Thursday, June 16, 2016

England {Day 5}

Thursday, May 19th


We met back at Creative Coffee for our morning devo on our last full day in Birmingham. We ended up having yet another great conversation that ended up making us late to meet Christine for brunch. She took us to a little diner called Lesley's where we got to have another English breakfast: eggs, bacon, sausage, beans, and tomatoes. We also tried black pudding before Christine would tell us what it really is.

[Selly Manor]

After breakfast, we walked back to Derrik and Abby's and Derrik took us to Cadbury World. You know those Cadbury Cream Eggs that we all love so much around Easter? They come from Birmingham! Since a tour of the factory costs a pretty penny per person, we just went into the shop and then into a free exhibit about the history of Cadbury. It was really cool. And all the types of candy and shapes of chocolate were amazing. I regret not getting a real size chocolate soccer ball. We all loaded up on sweets (I just got a chocolate orange) and then headed back to Canvas.


[Cadbury World]

We had plans that afternoon to hang out on campus with Stephen and some students. On our way to campus, we passed out the cookies we had made the day before and got to talk to a handful of students in passing. 

[University of Birmingham]

Stephen set up his slackline on their quad type area and we had fun trying it out for a while. It was interesting to see some of the students' reactions to it. I think just because I'm from CU Boulder, I assume everyone has seen slacklining by now. Some students looked quite confused and quite fascinated. I also gave it a go and fell off in quite an epic manner. It was a lot of fun. Before we went back to Canvas, we stopped at the University gift shop to get some souvenirs. Normally I'm not the type to spend money on those types of things, but there were just too many awesome things I wanted so I could always remember my week in England.

[Slacklining on campus]

[Christina on the slackline]

Canvas had their final Thursday night program that week and Christine was speaking for the last time before moving to Nottingham to open the second Canvas location. We went back to the house to help set everything up and help one of the students who was cooking everyone pad Thai.

[Canvas is a hidden gem on this street]

That night, I ended up having a really great conversation with a former Canvas student. He told me about how he found out about Canvas during his second year of uni and some more about his faith journey since then. It was really cool hearing that Canvas can accomplish exactly what they intend to in such a great way. No one is pushing their beliefs on anyone else and they're creating a really cool space for students to hang out and have community. I love that.

We celebrated Christina's 18th birthday with a cake and some faulty candles. I taught a few people how to play Hanabi, one of my favorite card games, and we had a lot of fun doing that. It was probably my favorite night in England and we ended up shutting the place down. In fact, Derrik had to kick us out. I was really sad to say goodbye to the handful of people who were left at Canvas that late. They were all who had been hanging out with us the most or who I had talked with the most and it had been so great getting to know them all.


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