Olympics!

I've been slowly finding out a little bit more information about what I will be doing in Sri Lanka this summer. They want me doing parish work, peace and reconciliation, inter-faith and social responsibility, that sort of stuff. I don't really know any more than that, so feel free to imagine all the wonderful possibilities - that's what I've been doing! Actually, it sounds a lot like a program that a church here might hand to an inter - although I am sure that the specifics will be wildly different.

This goes to the heart of what I want to get out of the trip. We have a church with the same name, similar roots, similar worship, but very, very different contexts. I want to see how their Anglicanism compares to the Anglicanism that I know (western Canadian Anglicanism). Clearly from my outline of the summer, we use a similar kind of language - phrases like "peace and reconciliation" "inter-faith" and "social responsibility" tend to crop up here a lot as well. However, when we talk about these things we have a certain thing in mind- one that I get as a Canadian, and am comfortable with. We'll see what those phrases mean in Sri Lanka!

In non-Sri Lankan news, the Olympics have hit the city. I'm happily isolated out here on the UBC campus, so for the most part, it has passed me by. Our school is on a two week reading break so that people aren't forced to travel through the craziness every day, so I have nowhere to go, but lots to do.

I did manage to get downtown a couple times this weekend to sample the party before scurrying back to the quiet and safety of campus. On Saturday I was able to go to the Canadian -Slovak women's hockey game. It was really exciting to go, although the game itself was a bit embarrassing. My Grandfather was born in Slovakia, so I thought I might as well cheer for them. As the game went on, more and more people were cheering for Slovakia.

I was also downtown yesterday, volunteering at the Cathedral. They have decided to have the Cathedral open 12 hours a day, from 8:30-8:30. This means they need lots of hosts to keep an eye on the place and talk about the history, so I spent the morning there. It was really quite fun, most of the people who came in were from the Lower Mainland, and had never taken the time to visit the Cathedral. Highlights included a family in the morning with two girls who were really interested in the history and the stained glass. Working there took me back to working in Barkerville over the summer, pointing out the more interesting bits and answering questions.

Once my shift was over, I met up with friends and we walked around looking for free or interesting things to do downtown. There were lots of crowds, as you would expect, and lots of line ups for anything that looked interesting. We braved the line for Russia House, which is in Science World. It was pretty amazing, although apparently it gets more so in the evening when the bar opens and the Russian vodka starts flowing!

I'll go back next weekend probably, but until then need to keep doing school work!