On My Own - Day Ten

Early Saturday morning, I got up and said goodbye to Robilyn. Thank you Robby for showing me around and letting me stay with you!!! The "Father" drove me and my trusty backpack to Newark. I would be catching the train from there to head up to Edinburgh, Scotland. I arrived in Newark around 7:30am and had a couple hours to kill before my train arrived. I wandered around looking at the buildings and whatnot. Robilyn drew me a very precise map so I could find the castle and the supermarket. It was a nice little town. I enjoyed my short time there. The castle was pretty neat, but unfortunately it's not completely intact. This is the castle:










I bought my lunch for the day at the supermarket and made my way onto the train. I hated my seat cause I couldn't see out the window, it was very frustrating.

When I got to Edinburgh I was shocked by the atmosphere there. It was nothing like I expected it to be. Pictures and words cannot describe the feeling that place gave to me. That first night I mostly wandered around looking at stuff. I decided to check out the "Edinburgh Dungeon".


This is kind of a chain of haunted houses, they scare you with live actors and give you a history of the city. They have these in most of the major cities in England. As I was going in, these girls were really freaked out and kept pushing me ahead of them and grabbing my backpack. I couldn't understand what they were saying (bloody tourists!) but it was pretty funny. Overall I would say this place had some really cool stuff, but then other things were really stupid.

The positives:

1. This really cool maze of mirrors. I would be walking and all of a sudden I would run into myself! Much better than my childhood favorite, the glass maze at Playland.

2. This rotating cylinder thing you walked through made it feel like the room was flipping upside down.

3. Good history lesson and I love those Scottish accents.

4. One of the actors said I had a nice hat (Robilyn had made it for me the day before!).

The negatives:

1. There was one place that had things written on the wall and we were supposed to read them before we moved along. No one really knew we should read them so they all just walked to the exit door waiting for the actor to lead us to the next spot. They just stood there for like 15 mins. I tried to read the stories of these grave robber guys, but the lighting was really bad in there and some of them I couldn't read.

2. This one section was all hyped up. The lady told us to watch out for vampires as we got into this Disneyland style boat. It went through this door into the dark and these things from the ceiling brushed against you and everyone screamed. Then it stopped and we sat there for like 10 mins as these moaning noises got louder and louder. Then lightening flashed and this dummy vampire thing dropped from the ceiling. Gave me a little bit of a jolt, but then the boat moved to the next room and let us off. I couldn't believe we got in that dumb boat, moved 20 feet, waited 10 mins in the dark, all for that fake thing to slide down.

3. That same actor that liked my hat kept flirting with me. Did I mention it was a dude! He kept coming at me with his lips puckered ready to kiss me. He would slowly move in, my goodness, he got so close! I wouldn't have minded, but his breath was horrible...

After that I had some McDonald's and went to Mary King's Close. In Edinburgh people live in these apartmentesque buildings that were separated by small alleyways called closes. One particular close was named after Mary King and over time a building was built over top of it. The close was eventually fixed up and reopened as a tourist attraction. It's quite dark and musty down there.


I went on the tour with a retarded actor. His lines were completely scripted and he would often forget where he was and just pause, then he would start again. It was just like this sentence that............I am typing to you now from...........my computer at work. So annoying! He was dressed like an idiot too.

The plague hit Edinburgh really badly so there are a lot of ghost stories, especially from Mary King's close. He took us into one room where they had it set up like a typical room occupied by mannequin people. In the beds were two people infected with the plague and hovering over them were these two plague doctors. They were so creepy looking! They wore these leather robe things and they had a big beak mask they wore over their face that was filled with herbs and such. Reminded me of those creatures from the Village.



So I'm standing next to one as the tour guide is talking and I think to myself, I should just nudge this doctor to make sure its not real. Just then it slams its staff on the ground and walks out of the room!!! Freaked us all right out.

So that was a fun experience. It was better than the dungeon, although I could have done with a better tour guide. After that I looked around a bit...here are some pics:










I went back to my hotel (I decided to splurge a bit) but unfortunately my jet lag kicked in again. I fell asleep at about 10pm but of course woke up at 2am. I walked around outside for a bit, but nothing was going on. I didn't get to sleep until 5am. I wanted to get up early to check more stuff out before my train left in the afternoon. Hopefully going to bed so late wouldn't screw me over...

