When in Rome, bring a raincoat.

It had been about a month since Copenhagen, and the itch for another weekend getaway began to preoccupy our otherwise productive thoughts... so when the proposition came from our friendly MBA travelling companions to spend St. Patrick's Day weekend in Rome, we hopped on the bandwagon. Why Italy for an Irish holiday? We have no idea.

Our adventure began FAR too early on a Saturday morning in mid-March. Because the more desireable flights get scooped up early on (you know, the ones that leave at normal times of the day), we found ourselves with a 6:30am flight out of London, which means that we had to catch a 3:30am bus in order to get to the airport on time. Absolutely, undeniably, vomitous. I had worked an evening shift at the pub the night before, so Chris and I didn't get home until 1:30am. We didn't even bother sleeping the measly 1 1/2 hours before we had to catch our bus; needless to say, we had a rough start to our Rome excursion.

When we arrived in Rome at last, our weariness faded away in light of the warm breeze that greeted us off the airplane. It was only 10:00 am, and we had the whole day ahead of us! After a short bus ride into the center of the city, we departed from the rest of the group to locate our hostel, which turned out to be pretty perfect. You never know what you're going to get with hostels, but we were pleasantly surprised. Eager to start our sightseeing, we grabbed some delicious thin-crust pizza from a local hole-in-the-wall, and started our trek across town toward Vatican City. The weather was perfect... a balmy 65 degrees with a light breeze.

The expanse of St. Peter's Square, the area in which people congregate to see and hear the Pope's address which he delivers fortnightly, is impossible to describe. In the picture to the left, you get a vague sense of how many chairs are present, but the amount of standing room behind the chairs is probably 10 times the amount of room of those who actually get a seat. To the right is St. Peter's Basilica, the church dedicated to the life and service of Saint Peter, one of Jesus' disciples. Here's a little history: After the martyrdom of St. Peter in 64 A.D., a small shrine was built on the site of St. Peter's grave. A few hundred years later, when Constantine came into power, he commissioned the building of a grand church to replace the small shrine. It wasn't until the late 1400s, however, that plans for the building of the current basilica began, largely due to the old basilica falling into ruin. In 1626, 120 years after the laying of the first stone, St. Peter's Basilica was completed (with several significant contributions by Michaelangelo, including the design of the basilica's famous dome), and it remains the largest church in the world... Chris and I fell absolutely silent upon entering the massive church. Words can't describe it... but a few pictures can help.




















The ornate dark wooden structure visible in both pictures is the shrine built above the believed remains of St. Peter himself. Pretty ridiculous.

After leaving St. Peter's, we headed straight for the Sistine Chapel, another highly esteemed Rome highlight. Fortunately for us, the route to the Sistine Chapel winds through seemingly endless rooms, exhibition halls, corridors, and nooks and crannies brimming with the most beautiful renaissance art (Michaelangelo, Botticelli, Raphael, Fra Angelico, da Vinci, etc.). I think we might have been tempted to go straight to the Sistine Chapel itself, but in retrospect, we were so grateful to have been first guided through maze of the museum rooms in order to appreciate the other phenomenal art. (That's me on the staircase!)

We did eventually make it to the Sistine Chapel, where we saw Michaelangelo's beautiful (and incredibly famous) painting of God stretching his hand out across the expanse of sky toward Adam. It was surreal, to say the least. (Of course, no cameras were allowed in this room, so all we have are our memories...). You know how museums can be exhilarating and utterly draining at the same time?? Well, after finally emerging from the Vatican Museums, we nearly passed out on the sidewalk, but managed to drag ourselves to a nearby gelateria which revived us. We met up with the rest of our group for a fabulous dinner and then really did pass out at our hostel in preparation for a full day ahead.

