This week of my travels was largely spent trying to find a schedule that works for work days. Because of the time change, my meetings went from 9AM to 4PM which has changed my schedule drastically. Instead of working mornings and having afternoons free, I have mornings free and afternoons I’m working. This has led to me sleeping in more and staying up later, which I didn’t expect to happen.
I was also able to explore the town of Newmilns more this week. I took a walk on wednesday since it was the first day I had seen the sun since arriving. I’ve learned a lot about the town & its history while also enjoying the very scenic routes lined by cow and sheep farms. I also was able to walk along River Irvine which runs down the middle of the town. I learned that Newmilns used to be a weaving town that would make fabrics and then walk 20 miles to Glasgow to sell them. There are a couple abandoned weaving factories & many murals/art throughout the town that resemble the fabrics they would make.
Friday I was able to go explore the city of Glasgow. It was surprisingly calm & less populated than I expected from a big city. The city is full of beautiful historical buildings alongside new ones, making it quite different from cities that I am used to in the USA. The cathedral was especially beautiful and may have been my favorite part of the trip. It has beautiful stained windows, intricate patterns on the wooden pews & chairs, and gorgeous carved stone as a majority of the walls and pillars.
I spent much of my time in Glasgow walking around the city. This was mostly just me seeing a cool building in the distance, walking to said building, learning what it was, then seeing a new cool building. This led me to a park with some monuments, events centers, multiple churches, the science centre, and the art museum. Most of these places I didn’t enter, but simply enjoyed their architecture. The science centre was one of the few I entered, only to learn that it was probably geared more towards kids. It was full of mini experiments demonstrating physics & aspects of how the human body functions. It was overall quite fun even if I didn’t do many of the experiments since there were kids at them.
My Saturday was spent largely hanging out in my apartment & watching way more TV than I should have. The only notable thing was my walk to Darvel, the town east of Newmilns. Today I got a ride to church with a couple I met last week. We went to the communion service and then the family service where I met a couple more people. During this time, someone invited me to go to a meeting at 3PM for a missions group from Texas. Initially I was unsure if I would go, but before I knew it I had a ride to and from it so I ended up going. It was strange sitting in on a meeting meant to brief the team on what they were going to be doing with the VBS and all the details that go along with that. I was however invited to participate and eat dinner with them. It was fun getting to know people who are from Texas, along with one who used to live in Colorado Springs. However, I did have to keep explaining that I was not really part of the missions team nor the two churches that were partnering to host them. You can be praying for them as they seek to spread God’s word through sports in the town of Kilmarnock.