My Last Day in Lincolnshire - Day Nine

My last day with Robyn and the "Family" had arrived. This was the big day for the "kids" to dye my hair. I bought some funky red colour. I thought that would look nice. So the "Eldest Son" and the "Daughter" got the honours of recreating my look. They did a remarkable job, they only missed one little tiny patch of blond roots. The major problem with the dye, unfortunately, was that because my hair was bleached it wouldn't set in my hair. In the shower the colour just kept coming out. Nonetheless, everyone was quite shocked when they saw the final product.


I look just like my hero, Ronald McDonald

That evening we all went out to this fancy Chinese restaurant. I felt kinda silly:

1. I had ridiculously bright red hair.
2. I had only brought one nice shirt and I didn't want to stain it with the red dye.
3. All I had to wear was a t-shirt so I was the only person not dressed up.

Whatever, the food was good and we had a fun evening. It was especially fun hiding "Grandma's" utensils so she would have to use chopsticks. When we returned home, the "Family" wanted some pictures taken cause the "Grandparents" were leaving that weekend as well. We had a fun photo session that night. Here are some photos. Once again, the faces of the "family" have been disguised to protect their identities.











A big thank you to the "Family" for letting me invade their lives for a week!!! I'll never forget the crazy fun times we had...

You Can't Keep a Good Dog Down

This weekend I went on a retreat with the Sr High to Stillwood Camp. We went last year, it was pretty sweet. This year was a whole different kind of sweet. One of our youth, Matt, asked me on the ride there if I would join him for the Stillwood Idol talent show. Hmm, "what was I getting myself into?" I wondered. He asked me to lip-sync with him to the song "You can't keep a good dog down" from the movie All Dogs Go to Heaven. I reluctantly said yes. He played the song for me and I just scratched my head...you can't be serious!?!! I love a good lip sync, but this song, I just couldn't see it being any good. I didn't have faith.

Well, I had agreed to do it, so I got started on learning my part. Matt was very persistent with me. I don't think he had faith I could pull it off. Well, we had to go and audition before a couple judges to get into the competition. As we got up there, I thought to myself, "I'll give this the best I've got, but I can't see this going anywhere." I flubbed up a few of my lines, but I still put my heart into it. After we finished they asked, "How do you think that went?" I replied, "I think we did pretty good." They said, "You did better than good, that was awesome!!!" What??!??! I was shocked.

So now I'm getting a little pumped for this...we actually have to do this in front of everyone now. We practiced a bit more and worked out some new choreography for the main performance. Matt was so excited about it. I was terribly nervous, but Matt kept reassuring me (I think he was just getting annoyed and wanted me to shut up).

So it was time for the performance. The host announced, "And now for something completely different..." and up we go. As we're going through it I can't really see what Matt is doing cause I'm looking out at the crowd. From what I've been told he really put everything he had into this. After we were done everyone cheered and applauded us. We were happy, the judges gave us good reviews and off we were to our seats.

When it came time to announce the winners I leaned over to Matt and said, "You know, I think we might jsut have a shot here! I think we'll probably get third." Matt was like, "Of course we did good, I'm the king of lip-syncing!" The judges come out. They announce 4th place, wasn't us. They announce 3rd place, no dice. They announce 2nd place, again, not for us. I'm on the edge of my seat, I can't believe this, we might actually win!!!! "And the winner of 50 chocolate bars is....Charlie and Itchy" That was us! I'm speechless, I cannot believe we have just won. What an experience.

Itchy (Me) & Charlie (Matt)

Matt was on cloud 9. Afterwards, we're outside talking and laughing with some of the other guys. This girl comes up to Matt, "Excuse me, where was that song from?" "Oh, that was from All Dogs Go to Heaven." "Oh, that was it! I've seen that movie." Matt seizes the opportunity, "Have a chocolate bar for recognizing the song!" Smooooooth. She takes a chocolate bar, high fives me, high fives Matt and starts to leave. She starts to walk backwards and looks back at Matt for one last comment, "I like your hat..." Fireworks are bursting in the background!!!! When she turns around the other guys go nuts congratulating Matt on a job well done. What do you expect? He's the king of lip-syncing!

I also have to add...our good friend Shane Tarnow also appeared as the final act of Stillwood Idol. As his alter-ego Tony Wonder he performed illusions that left everyone speechless. I hope to have the video posted within the week, so stay tuned...

Directions to my church (sorta)

If you are coming to hear me preach tomorrow, we are meeting at Delta Secondary School. The address is 4615 51st Avenue, Ladner.

The easiest way to get there is...

1. Drive to Ladner
2. Continue driving down Ladner Trunk Rd.
3. You will pass Blockbuster and Shell on your right.
4. Continue to drive through the lights (Arthur Dr.)
5. Turn at the first left (51 St.)
6. Drive down this road till you see DSS on your right.

