Get Stuck In

     Ollo! Today has been a pretty great and relaxing Sunday. We all got to sleep in for the first time since we've been here, and it felt awesome. We all went to the Britannia singles' ward, since we hadn't been assigned to wards yet. It took us about a half hour to walk there, but we walked through Hyde Park so I loved it. Church was a two-hour block, since the ward is pretty new. Apparently it's the only singles' ward in Europe! It was kind of funny though, because the bishop had a Spanish accent, and one of the counselors was American. I am surprised at how many Asians and Africans are here. I guess I just expected everyone to be white!
     We went straight home after church on the bus (not a double decker), and then had to help with dinner for the last time. I love the people in my crew! It took us about an hour and a half to clean up after, because we were quoting homestar runner and teen girl squad, and singing Saturday's warrior. It was so fun! After dinner, we met for a fireside in our classroom to be assigned to our wards. We're all being assigned to the Wandsworth stake south of the Thames. A bishop from one of the wards came to speak to us about some of the differences between the church in America and the church in England. He told us that most of the members are converts here, so our knowledge of the gospel from growing up in the church will be a big help to them. He advised us to really make the most of our time here, and to "get stuck in." He said it was like the American equivalent of "go get 'em." He suggested we do things that are uniquely English, things that we can't do in the U.S. His speech really inspired me to make the most of my trip, and to do and see the things I want. Turns out I got assigned into his ward with about five other girls! I'm super excited, because he seems so awesome! We didn't get our callings yet, but he asked us what we're studying at BYU, what we want to do with our major, and callings we've had in the past. He said we'd get an email with our callings before next Sunday. Generally, he said they put girls in either the nursery, primary, or the relief society. Personally, I hope I get put with the little kids! Our ward will start at 9, and we'll take the tube and a train to get there. It will be an early morning, but it will definitely be nice to have time to do some reading once we get home.
     We're going to Stratford on Avon tomorrow, and if you can't tell, I'm pumped! We're taking a coach to get there, which I think is just like a charter bus. This week is going to be jam-packed with stuff. I'll try my best to keep my blog updated! Cheerio!

Just Another Day in Paradise

Today was another amazing day in London. This morning, a couple girls and I went running in Hyde Park, the park about one minute from the centre. The park is absolutely gorgeous!! Everything is so green! It was a little rainy, but it felt good to run in cooler weather. The park is really into Peter Pan, which makes it even more awesome. There’s a Peter Pan statue and a Peter Pan park, but you can’t play at the park unless you have little kids with you. Good thing the professors have little chillins :) Running through the park is exactly what I imagine the countryside in England to look like. It was like stepping out of Becoming Jane or Pride & Prejudice! A group of kids in the centre go running there every morning, and I think I might join them, at least on some days. It’ll make me feel better about eating so many sweets :)

Lauren and I with our raclettes

The first thing we did as a group this morning was to go to Borough market. I think on my last blog post I might have put Portobello market, but I meant Borough. The market is in Southwark, which is south of the Thames, so we walked across London Bridge to get there. You bet I sang “London Bridge is falling down,” and I've had Fergie’s “London Bridge” stuck in my head all day. Borough market is the great food market of London. We got hot chocolate from this place called artisan de chocolate, and it was amazing! Seriously, the best hot chocolate I’ve ever had. It was made with dark chocolate, so it was kind of bitter and sooo rich. Yum!! I got the best toasted cheese sandwich I’ve ever had, too. It's called a raclette. It had onions in it and was flavor packed! Oh, it’s making me so hungry just to think about it! The market had other good foods like meat, cheese, fruit, and smoothies. We’re going to go back there again before we leave to get some raspberries; we tried some and they were so sweet! Whoever said that London doesn’t have good food is crazy!

