I woke up expecting today to be a pretty boring, uneventful day. I didn’t really have much planned. It kind of started out that way since I was very tired after waking up. But, it started to pick up as I had a chance to meet with another professor here at Cliff. It was a good meeting, although short, and we are set to meet again on Friday. But, he took me back to the American guy I met yesterday and we talked some more about the church he is involved in. It was great and he gave me a book that explains more about it from the library. I got an account there at the library, which is small, but may be useful in the weeks to come. I also made plans to go back with Matt (the guy I talked with) to his home in Sheffield to hang out some.
So, I went back to my room and killed some time before lunch. At lunch, there were only at most 7 people in the cafeteria, so I sat with some guys who I found out were MA students there and talked with them a bit. It was nice to meet them, but we soon finished and I went back to my room to get ready to go.
I left with Matt and headed to Sheffield. He is a great guy and we had a wonderful afternoon and evening together. We stayed at his house a little while, then went and played some pool, which he embarrassingly schooled me in. (But I guess you are supposed to let your host win, right?). Then we came back and watched a bit of a movie called RocknRolla (like Snatch if that means anything to you). His wife got home and we stayed around for a little while and had a nice dinner. Then, she was having some of the youth girls from their church over to cook some for a family that has a kid in the hospital. So we went out and met a friend of Matt’s at a pub. It was really nice, especially compared to my last experience. It was just really good to be around people, friends, and really just spend time together, do life together. We did talk about church some, but it wasn’t expected as in almost all of my other contact with people. It came up more organically than being forced or planned.
So, I am now unexpectedly, but gratefully spending the night at his house. It also works out really well, because I would have to have come into town tomorrow to meet with some people anyway. So now I can for sure make it on time and not have to worry about anything. Hopefully I will be spending some more good time with Matt again tomorrow.
What I learned:
What “caving” is.
A decent idea of where I need to go tomorrow.
A lot about Matt’s neighborhood and Sheffield in general. Which I found amazing and really cool that he has really been a part of the city where he lives and actually knows it. It makes sense to me and worries me that it is somewhat of a novelty (more people should have the same knowledge of their own towns/cities in my opinion, which includes me).
Some of this includes that Sheffield is built on 7 hills (like Rome?). Sheffield is very multicultural, and has several good Thai and Turkish restaurants. A famous boxer used to have a training facility very close to where I am now, but has since sold it (and found his knew residence in jail).
Chinese people carry their dogs by their hind legs among many other peculiar treatments of their pets.
hey pat, that post was pretty good, particularly the bit about what you learned. Just to note, the Boxer is Prince Naseem Hamed.
ReplyDeleteI'm excited to hear that you are meeting people and building relationships there! Also: that part about the Chinese dogs? WEIRD.
ReplyDeleteSincerely, Erin