Hope that works!

Cathedral and Castle - Day Eight

I slept in a bit, but managed to muster some energy for the day. Roblyn and I went into Lincoln to check out the cathedral and the castle there. I was excited!



Lincoln Cathedral was used in the Da Vinci Code film. The movie was okay, I liked the book better of course. The whole place was quite impressive. I am speechless...here are some photos:









Probably the biggest highlight for Roblyn and me was the "Lincoln Imp". Legend has it Satan sent two imps to reek havoc on earth. At some point they reached the Lincoln Cathedral and caused a stir by turning over tables and knocking over the bishop and whatnot. An Angel came out of a hymnbook and started attacking them. One cowered away while the other threw rocks. The Angel managed to turn the rock thrower into stone! The other imp fled. It took us awhile, but we managed to find the Lincoln Imp. By this one pillar we saw this box that said "20p to light up the Imp". What amazing light would shine down on the Imp, we thought! I hope you're as dazzled as we were from this photograph of the historic event.


20p well spent!

Right beside the cathedral is the castle. We walked over and here is proof!


Lincoln Cathedral from the castle tower


Every house is the same colour with the same chimneys in England


Inside the castle


The tower with the cathedral in the background


The old prison inside the castle


Atop the castle wall

Both places were really cool! I'm glad I woke up so we could see them. When we got home the "kids" and I got to play Roblyn's favourite game, "Hide and Go Seek". Haha! I laugh just thinking of Robyn rolling her eyes as she reads this. We played a few rounds and I had a brilliant time, but Robyn could barely put up with it. That evening she told me, "You should be their nanny...they like to do geeky things like you do!" Amen to that...if I had known about such fun I would have signed up for it after high school instead of working at Walmart. That evening we had a wonderful supper where two of the "kids" nearly killed each other in a fight. That was lovely. One more day in Lincolnshire and I would be out of that madness...

My Sleep is Completely Messed Up - Day Six & Seven

The plan for Tuesday is to go into Lincoln to buy shoes for the "kids". Robyn had to stay home to clean up the huge mess we had created in the whole house. Oh yeah, Robyn has a nickname. It's Roblyn, pretty crazy huh? Better than the nickname they gave me: "Tom". They called me Tom a lot. But they also called me Cooper, although it sounded more like Cue-per. As you're driving into Lincoln you notice right away the Cathedral. It's amazing! Perched on top of the hill you can see it from quite a ways away. I looked around the shops while everyone else did their own thing. Here are some pics:






Nothing really stood out for me to buy, I'm not much of a shopper really. I stumbled across this book though:


Everytime I read this book I would actually laugh out loud. I had a hard time controlling myself. The book is basically transcripts from a podcast called The Ricky Gervais Show. Ricky Gervais is the boss on the British version of "The Office". He created the show with another guy named Steve Merchant. On the podcasts the two of them talk to Karl Pilkington, who is quite possibly more mental than me. When I got home I downloaded all the podcasts plus previous radio shows these three did together. I'm addicted to them now!

I don't remember what I did the rest of the day. Read the book mostly I think, maybe a little dutch blitz and skip-bo. Of course that night I couldn't sleep and ended up staying up late again with nothing on TV. Actually they had this interesting show on Jesus taped. The next day I slept in really late and ruined the plan to go back to Lincoln to see the cathedral with Roblyn. That would have to wait till the next day.

At some point someone named Ashley said hi to me through Roblyn on messenger, and now I am saying hi to her now, whoever she is.

I am preaching Feb 25th...

probably! definitely not feb 18th now. hopefully our church will be up and running by the 25th. come check it out if you want, but prepare to be blown away!

The Shortest Day In England - Day Five

Because of the late night I had and other various reasons, I slept in on New Year's Day. I slept until 3pm!!!!!! Do you know what time it is in Ladner when it's 3pm in London? 11am, which is the precise time I wake up at when I sleep in. All the hard work adjusting my body to the jet lag was instantly flushed downed the toilet!!!!!! I came downstairs and everyone thought it was funny I slept all day. I was so out of it, I'm not even sure what I did that night. I think I played Monopoly with the "Family". They have this new version that has "Electronic Banking". Instead of using paper money everyone has credit cards and you swipe them through this handheld device to transfer money and whatnot. Just not the same...

