‘What about Liana??’ #1: Building Community

I’ve been asked by many to post about what I’ve been keeping busy with these last few months. I don’t think blogging is something that comes naturally to me and I may have been procrastinating just a little from doing any posts thus far. However, I’ve finally worked myself up to it. Here we go.

There are four main things I’ve spent my time doing (aside from the things Jesse has already written about). In the interest of keeping these posts short I’m going to write about them one at a time.

When we arrived in St Andrews we were immediately drawn in to the community of people here. We had a wonderful stay with the amazing Watts family (Steve, Elissa, and Issac) our first week here and there were also many events held in September that allowed us to meet large numbers of people in a very short amount of time. The main one for me was a Saturday morning where I was able to meet many of the other wives who are here and learn about what goes on during the week in the community. I also began going to a Tuesday night small group of fellow St Mary’s women. This group quickly became a highlight of my week. Together we worked our way through the book ‘Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony’. This book provided us with much to discuss but my favorite part of Tuesdays was always sharing about our weeks. It has been so life giving to hear from and share with other women here – partly because many of our struggles and praises are similar, but also because everyone genuinely cares about one another.

Christmas Day walk to the East Sands with the Watts! Steve, Elissa and Isaac

I haven’t really been working since we arrived (more on that to come) so I’ve had the opportunity to visit with others during the day while Jesse is at the office. Going for walks through the town, grabbing a coffee or just going over to someone’s house to visit has been so great. I’ve never had this kind of free time during the week and I’ve so enjoyed spending it one on one with a number of wonderful women.

Lovely Ladies. Rachel Brewer and Andrea Allen.

The other main way we’ve gotten to know people is having meals together. I was so excited to meet some people who share my interest in and love of all things food and cooking. Seeing as how I’m usually thinking about either cooking or eating, it was wonderful for me to meet others who understand and share this passion. Also, having people to commiserate with when I couldn’t find Kosher salt (and a good many other ingredients) has been a great comfort.

As the new year approaches and I look back on these first four months I find it hard to believe that I met many of the people we now consider close friends such a short time ago. I am grateful.

Christmas Away

You can't buy eggnog in the grocery store.*

Just one of the parts about Christmas in St Andrews that is making this year feel quite a bit different than those that have come before. This is the first Christmas that Liana and I have ever been away from home. Ever. For twenty-nine Christmases – and, more particularly, the eight we have had as a married couple – things have been much the same. We've attended the Christmas Eve service at Peace and followed (for the most part) the same rituals with our families over the course of December 24th, 25th, and 26th; driving between Richmond, Vancouver, Ladner, Langley, Abbotsford, White Rock, and occasionally even North Vancouver and Deep Cove to celebrate, exchange gifts, and eat with as many of our friends and family members as possible. We've always counted ourselves blessed to have had the majority of the important people in our lives living within an hour's drive of our front door.

Well, this year is certainly going to be a change.

We plan on attending a Christmas Eve carol service at Holy Trinity Church at 11:20 pm. We will spend Christmas morning together at our flat – just us and a batch of monkey bread – before heading over to spend the rest of the day eating, drinking, and making merry with the Watts family... who live a 10-minute walk away.

That's it. That's all the 'running around' necessary.

I'm sure there will be parts of this Christmas that we will find wonderful. It will certainly be more relaxed, and probably not nearly as tiring. It will be fun to spend this very joyous time of year with new friends, who are quickly becoming very special people to us. But right now... well, right now I feel much more aware of what I will be missing, for example:

• Singing Silent Night by candlelight in the Peace sanctuary
• Eggs Benedict with tomato and avocado at mom & dad's on Christmas morning
• The epic appetizer meal Christmas celebration with the Sportacks
• Whatever wines Gerry chooses to accompany the aforementioned meal
• Seeing what page-a-day calendar mom got me
• Seeing what awesome toy or trinket Laura snuck into my stocking
• Hanging out with the cousins... all of them
• Oma's zweiback
• Oma Pankratz's yams and cabbage rolls
• The orange in my stocking from Grama

