I got connected with a church way before we came to Monterey. I googled for the nearest churches to the university and found two Methodist churches and a Presbyterian church.
The emails sent to both the Methodist churches sadly did not garner any replies. But for the Presbyterian church, I requested the pastor from the Presbyterian church I am currently attending to email them.
The church pastor, Joel Robbins and one of the church elders, Andres Czerwiak emailed us.
And so off we went to Covenant Presbyterian Church today to attend their 11am service.
The service is liturgical, using the hymnal. And for the first time in my life, I did not know any of the hymns and thankfully I can still sightread using the music scores.
And I really like this hymn, Praise My Soul, The King of Heaven. The melody and especially the timing is quite unusual.
And I really like this hymn, Praise My Soul, The King of Heaven. The melody and especially the timing is quite unusual.
We joined them for lunch after church and had a good chat with some of the members there, including Lois Deupree whom Pastor Joel connected me with before I came to Monterey because she offered to bring me around the city when I’m available. We couldn’t find a time before we met but when we met at church, we agreed to meet up on Tuesday.
After church, I decided to take a drive to Monterey city, since I still have the car I rented yesterday. We started off with the 17 Mile Drive.
The drive took us along the beach...
...to a restless sea...
...the woods...
...and a closer look at the Monterey cypress.
The drive took about half and hour and we exited at Carmel and so we also drove around Carmel-by-the-Sea.
My son then suggested we drive to Watsonville. It’s quite a nondescript town about 30km away and I wondered why he was so interested to go there.
I found out why.
My son had been quite obssessed with this crowd-funded food replacement called Soylent and the 7-11 outlet in Watsonville carries the breakfast version of it and he wanted some.
The product claims to meet all nutritional requirements for an average adult, and you can apparently take Soylent all your life and have all your nutrients covered. Not sure how far it’s true but I definitely got fooled into going to Watsonville.
But it was alright, since it was a pleasant drive.
It turned out to be a very nice weekend spent with my son before he starts his classes tomorrow. I will not have the car anymore for my remaining length of stay here. And I will only be able to see him again on Wednesday before I fly off on Thursday.
I’m going to be a mess, so God help me.
But this is also where I realised I made the right decision to extend my stay. My initial plan was to fly in with my son on Tuesday, send him off to college and fly off on Friday and arrive home on Sunday, back to work on Monday.
Everyone I talked to advised me that since I am flying so faraway, I should stay longer.
I am so, so glad I listened.
I really treasure the time I spent with my son over the weekend which I will never have had I opted for a shorter trip.
pearlie
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