Respecting Religion? We Have A View On That

What better topic than religion. Really.

We've actually written about it a few times here (Religion, You Say? We Have A View On That), and addressed a series of questions that were e-mailed to us last fall (Religious Debate...or Something), our thoughts and opinions on religion.

Religious debate is indeed one of those "hot topics" people are taught not to discuss in polite company, but we're not overly polite, or subtle, and are not afraid of what people might think about what, and how, we choose to believe and live our life. Mostly because we (most of us, anyway) have found happiness in not caring if people judge us; because who do they think they are? That doesn't mean we are not without struggles that make us unhappy, but religious struggle is not one of them. The Father still has the church praying for us, of course.

Today while walking around town center, listening to our music, minding our own business (only moderately scowling at people, hard for them to see behind big sunglasses anyway) a Mormon missionary honed in on us. He crosses the busy street full of pedestrians towards us. You can always tell, they come at you with an open smile, which immediately looks suspicious.

We took out our ear buds out of our ears (meanwhile, when someone is wearing ear buds it's usually an indication they are not interested in being talked to), raised our sunglasses, and before the words, with their American accent, were out of his mouth, we knew.

Having been a missionary in our younger days we know the spiel, and it's pretty much starts out the same across denominations.

"Have you heard...", he starts.

Right away we are laughing, and we stop him. We smile and we tell him upfront that we used to be a missionary and we are not interested. As we are ready to turn away he starts asking questions.

"Do you believe in God though?" he inquires, he wants to chat.

"No, I decided to go another way, and be happy", we explain to him.

He asks what happened to make us no longer be a believer, and if we don't question why "we" are here? With a discrete explanation we gave him a satisfactory answer.

We continue our short conversation with him, he asks where in the states we are from, he replies he is from California (for those who don't know, we are an American temporarily residing in the UK). He is friendly of course, and invites us to his church, asking if we could find the answers we were looking for, if we had proof that God existed, would we follow him (God)?

We simply said "No", explaining that we don't need religion to live a happy life, that we have decided that we can live without the answers we were looking for, and we choose to resolve to the fact that bad things happen to all people, in varying amounts, and that we'd rather learn from them, find a way to turn them into a positive and try to enjoy life, rather than seek out a "creator" to give us the "answers" so that we live by his/her/their rules.

We parted ways being proud that, while we did indeed laugh and smile we did not do it in a condescending way; sometimes we don't come across the way we think we are, but his friendliness confirmed we were "doing it right" today, which is an achievement for one of us residing in the head today. We treated him with respect by explaining ourselves simply and by not making him feel like his decision to follow religion made him ignorant or any other things people like to make religious people feel.

We guess when it comes down to it, if we are greeted with respect for not being a "believer", then they should be treated with the same. People are entitled to their beliefs, it's what gets THEM through their day, and makes them feel they have a purpose. Though we do have a problem with fundamentalists, but that's another story. It's the pushing of it on others that we don't appreciate, but you can't blame them too much for trying, they think enough people haven't heard "the word", or can be happy without it.

At the end of the day who are we to step on the stones that build their support, that give them the strength to see another day?

Wheels For Exploration

(Not an image we own...)

James/The Boyfriend bought a car today (on Ebay of all places), it's a manual of some sort, and of course made for Britain, so it's likely we won't be able to drive it because a) we don't know how to drive a manual (though an ex boyfriend tried to teach one of us back when we were about 20 years old) b) the steering wheel is on the opposite side as it is in America and c) well...they drive on the other (left) side of the road here too. While we spent weeks driving around Germany in 2009 (?), the cars there have the steering wheel on the same side as the cars in America, and they drive on the right ("right"?) side of the road. So we get to be a passenger. We're good at that.

He decided that rather than spend money on rentals (which would be more expensive than the car he bought) it would be a better idea to buy a car, and then sell it before we leave in a couple of months, or store it at a friends house, until we come back in for awhile in September.

