Birmingham

I have now been in Birmingham almost three days. A very busy three days indeed. I arrived on friday. I was give a quick tour then. On Saturday my friend Ela took me to the Birmingham city centre. It's a huge area, with shops literally all over the place. They have markets on the pavement. A little market where the shops have no walls deviding them, so you can actually walk into a different shop and not realize it. I picked up some very good music in the Virgin store. The music prices here are actually comparable to Canada's.
On Sunday we went to church (St. Mary's). Afterwords I helped Ela's youth group do some car washing to raise money for a trip to Australia for a world youth event next summer.
But the best part so far was going to a Polish get together with Ela's family. They are part of a close knit Polish community. The community, for the most part, isn't related, just all British/Polish. So there was lots of good food and football games going on. The Wimbledon final was also on yesterday so we watched Federor beat Nadal and win the cup. However as we were playing a quiz game it started to rain (in true English fashion). Everybody rushes inside to finish the game. Then the true fun started because the accordian was brought out. Everyone began singing all these great sounding Polish songs. Not only were they singing, but dancing too. I was dragged into the mele as well and shown a few simple steps. In over all it has been the best part of my time over here yet.