Traveller's notes continued...
Still having a great time out here. America is a place that I find fascinating, mainly I think because its culture impacts the rest of the world so much, especially in the media. It's kind of cool to see that lots of people do actually drive big gas-guzzling pick-ups, steam does rise from the ground in cities, the Stars & Stripes do fly from lots of front porches etc...

John & I went for a 3-mile walk on Friday afternoon...man it was flippin' freezin'!!! Couldn't feel my fingertips after 10 minutes and it became extremely difficult to pronounce 'm'-words, 'p'-words, 'b'-words etc! When we came back it took me a full hour to thaw out. There was quite a bit of ice on the pavements (sorry, sidewalks!) too so John disappeared from my peripheral vision at one stage landing flat on his back, and I almost did the splits.

The 3 of us headed out on Friday evening to a Christian event held in Holland’s Hope College chapel which was part of a Veritas Forum. The speaker was Mary Poplyn (just made me think of Mary Poppins!) and she was really good. She lectures in education and is obviously highly intelligent, but it was really funny because every now and then she would go into a fit of tittering and tee-heeing. Not annoying in the slightest, just quite endearing really, especially from a high-brow academic! She had a lot to say, maybe too much and kept referring to whatever point-number she was on. But by the stage she mentioned ‘point number 19’ the 3 of us were desperately hoping she would conclude with ‘point number 20’!

On Saturday afternoon I took a little wander round the town of Zeeland - the main street is pretty much the size of the one in Broughshane. Cute enough little place. Came across an antiques shop which was totally fascinating - it had everything and anything in there from old 1960's kitchen utensils to old children's toys and hardware implements.

Saturday night we went to see "The Aviator" - a great film though a touch on the long side. Made us all want to find out more about Howard Hughes and feel ashamed of our previous ignorance! Was very impressed with Leo's performance. He's not my favourite actor but he seems to have acquired a lot of maturity and has moved on from those babyfaced days of Titanic!

Yesterday morning I went to church with John & Abbey. Haven't been to church much since I went off on sick leave so I find worship a bit hard to handle. But it was a nice place. It was Pro Life Sunday which I found a little strange - just shows how much more 'full-on' Americans are in dealing with big issues. The pastor dealt with the issue really well demonstrating a lot of compassion and bringing a lot of hope.

Then last night we spent the evening with Abbey's parents watching football (American of course!) and eating pizza - v relaxing. Though I really couldn't understand why the game seemed to keep starting and stopping all the time - a lot of faffing if you ask me!

Today is John & Abbey's first wedding anniversary - congrats! So they've taken off for the day and I decided to do a little exploring. However I was rather nervous setting out in their car because loads of snow fell during the night (I woke up at 5.30am hearing snowploughs on the street outside) plus I'm not exactly known for being able to find my way when driving in the States! But by 12 noon I got my act together and set off to Saugatuck, a town right on the Lake Michigan shoreline. Cute little place, but not too many places open because of the Martin Luther King holiday today. Fascinating to see so much of the harbour area frozen over and snow blowing along the surface. Spent a lot of time over lunch, trying to avoid the cold and blizzard-like conditions, and simply reading with a hot chocolate - it's a hard life eh?!