It's good timing too, the car purchase, because any day now the flat sale will (finally) be completed and we'll have to move out...and with the need for a place for only a month or so, and not being flush with cash, we may end up spending a couple nights in the car until we can figure out how to work around the issues of leases, or very expensive extended stay hotel options. On the upside maybe we'll be somewhere with a fridge so we can stop worrying about the state of the meats and dairy products not being chilled properly. Good thing most of us have a stomach of steel. (In DID/MPD it is not unusual that some of us have different allergies, different intolerance levels, or different sensitivities, some of us also have massively different pain thresholds, which is extremely common with the "disorder".)

In the meantime now we can be more mobile on the weekends. Time to explore Britain!! And take more pictures! If you want to see some of our most recent pictures of England head over to Our Frank Adventures (http://ourfrankadventures.blogspot.com/), the blog dedicated to the next year plus of our travel experiences.

A Candy Shoppe Day

We spent a lot of time walking today, which is not unusual, but soon it may be less usual. We walked around some nearby villages all afternoon to look at used cars because James figures it will be cheaper to get a car for the next month and a half or so, rather than rent one. This way we can go exploring even further on the weekend, maybe take a weekend trip to the North Sea, and most importantly go to Northern England to visit Kerry Stott, our guest blogger.

Sugar Mice

We stopped at a sweets shop in town center today, it just re-opened - we missed the Oompa Loopas that were coming with a photographer to celebrate the opening by an hour, we we're a little upset, we would have loved to have our picture taken with an Oompa Loompa.

We got a couple cool candies we'd never had before; flying saucers, which is an edible coloured rice paper candy with fizzy white sweet and sour powder inside, they call the powder 'sherbet'; and sugar mice, which is a candy made of fondant (sugar and glucose) containing no artificial colours or flavours. (which is common in candy here, they use fruit and vegetable based colouring agents in much of their foods). They are adorable, but we didn't like them as much as we thought we would, which is surprising because...sugar. We thought it might be fun to make a cake that looks like Swiss cheese and use them as decoration.

Playing Domino's at The Anchor 

So we walked all over the place today, we went to a village called Rowhenge and had dinner [we wrote a review, accompanied by lots of photos, of the village and restaurant on our Frank Adventures blog: http://ourfrankadventures.blogspot.com/2012/02/anchor-of-rowhedge.html], playing a game of Domino's, both James and us agree we probably played it the wrong way, but it was still a fun distraction while we waited for our food.

We were going to go to a movie tonight but I was too tired, and didn't want to go to a 9pm movie, so here I sit. James got upset at me for something silly and went for a sulk, and now he's taking a bath. I'm feeling too sad to play on Twitter tonight, though I might try to peak in and out later...who knows. He'll probably be upset we put that in the blog, about the sulking and stuff, but it's a  part of our day, and people shouldn't think our relationship with him is always perfect. Not that it should be, because perfect relationships don't exist.

Anyway, today was mostly a good day, the village is beautiful that we spent the most time in, and we had a mostly consistent day among ourselves after we stopped feeling sluggish from our adventures last night. The book we have from the pub we went to is sitting here, hopefully we get around to reading it, it is in a terrible state. Damaged on the spine, missing a page inside...but it just makes us love it all the more.

~ Cassandra et al

A Travel Update: Day 18

So, an update. Why not.

Day 18.

We've been in the UK (England) 18 days. It snowed for the first time on Saturday night, the humidity was at 100%. Wet cold is far worse than dry cold.

If we had an idea of when we were leaving (we have yet to purchase a return ticket) we'd be doing a countdown on when we're going "home".

It seems like we're been here longer, so much longer; and some days it feels like it's going to go too fast. And other days like it's never going to come to an end.

When people on Twitter (and all other places we hang out online during the daytime) ask  "How's your vacation?" we almost always crinkle our nose, then chuckle a little.

It's not exactly a vacation, not by any practical definitions anyway. It's not really any different then being unemployed back home, which we were for the last three and a half months or so. It's just being unemployed in a different country, and with everything that entails (financially speaking anyway, we were, and are not, on any unemployment or benefits - right now we are using the last of our savings).

James got a job pretty fast when we got here, which was good, because it's expensive to heat the flat, provide it electricity and purchase food. We are indeed "blessed", as he looked for months to find a job before coming to stay with us in the states with no luck, and this time it took mere days.

So, what's it like, how is our "vacation" going?