All of a sudden I've become very aware that this might be coming across as a bit of a downer of a blog post. Not at all my intention! It's just odd, is all – knowing that none of this will be happening over the next few days. On the other hand, there is so much to look forward to and be thankful for:

• I'm pretty sure Liana and Elissa have been making plans for Christmas dinner for over a month, so chances are it's going to be pretty memorable. There's been a leg of lamb sitting in our freezer for a few weeks, waiting to play the starring role. Mmmmmmm...
• I've been eating more delicious Christmas cookies over the past while than I can count. (Liana. You need to not bake any more of them. They're too good.)
• Laura and Gerry get here in 6 days!!! It will be SO GOOD to have family here. We can't wait!
• We were sent our Sportack and Knickerbocker stockings in the mail, complete with gift-wrapped items to stuff them with. They've been hung (with care, of course... but not by a chimney), and we can't wait to open them!

• God is GOOD and his faithful and steadfast love has been shown to us in so many ways over the past few months. Reaching our first Christmas really does feel like a bit of a milestone. I think I'll save the reflective schmaltz about these first few months for a post in the New Year, but we have really begun to settle in here. God has provided us with a community we are enjoying being a part of, and we are thankful.
• God came to us in Jesus Christ! Emmanuel, God with us! 'The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighbourhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, generous inside and out, true from start to finish' (John 1:14). Alleluia!

We miss you all, friends and family, and wish you the merriest of Christmases. May the JOY of the heavenly hosts at Jesus' birth resound in your hearts this Christmas, and may you go into this new year filled with HOPE and much PEACE: for God is good, and his LOVE endures forever!

*The (very) positive side of the lack of grocery store eggnog is that it resulted in Liana making it here at home. I don't know if you have ever searched for eggnog recipes online, but you can either go the easy (and it seems to me kinda gross) route of mixing together raw eggs with milk, or the more complex and time-consuming route of making what is essentially a creme anglaise (a cooked custard-like sauce) with cream and egg yolks and spices and all kinds of deliciousness (including -- full disclosure -- rum and brandy). One guess which direction she took. YUM.

Our Third Expedition! Hadrian's Wall, York, and Manchester

In late September I heard that Liana's official favourite band (they are in my top 5, too), Mumford & Sons, was going on a UK tour this fall. Unfortunately, even though I was well prepared by being online 10 minutes before the tickets went on sale, hitting 'refresh' every 30 seconds, I was unable to get tickets to the Dundee (a 20 minute drive away) or Glasgow (an hour's drive or an easy train ride away) shows. The best I could do was Manchester – about a 5.5 hour drive from St Andrews. A bit of a long way to go just for a concert, we thought... so why not rent a car and make it into a holiday roadtrip? There's a long list of places we want to visit all over the UK, so we decided to make the drive worth it.

Rather than bore you with endless detail, let me just give you a brief outline of where we went and what we did. We decided that we would take three days and make two stops before Manchester. So we got up early last Saturday morning and drove south through Scotland, crossed over the border into England a few hours later, and spent the afternoon exploring Hadrian's Wall. This was something I really wanted to do, as I've had a keen interest in Roman history for a while now. We stayed at a B&B in the town of Hexham for the night. On Sunday morning we took off for the city of York. We spent a wonderful day there, primarily in and around the incredible York Minster, but also exploring what is a beautiful and charming town centre, with plentiful historic evidence of both its Roman heritage and medieval period. In fact, we enjoyed York so much that we didn't leave the next day until close to lunch. Then we made the drive west cross-country to Manchester where, after finding our hotel, we spent the afternoon wandering the city streets, exploring the John Rylands library, and stuffing ourselves at the Manchester Christmas market. That night was the concert, and it was fantastic. Tuesday morning we were on the road heading back north to Scotland. It was a wonderful trip!