Melting the cheese for our raclettes at Borough Market

We went off on our own around the market, and then met up at Southwark cathedral. These chairs in the chapel were labeled with names like William Shakespeare, John Gower, Geoffrey Chaucer, Charles Dickens, and William Wilberforce, which I thought was super cool! A priest inside the cathedral told us that Shakespeare went to that church, and his brother is buried there. The priest asked us where we were from, and when we told him Utah, he said he knew the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and BYU! He called it the famous Mormon university. It’s cool to hear that people in Europe know of the church! When people here, especially tour guides, learn that we’re from America, they try to spin whatever they’re presenting in a way they think will interest us. For example, the priest told us that inside the cathedral they have a special room for Harvard students to come when they graduate. Also, when we were in St. Paul’s, the tour guide pointed out a stained glass window that has all the U.S. state flags. The window is a memorial to the U.S. soldiers who died helping England in World War II. Anyway, it’s interesting to see what Londoners think of Americans. I know they think we’re loud, because every time we ride the tube they always look at us like we’re little hooligans.

Anyways… sorry, got off track! After seeing the cathedral, we went to the Tate Modern museum. On our way, we saw Shakespeare's globe theater, which made me so happy! We're going to see Henry V there towards the end of the trip. We're going to Stratford on Avon on Monday to see Twelfth Night, and I can't wait! We also passed by Millenium Bridge, the bridge the death eaters blow up in Harry Potter 6! If someone could tell my roommate Alison Brand that they rebuilt the bridge, that would be grand :) So, I wasn't a big fan of the Tate Modern. I don't really like modern art, so I wasn't fond of most of the artwork in there. Our assignment was to write down which piece we liked the most, and which piece we had a hard time seeing as art. The one I disliked the most was probably a painting that looked like a 2nd grader could have done it. I think I took a picture of it... I'll have to post it. My favorite was "The Metamorphosis of Narcissus" by Salvador Dali. The other ones were just plain weird. 

We broke off in groups to finish the Southwark walk when we were done at the Tate Modern, which was basically a walk along the Thames. We got some cool pictures with Big Ben and the houses of Parliament in the background, but we're going to go there as a group some time later. On our way home though, we passed by Trafalgar square and I'm so excited to go there! We're not going there as a group, but this Friday we have nothing but class, so we're all going to journey over there to check it out. We took the tube to a store called Primark, and it reminded me of H&M/Forever 21. My little sister Courtney would love it! I got some rain boots finally, and a bigger messenger bag to carry my stuff around. I had a somewhat embarrassing moment in Primark... I was looking at a pair of shoes and bumped into this guy on accident. He said sorry in his British accent, and I said sorry back in a British accent! I started saying it that way then realized I shouldn't, but then it was too late. Katherine overheard and started laughing, so then I started laughing, and I think the guy thought we were making fun of him. Whoops! 

Tonight, we went to dinner at a Thai place called Tuk Tuk Thai. I got pad thai with prawn (shrimp) and it was good, but not my favorite. We all ordered water, then the waitress asked us if we wanted it sparkling, and then she asked us what size we wanted. We all had no clue what she meant, so we just ordered soda instead. The soda is cheaper than water here! It was at that restaurant anyways. A big group of us went to see the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall after dinner. I wasn't sure how much I was going to like it, but I ended up loving it! I love it when people talk about what they love, so I loved it when all the musical people in the group tried to explain to me the different movements and terms. Mostly, I just smiled and nodded :) The music was beautiful, and I especially liked the Tchaikovsky piece at the end. My absolute favorite though was the conductor. He was hilarious to watch! He was jumping and almost dancing around up there! It looked like he was doing jumping jacks and running in place! I had to try so hard not to laugh. After it was over, I told everyone that I wanted to change my major to conducting; really, he was inspirational. While we were at the Phil, the other half of the group went to see The Avengers. I had already bought my ticket to the Phil, so it was too late to back out. Everyone said The Avengers was the best Marvel movie they've ever seen! Ahh I'm dying to see it! A group of us are going on Tuesday to see it, and I cannot wait! 

London is an amazing city, and I love, love, love all the people here with me. I miss you all!

   

The Tower... Which You Are Never To Enter...

