Day 1

Hey everyone, as i write this its 9:23am in the morning here. We arrived safely last night, a bit later than planned due to a 2 hour delay at Heathrow but we finally arrived at UPC around 9pm local time on the hottest day in about 20 years in Seattle...so high 30's centigrade. Everyone is well, this morning we are meeting at a beach club to go for a swim and some introductions, but we have a busy day planned afterwards. That's all for now, hope all is well back home.

Day 2

Start of day 2, 8:29am. Yesterday was great fun, in the morning we went and 'chilled' at the beach club for a couple of hours, swimming in the lake, playing table tennis, football etc before meeting up with the American team at a park. We had some introductions, played some games and ate lunch. Following that the entire team went over to Qwest Field Stadium (home of the Seattle Seahawks (American Football) and the Seattle Sounders (Soccer)) and we were allowed to play football on the pitch for about an hour and a half which was amazing. Afterwards we had a couple of hours free time to roam the streets and grab some dinner before returning to Qwest Field to watch the Sounders play the Vancouver Whitecats, which the Sounders won! The most funny part of the day came at half time when Gav, Pete, Sam T and Aaron were involved in the half-time show! Wait until you see the pictures and videos... Anyways that was just day 1, time to get going for day 2!

Day 3

Day 3, 9:26am. Bright sunny morning here, bit of a contrast to yesterday morning where we met in the park but were forced to run for cover as a thunderstorm passed overhead. Plan B was everyone heading to one of the host-families houses to play some fun games indoors for a couple of hours. Once it cleared up we decided to go ahead with the original plan of canoeing in Lake Washington. What started as a leisurely paddle in the afternoon sun, inevitably turned into a war of massive proportions with everyone trying to soak everyone else. Possibly even more inevitably therefore was someone capsizing, step forward Sam Tulloch & her crew of Sean Mechie and Aaron Hagen! To my dismay my crew of Eddie and Will decided it was a great idea to dive in and help them, in the process capsizing our boat... cue Sam going on a rampage to capsize about another 3 boats. The most hilarious sight of the trip so far was Tom Seymour frantically screaming in the water as he held a baguette just above water level that someone had to come and save his lunch. All in all a very wet but funny experience... until I realised i had been swimming with my wallet still in my pocket! Anyways following the canoeing we had a couple of hours free time where everyone broke off into smaller groups to play X-Box or cards or go sight-seeing. In the evening we went to Safeco Field, home of the Seattle Mariners baseball team. Now where the soccer game the day before had been fun but not very well attended, this was totally different. American's love baseball. Huge stadium and a great experience, attendance was 37,000 and it wasn't even close to being full. Loads of opportunities for the crowd to take part, singing dancing and cheering on the team. Anyways sadly the Mariners lost the game but most of us didn't fully understand how the game worked so it was still brilliant. And that rounded off friday. Today is a quiet morning, we have a BBQ to head to at lunchtime for the afternoon then who knows what in the evening.

Day 4

Day 4, 8:22am. Yesterday was another great day, but totally different to what we've had so far. Everything up until yesterday had been very planned and organised, but yesterday was a lot of free time but things just happened anyways. In the morning we were free, a lot of people had a lie in, a group of about 10 Scots/Americans met at one house for a big breakfast, other than that I'm not sure what everyone else did. The team met up at lunchtime at a family called the Wallace's lake-front home which was unreal. They had their own jetty with 2 or 3 boats and a couple of kayak's and the opportunity to swim and dive. The boats were taking people out wake-boarding and inner-tubing up and down Lake Washington in perfect weather. On shore there was food, drink, games and alot of chatting.. a really relaxing and/or fun afternoon depending on what activities you were doing. Now today was a special day as it was Laura Bond's birthday, we all sang 'happy birthday' gave her a card from us all then a few of the guys picked her up ran down the jetty and threw her into the water! So funny. That was the end of the organised team activities for the day but as i said before, things happened. Around 25 of us Scots/Americans went out for dinner at a nice pizzeria before heading back to a house to play basketball/soccer/American footy and an American game called 'Pickle ball', essentially oversized table tennis which is very fun. When it got darker a few people went to swim in the lake to cool off, a few went inside to play X-box and a handful of us went down-town to a late-opening Starbucks and just sat and chatted some more. Other people may have different stories of today as not everyone was with me in the evening but we certainly had a good time as I'm sure all did.

Today looks bright, this morning a few leaders are going to a service at another church, possibly Union Square. I'm not 100% on the name, as the pastor there is the father of one of the American kid's involved. Officially the team isn't due to meet today until 4:30pm at UPC to go to the 5pm service there but I'm sure something will get organised. Tonight we move into UPC to begin project week. Due to this I'm once again not sure what access to a PC I'll have but I'll find a way to keep you all updated.

Over and out.

Project Week

Hey everyone,

It's Tuesday evening here and, as warned, computer access is limited. Strictly no-one is allowed to use the church computer's this week to make it feel like we're really out on a mission trip cut off from the usual luxuries. However I've been allowed to blog just to keep you all up to date, so here goes.

Sunday evening we all (Banchory and Seattle team's) moved into UPC together. Over the past 2 days everyone has been out at various different projects, be it food kitchens, refugee experience or helping at a summer school to name a few. I won't go into too much detail of all the projects as everyone will have a different story about their group and their experiences so I'll let them tell you all about it when they get home. Just to say everyone is doing well, coping with 6am starts surprisingly enthusiastically in some cases! Eddie's birthday is tomorrow so no doubt there will be something lined up to celebrate that.

Hope all is well back home and that Malawi travellers get there safely. I'll try and post again possibly on Thursday.

Project Week Over

Quick run down of the last 3 days.

Wednesday was Eddie's birthday which was fun, in the day everyone was doing the usual projects around the city, in the evening we held a BBQ for the team and people from the neighbourhood, be it homeless or students, catering for about 100 people in all which was a lot of fun. Thursday was more projects in the day, in the evening we went to a beach across the lake for hot dogs, the famous 'royal rumble' won by Sam Tulloch (she cheated) then some worship as the sun went down. To finish off the night a few people got dunked in the sea, Kate Mechie was NOT impressed! That brings me to today, where we completed our final projects, shipped out the church back to our host families. This evening we are relaxing in small groups and playing some games. Tomorrow is a relax and debrief day which should be a lot of fun. All in all there are loads of tired people after this busy week but everyone seems to have got a lot out of it and enjoyed it. There have been many great friendships made, I'm sure no-one is looking forward to coming home (there's currently a group of about 15 of the team singing 'Lean on Me' beside me!) so we'll be trying to make the most of the last 3 days.

Glad you've had some sun back home, been raining here for a couple of days.

Time to Leave

4:38pm Monday. Just packing now before we meet up to say all our goodbyes and begin to head back. Had a nice relaxed weekend of debriefing, shopping, partying and more shopping. No doubt there's going to be a lot of tears as there have been some great friendships built and it'll be sad to say goodbye to Caitlin as she's staying on to intern for a few weeks, but on the plus side we'll have Aaron travelling back with us to start as next year's rookie.

So many stories to tell when we all get back, for now I'll just say everyone's had a great time, a truly amazing trip.

Home Safely

And that's us home safely.

Fairly uneventful trip back, all tired now,
bed is calling.

Blogger signing off,

David