that some roadway help was coming. I was just about to give up hope on Scottish people, thinking that they were all going to be mean. And Mom said later that, as we were waiting for Dad to come back, she was praying that good, nice people would come help us. Let me tell you, God certainly answered that prayer.
The two roadway guys that came to help, in their bright yellow suits, were the sweetest Glaswegians we could've met. William and Geordie (guys, if I got your names wrong let me know! I don't want them to be wrong!!) tried plan A (pop the clutch). That failed. Their sweetness came out when, in spite of Big Brother watching, we went with Plan B (dragging us to a place where they could give our battery a jump). With the car running they led us to a garage to get the tires and battery fixed. Mom was so thankful to the Lord that this happened here instead of on the way to Mull, because the tire guy told us that all three tires were near destruction. William and Geordie ended up hanging around for 45 minutes, talking and telling stories while we waited. They were so funny. It was great. But, at points during their stories, I felt like Catherine Tate in this youtube clip (and speaking of the Doctor, we saw the TARDIS not once but twice today!). William and Geordie told us a whole bunch of things to do in Glasgow, programmed our GPS, and then took us (after our car was fixed) to the oldest house in Glasgow (built in 1741).. They sent us off with waves and promises to look at this blog!!
The "oldest house" was cool and we also went to the St. Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art. Sounds promising, doesn't it? It wasn't. It was lame. We also went to Glasgow Cathedral. That was Beautiful. (Mrs. Lasala, the acoustics were amazing. I checked). We walked up to this huge necropolis that has a monument to John Knox. It's made up of winding hills and steps. Realllyyy coool but the view was dreary, no thanks to the weather. It was finally legit Scotland weather. After we were done exploring around the Cathedral, we drove over to the city center. We were heading to church (they had a 6:30 service), but, no thanks to Minnie GeePers (our sat nav), we got lost. After a lot of circling around we finallyyy made it to the church and parked. The area around St. George's-Tron was sooo awesome. Glasgow does have some really cool, really pretty parts. It's said to be the best shopping outside of London. It was kind of like Fifth Avenue in NYC. Cobble stones though, which is much cooler. And less cars.

Subway for dinner (it tastes the same here, if you want to know) and went to church.

The Tron is in the middle of posh, upscale shopping, with the Apple Store two doors down and a Starbuck's across the street. The building is a grand, old stone, church built in 1807.
Then you go inside.
You find a clean, contemporary space that feels hip, modern, and sacred. I know you some of you (*cough* morgan *cough*) are thinking "way to totally ruin a beautiful church" but it really works. It's not overwhelming or un-worshipful or cold. It seemed to me to be the perfect way to minister to the people they are around. I mean, you have people still going there have been there since it started in 1955. And they still have some of the old architecture. It's a good marriage between old and new. We sang Getty music and they played a few other Getty songs during the offertory. Mom said (and I totally agree) that it felt good, after such a long adventure, to be in a church with brothers and sisters. It was such a cool feeling to be singing music I knew, music from home, with people from a totally different country. The sermon was good. All this to say, church was really excellent.
We're alive. This day was crazy but it was a cool surprise. We're all tired, but I think it was worth it. Even if we were running around for 9 hours. :D

Total So Far:

Mean People= 4 (adding a token number of 2 to represent 70mile-an-hour-pack-o-drivers who just passed by)

Nice People= 12

Way ta go nice people!!

I'm beat, off to bed! Have a good dinner everybody :P

Much love,
CareyAnne

3 comments:

  1. Oooo, that's a bad day. Glad it all ended well. "Stay in the Car" - love it. A lesser man would have thrown in an extra word or two between "the" and "car." Well done, Ned.
    RB

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  2. Just to let you know I emailed directions to get to Alva Glen....Ned please check your email....tried calling your new phone but it was switched off.

    Richard

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  3. So crazy. I love how the day is completely ridiculous and madly busy and complicated, and then you find the church, get yourselves inside, and it's so so wonderful and calm and worshipful. Such a picture of life - crazy lives that get unfocused or apart from God, and then coming back to Him and resting in His goodness. Ah. Oh, and huzzah for wonderfully nice Glaswegians in yellow work suits!
    J.

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