Bath Time Stories

        Every day I'm so surprised by how much we can fit in in a day! We just read Sense and Sensibility for our English class, so this morning we took a coach to Chawton, which is where Jane Austen lived out the last few years of her life. We saw the church she went to, the estate her brother lived in, and the cottage where her and her mom and sister lived in. I bought Emma at the gift shop there, which is cool, cause she wrote it there! We watched a little video at her house about her life, and it mentioned her fling with Tom Lefroy! It made me so happy, but also a little sad, because I realized that the movie Becoming Jane is almost all fiction, and I love that movie!

       
        We went next to Stourhead Gardens, which are these gardens at the Stourhead estate (pretty complicated, I know). This is where they filmed the scene in Pride and Prejudice where Mr. Darcy proposes to Elizabeth and she turns him down! When we got to the pavilion where the scene was shot, we just started screaming because we were so excited! I feel like this was mostly a day for the girls in the program, because almost all of it was centered around Jane Austen. We took so many pictures around that pavilion, but it was hard not to, because it was SO beautiful! I know I say this every time, but really, I think this was the most beautiful place I've seen so far. It's so hard to capture it in pictures too! The hike around the lake made me feel like I was in a fairy tale or something, as cliche as that sounds. I finally got a picture put up! The internet is so slow that I only got one up, but hopefully you can see how pretty it is there. It's so green!
        Next stop after Stourhead was the city of Bath. Jane Austen lived with her family in Bath for a while, but she didn't like it at all. One of her books, (Persuasion, which I love!) is set in Bath. It's named Bath after all the Roman baths left there from when the Romans were in Britain; the Romans thought that the hot springs had healing powers. They've got a museum built up around the baths, so it was cool to see them. You can't go in them, but they do have clean bath water that you can drink. It sounds gross, because it is! It tasted like hot metal! Haha I had the hot cool-aid Julian Smith video going through my head the whole time. After exploring the baths, we went to this place called the Royal Crescent, which is a bunch of apartments built in the shape of a crescent. It's the biggest attraction in Bath besides the baths, but I wasn't really impressed by it. I did my presentation on the Royal Crescent in our prep class, and I though it was going to be a lot bigger. For dinner we ate at an Irish Pub, and it was really good! I just got a burger though, so nothing too exciting :) After that it was time to head back to the bus and then head back to the center. Today was another full day where I saw and did things that I've always wanted to! I'd say that today my horizons were widened :)
                 

Is the First Word Tomato?

        Ok, I just have a few random things to post about. Yesterday, we went to a play as a group called "Written on the Heart." It was about the translation of the King James Version of the Bible. It went back and forth between William Tyndale and the time while they were translating the Bible. It was actually pretty good! It was a little hard to follow, and I would have been totally lost if we weren't learning this stuff in class. It was interesting though!
        Tonight, we went to see the musical Matilda! It's been playing here for a while now, and it was SO good! It was hilarious, and just so much fun! The dancing was amazing, and the songs were so catchy. I think I'm going to buy the whole soundtrack off itunes, because I loved it so much! The little girl that played Matilda was really good too. There's this one part where Miss Honey writes "I can read books" on the board, and Lavender tries to read it. She says, "I've got it! Is the first word... tomato?" Miss Honey goes, "No, but tomato's a very good word!" Lavender just does this huge fist pump and goes "YESSS!" Haha oh man it was so funny! Once it comes to the States, I'm so going to see it again! :)
        We're leaving bright and early for Bath tomorrow morning, so we're staying up and watching Pride & Prejudice tonight :) Bath is where Jane Austen lived while she was writing, so it's going to be super cool! I can't wait!!    

Paris Day 3

        Sorry for the information overload, but so much happened in those three days in Paris, and I just want to get it all down! The third day there was pretty rough. We had to be down for breakfast at 8, then be ready to check out at 9. We dropped our luggage off at the train station in lockers, then set off for the Louvre! The Louvre was cool, but I think I was too tired to appreciate it as much as I should have. It was cool to see the Mona Lisa, but I was surprised by how small it was. They had it roped off, so we could only stand from far off and look at it. Still, it was pretty legit!

