Sicily

Sicily was great. Most of our time was spent lounging around on the beach. As you can see in the picture, the water was a beautiful clear blue. The bay was very shallow so you could go out a long way and still be able to touch the bottom. The sea was amazingly calm.

We flew into the capital city of Palermo. We arrived late, and spent the night in a bed and breakfast there. After a good breakfast we took the train to the small coastal town of Cefalu. We stayed in a small apartment there for three days. Highlights included:

• Eating pizza for every meal (occasionally I am tempted by a pasta dish, but I always end up going for some form of pizza. If I get pasta, I always wish that I would have gotten pizza)
• Drinking copious amounts of wine. Nothing better than a small pitcher of cold white wine to wash down your Sicilian pizza.
• Reading on the beach. While soaking up the sun (don't worry, I used plenty of sun screen), I was able to finish three books that I have been picking away at for the last year or so.
• Sitting in the piazza in front of the cathedral and enjoying a coffee. It really was a spectacular view with this giant cathedral and the towering rock behind it.
• Climbing La Rocca - La Rocca is the giant rock that juts out behind the town of Cefalu. On top of it there are ruins of a castle and an ancient temple. There are amazing views of the little town and the ocean below. We had a great picnic lunch while we were up there.

So, I can highly recommend it. Go here to see all of our pictures from Sicily. Now it's back to the daily grind for me.

JE

Alexi Murdoch

Monday night we went to see Alexi Murdoch in concert. Alexi Murdoch is a folkie who made a big impression with his four song EP a couple of years ago. Since then he has been working on his first full length album. Last Friday we received an email announcing the forthcoming release of this album and it also listed some concert dates. He was only playing two shows in London and them was the Monday show. I was very excited to grab a couple of tickets for only 6 pounds each.

We later learned why the tickets were so cheap. The venue was not exactly the most professional set up. Apparently Alexi had to set up the stage and sound equipment himself! After announcing a 7:30 starting time for the concert, it did not begin until after 9PM and during that time we were subject to Johnny Cash played on repeat (I like Johnny Cash for one or two songs, but that's about all I can handle).

Another funny thing about the show was that it was one of those occasions where the Americans all came out of the woodwork. Alexi is originally English (I think, he did live in London for a long time), but he has been making his music in L.A. for the last few years. He recieved much more attention in the US due to radio air play and his songs being featured on an American independent film and TV shows. So here we were in the upstairs of a dingy pub in London surrounded by Americans, which wouldn't be so bad if they did not attempt to sing along with every tune.

Okay, enough complaining because when he finally played, I loved the show. It was a really intimate performance with only around 30 or 40 people and we were right at the front. His songs were all really well performed, but at the same time he was very laid back taking requests from his friends and family. Another bonus was that we were able to purchase his newly released CD which is not being released in England (unless you import in using amazon.com). And we got our new CD and old EP signed.

I really respect the way he took his time to create this Album. He didn't rush into anything on the back of the success of his EP. I really hope this guy does well, he deserves it.

JE

PS - tomorrow we are off to Sicily to lounge around in the sun for a few days. Sadly, it's been beautiful here in London these last few days and we are leaving it behind. I am afraid we are going to miss all the good weather here.

44 hours of Prayer

Over the weekend our church staged a 44 hour prayer room. The prayer room itself was amazing. It was set up with "stations" to help encourage prayer in different areas. There were stations for the community, our church, our friends and family, the world, our selves, and offering praise. In addition, there was plenty of pens / paper / markers for people to write their prayers and express their thoughts / feelings.

People signed up for one our slots and mine was from 4AM to 5Am on Sunday morning. Since my slot was towards then end of the weekend, I got to see all of the prayers and contributions of the people who had prayed before me. I ended up spending half of my time in the room reading over other people's prayers. The rest of the time went very quickly for me as I tried to break out of my selfish personal prayers and focus on the church and the community. It was a great encouragement for me and a great reminder of how dynamic and exciting prayer can be.

JE

PS - don't feel sorry for me for having to get up and pray from 4AM to 5Am. When I got home, I slept until 11:30!

Miscelaneous Stuff...

It’s been a while since my last post, though I have not been very busy, a lot of little things are going on.

I took a trip up to Edinburgh to see Jon and Sarah one last time before they head back to the US. It’s sad to see them go. Even though they lived in a completely different part of the country, it was nice to know that someone else from “home” was on a similar adventure. Fortunately, good friends Paul and Amber are still adventuring in St. Andrews, Scotland, and they promised to come and see us in London soon.

I got the van all fixed up. We took it on the harrowing trip to the grocery store and back without problem. We also took it on a trip to one of my least favourite places…Ikea. People rave about all the great cheap stuff you can get at Ikea, but I absolutely loathe it. I can’t stand the swarms of people, the winding maze you have to follow through the place, the cheap furniture that looks okay in the showroom then looks like cheap furniture in your home, the unintelligible names that everything has (we bought two “ringum”); I could go on and on but you get the idea.

We had our ninth wedding anniversary this Tuesday. To celebrate, we went to see a play. We went to see “Mouse Trap” which is the world’s longest running play. It was very entertaining, but I was torn by the fact that the England football team was playing a warm up game for the world cup at the same time. Right next to the beautiful theatre was a pub where the game was showing. I could have slipped out at the intermission of the play to catch the second half of the game, but I thought better and stayed for the play since it was our anniversary.

I sold a big old pair of JBL studio monitors on Ebay. I sold them for about 10 times what I had bought them for (everything fetches a premium in England). The proceeds will go to buy a pair of the JBL LSR4328P studio monitors that I worked on, but left before I could get a hold of a pair. Some of the money will also go towards acoustic treatment of my studio (I have a working van now; I can go and pick the stuff up).

This Saturday night, I have signed up for an hour of prayer during the 48 hours of prayer that our church is doing. I selected the 4AM to 5AM slot. It is well known that God speaks more early in the morning, that’s why Jesus often stayed up all night praying, perhaps that is why I don’t “hear from God” more often as I’m such a horrible morning person that no one wants to speak to me until at least 10AM (that whole last sentence was a joke by the way). The real reasoning is that the 4AM slot was still available (surprisingly) and I thought I could get a few hours sleep before, and it would still be early enough when I finished that I could go back to bed.

(Sorry, I got a little carried away with the links...)