Some of the highlights:

• Hadrian's Wall: As far as the experience goes, this was my favourite part of the trip, I think. I was especially pleased with the weather... which is odd, since it was freezing cold, windy, and wet. Visiting Hadrian's Wall on a clear sunny day would have had some charm, I'm sure, but the miserable, grey, wet mist seemed very appropriate for a defensive wall marking the northern boundary of the empire. After all, for the Romans this was practically the end of the world! The wall itself was pretty impressive, even though it only stands 3-4 feet tall now (as compared to its original 15-20 feet). To think about the labour it took to build this wall 73 miles from one side of the island to the other – stone by stone, foot by foot... it's quite something. Even though my feet were soaked, I really enjoyed walking up and down hills, on ancient stone paths, with Liana and no one else around (for most of the time). It was very memorable.

• The Sycamore Gap: OK, so for those who don't know, this is the site of a particular scene from the 1991 movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. This was the hands-down favourite movie of me and Chris growing up, and I'm pretty certain I've seen more times than a select few people in the world. That said, I was SO excited to come upon this spot in the wall! I quoted extensively from the movie, and with Liana's encouragement/help tried to climb the tree to get a picture like Wolf (son of Little John, for those of you who don't know, who gets trapped up the tree by Sir Guy of Gisbourne, the Sheriff's cousin). Unfortunately it was too wet and slippery and there were no good hand/footholds anywhere. Still... so cool!!!

• York Minster: Undoubtedly my favourite part of York. I don't know how to do justice to this building with words. Pictures do the job a bit better, but they still fail to capture the impact of its size, beauty, and intricacy. If you've ever seen one of the famous cathedrals (I'm thinking of St Paul's in London, Chartres, Amiens, Notre Dame in Paris, Milan, etc.) you will know what I'm talking about. In my mind, no other man-made object in the world better exemplifies the adjective 'breath-taking'. It's almost overwhelming in its beauty and majesty, when you even begin to consider the work that went into it.

• Two highlights in particular from the minster:
• The Evensong: we attended the Evensong service, for which we were seated in the choir of the minster. It was a wonderful, worshipful, beautiful second advent service. The sound of the choir (the people singing, not the section of the church where we were seated!) echoing in the stone building was entrancing, and the experience of participating in holy worship in this place of such history was very special.

• The stained glass: Although the Great East Window, a stained glass masterpiece as large as a tennis court (!), was covered by scaffolding (it's undergoing restoration until 2018), there were several restored panes from it on special display. Being able to view these scenes up close was a special privilege, because it allowed the incredible detail in these works of art to be seen. Keep in mind that these were installed twenty, thirty, forty or more feet above the floor of the church, where the detail was completely unobservable by anyone. Why put such work in? This helped me begin to understand the intricate, detailed craftsmanship put into every square inch of this building. It is easy for me to look back on the wealth, opulence, and grandeur of the church throughout much of western history with scorn, disdain, and condemnation. And in part, I still think this critique is deserved. Yet those who dedicated their lives to such efforts, producing works of art the detail of which, for all they knew, would never be seen by another human, did so (at least in part) to the glory of God. This art was for them an act of worship!

• The Rylands Library Papyrus, aka P52, aka the St. John's Fragment: We had no plans to visit the Rylands Library - we just happened to pass it on our wanderings in Manchester, and since I'd read a blurb about it online we decided to take a look inside. What a great decision! Besides being a beautiful building, the Rylands Library has one of the largest special collections in the UK, including the Rylands Library Papyrus. Also known as P52, this is a small piece of papyrus which is the oldest known written fragment of the New Testament! Dating to ca. 125 AD, it has several lines from John 18:31-33 and 37-38 written on each side. I was very excited to get the chance to see this, since this little piece of papyrus has been influential in New Testament studies as an important piece of evidence in dating the Gospel of John and, for that matter, all the NT writings. Very neat stuff.

• The Spaetzle: We ate and drank a lot of good stuff at the Manchester Christmas Market: mulled wine, bratwurst, potatoes cooked with onions and covered in cheese sauce, spaetzle, and strudel. I think Liana would say the strudel was her favourite (it was apple – classic – and covered in vanilla custard... um, yeah, it was good) – but for me, it was the spaetzle: nicely sauteed (in butter, I assume), they then added in some cheese that got all melty and delicious, then topped it with fried onions and bacon. Yep. Cheese? Onions? Bacon? Carbs cooked in butter? Is it possible to go wrong with that combination?

