Easter Sunday

Brian and I had quite a busy and enjoyable British Easter Sunday. We went to an Easter church service at Christ Church Cathedral, which is the place of worship for Christ Church College. The Christ Church College dining hall is best known in the Harry Potter films. The Cathedral was absolutely spectacular and such an awesome place to attend Easter service. We have friends who usher at the church, and told us to make sure to arrive early enough because there would be a long que (line). So luckily, we made it early enough to sit in the middle section, right next to the boys choir. Chris Church has had a boys choir for over 500 years. The choir consists of boys from ages 7 to 18ish. They were fantastic and it was amazing to hear the young boys sing soprano so clear and strong, and read the music and sing in Latin. It was just beautiful. Check out their website at: www.chchchoir.org. The body of the church is in the shape of the cross, and in the middle, you sit with the pews facing each other on either side. So you don't face the front altar, but other parishioners across the aisle. The denomination is the Church of England, and it was very interesting to learn that many of the prayers and songs were the same as we practice in the Lutheran church. That helped us feel at ease and comfortable in a church in a far away land!

For Easter lunch, we were invited over to Brian's new advisor's home. His advisor is Ian, and we met Ian's wife Kate and their three pre-teen kids, Alex, Nathan and Claire. Ian is British and Kate is American. They met while they both were grad students in the U.S. and all 3 kids were born in the U.S., but now have dual citizenship. It was a little funny to hear Kate with a still strong North American accent, while the kids have picked up British accents. They had also invited over another new postdoc from the group, who also happens to be American. Gina is from Colorado, and one of the few females in the physics group. She's great and can hold her own well with all the guys. One other British neighbor of theirs was over for lunch, so we had a nice group.

Brian and I had walked over from the church, but it was still a bit of a hike. We got lost, and were about 25 minutes late, which stunk. But we made it just in the nick of time. They served leek and potato soup for the first course. Then grilled lamb, roasted potatoes and a green salad for the main. (Brian was nice to take a piece of lamb, but then just pushed it around his plate.) I thought it was delicious! We had a nice almond/lemon tart thing for dessert and then tea or coffee of course. We walked over to the adjoining park and threw around the American football for a bit and the kids played with the (soccer) football. Back to their house to sit on the patio in the sun (it was about 68 degrees and sunny!) while the kids jumped on their trampoline. Eventually we made it inside where the kids showed us their new Nintendo Wii game player, which was pretty cool! We had a full day and were home early evening - about 8 p.m. The great thing was is that everyone had Monday off of work/school too, as they celebrate Easter Monday as well - it's a bank holiday! (To clarify, not in a financial banks sort of way, but in a government holiday way.)