Today has been a long, but very fun day! We started out our day going to the Tower of London, which was way cool! The tube ride was about 40 minutes, and it was raining when we got off. I'm trying to get used to the rain... I just keep telling myself that it wouldn't be London without it! I thought the tower was going to be an actual tower, but it's almost like its own little city inside. It's more like a castle I think, with a few different towers. First, we went to see the crown jewels. I think it's ironic that the crown jewels, which are a symbol of England and its monarchy, are kept at the Tower of London, which is known for torturing and beheading people. Just sort of interesting! The crown jewels are gorgeous, and I was blown away by the dishes they use at the coronation banquet. There's a golden castle bedazzled with jewels that's about a foot tall that they use as a salt holder! There's also a 3 feet wide golden punch bowl that holds around 144 glasses of wine. It's crazy! After looking at the jewels, we went to the White Tower, which displays armor and old weapons that the Brits used in battle. We went to the Bloody Tower next, where they display the different ways people were tortured back in the day. I had heard of "the rack" before, where they stretch you, but I had never heard of this one device where they do the exact opposite and compress you. It sounds terrible! We really wanted to find where Anne Boleyn was kept before she was executed, but apparently that tower no longer stands. All in all, I thought the tower was super interesting! I wish I could have gone off on my own though and explored, because when you're with a big group you have to wait for everybody, and all decide together where to go next.

We got lunch at this place called Pret A Manger, which was good. After that we went on a walk following the old wall of London. I was surprised again, because I thought we were going to be walking alongside an old wall. There are spots where the wall still stands, but the chunks aren't very big. The streets in old London have funny names like Houndsditch road, Jewry road, and Saracen's Head road. My professor said we were walking in East London, which is like Wall Street in New York. It had been pouring all morning, and then while we were walking the sun came out and it was beautiful! I think I know why the Beatles wrote a song about the sun--because it's so nice when it finally comes out, even just for a little bit! We went and saw a couple old churches, then we walked to the Museum of London. It goes through the whole history of London, and it took us a while to get through it. My favorite parts were the exhibits on the Black Death and the Great Fire. The Black Death killed off half the population of London, which was 40,000 people at a time. Half of the people in London died! The Great Fire burned down four-fifths of the city of London in 1666, and is believed to have been started by a baker who kept his fire burning during the night. Anyway, sorry for the boring facts, I just thought they were cool!

Tonight for dinner, we had pasta, broccoli, and corn, to balance out all the treats we've been eating. They make us such good food here! It's nice to come home to a home-cooked meal, even if we have to spend two extra hours helping to prepare and clean up after it :) Welp, right now I'm going to do some of the homework. Tomorrow, we're going to Portobello market which has excellent crepes and shopping. So pumped! On Sunday, we're all going to a single's ward together, then that night we'll be put into our wards and given callings. Monday, we're taking a coach to Stratford upon Avon where Shakespeare lived. We're going to see Twelfth Night, which is what She's the Man is based on! A quote from Samuel Johnson pretty much sums up my trip here so far, and motivates me when I get tired of walking: "He who is tired of London is tired of life." Cheerio!

     

