- Miami, USA
- New York City, USA
- Philadelphia, USA
- Washington (DC), USA
- Baltimore, USA
- London, UK
- Brighton, UK
- Cambridge, UK
- Oxford, UK
- Tarifa, the southern most city in Spain
- Rome, Italy
- Florence, Italy
- Venice, Italy (well, technically I visited these last 2 in the first four days of 2005, but let’s keep that tidbit of information between you and me)
- I also got a chance to pop into Montreal on the way back from our February reading week holiday in Quebec, and while it wasn't my first time there by any means, I do love that city…
Not a bad list, if I do say so myself. My challenge for 2005 is to visit 20 world famous cities ;)
In 2004 I also had the chance to meet & speak with two of my living heroes! First, when my mom and I were in Philadelphia this summer, we took a trip to The Simple Way (www.thesimpleway.org) who are a radical Christian group living in the in the inner city. It was founded by several people, including Shane, who is probably the most vocal of the group. He wrote up a description of The Simple Way in an old issue of adbusters and I’ve been following them ever since. When we showed up there this summer, they had a group of teenagers from California about to arrive, but we got a chance to talk with them for about 30 minutes before they showed up. It was great!
My second hero is Brian McLaren, who has written a bunch of books on how Christians must adapt to continue to not only exist, but thrive in a postmodern culture. I got to go to one day of the Emergent UK conference in London in early December and saw him speak. Afterwards I went up to him and let him know how much I appreciate his work and got him to draw a picture in the front cover of my copy of A Generous Orthodoxy! After the conference officially finished at 4pm, Brian invited all the foreign nationals (ie: non-UK citizens) to meet in the backroom and discuss what God was doing in their own countries. We sat and listened to each other for 75 minutes or so and it was absolutely incredible. I will never forget that moment in my life.
Well, I’m currently sitting on a bus heading toward my destiny. Or to be less dramatic, my destination. Which happens to be Oxford. My plan for 2005 is basically just to work in the UK and then travel with the money I’ve saved, then when I run out of money, come back and work some more. That’s actually also my plan for 2006 at the moment, but these conditions are subject to change without notice.
I’m currently paying for a room in a student house with 3 other guys until July. It will be nice to be in one place for a while, especially since I haven’t lived in any single place for more than a month in the last 5 months…and in fact, the last 6 weeks have witnessed me changing locations almost weekly. Then again, I also shouldn’t count my chickens before they hatch. Or maybe I should say ‘shouldn’t count my roommates before they hatch.’ Or, since that doesn’t make any sense, maybe I should say ‘shouldn’t count ON my roommates before I meet them.’ They have a Pulp Fiction poster hanging above the couch in the living room though, and an XBOX attached to the TV, so it can’t be all bad…
Well that’s it for now…keep an eye here for further information and updates. And please feel free to try out the comment system – I want to know that it works!
Cheers to 2005….
1 comment:
Hey ho canadian Boy of mine :) Enjoy all Oxford has to offer. Hope you don't run into David. :):) Know that you are missing many blizzards so enjoy your weather.
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