The next day's agenda: Palatine Hill, The Roman Forum, The Colosseum, and The Pantheon... a bit ambitious perhaps, but we were ready! Waking up to another gorgeous, warm Italian day, we wasted no time and headed straight for the most famous Roman ruins in all the world. In truth, we didn't know much about Palatine Hill or The Roman Forum, but since its admission was included in our ticket for the Colosseum, we decided to check it out. We are infinitely glad that we did, because it ended up as the absolute surprise highlight of our trip! Entering through an unassuming gate, we began meandering through a vast expanse of crumbling ruins. It wasn't until we stopped to read our little guidebook, however, that we realized the significance of what we were seeing/experiencing. About 200 feet high with sweeping views over much of Rome, Palatine Hill was the perfect location for a royal residence. The ruins suggest people have been living there since 1000 BC, most notably Ceasar Augustus (510 BC-44 AD). It honestly was SO crazy to be walking in and through the buildings and grounds that once belonged to the head of the Roman Empire, the most powerful figure in all the world. Several massive balconies (still preserved) look out over the Roman Forum which was essentially the "downtown" of ancient Rome -- a place of bustling commerce, administration of justice, and worship of the gods. If you click on the picture below to enlarge it, you can see tiny people walking around... just to give you an idea of the scope.

At last, we made our way to the Colosseum, the unbelievably massive structure that dominates the Rome skyline from almost any vantage point. It was built from 72-80 AD, largely by Jews who had been captured and forced into slavery following the fall of Jerusalem. In addition to the gladiator games, it was also used for mock naval battles (yes, they actually filled the lower part with water and had proper fights between ships), re-enactments of popular mythology, animal hunts, and of course, executions. Again, more than the actual ruins themselves, we were in awe of the ancient history wrapped up in the Colosseum.

After this monstrous day of sight-seeing, we were near to passing out (as you can see). So we took a mini siesta on a big grassy lawn in the city center, and then revived ourselves with some AMAZING paninis (I think we ate our weight's worth of buffalo mozzarella during this trip) and even more mouth-watering Italian gelato. Why doesn't the rest of the world catch on to the Italian gelato phenom??? On the way home, we made a pit stop at the Pantheon and Trevi Fountain -- no biggie. Actually, they were ridiculous, and it hit us again how unbelievable it is to walk around a city with buildings that are several thousands of years old.

That night, we met up with our good ol' MBA friends, exchanged stories of our Rome excursions, and had a fabulous Italian meal.

We woke up to our last morning in Rome, which also happened to be our 2-year anniversary!! We had no particular plans for the day, other than to explore some of the more quaint, non-touristy areas of the city. We stumbled upon a gorgeous church with stunning iconic imagery and decoration. It literally took our breath away, and we sat in the church for a good 1/2 hour just trying to soak it all in. Makes one wonder why the protestant Christian tradition shunned the practice of using iconic art in churches, when the absolute beauty of it can truly usher one into a much deeper sense of awe, reverence, and indeed worship.

Not long after leaving the church, the skies decided to open up and unleash a true monsoon. It was actually comical, as we tried to fight our way through the wind and rain, all the while coaxing (and cursing!) our umbrella to refrain from turning inside-out! After being thoroughly drenched to the bone, we ducked inside a little cafe and decided that we would HAPPILY spend the rest of the afternoon in this refuge from the elements. After removing our shoes and wringing out our socks (yes, wringing...), followed by a cup of tea to warm us from the inside, we moved on to bigger and better treats. Now, throughout the whole weekend, Chris had the hysterical habit of attempting to speak loudly in Italian whenever any real Italians were in earshot. The only problem was that he only knew one word... "Montepulciano," which is a kind of Italian red wine. He would proceed to gesture emphatically with his hands and right when the group of Italians walked past us, he'd declare, "a-a-a-MONTEPULCIANO!!", as if we were having a real dispute. Thus, I decided the only proper way to ride out our last day in Rome (and to celebrate our anniversary :) was to indulge in a bottle of the real deal. Of course, we had to have a little dark chocolate to accompany it.

Thus ends the saga of our Rome weekend adventure. We are, of course, dreadfully behind in blogging, but have great aspirations for catching up. Thanks to all you who faithfully stick in there and put up with our novels!!

