Cheers from Chester

I am in an Anglophone country. Whoa.

Yesterday I flew from Paris to Liverpool and then took a train to Chester to meet my friend Sarah Glady. Right now I'm in the kitchen of her student apartment (whose bathroom is bigger than my dorm room, I'm pretty sure) while she's in class. Sarah is about the best host I could ask for. She gave me a walking tour of the city yesterday, and we were stopping every ten steps so she could explain the historical significance of this or that tower or church or field. Considering the fact that before yesterday I knew maybe three things about Chester, it seems like it holds quite a bit of historical significance, from Roman times all the way through World War II. It's a beautiful little town, too, with an interesting combination of Roman, Medieval, Elizabethan, and Victorian architecture.

It really is something to be somewhere where everyone speaks English and almost no one speaks French. An airport employeee wanted to tell me something yesterday and I replied, "Oui?" Just as silly, I found myself saying "pardon" (French "pardon," that is) as Sarah and I passed people on our walk around town. What makes my confusion especially confusing is that I don't know the English that English people use. I'd sound silly saying "pardon" in French, but I think I'd sound just as silly saying "excuse me," as we Americans tend to say, instead of "sorry," as the British tend to say. With language as well as little cultural details, I find myself here in Chester in a bizarre state of familiarity and displacement. Strangely, or perhaps not so strangely, in many ways I'd feel much more at home in France right now than I feel in England.

To back-track a bit, I should add that the rest of my time in Paris was fantastic. This third time in Paris was my best ever, largely because I didn't have much of an agenda and because I knew a bunch of people who were there at least for the weekend. I ended up seeing Ashley Warner, a friend from high school; Aleksandra and Aneta, my Polish friends from Montpellier who I traveled to Barcelona with; Maoyu, my friend from church in Montpellier; and Katrina Wheeler and the Whitworth study group traveling through France this whole semester. I went up the towers of Notre Dame, visited much of the Louvre (my second time there), attended a birthday party in a rented-out bar, drank wine with masses of people on a bridge next to Pont Neuf, saw several cathedrals I hadn't previously visited, and spent lots of time in great convsersation with my friends. Oh yeah, and the Korean food at my hostel was incredible.

In every way my trip is off to a great start. God has blessed me immensely every day, from being able to see friends to catching buses or trains at the very last minute to simply being kept safe. However excited I am to travel through Europe, I am just as thankful to be able to do so.

-Your man in Chester