So we had supper and it was good. And then I went to bed at around 8! Oh brother. Woke up in the middle of the night of course and went downstairs to watch TV. They have so many music video stations. I like those. They also had a lot of gambling channels. That was weird. Basically what it is is, they give you a puzzle or question and you call in to see if you get the answer right. For example, they had, Name a movie that starts with T. They have 8 movies already picked out, and you have to guess which ones they are. Costs money to phone in, and apparently, you might not get chosen to go on air, but you are still charged. It was actually slightly entertaining watching the announcer guy or girl fill time waiting for people to call in. Here's an example of what the shows are like:


A really big phenomenon over in England is Big Brother. It's a lot bigger than it is in North America. At night they have the show on live so you can watch the housemates, even though they're usually sleeping, but sometimes engaging in late-nite chit chat when they can't sleep. During my stay there, Celebrity Big Brother had just started. Face from A-Team was on it and so was Jermaine Jackson (Michael's bro). I thought that was interesting, seeing as how they're not British. I didn't really know the other contestants, except Jo from S Club 7. This version seemed really lame. Most of the celebrities didn't even seem to want to be there. In fact, I think during the course of it 4 of them walked off at different points.

So I eventually went back to sleep at like 4:30 or 5. What an eventful day...

We can't make up our minds...

OK...so, last I heard I am still preaching on Feb 18th, but it is at a mystery location. sorry teresa!

Attention! Attention!

If you are coming to hear me preach on Feb 18th, I wouldn't be so excited...looks like I will probably be bumped to the 25th. I'll keep you posted.

The "kids" were buzzed - Day Four

I woke up Sunday morning refreshed and ready to take on the world. I went downstairs to find the kids playing video games with Robyn. They were playing a game called "Buzz!"


"Hosted by the computer animated, ever-smiling Buzz and his assistant Rose, the game makes it seem like you are in an actual quiz show, complete with buzzers, theme songs and canned audience clapping/laughter." - Wikipedia.

Those are the buzzers that you use instead of regular controllers. I was amazed. I had never seen such devices! I got to join in on the action and slaughtered the competition. We were even playing the Music version which has a lot of English bands I had never heard of. Why couldn't they make something like this for Canada??!? How frustrating...

Tonight was New Year's so everyone was getting excited for the festivities. "Grandpa" gave Robyn money to buy some beer, so she, the "daughter", the "youngest son", and I went in search of some. We went to the nearest small village place, but the store was closed! We had to move on to some place else that was bigger. It was there that we found the beer! Boy, that was an exciting story!!!! I did enjoy driving around and seeing the neighborhood though.

The "youngest son" wanted to play Monopoly, but no one else did, so instead we watched a movie. Can you guess which one??? It was Mary Poppins!!! I really enjoyed it, it was much better than the play. As the day progressed the topic of magic tricks somehow surfaced and right away I was excited to show off some of my skills. It wasn't long before we were amusing each other with various card tricks and pulling balls of light out of our noses and magically making toothpicks form into stars. I should mention at this point that Robyn was not nearly as amused by this as me and the "children" (let's just say I was on top of the world and Robyn was rolling her eyes).


I've been doing magic since I was a kid and it was incredible to meet people who were actually amazed by it! There was only one other time in all my life when someone was impressed by my magic. I was doing a card trick for Dennis involving my "magic hoodie". You take a card from the deck, memorize it, put it back, I pass the deck through my magic hoodie and the card magically moves. This time I was still wearing the magic hoodie and I had the deck in my hand. So after I took the hoodie off Dennis says, "that would be fast if you did the trick already". I looked at him and flipped the top card showing his card had in fact already moved! I don't know how the magic hoodie works, but even passing the deck through the sleeve like that provides unpredictable results.

So anyways, the kids were having so much fun with the magic that they decided to put on a special "magic show" for our New Years Eve Bash. We had a lot of fun...I think everyone left with a sense of bewilderment and awe.


The food was amazing! They had prepared this huge spread of desserts and appetizers. Mouth-watering! Everyone was especially excited because this was the maiden voyage of their brand new chocolate fondue.


It was time for the countdown. We watched the London broadcast on the telly. The fireworks were amazing at the London Eye by the Parliament Buildings. We each had these exploding things that shot out stringy stuff. And, well, you know how things are in Europe...it wasn't long before the "kids" were downing the champagne. They're hyper enough as it is!


I have doctored these photos to protect the identity of the "Family".


Robyn wore her new outfit she got for Christmas. Love the pearls!


This dog barked at me a lot, but with my Dr. Doolittle charm I won her over in no time.

Thus ended 2006 and Day Four of my journey. Robyn and I stayed up kinda late chatting about life and such. Who could foresee what 2007 would bring us??