• The Mumford & Sons Concert: Obviously! They put on a fantastic show, and Liana and I had a ton of fun. Favourite songs of the night? For Liana it was 'Lover of the Light', for me it was 'Roll Away Your Stone'... though that's a hard decision to make. They are an incredibly talented group of individuals, that's for sure.

• The A-7: On our drive home, we decided to take the A-7, the historic route to Edinburgh, through the area of southern Scotland known as the 'Scottish Borders'. Though it probably added close to an hour to our drive, it was worth it. It was some of the most beautiful scenery I've ever driven through, with sheep-covered hills, dark wooded forests, rivers, and small towns full of stone buildings dotting the route. If ever you have the chance to take this road, I highly recommend it!

We had a great time. It was wonderful to explore the isle of Britain a bit more thoroughly (we covered a lot of ground!), see some incredible sights, and have some great experiences. It is a blessing to be here in Scotland and have all this within several hours of our front door! I'll leave you with a few more of my favourite photos.

Crossing the border into England amidst snow and freezing wind.

Liana sits in the Nave, with the Great West Window behind her.
Note the 'Heart of Yorkshire' in the window.

The west front of York Minster in the setting sun.

Again, the Minster's western front, this time seen on approach –
I think this photo gives a better sense of the scale.

The Manchester Christmas Market, in front of Manchester City Hall, in Albert Square

Interior of the John Rylands Library

Happy Saint Andrew's Day!

Yesterday, November 30th, was the feast day of Saint Andrew. Seeing as how Saint Andrew is the patron saint of Scotland, it is also Scotland's official national day. What better place to be for the celebration than in St Andrews, Scotland*?

There were various celebratory events happening around town, but the big draw is the huge torch-lit procession, beginning at the West Port and winding its way through the streets of town down to the Old Course hotel. Liana and I joined a few friends and marched with the crowds of torch-bearing and Saltire (St Andrew's cross)-waving people, led by a large group of pipers dressed in full regalia.

Once we arrived in front of the historic hotel, the fireworks began! It was a pretty exciting show, and we were front and centre.

We tried to get a shot with fireworks going off in the background...
instead it just looks like our heads are exploding!

After the fireworks were finished, the crowd moved back into the town centre, dispersing to various locations and celebrations around St Andrews. A large group (including us and our friends) headed up to South Street, where the largest outdoor Ceilidh in the world was taking place! (If you don't know what a Ceilidh is, they're a big deal around here. Think a big group-dance event, analogous to square dancing, except Scottish dancing to Scottish music: take away the American twang and add a Highland brogue, and you'll get the general feel of things.) Now you know Liana and me - dancing? We were right in there! Just try to stop us! OK, not quite... but it was a lot of fun to watch, listen to, and experience.

After we'd taken in enough of the festivities (including strange groups of young people dressed in weird costumes with their faces painted, who wandered around the crowds shouting or singing, and then stopping and staring at random people...), we went off for pizza night at the Brewer household, which was great. They're good people!

We had a fun night. It was a marvellous experience to be able to take part in this Scottish celebration. And - one last note - if all goes according to plan (God willing), I will be walking across a stage and getting hooded in (as of today) exactly two years and three-hundred and sixty-four days. That's right - Saint Andrew's day is also the day for graduation ceremonies at the University. Soooo... I'd better get back to work!

*Well, OK. Little known fact: the feast day of Saint Andrew is also celebrated as the national day of independence in Barbados. So I guess it would have been pretty cool to be in Barbados yesterday too. You know... if you're into that kind of thing. Sun. Beaches. Tropical beverages.

Liana seriously impresses me.

I'm not quite sure how Liana will react to my posting this. Part of me is a bit hesitant, wrestling with the possibility that I may be stealing her thunder, or perhaps embarrassing her with the exclamatory praises I'm about to heap upon her.

