Good morning, cloudy Cardiff! It's kinda fun to see you a little gray and fluffy out my window today.
Well, today was one of our very rare free days. This means that Tom has nothing planned for us, and so we are left to do as we please for the entire day!
I started off by laying around in bed for a few hours actually, something I haven't done since I was in high school! Don't fret though gentle reader; aside from this rare bit of responsibility de-evolution, the only thing I really kept from my high school days was my name. I explored a few of the games Nick loaded on this iPad (fortunately for me, I don't really love any of them), and then decided to really go over my lesson I am teaching in Sunday School tomorrow.
I was excited to find that this was the second half of what is a two-part lesson, and I taught part one last week! I was even more excited to find that I had accidentally gone over more history last week than the lesson called for, but that extra history was actually the first part of this weeks lesson. This was great news, because I knew that I could plan this lesson more on the doctrine than on historical facts, and I'm totally down for that!
After I went through my lesson and got a good feel for what scriptures I wanted to use, I got up and ready for the day around 10am.
I decided I was feeling really good about a breakfast egg sandwich, so I made one. Next thing I knew, Lydia and Josie lined up to have me french braid their hair. We all have kinda long hair, and in this warm weather, having it down on our necks and in our faces is like battling some sort of damp animal all day, so it's really great to braid it up and out of your way. Add 'conquered wild woman hair' to the list of things I don't have to do any more today.
While Tom went to return our van to the rental place, we (meaning me, Miya, Abbey, Josie, Theresa, Anders, Courtney, Tom, and Katy) decided that today would be a lovely day to go see the new Wolverine movie as a matinee. So at 11 o'clock we locked up the house and walked a few miles to the cinema in downtown Cardiff. It's actually not super downtown, but it's the busiest and most-urban part of Cardiff. The best title for it is actually 'The Hays,' just for future reference.
Cinema tickets here are a little on the expensive side, even for a matinee, but students here get a bit of a discount for a lot of stuff. But I was definitely cool with paying more than I usually would for Wolverine. I grew up watching superhero movies, so I was definitely excited about this one. Feeling pretty good about things, I decided this was a good day for an Icy Tango again.
Theresa had smuggled in a ton of goodies, so we decided to treat each other to our goodies. This was probably really good, since I don't think I could have handled a whole Tango on my own. And I really like chocolate.
We saw a hilarious ad called something like 'be more dog,' which is all about a cat deciding it was a ton more fun to live like a dog than a cat. I'm really not a fan of ads whatsoever, but I'm not kidding, go look it up right now if you haven't seen it yet.
...Unfortunately, those were the best parts of the whole movie. Seriously, this was the lamest superhero movie I've ever seen. Sure it's fun to see a bunch of really good-looking people use superpowers to save the world (for the millionth time), but more than anything, it's the incredible story that I'm after. And there was an amazing lack of purpose in this movie. Honestly, it was like someone accidentally forgot to write a real story, so they just made a two hour chase scene and sold it as a film. I'm pretty sure that while at the premier, someone on the sleepy storyboard panel took a very responsible moment to smack their forehead and mutter at least a quick 'oops' when they remembered that the string on their finger was to add a problem, climax, and conclusion in the movie BEFORE releasing it.
No worries, we talk about forgiveness a lot in my church.
As we left the cinema, we were greeted by a fun little rainstorm outside. I didn't bring any rain gear with me because it became really sunny and lovely as we walked to the cinema, so rain was one of the lowest spots on my mental totem pole. Now it was a bit higher up, but it was nothing to stress about. It was a pretty warm rain, so I just put my hair up and kept up with those who had their little umbrellas on hand. Tom stopped by a shop and bought two umbrellas that were a lot bigger than he expected, so we actually all stayed remarkably dry.
Tom and Katy had told us about a huge three-floored antique shop in the Hays, so since we were so close, we decided to go take a look. Sure enough, there were many hundreds of trinkets and treasures from days and people long past.
I actually really do love antique shops for this very reason. They are remnants of whole livelihoods. When we look at the stuff we live on today, we shrug our shoulders and carry on; that's just what our world looks like today. But in my mind, that's such a negligent attitude. Sure our world runs on dead dinosaurs and apple technology today, but the world was an entirely different place not too long ago. Think back even recently, maybe in your own lifetime. Fifteen years ago, keeping your laptop on your laptop for too long caused either legs of steel or knee failure (potentially the same thing). Forty years ago, it was a good day if your room-sized computer didn't snag your baggy clothes as it huffed and puffed its way up the brutal hill of simple multiplication.
While computers are the easiest examples of a totally different world than this, consider all the other things that pre-dated our common aspects of living that made their whole world. Man, it's just that idea of living in a world that we never ever can that is so fascinating to me, especially since we are standing in the exact same places where countless thousands who came before us did who knows what; died, worked, worshiped, LIVED. Call me whatever suits your fancy, but I think they deserve to be remembered, and the easiest way for anyone to do that is to really take a look at the little things they left behind that they thought were important.
While I think it's important to appreciate these tokens of a long lost world, I am prudent enough to not buy out the whole antique shop as I go around 'appreciating.' I hung onto a couple of really tiny old books for a while (a copy of Dicken's Christmas Stories and Jane Austen's 'Mansfield Park'), I concluded that I would probably never have the time to just sit and read them like I would want to in the coming years, so I put them back for someone else to find and use better.
We stopped at a Burger King there in the Hays on our walk back home. I really can't figure out why the fast food here should taste so differently than it does back in America, but it actually tastes pretty dang good here.
Once we got home, everyone got on the wifi for a while. I wish I could post the pictures I've been taking more, but I have to bum someone's laptop forever to do that, so that doesn't happen often. It's really nice that we take so many pictures of each other though, so each day we see a few more pictures of everyone turn up on Facebook. It's also incredibly delightful to have our own wifi hotspot right here in our house. Hope cottage is only a few blocks away, but its so great to only have to walk to your kitchen to check your emails.
Thanks to all who send me emails by the way. Few things make me more giddy than seeing some dear names pop up on my new unread email list. Really, your kind expressions go a very long way.
During this simple evening at home, we (meaning Theresa) helped purify the house of some eight-legged beasts, Lydia and I discussed with Tom the feasibility of maybe traveling to Paris on our own after the trip, and I made an actually really great dinner of stuffed peppers.
Tom and Anders then brought over a few movies from the other house, though Katy had the final say in the selection. After we made a big pot of popcorn on the stove, everyone from our house gathered together and watched "About a Boy." This was one I hadn't ever heard of, though it's kind of older. It wasn't super great, but I kinda liked it. It's one of those that you could go see once and then consider yourself better off without repeating at all.
After the movie ended, I went upstairs, organized and swept my room (where Theresa's magic shoe again came off conqueror), worked on my lesson for a little while longer, and then gave my day a proper finish before settling in for a good night's sleep.
Well done, free day.
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