It's a Small World......

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to go to the Britannia Singles Ward.  You can imagine my surprise when  I walk into church and I realize that I know the bishop.  Bishop Gil used to live in my stake back in California and I went to Girl's Camp with his daughter.  His family moved a couple of years ago, but I didn't remember where (until I moved into church that is). It was really cool to see them again and it just reminded me how much of a small world it is.

After church, some friends and I took advantage of the momentary pause in the rain and we walked through Hyde Park/Kensington Gardens (I'm not sure which parts we were in.  You see, the two blend into each other).  It was a beautiful afternoon to walk through and appreciate God's creations.  Everything was just so green and people were everywhere enjoying it along with ourselves.  While I was walking through, it was easy to forget I was in a large city.  It almost felt like the countryside.  It was just a nice breath from the hustle and bustle I normally run into in London.  I'll definitely have to explore this area some more while I am here.  

The Peter Pan Statue!!!!  I was so excited to find this since it was one of my favorite books as a child.

No editing. It really is that green.

 

London Bridge is Falling Down

Well, at least it didn't fall down when I was on it.  So, yesterday I got to cross on the London Bridge, which wasn't too exciting besides the song playing in my head the whole time.

We also went to Borough Market yesterday, which is a large food market in Southwark.  There was so much food!  I personally got the hot chocolate (so thick it tasted like melted chocolate), a cheesy pretzel, and strawberries(which were absolutely delicious! and cheap!).

Then we saw quite a few cool things on our walk to the Tate Modern.  We saw Southwark Cathedral (where Shakespeare attended church for a while), Sir Francis Drake's ship, and the Clink (the prison that gave all others the nickname).

We then went to the Tate Modern.  I have come to appreciate most modern art, but I have to say, modern art is not my favorite.  However, there are some pieces I really enjoy like:

(if you look carefully, you can see 3 women sitting around a table.  Kinda' cool, right?)

But other pieces, I have a hard time accepting as art.  Such as:

(This is literally a piece of paper with pencil writing on it)

But, I guess that's partly just a taste thing.

Well, after the museum, I got to go on the Millennium Bridge (the bridge featured in Harry Potter).  Luckily, no death eaters attacked the bridge while I was on it.  

Then, we made our way over by the London Eye and had a nice view of Parliament and Big Ben.  Before we made our way there, we had an interesting encounter with a wolf man. Well, more precisely, a man in a wolf costume (a street performer).  He opened his arms out to Katie and she went over.  Then he was like, take a picture!  So, I did.  As I took the picture, he moved so it looked like he was eating her head.  It was very strange.  Before this, we didn't understand the street performer culture, but I think we now have first-bite experience (kinda like first hand. ha, ha.  yeah, it was a bad joke I know).

After the odd street performer experience, we had beautiful views of the London Eye and the Houses of Parliament.

Cathedrals, Museums, and Medieval Torture, oh my!

The last two days have been jammed packed!

Thursday, we went to St. Paul's Cathedral.  It was simply breathtaking!  The decorations were magnificent and the history was fascinating.  Something I found that was really interesting was all of the war memorials within the church.  There was even a war memorial above and behind the high altar.  I was also really excited to see the statue of John Donne.  You see John Donne was Mr. White's, my favorite English teacher, favorite poet.

After we finished touring the church, we were able to go up into it's dome.  Let me tell you, forget stair masters-all you need are the 100s maybe even 1000 or so stairs at St. Paul's.  But, the stair climbing was totally worth it.  The views from there were absolutely breathtaking!

After that, a couple of us stumbled across the Bank of England museum.  It was cute and we even got to crack open a safe (we won a little gold bar pin as a reward).

Yesterday, we went to the Tower of London.  I have to admit, it wasn't my favorite.  It was overcrowded and a bit too creepy for my taste. But, it was still cool to be there and see the royal jewels and armory and other stuff like that.

We then took a walk that followed the old Roman walls, even getting to touch some of them.  It's hard to believe that I touched something that's been around since 600 A.D.  Pretty crazy, right?

Then, we went to the Museum of London.  It was incredible!  I literally felt like I was walking through history.  I honestly felt like a kid in a candy store, everything was just so fascinating.  I feel like I could go to the museum a hundred times and still not have seen everything.  My favorite areas were the Victorian displays (with awesome clothing displays and window fronts) and the WWI and WWII displays (had an amazing movie about what it was like to live during the Blitz).  It made me think of family a lot (it's the kind of place we all love going to).  It made me kind of homesick the rest of the night.  But, I'm doing better today.

Last night, I even got to try my first British candy bar, a Cadbury Bar with a Turkish (turkish delight) filling.  It was delicious!

A very long, but good, first day

I can't believe I am writing this blog in London right now!  It's still completely surreal.  Anyways......

Tuesday morning, bright and early, I left my sister's and made my way to the airport.  Slowly but surely more and more people from my program showed up and it turns out that 1/4 of my program was on my flight.  It was a lot of fun and made the long flight much more enjoyable.

After 15 hours of flying, we finally made it to Heathrow airport.  Everyone went through customs and got their luggage without a problem.  Then we had quite a bit of an adventure finding the shuttle our professors had set up to pick us up.  After everyone was there, we called the shuttle company like we were supposed to.  The shuttle was supposed to pick us up at 8, but wasn't there. It was freezing and raining pretty hard.  We kept looking and asking people if they knew anything (it turns out someone did tell us the place they should be, but they weren't there so we didn't quite believe them).  After quite a while and talking to lots of people, the shuttle showed up and we finally made it to the London Centre.

We got to set up our bedrooms and two of the professors' daughters (Rachel and Ellie, ages 6 and 4) helped me make my bed.  We're really good friends.

We also went on a walk around our area. It's a beautiful, amazing area.  It includes Hyde Park (including Peter Pan Park, which I hope to go to with my new friends Rachel and Ellie), Whitely's, and lots of cool restaurants, etc.).  

The rest of the day, I mostly just tried to stay awake and I did some homework.  At the end of the day, almost our entire group invaded a gelato store.  It was so delicious!  I got Honeycomb and Biscotto (Italian Cookies and Creme) gelato.  It was so good!

After a very long 31-32 hour day (with maybe 2-3 hours of sleep) I went to bed super early and got a lot of sleep.  It was a very long, but good, first day.

In between the semesters

I can't believe that the semester is all done and that I'm on my way to London right now!  In between semesters I got to stay with my sister and her family.  I also got to spend time with Joel and my roommates before I left for my sister's.  Here's some of the highlights:

Roommate pictures!

Roommate pictures, cont'd.

Funny faces with Joel.

Mom came out to help me pack up and move my stuff to storage.

Meeting up with Chelsea

Our home teachers

Miles' Dalek cake.

Miles had fun playing with Joel

Me and my favorite nephew

Lots of fun with my sister and her family.  It was so awesome to visit with them!

Kind of Bittersweet

Right now, as I'm sitting here in the airport, I'm blown away by the opportunity before me.  I absolutely cannot believe that my first flight towards London leaves in slightly over an hour.  It's completely surreal and something I've wanted to do my entire life.  As excited as I am for this amazing opportunity, it's rather bittersweet.  It's going to be hard to be away from Joel and my family for 7 weeks.  Even though that will be difficult, I am so excited to go and I can't wait to post about my adventures.  Bon voyage!

Hiking the Y!

It seems around this time every year, I get to hike the Y.  This year, my FHE group went for our last activity on Monday.  I was happily surprised to find out that I wasn't as out of shape as I had feared!  The hike was super fun and super beautiful.  Here's some pics of my adventure:

I love hiking and hopefully I'll go hike the Y again before this time next year!