A moment to stop

After a couple of slightly chaotic weeks, things have slowed down and I'm learning to rest and stop for a bit, resulting in me becoming sick with a cold right in the middle of an AMAZING spell of sunny warm and windy weather.

In brief, I moved out of Elm House at Clatterbridge thursday/friday 2 weeks ago, caught the train to Manchester the Friday to catch up with mates, flew to Geneva, Switzerland on the saturday where within the next 5 days I did a fly through trip of Switzerland, returned to Liverpool and moved into my new flat at Anthony House, then the next day (thursday) went to Sheffield for a couple of days for This New Republic (young adults conference) through my church. Its only since Easter really that I've had a moment to stop think and begin to sort my things, life and everything else out. Today I even managed to get to the shops to get some sheets and clothes hangers so now I actually have a floor...

Streets of Lausanne

Switzerland was amazing, such a beautiful place and the weather was great, really really warm while I was there. I went that particular weekend because it was the only one that Rachel was free and as I hadn't seen her in a couple years I really wanted to catch up. She's a good egg, one of those friends for life where you don't see them for ages and ages and when you meet up its like you were never apart. It was great travelling and exploring with a friend, something that I haven't ever really done. Pretty much all of my travelling has been done independently and when I did have a day to myself in Zurich I did miss Rach being around. I also got to stay for a day with the dolitzsch family who I knew 10 years ago when I lived in Zambia. Luca their eldest is now 4, and he took me on a tour around Thun, showing me the highlights and practicing his English. The whole time I stayed in Switzerland I was looked after so much, and well and truly blessed.

About to catch the boat over to France (where the mountains are)

 When I bought my travel pass, Rachel was telling me how it would allow me to travel on all buses, trains, trams, boats, that we could catch a boat to France etc etc. I was like REALLY? You can do that?! Let's do it... So we did! On the Sunday morning we caught a boat across the lake into Evian, France, where the water comes from. We even managed to stumble upon this tap in the middle of the town down an alley where the spring water comes out naturaly. There was a bunch of local guys there at the time filling up bags full of water bottles (Evian of course) with their Evian water supplies for the week! We did the same when the tap was free.

Evian, France

Rach and me in Evian, France

Bern, Switzerland

Lindt lady in the supermarket

 Everywhere in switzerland I was given chocolate. The supermarkets have massive lindt displays (as above, chocolate for breakfast lunch dinner, as a snack. We even got a block of chocolate for free one day when we bought a drink from the supermarket! There is never a wrong time to have chocolate, it is even edible as a block in the middle of a bread roll! And the cheese.... yum! I got to go to a proper swiss fondue at Rachel's grandparents house on my first night, so cool.

Spietz

After coming back from Switzerland I went to the young adults conference with our church TNR, This New Republic, which was really good. I made some new friends from various different cities/churches, got challenged, had fun and overall good time. I don't have consistent internet access at the moment, so will try and write about that experience a bit later.

Clatterbridge Hospitals' Lambanana