London
(the on-our-own, pre-tour-group part of the trip)

There isn't much to say about London except that it makes me feel really behind. The traffic is fast and terrifying, the people are stiff (yet for the most part very kind), and the fashion is just hard to describe. the Tube (subway) is always packed and bustling and the wind complicates using a map. The buildings are so beautiful, though, and it's an unbelievable learning experience. I think we walk about ten miles a day and my whole body hurts, but we have seen all the best things of London. :) Most of everything will be explained in my pictures on Facebook, except for that one story about how I made an outlet pop loudly from plugging in a straightener and the French girl in the bed across from me cuss a lot and laugh as I ran the smoking converter box to the outside curb to cool off, which was later stolen before I could take a picture. (Seriously? Who would steal a little smoking black box?)

What I find most interesting is where we are staying- the Clink Hostel. Our hostel feels like an old boarding house. It has long, twisting, broken, wooden halls with creaky bedroom doors around every corner. The delapidated walls have been repainted over the decades and are now bright colors that make me feel like I'm on acid in the 70's. The dirty pub downstairs is very popular for residents at night, and breakfast in the basement is confusing and crammed and they only serve toast and plain cereal. I need to learn how to say "excuse me" in at least five languages. I share a high-celinged, rectangular room with 13 other people (including Lindsey), most of which who know around four languages, have awesome accents from who knows where, and are all fluent in curse words. Our beds are literally stacked metal cages, and each person is given one sheet, a heavy comforter, and one small pillow by the hippies that work at the front desk. I not only sleep bunk-to-bunk with and inches away from both sexes of travelers, but I live with them. I learn from, walk miles and miles of the city with, and spend hours talking to these random teenagers and college-age kids from places like New Zealand, Iceland, Austria, Germany, Ecuador, and Canada that literally don't have a single thing in common with me. Some are here to backpack to a destination, some are here to take advantage of the low drinking age, and some are here in order to not be somewhere else. The sound of my drunk roommates stumbling in keeps me up late, the city hum outside of the open windows and the guy snoring next to me is loud, and the students here for summer work set alarms that wake me up early. Everyone knows you should keep your luggage locked, your valuables either with you or in the lockable metal box above your head, and your eyes and ears open.

But let me tell you, everyone sleeps harder in a hostel than anywhere else. 

Despite my hostel's sketchiness, I can't help but see every place I go as a God-given opportunity. I have learned some "flesh"
new trendy words, improved my
German, been told that I have a Southern twang, realized that I am
a pretty accepting Christian, (topic for another day) lost some fear of asking some hard questions, seen from points of view I would never have thought of otherwise because of that, lost stability in some of my opinions because of that, and have been shook by the thought that all of these people live in my little world and could be going to hell. Not one of the foreigners I spend a great deal of time with do not ask me if I am religious. I say yes and fidget with my cross earrings, and later do a quiet time on my bunk before going to sleep. at dinner with them, I pray over my food. I see a guy reading his Bible at breakfast one morning and initiate a conversation with him about it. But is that enough? No, not even close. I am terrified to bring God up to them. I've never tried to evangelize to people who look completely awestruck and freak out when you tell them you happily go to church every week back home. Then God shows me this as I randomly flip through the Bible:

Jeremiah 1:4-8

God chose me to fearlessly speak HIS words. I may have missed my opportunity here because all of my new friends are leaving soon, but it's only been two days...

Paris, anyone?