Bayswater & St. Paul's

I'm actually here in London and I'm loving it! My flights yesterday went well, except for flying into London was weird. Once we broke through all the clouds it stayed foggy and I could just see green. It was raining of course, and freezing! We had to wait for about a half hour in the rain for our shuttle bus to come pick us up. We were all so jet-lagged and tired that when we were driving through the streets I could hardly keep my eyes open. I just remember my first impression was everything was green and wet. I thought we were going to get smashed by a car any second, because we were driving on the wrong side of the road! It felt like the drive to the centre took about an hour. Our professor came out to greet us once we pulled up, then we carried our luggage inside and up to our rooms. The goal was to stay awake all day to get used to the time change, so once we had unpacked and made our beds, our professors took us out for a walk around Bayswater. Bayswater is the name of our neighborhood, and it was basically just a walk around the block, but it felt like it took forever, because I was so tired. Plus, while we were walking it was raining, freezing, and I had a stomachache. It started pouring so hard at one point we had to stop and stand in the doorway to some building. I was so tired and cold and wet that I started thinking to myself, why did I pick to come to the rainiest place on earth? I didn't take very much of the tour in, because I mostly just watched the people walking by me. Lots of people wear black here, and most of them dress up pretty nice. Once we got back to the centre, I started feeling much better. The sun came out for a little bit, and we decided to walk around Bayswater some more. I couldn't stay out long though, because I had to get back and help with dinner. The centre provides breakfast and dinner for us each day, except for Saturdays. Saturdays we have to fend for ourselves. Anyway, each week a group is assigned to dish crew, and the crew helps before and after dinner. Alvaro and Thais are the couple that run the centre, and they're from Brazil. They're both super nice and cool! We helped them prepare for dinner, then sat down to some beef stew. After dinner, we helped wash the dishes, and mopped the kitchen and the dining rooms upstairs. It was a pretty rough cleaning on top of being so tired. Everyone went out for gelato while we were cleaning, so when we were done we decided to go out on our own. Bad thing is, most of us were half asleep during our tour, so we couldn't remember how to find the gelato place! Another girl named Kristin and I thought we knew where we were going, so we led the crew up and down the streets over and over until we got completely lost. I know, that sounds so unlike me... usually I have an excellent sense of direction :) Some nice old man finally told us that the gelato place, called Gelato Mio, was on Notting Hill. We finally found Gelato Mio and had the most delicious gelato ever! The guys working there were so funny! They could tell right away that we were Americans, so they started asking us what state we were from. They said that California and New York were their favorites, even though they'd never been there. We're definitely going to go back to that place! We got back to the centre and were all dead tired. We dropped down in our beds around 10, and I fell right to sleep and didn't wake up til my alarm went off.

Today, we went to St. Paul's cathedral. We ate breakfast (toast with nutella), had orientation and our first day of classes, ate a quick lunch, then set off for St. Paul's. We took the tube for the first time with our oyster cards, which we bought yesterday. You put money on the oyster cards and it lets you use the tube and the buses. St. Paul's was really cool! The stairs outside of it were the stairs in Mary Poppins where the Bird Lady sits and feeds the birds. Inside was super elaborate, and there were lots of monuments to dukes and lords and war generals. The divination staircase in Harry Potter is in St. Paul's, and that made me super excited! One of my favorite parts was downstairs in the crypt. Lots of famous people are buried down there like Christopher Wren and Horatio Nelson. The tombs are made out of marble and look pretty cool. They wouldn't let us take pictures inside unfortunately, but I took some of the outside. I think the coolest part was at the end when we climbed 500 stairs up to the top of the cathedral and got to look out over the whole city! We could see the London eye, the tower of London, and even the bridge in Harry Potter that gets blown up by death eaters. Apparently they must have rebuilt it :) We had to hurry home after St. Paul's to help with dinner again. Tonight we had chicken with rice, and had strawberry ice cream for dessert. Cleanup went a lot faster tonight, and it helped that we weren't so tired.

 We just got back from Champion's Pub, which is a pub right around the corner from the centre. Apparently, the actress that plays Ginny Weasley goes to that pub a lot! We got toffee pudding, but it was more like a chocolate cake with raisin frosting and ice cream. It was so good! I feel justified eating so much sugar, since we did so much walking today :) Tomorrow, we're going to the old part of London to see the Tower of London and other stuff.  I'm so excited! I've loved London so far, and it's just going to get better! Cheers!    

Tomorrow!!