Cornwall Trip Video

(to make your own videos, check out www.animoto.com starting august 14th!)

Chris in Cornwall

As you may have realized, our year here – and my course – is rapidly coming to an end. For an end of the year field trip, we ventured down to the Southwest coast of England to study urban regeneration in Cornwall. Additionally, we stopped through Bath, an old Roman city and home to some amazing natural baths. Just outside of Bath, we toured a really cool new green building that is designed to minimize its impact on natural resources! We stayed in a small town nestled into the Cornish coast – a beautiful 10-minute walk to a ridiculous beach. The coast was absolutely stunning…

Cornwall was once an affluent mining region, and location of many incredible engineering innovations (like the hoverboard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoverboard). However, mining has been in sharp decline for the past century, and the area has suffered from economic decay and is now one of the poorest areas in the EU. We spent a good amount of time talking with the developers on the many projects underway to give Cornwall a facelift. I was impressed by the need for holistic and integrated solutions that go beyond injecting a single industry to save the day (which essentially brought about the downfall in the first place). We looked at issues from education, to housing, to resources – all in all, it was a really good way to interact with a complex problem and link tangible efforts toward a solution.

We also were able to visit some of the old bustling mines. A few have survived which excavate china-clay, commonly used in china pottery. It was really interesting to see the mining process as well as the scars it leaves on the landscape. One such scar has been transformed into one of England’s newest tourist successes, the Eden Project.

The Eden Project is an effort to connect normal people to the importance of and our utter dependence on plants. In order to accomplish this, the Eden Project has converted a massive abandoned mine pit into a few humongous biomes, or greenhouse spheres that are home to plant life in both tropical and Mediterranean climates. This place is stunning and has been a huge hit. I was seriously impressed and inspired by Eden’s innovative educational mission. Makes me want to be in education – especially as I feel average suburban living moving further and further away from tangible interaction with the natural environment. This in effect blurs the connections we have to the rest of society and the world at large. Where does our trash go? Where did our apples come from? T-shirts? Bread? What happens to our pee pee? We exist in blind isolation from the systems that sustain us. The Eden Project does an amazingly creative job at reconnecting us to our surroundings. This is really, really important – I think my new life mission might be to come along-side people who are committed to this same mission. Just check the tags in your shoe and try to untie the effect that particular purchase has on your neighbor around the world (in both positive and negative ways). Anyhoo, visiting the Eden Project was one of my highlights this year and I’d love to chat about this stuff if any of you have any opinions either way! http://www.edenproject.com

At the end of our trip, we were able to explore a large wind farm in Cornwall. It was a great opportunity to discuss the impacts of wind power, and actually go inside a wind turbine to get an idea of how they work and learn what the wind buzz is all about.

Aside from educational musings, our group snuck in a beach soccer match, and few big nights out at some hilarious, small town clubs, morning runs along the stunning coast, and some good time together on what was one of our last outings together. Makes me wish this year was beginning again. Guess that’s a good thing…certainly never had the same inspiring nostalgia from my cubicle at Boeing. Love to you all from da UK!

Mel's Birthday!

Hooray for my birthday! So, despite the fact that I'm writing this 6 weeks after the fact, it's still definitely blog worthy.

We were awakened at 7:30am (a ghastly time to be awakened, I might add) by Seattle-dwelling mom and dad so that they could be the very first ones to wish me a happy birthday. I expressed my heartfelt gratitude at their benificent wishes, but kindly let them know that we rarely, if ever, wake up before 9:00am these days. Ahhh, the life of a student! Nonetheless, it was such a fun start to the day. I have to put in a plug here for Mr. Christopher Roe, who is the cutest, biggest dwingie alive. As mom and dad chatted away, with me still in bed and half asleep of course, Chris snuck out to prepare a suitable birthday breakfast treat. After I hung up the phone, Chris began singing a rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday" from the kitchen, bearing in one hand a delicious birthday cappuccino, and in the other hand some warmed hot cross buns (a classic British breakfast treat) with candles ablaze. Despite the fact that the hot cross buns were nasty, it was the thought that counted! He also presented me with my birthday present, a black, retro-style Bench watch... I was completely surprised and so pleased!