We've finally got a shower system hooked up, but it runs on a separate line than does the bathtub taps, and so far we have not been able to use it. You never really understand how glorious a shower is until you've went about two and a half weeks without one, especially when the heat is...well, lets just say you can see your breath most days in the bathroom (and most other places in the flat), making a bath less than relaxing most days.

So far we remain without a fridge/freezer in the kitchen, which means meals must be creative and innovative. Our culinary education is coming in handy, on some levels. Luckily because the flat is so cold - it sat empty too long, making it hard to get up to temperature, and it is too expensive to keep the heat running every day, other than to take the chill out of the air - the kitchen is an adequate temperature to store most of the things we buy on the counter, or in the cupboards. We'd never buy things like chicken though, that would be too risky. Yogurt, milk, cheese, fruits, vegetables, and eggs are among the usual foods we have been keeping in the kitchen.

(Refrigeration of eggs is not actually recommended, they don't even do it in the grocery stores, it has something to do with, not surprisingly, the difference in processing practices in America vs. Europe.)

We go to the grocery every other day, a roughly 25 minute walk, to buy meat products to eat within one to two days; like we said the kitchen is almost refrigeration tempertaure (somewhere between 35-38F/2-4C) so storing red meats or sausage is safe enough over a short period.

We are also without a washer/dryer. Saturday we walked three+ miles, just under 5km, taking our first trip to a laundromat (called a luandrette here) to do laundry. A single load of laundry cost £3, about $5 USD, that's just for the washing, not the drying. We walked to the laundromat to conserve on funds because James has been having issues with the pay at his job, so until that's fixed certain things take priority - luckily we cuaght a bus home after doing laundry because it was very cold and getting dark (and for some reason our ankle has been in pain for about a week, and it has now moved into the join of our knee. I have no idea what we did to it, but it makes walking less pleasurable.)

Not to sound like it's horrible here, we're pretty adaptable to most situations, we come from hearty stock. We did get to go out to a low-cost restaurant last week, so it's not like we're suffering.  While at home it just means more blankets, hot drinks, extra layers of clothing, creative meals, and spending  most of our time in the bedroom with the door closed to keep the heat from escaping into the rest of the flat (the flat itself could use more insulation and weatherproofing, drafty doesn't even explain it). We go to the library as often as possible during the day, while James is at work, to take advantage of the free heat and the table (at the flat we do most of our computer work on our lap on a mattress on the floor).

Anyway, we're not sure about how your vacations go, or how you define a vacation, but we don't consider these conditions a "vacation", most people wouldn't, that's why we call it an adventure.

The walks into town center are the nice though, and there is much to enjoy in the scenery of the smallish town we now find ourselves in. It is a unique experience. Never again will we get to walk past 2000 year old historical sites and a castle, just to go to the library.

Thank heavens we have electricity, water and internet. We feel near spoiled getting to have internet after the first couple of days here. It's going to get better, we can be patient.

In about two weeks we will be going to London for two nights to visit and stay with a friend/follower from Twitter, and meet her for the first time (serenity_x); James has said that in about a month we may take the underground train (it goes under The English Channel!) to France for lunch, maybe overnight. It all depends on many, many, factors, but it WILL get better. The flat sale might be completed (it was supposed to have been completed months ago) and then we will be moving on to a new living quarters. For now, we're just "enjoying" a day-to-day adventure and new life experiences.

It's really not so bad, most of the time, as it may sound on paper, and it's absolutely not typical of living conditions in England; though the colder than average room temperatures is not uncommon, the English tend to be a bit more conservative in living conditions, from what we understand - we've written in our travelogue blog, and will continue to do so, about the other differences we learn about.

You're probably wondering...why'd we do it. Why did we leave the comfort of America, of all things familiar, of living in The Mother's basement (where we had been living for the two and a half months before flying to the UK)? Why?

For the stupidest, and best, and most insane reason ever.

Love...*  

If you want to read our travel blog, simply follow this link: Our Frank Adventures, where we concentrate our writing on England, post photos and write about some of our experiences living temporarily in a foreign country.

_________

*While we are not all in love with James (he understands and accepts this), some are very fond of him (at least one hates him), such is the difficulty in having a relationship while living with DID/MPD. It was a democratic decision to go to England with him, rather than be apart for three or more months.