It doesn't matter. I'll take the hit in order to make this known to the world.

Liana is an incredible baker. Well, OK... if you know her, then you probably already know that, but I mean, seriously. Check out the "fougasse" she recently threw together:

Have you ever seen more beautiful bread? And if somehow someone would invent scratch n'sniff - or even better, lick n'taste! (OK maybe not) - computer screens (shout out to Emeril), you would be able to share in the experience of what a perfectly crusty, chewy, delicious product this was.

This particular exemplification of bread-baking technique was Liana's contribution to an utterly fantastic American thanksgiving dinner, hosted by our wonderful friends the Brewers, which you can read further about here, if you're interested. It was a great time!

Everything Liana bakes - savoury or sweet - is incredible. Her creations consistently satisfy all the senses. I truly believe they bring joy to everyone who gets to experience them. I am proud of and repeatedly impressed by her. What a blessing she is to me and others! I pray that God will give her opportunities throughout her life to develop and use the gifts he has given her; to share in the wonder and abundance that comes from his good creation.

Things I Miss

Over the past few days I've been feeling my first legit bouts of homesickness. Nothing too serious - no weeping and eating buckets of ice cream or anything of that nature. I just feel like I've been especially conscious of certain things about home that I miss. I figured that blogging about it might be a good coping mechanism... maybe (?). I guess I'll find out.

Liana went with a couple of friends to the nearby town of Dundee (a.k.a. "Fundee" or "Scumdee", depending on who you talk to) yesterday, where they have a big Asian supermarket. She came home with a whole bunch of Asian foodstuffs (including Sriracha... there's no rooster on the bottles here!), which is great, and bodes well for the meals I'll be fed in the near future. The problem is, the presence of all this familiar and delicious ingredients has intensified my longing for one of the key things from home that you just can't get here:

Toshi Sushi... mmmmmmmmmmmm

Sushi. Yes. That's what I miss right now. Family? Of course! Friends? Undoubtedly! The Canucks? Well, at least I know I'm not alone. As for this moment, though... sushi is what is representing the Vancouver I miss. Oh man.

Church!

After almost two months (including eight Sundays) in St Andrews, and visitations to four different church services, Liana and I have decided on a church community to be a part of.

One of the interesting facts about St Andrews is that, partly due to the large percentage of international students making up the population of the town for much of the year, there are a wide variety of churches to choose from. As is the case in much of the UK, the church in Scotland at large is not exactly flourishing... but you wouldn't know it from our town! We have, thus far, attended churches belonging to the Vineyard, the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian), and the Scottish Episcopal Church (think the Anglican Church in Canada). And there are more that we haven't attended: another Episcopal church with a less high-church worship service (the one we attended had it all: incense, a sung liturgy... as the pundits say, "bells and smells!"), another Presbyterian congregation, a Baptist church, a Free church, and a Roman Catholic church. Relatively speaking, then, the four we've attended isn't all that many!

This has been an interesting experience for Liana and me, as neither of us has ever really been completely without a church home. We've had a few discussions about whether we ought to try yet a couple of more churches before settling down. It's an interesting tension: on the one hand, this is a unique opportunity for us to expose ourselves to different Christian traditions that we haven't had the opportunity to be a part of before. On the other, we've found that all this hopping around gets tiresome. After all, the point has been to find somewhere we want to stay. I don't think that continuing to check out further services just on principle - just because we can - reflects the right attitude.

Some might call what we've been doing over the past months as "church shopping"; to me, however, that just sounds a bit too consumerist to accurately describe our intentions. Yes, as we have been attending services we have probably been hyper-attentive to the experiences we've had worshipping at them, but not in a "what can this church do for me" kind of way. We have not only been looking for a church with great music, or strong preaching, or whatever else one may evaluate a worship service on - we've been looking for a place with a community that we could feel quickly welcomed into and a part of.

Well, we feel that this is what we have found at Trinity Church.

Trinity Church is, basically, the more contemporary version of Holy Trinity Church, the historic parish community of the Church of Scotland in St Andrews. If you'd like to read more about Trinity, you can do so here. I encourage you to take a look - the website gives a good run-through of the church's history, purpose, and goals.