I was so incredibly blessed to have the most BEAUTIFUL day since the end of last summer... temperatures topped out in the upper 60s and the sky was a brilliant blue (with just a few token white fluffy clouds). The day's highlight was to take our very favorite walk to the neighboring village of Grantchester. Dressed in t-shirts and flipflops, we set out on the winding footpath that follows the meanderings of the river Cam, passing hugely expansive fields, lone white swans, scores of frolicking dogs, and old and young alike who were enjoying the beauty of the day. We arrived at one of Cambridge's best local secrets -- The Orchard, a tea-house dating back to the early 1900s that served as a second-home to bohemian Cambridge students (most notably, Virginia Woolfe, Rupert Brooke, Bertrand Russell, and Milton Keynes). As the name implies, the tea-house rests in a vast orchard and little wooden tables surrounded by adirondack reclining chairs fill the orchard grounds. We brought our tray of tea and scones out into the orchard and basked in the sun while reading aloud poetry written about The Orchard. Tearing ourselves away at last, we leisurely made our way home (and en route, mama and papa Roe called to send their best birthday wishes!).

The remainder of the day was as restful as the beginning: cooking a delicious lunch together, grabbing a pint at our favorite riverside pub, attending a Lenten preparation class at our little church, and finally enjoying a lengthy romantic dinner. All in all, a day that couldn't have been better!

Oxbridge Chess Tourney and Jamaica

So University sports here are weird. There is only one main game of the year, against Oxford, called the Varsity match. So while I'm about to go mad without March Madness, end of the year Varsity matches are capturing my attention. Two folks from my program are competing this year -- one guy is on the crew team and another on the chess team. Both of these events take place down in London and are the real deal.

This past weekend was the Varsity chess match, and Lissa and I decided to head down to London to support my buddy and explore the city. A little background, my friend from the program, Duane Rowe, is the national chess champion of Jamaica (therefore called a National Master). I play co-ed soccer for old people on dirt fields in Seattle, and chess has taken this guy around the world to compete in international events, just think Cool Runnings. He is the top chess player in Cambridge and recently played 14 people at once and smoked 12 of them. Check out the link: http://www.srcf.ucam.org/chess/simul2.php


Although he's never been able to beat me, he's pretty much the man (of course, we have yet to square up on the checkered board). He was set to play against a Women's International Master from Ukraine (which is a higher ranking than national master). To set the stage, the Varsity chess match was held in this crazy pompous old gentleman's club in downtown London called the Royal Automotive Club (da RAC). Ties are required at all times, jackets during weekdays, and the place reeks of old white male (company of which I am quickly becoming). Imagine a huge room with fire place crackling, red leather couches with the little gold rivets tacking the hide to antique cherry wood, and 20-something females take orders as the bow-tied men talk through the economic pitfalls of the Thatcher regime. I mean this place was straight out of Bond, and I was just waiting to watch some old Russian spy (with a radioactive colon) glide down the grand staircase and float into his Kremlin sponsored Benzo. I will probably never be in a place like that again.

Ok, to the match. To keep it brief, Cambridge upset Oxford 5-3. It was an upset because Oxford has a Grand Master (one of these Bobby Fisher type child prodigies) and the Ukrainian lady who was supposed to be unstoppable, like most Russian women. However, Duane dollywallompted this female -- no joke, took him 18 moves. Fastest game of the day. It took him 34 minutes of move time, took her 1 hour and 46 minutes. He won match of the day and was reported as being the catalyst for the unlikely Cambridge upset.



