Feeling Better About the Whole Experience

Hello everybody. It is a Sunday afternoon here in Brisbane, Australia. It is currently 5:25 and it is raining. There are only three of us home right now because the rest went to the Fox for $2 steaks. Normally I would go along but my roommate, Casey, and I went to Toowong to go grocery shopping. I had not gone to get food in quite a long time so it was a much needed trip. I bought some deli ham that was on sale and also got some chicken breasts that I plan on frying up and putting in with my rice to give me some much needed meat in my diet. Let me just say I cannot wait to get back and have someone else cook food for me; this is a much harder ordeal than I could have ever imagined.

All that aside, I am feeling much better right now than I have in my whole trip here so far. This morning, Casey and I went to a church that actually meets on UQ's campus. Both of us were thinking last night that we really wanted to go someplace because neither of us had been to church since we got here, so we Googled churches near our apartment and this one popped up. We had no idea where it was so we just started walking towards campus and hoped something would point us in the right direction. On the way there, as I have already mentioned before, is a small Gandhi Mart but beside that there is this Indian place, a Thai place, and this little bakery. We decided to stop in at the bakery and I got a mocha and a bacon and cheese croissant and it was amazing! It really put both of us in the right mood to go to church, as neither of us had had anything to eat yet. We ended up finally finding the place, luckily we had Google-Mapped it so we knew which general direction to head. It turns out that we were five minutes late but the service hadn't started yet so we were ok. I don't know how un-Australian we look but the minute we walked in people came up and started talking to us, asking us where from the states we came from, if we went to church at home, if we lived close by, and if we were studying at UQ. After answering all these questions a million times, we finally got inside and sat down. It was a very informal setting but it was a lot of fun. All during the service, people would come over and talk to us which seemed very rude to be happening during the service but at the same time Australians were finally talking to us so I did not want to give them the cold shoulder. There was one guy in particular who came over and sat with us for the rest of the service. Afterwards, his friend came up to where we were talking and invited us to go out to lunch with them. So this Australian, this Indian guy and his fiancee, three other girls, and Casey and I went to Nando's for lunch, which, as it just so happens, is right down the street from us. The whole experience was a much needed one: it was an afternoon of fun and fellowship and both Casey and I felt as though we were almost part of the community.

The whole experience was a God-send I feel. The fact that I found someone else who wanted to go to church as well, and then the people we found there just seemed to make this whole place that much more bearable. I felt as though I had been going to this place for several months and everyone was just so friendly and made us feel so welcome. The whole experience was just awesome and I went home with a smile on my face, feeling the happiest I think I have been here yet, for it seemed to come from inside me rather than something acting upon me from the outside.

Oh but I almost forgot to mention the rugby game! On Friday, Casey, Troy, and I went to see the opening game of the Australian Rugby League. The Brisbane Broncos were playing the North Queensland Cowboys so there were a lot of fans from both sides at the game. The atmosphere was unbelievable. 50,000 people were there completely screaming their heads off for 80 minutes as 30 grown men ran into and tackled each other without pads. It was certainly an experience I will not soon forget, and was probably the best $20 I've spent here. Somehow, our tickets ended up being in the handicap section at the top of the tunnel where they normally put the people with wheelchairs. At first, we could not find our tickets, as we walked across both ends of our "aisle" (section) and could not find our seat numbers. Finally, I went and looked up top and sure enough, they put us in the handicap section. When we sat down there, the usher came up and said, "Really guys? You're really going to take the disabled section seats?" At which point we showed her our tickets and told her this is what the lady at the ticket office gave to us. She still did not seem sure but let us go since they were our seats and thats what the tickets said on them. About halfway through the second half, this little kid just shows up at our side and starts talking to us and asking us questions. We had no idea where he came from so I turn around and see his dad just kind of shrug his shoulders in a "whatever" kind of move. So the kid spent the rest of the game with us and then we ended up meeting his dad at the end saying he likes to randomly walk up to guys our age and start talking to them. The kid was even able to explain the rules to us a little bit...