We've now attended four services at Trinity, and over this time we have experienced it to be a vibrant, easy-going, and welcoming community of believers. It is made up of a wide variety of age groups, all the way from seniors who have lived in St Andrews all their life (St Andreans) to a large contingent of students from the university. I have particularly enjoyed worshipping surrounded by the beauty of ancient stone and incredible stained glass. Though some of the images represent aspects of the church's confessional positions which I have problems with (e.g. the St Andrew's cross [the diagonal white cross on a blue background - the Scottish flag] depicted right next to the crucified Christ), it is the same God we worship, made known to us in the same Jesus Christ, whose life is depicted in several incredible pieces of art. The building itself testifies to the story of the life of the church over hundreds of years, which I think is an exciting reminder of what we are a part of. We have also felt enlivened and blessed by the worship music (it always helps when you know most of the songs!), prayer, and teaching.

One of the many stained glass windows in Trinity Church

The other wonderful part about Trinity - and a big factor in our decision to stick around - has been the fact that three other couples we've come to be friends with (each of the husbands are St Mary's postgrads) all go there. The Allens, Hargroves, and Morehouses have been the face of Trinity's community to us, welcoming us not only to join them for worship, but for brunch beforehand. It's incredible what hospitality can do. The fact that these folks invited us to be a part of this (unofficial) tradition of theirs has meant more to us than  just sharing food.

I think both Liana and I are glad to have made this decision. I am glad to know where we'll be going tomorrow, and the next Sunday, and the one after that. Somehow, attending a church when you're not sure if you'll ever be back again seems... I don't know, somehow less significant. I don't just want to be a face in a crowd, I want to know others and be known by them, I want to share this life in Christ together with brothers and sisters in the Spirit! I hope that we can now start to put down some of those roots, lay those foundations, and - slowly, I know, but God willing, surely - find our own place in this community of believers, this part of Christ's body.

Our Second Expedition! Linlithgow Palace

Yesterday, Liana and I took our second expedition to explore Scotland, together with our friends Garrick and Andrea. This time we headed south across the Firth of Forth to check out Linlithgow Palace, located in the town of Linlithgow (surprise surprise), about a 20 minute train-ride west of Edinburgh.

Since the days are already getting to be quite short this far north (it's dark now before 4:30), we wanted to get an early start to make the best of the daylight. We caught an 8:40 train to Edinburgh from the nearest train station to St Andrews, which is in the town of Leuchars. From Edinburgh's Haymarket station we then took the quick ride to Linlithgow.

Linlithgow means 'the loch in the damp hollow', and it is aptly named. This incredible late-medieval / Renaissance (depending on the section) palace stands on a promontory above a beautiful loch and "peel" (royal park), making for quite the impressive setting.

Looking up towards the palace from the loch.

A little history about the palace:

• David I (1124-53) was the first monarch to build a residence here; he also founded the town.
• In 1424 a disastrous fire swept through Linlithgow (the town and the palace), and James I (1406-37) began the task of rebuilding the palace.
• Over the course of the next two centuries, James' heirs completed the building (additions were made by James III, James IV, James V, and James VI [1618-24]), creating a quadrangular palace, with four ranges grouped around a central courtyard.
• In 1503, James IV gave the palace to his wife Margaret Tudor (daughter of English King Henry VII) as a wedding present.
• Both James V and his daughter Mary Queen of Scots were born in Linlithgow Palace.

After arriving we spent the next couple of hours simply exploring this incredible building. It is impressively large, remarkably intact, and completely wide-open to wander. Up stairways, through long halls, atop towers, in fireplaces... it was awesome. I could not put my camera down! We were thankful to have another sunny day for sight-seeing, which meant that the light was incredible, as the sun brought out the natural warmth (referring to colour, not temperature!) of the limestone and the vibrantly blue sky provided the backdrop.