For those of you who haven't been to a match before, like me pre-saturday, you basically walk around with tea admiring the boards at play and pretend to exhale with emotion when someone makes a move - or in my case when the guy next to you exhales. It was pretty cool, and I would highly recommend it. We left the match, caught a few drinks in Soho and walked through Chinatown before settling on some Chinese food for din-din. Afterwards we went to a cool pub and caught the last train back to Cambridge. All in all it was a great day out! Big ups to Jamaica, the bobsled won gold.

Copenhagen! (and lunch in Sweden)

It happened like this...

One day in late January, Chris and I decided that we should take advantage of the fact that we have one of the largest apartments here at our college, and we realized that we could lure some people into becoming our "friends" by cooking up a feast and inviting them to our place for dinner... which is exactly what we did. (Some of Chris' friends like to refer to our place as "the Palace" or, since we're some of the only Americans they've befriended, "the White House.") So, about a month ago, as we were enjoying our delicious Indian curry, naan, and wine, two of our guests casually mentioned that they were going to Copenhagen the following weekend with some of their friends from the MBA program, and would we like to come? Thus began the adventure...

In no time at all, we found ourselves booking flights, arranging lodging, and generally getting excited for what was a very impromptu and random trip. On Thursday afternoon of that week, we cycled to the Cambridge train station where we met up with the rest of the crew... all 8 of them! They had all become close friends through their MBA program which could have made things a bit awkward for me and Chris. However, within an hour or two, we were all joking around and getting to know everyone -- a definite relief.

By the time we arrived in Copenhagen, it was about 11pm and we were all starving (the budget flight we took didn't exactly serve peanuts, much less dinner). So we dropped our bags off at our hotel and quickly began the search for any restaurants that might still be open. One of the first things we noticed as we began to aimlessly wander the streets was the incredible presence of 7-11. There was one on EVERY street corner, and often, they had one kitty-corner from the other... just like Starbucks in downtown Seattle! Anyhoo, back to our search for food: It turns out that there are restaurants in Copenhagen which don't open until about 11pm and then close at 5am... very strange. But we were very happy to find one such restaurant -- a steak house. We didn't even care that it cost us an arm and a leg... we just chalked it up to a cultural experience. After we stuffed ourselves, Chris and I were so ready to make a bee-line straight back to the hotel and crash for the night. But our social MBA friends had other ideas... we ended up in this strange Irish bar called Rosy McGee's that was blasting music from the 80s and early 90s. Classic. At around 3:30am, we finally stumbled home and fell straight asleep.

The next morning, ... well, it was more like early afternoon, we decided to get going and see what we could of Copenhagen. However, after a bit of deliberation, we decided instead to hop on a train and take the 30-minute ride to a small town called Malmo, which is in Sweden! We know, it was such a dorky and touristy thing to do (see us, being tourists with our map), but since we were so close to Sweden, we figured we might as well check it out. The little town was fully geared toward tourists, shoppers, and diners, so that's precisely what we did. Check out the strange display of mannequins wrapped in cellophane... you can get a sense of how cold it was by noticing that we are all wearing hats, gloves, and scarves! When the daylight had faded away, we said goodbye to Sweden and made our way back via the train. At this point, we were over half way done with our trip and we still hadn't seen any sites in Copenhagen! Oh well.

Our second night out on the town was pretty fun, although this time it put us in bed at 4:30am!! Chris and I definitely felt like the old married couple because we were ready for bed by about 11pm :) To kick off the evening, we went to an Australian bar in order to celebrate Australia Day (one of the girls on our trip was Aussie). Australia Day is sort of a funny holiday in that the Australians are actually celebrating the British arrival and conquer of the indigenous people. I guess it's sort of like the 4th of July, except completely the opposite. After giving due respect to Australia Day, we grabbed a quick dinner at a Chinese restaurant (we couldn't read the menu at all because it was in Chinese and Danish, and therefore we have no idea what we ate that night), and then proceeded to this very popular Danish club called Vega. Despite the potentially horrible choice in evening entertainment, we actually had a really fun time dancing, people watching, and then delighting in the beauty as snow began to blanket the quiet streets outside...