Well, this is it! I leave for London in the morning! We picked up my passport on Friday, so I'm all set! It still hasn't hit me yet, but I'm sure once I'm driving to the airport tomorrow at 7 am it will. My mom and I did some last minute shopping at the mall this morning, and we ended up buying some Keens. We came really close to buying some Chacos, but decided that the Keens would work better :) Hopefully they hold up good in the rain! After coming home from the mall, I worked on packing and made sure my bag weighs less than 50 pounds. It costs 100 bucks to have a second checked bag, so my mom helped me pack everything into one suitcase. What would I do without her? :) I also deleted all the pictures on my camera so I could have room for more, and it was fun going through my last two years! I've made so many friends and good memories at BYU! It's weird how quickly times goes by. I also made a London playlist on my iPod of pretty random songs. It's got Zac Brown Band, Coldplay, Nicki Minaj, Rascal Flatts, Kyle Andrews, ELO, Andy Grammar, Maroon 5, Augustana, Justin Bieber, Rusted Roots, B.o.B., Mat Kearney... Plenty of good songs for the long flight! My flight from Salt Lake leaves at 9:45 am, then I have a 2 hour layover in Boston. My flight from Boston leaves at about 6:30 pm, then I'll land at the Heathrow airport in London at 6:25 am on Wednesday morning. That's the schedule if everything goes as planned. There's supposed to be a major storm in Boston tomorrow, but it looks like it'll blow over by the time I'm supposed to land. Pray for good weather! My old roomie Katherine Hart is flying out of Salt Lake with me, and then we're meeting up with a bunch of other kids in Boston. We'll all fly to London together, then once we're there, we'll take a shuttle to the London Centre. Piece of cake, right? I just hope everything goes smoothly! I'm also wondering how I'm going to stay awake for the next two days. I'm afraid I'll be like that guy on Rat Race who falls asleep standing up... but that can't really happen. Right??

On Sunday, I went to visit my grandpa in the hospital for the last time before I leave. His eyes were open and he was responding to us a little bit, but he couldn't speak, because he still had a tube in his mouth. Today, my aunt told us that he's been much more responsive. He knows what's going on around him, and he wants the tube out of his mouth. They can't take it out yet though, because I think its hooked up to the ventilator. The latest news is that the doctors found out he's got a blood clot in each leg. It would be bad news if one of the clots broke free and made its way to his heart. I wish that my grandpa was in better shape, but I'm glad I could at least go see him. Please keep my grandpa in your prayers!

I'll try and post something on Wednesday after the first day, but I don't know what the schedule's going to be like. This is it! The time for preparation is past. This time tomorrow I'll be in the air on my way to London!! Wish me luck everybody! Cheers!

  

Seven Days...

     Well, the good thing is there's only seven more days till I leave for London!! The bad news is that I forgot my bad luck with the number seven. After I finished my last final yesterday, I started packing up for home and cleaning my apartment. I was having a great time listening to my Disney pandora station when my dad called me and told me that my passport wasn't going to be valid. Apparently, passports are supposed to be valid for at least six months after the time you plan to leave a foreign country. I'm still not sure why, but I think it's just in case you end up staying in the country longer than you planned. Anyway, the problem was my passport was only going to be valid for two months after! After a lot of panicking, my dad and I decided to expedite my passport, so now I should get it by Friday. The whole process was way stressful, but at least it's done now! All that's left to do is wait and pray it gets here on time. Everyone cross your fingers!! I've still got a few more things to do before I leave, so it's a good thing I've got a few days to get ready.

    After we figured out the passport stuff, my dad and I stopped in Salt Lake to see my grandpa in the hospital. Since I've been at school at BYU, I haven't had the chance to see my grandpa since his surgery on Friday. My grandpa's been battling cancer for the past 15 years, and recently he's also been having heart pains. The doctors told him that he had major heart blockage, and that he needed open heart surgery immediately. When the doctors went in for surgery, they found that the cancer had come back. My grandpa's already been through a lot, and his body's having a hard time recovering from the surgery. On top of everything, the cancer's not making things any easier. The doctors have kept him under sedation since Friday hoping that it will help his body recuperate. Even though the hospital's not a fun place to be at, I know my grandma appreciates the support, and I'm glad I could see my grandpa. We'll all keep my grandpa in our prayers, and hope that he has the strength to recover.

     On a lighter note, I'm loving being at home with my family! It's been nice just to sit back and relax and watch Braveheart with my dad. Braveheart is one of my favorite movies, and watching it is just making me more excited to go to Scotland! My sister Courtney and I are planning on going to see Hunger Games tomorrow, even though we've both already seen it. We're also planning a shopping trip to City Creek Mall before I go. Yep. Having a week at home will be nice :)