        We were so tired of standing on our feet after a couple hours at the Louvre that we decided to go on an ice cream run. We went to this ice cream place that was supposed to have the best ice cream in Paris, and it didn't disappoint! The caramel ice cream was amazingly good! It also felt good to sit and rest for a bit. We went to an art museum called the Orangerie next, which had huge Monet murals on the walls. The nice thing about this museum is that they have benches where you're supposed to just sit and stare at the paintings, which we did, gladly. I would have been a bad pioneer I think. My feet were just throbbing! We had one last museum to hit up after the Orangerie, which was Napolean's Tomb. I told myself that it might be pretty cool to see, so that at least gave me some motivation. Napolean's Tomb is part of a bigger building that used to be both a hospital and an armory, which kind of cracks me up. We walked into the smaller building with Napolean's tomb and saw his monument right away to our right. The name "Joseph Napolean" was inscribed on the side, and we were standing there thinking aloud how we never knew his name was Joseph, when we realized that that wasn't his tomb... His real tomb was in the middle of the huge room down on a lower floor. We had heard that there were actually 8 different coffins surrounding Napolean, but I don't know if that's true. The monument to Napolean was bigger than I thought, but honestly, I was so tired by that point that I just wanted to go sit down and eat! Like I said, I would have been a terrible pioneer :)
        We went and ate dinner at the first restaurant we saw that was close to Napolean's tomb. It was a cafe on the street corner, and it was the most French place we ate while we were there. I ordered quiche, but my friend Lauren got duck, so I tried some of it and it wasn't bad! At this point in the day, we still had about two hours til we had to meet up at the train station. We decided to go to Pere Lachaise, a cemetery where Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison, Rossini, and Chopin are buried. There was glass all around Oscar Wilde's tombstone, because people kept coming and writing on it. People had written all over the glass still though--they were mostly quotes from things he had written. There was a nasty old tube of pink lipstick laying on the ground, so I used it to write my name and Amanda's on the glass. Amanda is an English major too, so she was just as excited as me to be at his gravesite. We realized after how funny it was that we had written our names together on a known homosexual's grave. Haha! :) Around then a van came driving by and the lady inside said that the cemetery was closing soon, so we needed to exit (sortie) immediately. We still hadn't found Chopin's grave yet though, so we ran in and out of the graves trying to find it while running away from the white van lady patrolling the cemetery. It was pretty great! We found Chopin's grave and left the cemetery before it closed, so no worries. We were then running a little short on time though, so we booked it back to the metro.
        By the time we got back to the train station, my feet were so sore and blistered that I was basically waddling. Cobblestones are not the greatest surface to walk on. All I wanted to do was to sit down, but when we got there, our profe stopped us and said that someone had lost their ticket, so we all had to give him our tickets. He said they all needed to be accounted for, then he'd pass them back out. Our tickets were in our backpacks in our locker, so we had to go get those out, then give our tickets up. Please Note: Before we left for Paris we were given our tickets to and from Paris, so we also still had our tickets from London. Well, lucky me, I got the ticket FROM London TO Paris that someone accidentally turned in to our profe. Everyone else got through while I waited on the other side, because I had the wrong ticket. My professor said he'd figure it out, so I just waited on my sore feet and watched the time tick away. I started getting nervous and thought the train was going to leave without me! Then, with 13 minutes left to go til the train left, my professor came back with the right ticket. Phwew! Well, the fun doesn't stop there. Once we arrived back in London, I couldn't find my Oyster card. My oyster card is what lets me ride the tube in London, so without it, I couldn't get back to the center. I was so frustrated! I came close to just buying a new card, but my friends told me to just buy a one time pass and then look for my card later. So, that's what I did. Thankfully I did find my card the next morning, so that was good. It was just so frustrating piled on top of everything else, piled on top of my sore feet! Literally!
        Last thing... Amanda, Kayley and I were starving, so we stopped at burger king to eat something. This British guy probably in his early thirties came and sat with us, named Tim. We just started talking and then he asked us if we were going to go out for drinks that night. We all looked at each other like, "Who's going to be the one to talk about the church?" We told him that we were Mormons and we didn't drink. He told us he'd heard of the church before and had actually gone to a meeting once before! He said it hadn't been the right thing for him at the time, but maybe now he'd check it out again. We just said, "Yeah, yeah you should!" That was my first real missionary type encounter in London! It was awesome! I hope I get more opportunities like that :)        
   
   
       

Paris Holds the Key to Your Heart

Day 1: Tour Eiffel and Seine Cruise

     Alright, here we go! We left the center at 6:15 Wednesday morning and went from the St. Pancras train station heading to Gare du Nord in Pairs. That trip was just fine and I didn't even notice when we went under the water. Paris is one hour later than London, so we didn't arrive until about 11:20. We walked to our hotel,  got checked in, and had about ten minutes to freshen up and stuff before we headed out as a group. Nick (our program director) said that the hotel was rated about a four star by European standards, but by American standards it was about a 2. It was a pretty tiny room, and the hair dryer was a hose coming out of the wall. It made me think of every movie where they end up in a shabby European hotel like in European Vacation or Just Married haha. It was fine though, because at the end of the day all we needed was a bed!