The central courtyard, featuring James VI's fountain

From Queen Margaret's Bower (where she allegedly awaited the return of her husband James IV from the Battle of Flodden, in which he was killed) the view was... well, I'm running out of descriptive words. Bright blue sky, deep blue loch, golden leaves on the trees. I'll let the photos do the talking (more at the end of the post).

Once again I was thrilled by the experience of living history - exploring a place in which hundreds of years of life have been lived. A lasting sensory experience will be the deep cold - any part of the castle that remained in shadow (so, pretty much 92% of it) was bone-chillingly cold.

Liana certainly thought so. At least she dressed appropriately!

And it's only November! How they managed to keep those giant stone buildings anything close to warm is beyond me. I'm guessing the several massive fireplaces were well-used.

The HUGE fireplace in James I's great hall

After a couple of hours checking out every nook and cranny of the palace and its grounds, we poked into the neighbouring St. Michael's parish church (founded in 1242) which had some wonderful features. Its modern spire, replaced when the original was deemed hazardous, is meant to resemble the crown of thorns; inside, a stained-glass window installed in commemoration of the church's 750th anniversary is probably the most beautiful modern window I've ever seen.

We had lunch at the Four Mary's pub in town and then caught a train back to Edinburgh, where we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening. I won't spend time talking about that here, as we mostly just wandered, poked into some shops, and grabbed dinner later on before heading back to St Andrews. I figure there will be later opportunities for a specifically Edinburgh-focused post, so I'll save my comments. A couple of shots, though:

Some Christmas decorations are out already!
Great day, great people.

All in all, it was a great day. Garrick and Andrea are a ton of fun to spend time with, and we're glad to have the opportunity to share these experiences with new friends. Not sure what the next outing will be, but one thing's for sure. I'm looking forward to it already!

Liana and I in the 1535 archway of James V, featuring his heraldic motifs

The south facade of the palace

Detail of James V's fountain in the central courtyard, a 'flamboyant celebration of Renaissance kingship'.

View from Queen Margaret's bower, down into the courtyard

Descending the staircase

We had some fun in the fireplaces.

Absolutely amazing stonework!

What a cool place!!!

Observations on life as a research student (one month in)

Well, despite what might appear to be the case, Liana and I haven't come to Scotland just to check out a lot of cool castles, play golf, and write blogposts so captivating that the internet itself might blow up.

Nope. Though some of you may have forgotten, I came here to get my PhD! I mentioned a few weeks back that I would post an update of how my work has been going, so I figured I'd better get to it. How is life as a PhD research student?

First off, I must say that this is certainly a different style of school work than I have been used to in the past. Like most things in life, it has its positive and negative aspects. On the good side, I am in complete control of my schedule. No deadlines to get an assignment done by, no exams to study for. I can choose when to work, where to work, what to work on... it's entirely up to me. I'm basically trying to keep (as much as possible) an 8:30/9:00am-5:30/6:00pm schedule, depending on the day. The only immovable time slot of the week is 2:30-4:00 on Thursday afternoons, which is when the Biblical Studies research seminar happens. But I find schedules to be conducive to me actually getting work done, so most of the rest of the days are divided up into blocks in my head anyway.

The morning starts with some work in Hebrew and Greek, and then I read and/or write (whatever needs to get done) until lunch. As often as possible I head home for lunch, which has been one of my favourite parts about living here - getting to spend a half-hour or so with Liana is a great way to break up a work day! After lunch comes German. (Sidenote: I'm learning German for reading comprehension from a grammar written by a woman who possibly [1] was a crazy cat lady; and [2] had something going on with her mailman. This according to a fellow PhD student who took German lessons from her in person.) (Sidenote #2: Some of the practice sentences in this grammar are pretty comical, e.g. "Der Winter schadet den fleißigen Hamster nicht." That little gem has become a motto of our office.) After Deutsch I spend the rest of the day doing more reading/writing.

