i'm back!

got back from England on Friday night. let's see... picking up from where i left off:

the second meeting with Nolland went very well. i'm really encouraged... my next step is to learn a little bit more about research methodologies. then i'm going to be exploring the book of Acts, and see how it provides a hermeneutical window on the book of Luke, and its depiction of the miraculous. looking like my dissertation is going to focus on the meaning/significance of miracle in early Christianity.

after Bristol we caught a bus to Birmingham, and then on to Holyhead, where we picked up our ferry. on the way out of Birmingham our bus clipped another bus, so we ended up waiting there for about 45 minutes before we got underway. then we encountered a ginormous (gigantic-enormous) traffic jam on the way to Holyhead, and ended up arriving over 2 hours late! needless to say, we had missed our ferry, so had to catch another. ended up arriving in Dublin at around 10pm.

Dublin is *CRAZY* on Saturday nights, especially in the Temple Bar area. not sure if i've ever seen quite so many people packed into a few square blocks. wow! our hostel was right in the middle of it, literally next door to one of the more popular pubs. our room was tiny, and packed with 10 beds (5 bunks). i was very disappointed at how small the room was... but that wasn't the worst part; we must have been in the noisiest street in Ireland. i kidd you not, at around 1am in the morning there was someone smashing beer bottles right outside our window, for about 30 minutes. he must have been recycling or something. then at 6am they were stacking metal beer kegs right down the street.... not even ear plugs can block that.

we did some sightseeing around Dublin... the zoo, Trinity College, St. Patrick's, etc. after a couple days of this it was time to leave. headed back to Bristol to spend the night, and then off to London.

London was fantabulous. my favorite city in the world. we arrived in the afternoon, and our first task was to ride the London Eye... a gigantic ferris wheel (kind of). that was a lot of fun... great way to see the city. after that we headed to Leicester Square, where they do all the movie premiers. got to see Tom Hanks (from about 50 yards) for his premier of Polar Express. then we went to go watch a movie... this is funny; we wanted to see 'After the Sunset', the new Pierce Brosnan movie... we got confused and ended up in 'Before Sunset' by accident, an independent film with Ethan Hawke. the entire movie is a single dialogue... i kinda enjoyed it, but was definitely not what my dad was looking forward to. oh well.

the next day my dad and i headed out to Wimbledon. he's a huge tennis fan, so it was cool to see Center Court and all. then we stopped by the British Museum and saw a cool 3-D presentation on a mummy... very nice... i love that museum. ate lunch at a nice pub. then off to St. Paul's Cathedral. this was the highlight of the day... we climbed over 800 steps to get to the top, and had an amazing view of the city. i can't believe they built this thing 300 years ago... Unbelievable. people are amazing. after the cathedral we tried to make it to the Tower of London, but we were too late... it looked really cool... next time i guess.

the flight back was OK. i had exactly the same seat as i did on the way over. watched 'Little Black Book', which sucked. read a lot of an N.T. Wright book i'm working on.