We woke up for our last day in Copenhagen, all a bit tired, but also energized to finally see some of Copenhagen in the daylight. The snow was already beginning to melt, but the effect was still enchanting. One of our friends took the picture below...

Chris and I split off from the group, as we wanted to be sure to see some sites before meeting up with some of my Danish friends from Capernwray. After a delicious breakfast at a local bakery (we had real danishes!), we headed straight for a famous district in Copenhagen called Christiania. It all started in the early 70s with a group of anti-government hippies who felt disgruntled and decided to set up a kind of self-governing shanty town. They took over some old military barracks and began the settlement of Christiania. Their rules forbid stealing, guns, bulletproof vests, and hard drugs. Somehow, the "no bulletproof vests" rule is not comforting. Until 2004, marijuana was sold openly in permanent stands (kind of like firecrackers on Indian reservations), but the police finally cracked down, making the popular marijuana trade less visible.

Our last stop in Copenhagen was a little cafe, off the beaten path, where we met up with five of my Danish friends from Capernwray -- from left to right, Anders V., Birgitte and Simon, Chris and me, Marie, and Anders B. J. We were so happy that they were able to meet up with us, especially considering that we only gave them about three days advance notice that we were coming to Copenhagen! For those of you who don't know, Capernwray is the name of the Bible School that I attended in England and Austria after my freshman year in college. It wasn't for the purpose of getting a degree or studying theology from a strictly academic viewpoint, but rather to take a year away from the busyness of life and take time to think about Christianity, as well as to meet other people from all over the world. There's much more I could say, but that's it in a nutshell. Back to my Danish friends in the cafe, we only had a very short time to be together, unfortunately, but it was definitely a highlight of the trip. It's amazing how that short year created such unique bonds... and now, six years later, we all still feel very close somehow.

And just like that, our time was up. We met up with the rest of our group at the train station, trained to the airport, caught our budget flight back to London, trained again to Cambridge, and finally cycled to our home sweet home.

The Holiday Lowdown -- Part II (be warned this blog will contain partial nudity)

This is Chris. Decided it was my turn to add something to the running snapshot of our time here in Cambridge. So Melissa left off Part I just returning from Germany, and I am going to continue in the chronology with Christmas and New Years, but I need to update you on a few main happenings during my week of solitude and indulgence as a bachelor. And just to warn you (in case you missed the subject of the blog), I have a scandalous picture to accompany my story...

So Mel left me lonesome, neck deep in readings, essays, and other expected to-do's during the end of term. I was busy, and it was actually good to have some solo time to bust out the work without the endearing distractions of Meltrissa. One evening (about two days into my bachelorhood relapse), I was working late at the computer lab in the business school, a short 10 minute bike ride from home, when I realized that Handel's Messiah was being performed in a halfhour at the Trinity College Chapel - a ridiculously old and wealthy college straight out of harry potter. This was not something to be missed. So I cut the work short, and hopped on my bike headed for home to put on a sport's coat and wax my brows before the big evening. I was running late and the roads were a bit slick, and given the fact that I'm accident prone, I was unable to avoid a sizeable spill on my bicycle (slick roads + wet leaves + skinny bike tires + excessive speeds + idiot rider = inevitable wreck). My front tire slipped on the stone walkway and my rear tire caught, effectively stopping the bike, and launching me over the handle bars and into the busy road. Luckily, sort of, my soft juicy buttocks made good friends with the curb, saving my helmet-less head. Cars screeched to a halt and this lady jumped out of her car and came running towards me. I got up, unsure of my status, and humbly hobbled off the road. As the lady came up to me, she insisted that I take some bandages - which led me to believe I had marred my beautiful complection and was bleeding profusely. Still in shock and trying preserve my manliness, I told her I was fine and didn't think I was bleeding. By this time, traffic had resumed and I started to head home (turns out the lady was really nice, but strange, because I didn't have any real cuts and wasn't bleeding - I'm still not sure why she freaked out on me). So I made it home, and my butt was KILLING ME. After serious inspection and no visible damage, I decided it wasn't enough to keep me from the concert. So I got back on the horse and peddled my way to Trinity College. The concert was amazing, but I was sweating the entire time because I had to keep shifting my weight from cheek to cheek to avoid pain. After Messiah, I went home and was SO SO SO thankful that I didn't hit my head on the curb and vowed to buy a helmet (which Mel and I have both subsequently done).