This first month (and, I anticipate, many of the months to come) has involved a lot of reading. My supervisor (remember, he-who-must-not-be-blogged-about) essentially told me at our first meeting that I need to be very familiar with everything written between 167 BC (the beginning of the Maccabean revolt) and 135 AD (the end of the Bar-Kochba revolt). So, 300 years worth of stuff. NBD, right? Well, thankfully I was already partially aware of this, since much of the Jewish pseudepigrapha and apocrypha was produced during this period, as were the works of Josephus, all of which will be really important for my project. I spent a couple of weeks going through Josephus' Jewish War with my eyes open for any ways in which Josephus addresses the question I am asking, then taking the resultant observations and writing them up into a paper for my supervisor to look over. We had a good chat about it (Great news! I can write a paper in proper English, according to him!) and about the direction this work is heading.

We've met twice now, and both times I've come away feeling a bit dizzied by the approximately 28 different aspects of the project we discussed, but also encouraged. He's been very helpful and responsive with addressing my questions and concerns, but in answering the one problem that's popped into my head he brings up three others that hadn't occurred to me! There are just so many angles to this question I'm exploring that I think it's going to be a bit of a task to (first) choose what to look at next, and (second) figure out how to approach it. I guess that's the nature of this adventure I've embarked on, though. For the foreseeable future (i.e. the next few months at least) the majority of my work is going to consist of doing much the same as I did with the Jewish War with all the other (relevant) primary sources. I think I'm going to come across some pretty cool stuff. Hellooooooo 1 Enoch! (Trust me. Go check out the Animal Apocalypse).

The other great aspect of meeting with my supervisor has been getting to ask him questions that don't specifically relate to my thesis. I'm going to try to take advantage of these opportunities as often as they come up. We had a very interesting discussion about being a Christian scholar working in the secular academy... what a chance to discuss this with a man who has remained thoroughly involved with the church throughout his career as one of the foremost NT scholars in the world!

Alright, well... this post has become longer than I intended it to, so I'm going to cut it off there and leave myself something to say next time. Final thought: I think I'm going to like doing this work, as long as I can stay focused, trust the process, and take it one step at a time. After all, I am doing what I love, exploring a question I am extremely interested in, working with an incredible supervisor. I better appreciate the heck out of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

And just because I didn't want to post to the blog without a photo...
From the top of St Rule's tower!

The Morning Commute

I thought that some of you out there might be interested in seeing what my morning commute to my office is like. So join me, if you please, on a walk through St Andrews!

(Big props to our friend Chris Brewer, whose idea for this blog post I am straightup plagiarizing. You can check out his fantastic blog here. Oh, and for those who are curious... these photos were taken three days ago. Before the rain set in. I don't get a beautiful sunrise every day!)

Here we are, standing outside our building (it's the one on the left). I've now gone out the front door, up a few steps, and am looking left (south) down Muttoes Lane.

A bit further south down Muttoes, with the back entrance to The Keys pub on the right (hence the kegs).
Market Street is dead ahead!

A beautiful morning on Market. I have now turned towards the east - Muttoes Lane is to the left of this photo.
We will be heading east down Market for quite a ways.

After the busy section of Market Street ends, it turns into this narrow, cobbled, very medieval looking path - my favourite part of the walk. Still heading east.

At the end of Market, looking north up Castle Street. OK, this is a bit misleading, because we're actually going to head south, but I often turn and look north up the street at this point, because I love the glimpse of the castle ruins.

OK, there we go. Same viewpoint as above, now turned to look south down Castle Street.

At the intersection of Castle Street and South Street. We'll be making a left here.

Just after making that left, we're now looking east again, this time on South Street. The final stage of what (I'm sure you've noticed) has been a monumental journey!

The Roundel! At the far southeast corner of South Street. The cathedral ruin is just hidden around the corner, but directly ahead is St. Rule's tower, built even before the cathedral (probably around 1130)!

Here we are! The door to the Roundel.

Welcome to my office: the Bannerman Room. Named after Robert Bannerman, principal of St Mary's College from 1539-1546, it is on the first floor of the Roundel and has four desks and a (somewhat partial, admittedly) view out on to the garden. My desk is in the far corner by the books there.

Here we have it! A good space to work in. I'll be spending a lot of time here over the next few years.