Long story short, I was really dissapointed that I didn't have anything to show for my accident...until 3 days later. I think the picture speaks for itself, but the purple turned black, the black turned blue, the blue into green, green into yellow, and now you'll all be glad to know my rear-end looks amazing again. Suffice it to say that I really really needed a nurse and my resident medic was no where to be found! (really, I just needed some sympathy).

Family Arrives!
OK, I'm sure I've lost 80% of you by now, so for the faithful remaining few, I'll go into our Christmas and New Year's. After thanksgiving, we were both really homesick. We are completely enjoying our time over here and are ever grateful to be immersed in such a unique place with some of the most incredible people, but there are certain comforts/needs that new places and temporary homes are unable to provide. We just really miss most of you. There are a few of you that we are really really glad to be away from, and school is a perfect excuse to escape your presence. But for the rest of you -- you are certainly missed. So, the arrival of Melissa's family in Cambridge was the perfect mid-december treat! With 209452832948754 pounds of luggage, it was soo soo fun to have Joey, Tommy, Mom, and Dad in our new little city. We spent three days together here roaming around the historic colleges, eating delicious pub food, walking along the famous old walks, and catching up on missed time. We were also able to attend a candlelight service at Great St. Mary's church, which is the grand old University Church where all the students, until a few years ago, graduated and received their diplomas. Check out the pic, it was pretty stunning.

After exhausting all that Cambridge has to offer, we packed up and headed down to London for a few days to enjoy the big city during the holidays. London was great. It is really an amazing city with endless personality. We all used the 3 days in London to take care of any last minute christmas shopping before taking the train up to Scotland to meet up with Matt/Julie and the little kiddos.

Highland-bound
We left London early on the nine-hour train bound for the northern Scottish town of Inverness (which happens to be the home of the Loch Ness Monster, Nessie...). We packed good bread, cheese, meat and wine for our journey which took us through the English countryside and into Scotland along the coast (check out the view from our window!). It was a great trip through picturesque little villages and beautiful stretches of rugged coast. At last, we arrived to the Inverness train station and were warmly greeted by Matt who loaded us up into their sweet new mini-van and hauled us all to a quaint lodge on the Black Isle (about 30 minutes from the city). We were so incredibly fortunate to stay at the home of one of Matt/Julie's friends - it was perfect. The home was right on a river and near the edge of this amazing forest with old estate ruins and perfect walking paths. We basically spent the next 6 days together tucked in this ridiculous country home going for walks, playing with the kids (on the rope swing!), cooking/cuddling next to the Aga stove, exploring the forest, and engaging in relational conversation (is it possible to avoid the latter with the Clifton clan?!). One definite highlight was to be able to roadtrip one day down to Matt and Julie's new parish in the tiny tiny tiny town of Methlick (population: 300 people, 8000 sheep). It was really meaningful to be able to see their new home and the beautiful old church where Matt will begin his first position as head minister. We can't wait to go back for a visit!

Christmas was just great. We had a long drawn-out morning of opening gifts and lounging around with coffee and the kids, then took a fabulous 3-hour walk in the surrounding countryside, and then rallied for a great home-cooked Christmas feast at night! (including a tasting of 3 delicious whiskeys, compliments of Matt.) Despite having a perfect time with Mel's family, I couldn't help but miss my mom, pops, maggie, the fish, Jamal the cat, our two christmas trees in Bellevue, gus the hamster, morning stalkings, and... my sister katey I guess (goodnight mom, goodnight dad, etc..... some payback kt). That was an inside joke that applies to only 20% of our 5 readers.

The trip in Scotland with Melissa's family was a much needed time for us. We felt so rejeuvenated to be around our family, and really could not have asked for a better holiday. Lucky for us, though, Scotland was not the end of our journey. After saying goodbye to the family, Mel and I bussed down to Glasgow (through the most unbelievable Highland scenery) and jumped on a quick 45 minute flight to Belfast in Northern Ireland to be with our good friend Krista for New Years!

New Years in Belfast
Krista worked at a church in Ireland all last year and was back visiting old friends, so we decided to join up with her and check out Belfast and the Irish coast. Given the history of Belfast and the terrorism, it was really interesting to wander the city and see the remnants of conflict. We ventured into some really cool pubs, had a delicious Sunday roast, and got meet some of Krista's friends from last year. It's always really good to discover the context of people's experiences, and we are now able to place Krista's last year abroad. A real treat. We spent our new year's at one of Krista's friends house for a charity bash supporting Habitat for Humanity or something wierd in Madagascar, I forget. Regardless, it was an african costume party, which really meant that all the girls got dressed up in elaborate african garb and the guys showed up in jeans and shirts. I stuck out and wore a jacket (I looked fantastic). Mel and Krista wore matching tiger stripped shoulder shirt things, which were very festive! I managed to get a girafe neck/head on me by the end of the night, check it out.

The highlight of our Ireland trip, though, was a venture up to the northern coast. We rented a car, and drove on the left side of the road for the first time. It scared the crap out of me at first, but after I was able to get used to changing gears with my left hand, we survived without any major problems. The northern coast of Ireland is phenomenal, seriously gorgeous. It just made the top ten places to see before you die, so I only have nine left. The windy roads obey the amazing coastal landscape and tiny villages adorn the rocky green beaches. We stopped a few times to just get out, and soak in the beauty. The pictures do not do it justice. Our final destination was the Giant's Causeway, which is this crazy part of the coast with hexagonal pillars of stone strewn along the waterfront. The video at the visitor's center explained the origin of the bizzare stones - allegedly, ancient volcanic lava cooled really quickly and somehow formed these crazy, perfectly geometric-shaped rocks. I don't get it. The video gave an alternate explanation which makes much more sense -- a big, bully of a Scottish giant built a causeway (roadway) with the hexagonal stones in order to connect Scotland to Ireland so that he could challenge his Irish rival to a brawl. But when the Scottish giant actually made it over to Ireland for the fight, the Irish giant realized that he was going to get owned by the humongous Scot. So, the Irish giant pretended to be a sleeping baby and when the Scottish giant saw the huge "baby," he decided he didn't want to be around to meet the baby's father, and thus he fled back to Scotland. After the Scot ran back across the hexagonal-rock bridge, the Irish giant destroyed most of it so that the Scot couldn't ever return. Turns out that there are some of this amazing stones on the Scottish coast too... definitely beats the BS volcanic explanation.

As all good things come to an end, Mel and I eventually made our way back here to the comfort of our Cambridge home. Although we were stoked to get out of Cambridge at the beginning of the holiday, we were delighted when our train finally stopped at the Cambridge station. A fine ending to a really great holiday.

We got back on Friday, I had a 3,000 word essay due Monday morning, and I've been trying to stay afloat in school ever since. We just started a cool project with a company in London to find creative ways to integrate carbon offsetting into their exisiting work, and am beginning to have to think about my disseration (yikes). Any ideas? Please float them my way. Its difficult to save the world in 15,000 words or less and I'd love to know if any of you have already figured it out. It might save me some stress.

Mel is back at work as the incredible breadwinner that she is, supporting my worthless self. She decided not to do choir this term in order to concentrate more seriously on her spanish, and we've both decided to do yoga. Should be cool.

All the best to you all, and thanks for sticking with this marathon posting...


~Christ of the pilgrim path,
and of every pilgrim heart,
thank you for revealing yourself
in situations we would prefer
to pass by.
(- Iona prayer book)

We dearly miss all of you!
Love,
Melissa and Chris