Arc de Triumphe

     We had been given a metro pass the night before, so we used that for the first time in Paris to get to these gardens by the Louvre called the Tuileries. The metro is a lot dirtier than the tube in London, although we didn't notice that til we got back to London. The Tuileries were beautiful--just big and open, and there were so many people out and about. It was also a beautiful day! We hadn't seen the sun for a while, and it was so warm with just a little breeze. It was humid, which I wasn't expecting. After strolling the Tuileries, our professors set us loose in Paris, telling us to walk down Champs Elysees to find something to eat. Champs Elysees is a big, famous street in Paris with lots of clothing stores and places to eat. We strolled down the street and got some euros out at an ATM, then explored a side street til we found this little cafe to eat at. None of us speak French except for Kayley, but fortunately the guy behind the counter spoke English. He was so funny! We were being super touristy and taking pictures of our food, so he came and jumped in our pictures and was teasing us when we said Merci. After eating, we walked down the rest of Champs Elysees to Arc de Triumphe, which was awesome! It was a lot bigger than I thought, and when we went inside and climbed to the top, the view was incredible! I wish I would have known more about the history behind it before we came to Paris. We were supposed to meet up with the group at 8:15 by the river Seine, so after the Arc de Triumphe, we headed on Avenue Kleber to the Eiffel Tour!! The Eiffel Tower was not a let down at all. It was so tall and beautiful! I don't know what makes it so beautiful, because it's just made of iron, but it's amazing! We have a goal to take a jumping picture at every main attraction that we go to, so we took pictures of us jumping in front of the Eiffel Tower. Then we actually went and climbed the stairs all the way to the top! Well, you can only climb to a certain point, then we had to take an elevator the rest of the way. We could see so far from the very top! We could even see the Statue of Liberty (the much smaller one that's on the Seine) :) We went out for dinner after that to a really good pizza place, and then met up with everyone else around then for a cruise on the Seine! It was just about sunset, so it was the perfect scene. Tons of people our age who were just chilling on the side of the river waved to us as we went by. Paris is such a happy, hippy city! And it really is so romantic! Being on the river with all the lights was romantic enough, but right as we were passing the Eiffel Tower on our way back, it started sparkling!

Paris holds the key to your heart

Yeah, sparkling! It was already lit up and looked amazing, and then it started sparkling all over with flashing lights and looked even cooler! I think that's one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. It was quite the experience! We headed back to our hotel after that and planned the next day out hour by hour. There were some things we were required to do, and some things we wanted to do on our own.

Day 2: Fifteen Hours!

     The hotel gave us breakfast in the morning, which was nice. As soon as we finished breakfast, which was about 8:30, we headed out for the city! The first place we hit up was Notre Dame. It looked exactly how I pictured it,  and all my knowledge came from Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame. The inside wasn't all that unique, but the outside was cool! We crossed a bridge to the other side of the river, and found a bookstore called Shakespeare and Company, which apparently Hemingway used to go to when he lived in Paris. I loved it because it was just a little house with staircases leading up into little nooks. We went to Saint Chapelle next, which is a church known for its stained glass windows. Each window depicts a scene from the Old Testament, and the windows are huge! It was pretty cool. We then went to La Conciergerie, where Marie Antoinette was kept before she was beheaded. We saw the cell she was kept in, and inside they had a black shawl over a mannequin that was supposed to look like her sitting in there. It was so creepy! Pretty interesting, though. We got some lunch at a little stand back by Notre Dame, and got these sandwichs called croque monsieurs. Basically it's a toasted ham sandwich with cheese on the inside, and cheese on the outside. So good! We decided it was like a heart attack waiting to happen though. It probably isn't the best thing for you, but man does it taste good.
     After getting those places crossed off our list, we headed off for Versailles! We took about a 45 minute train ride to get there, but it was worth it. The palace at Versailles was easily the most  impressive palace I've seen yet. It wasn't just the building though, it was the grounds around it! The grounds probably go for a mile or more behind the palace, and there's even a lake/pond back there. It was another beautiful day, so we bought raspberry sherbet and relaxed in the shade for a bit. It felt great! Then, we decided to just check and see how much it would cost to pay to go in a row boat on the lake/pond. Split up between four of us, it only cost about 2.50 euro! We had a little bit of trouble at first getting away from the dock, but then Kayley took over the oars and we went a-rowing away! Kayley is a pro rower, thanks to all her many years of girl's camp :) Rowing in a rowboat at Versailles was one of my favorite things we did in Paris! So, that was great. After that, we went and saw Marie Antoinette's house out back, but we couldn't figure out why anyone would live there when you could live in the Versailles palace.
     The trip to Versailles took about five hours of our day, but it was okay, cause we had planned for it. We had a museum pass as well that got us into all these places for free! Well, kinda. It was all pre-paid with our program money. On our way back we had to buy a ticket, cause we were out of our zone for our metro pass. Some nice guy came and helped us out, because we couldn't figure out how to buy the tickets. We don't read French very well. We went to the Musee d'Orsay that night, which was pretty cool, except we were worn out from walking around all day. Oh, I forgot to mention... this day we celebrated like it was my birthday, because I wanted to have my birthday in Paris! I decided that all I wanted for my birthday was to lie under the Eiffel Tower and watch it light up. After the museum we wanted to go to this bakery that's supposed to be really good, but I knew we wouldn't make it to the tower if we went. We broke off from the group we were with, and just the five of us started booking it to the Eiffel Tower. The tower sparkles for five minutes every hour, so we had one shot to make it by 10 o'clock, because we had to be back at the hotel by 11. It was about a quarter to ten when Amanda and I decided to run. We ran through the streets of Paris for probably a mile before we finally turned a corner and saw the base of the Eiffel Tower! We collapsed on the grass and about thirty seconds later it started sparkling! I was so happy we had made it! We were extremely tired and gross from running, but it was worth it. We lied there for the full five minutes and just watched it. It was definitely the best birthday ever! :)
     We were on our feet for fifteen hours that day, so our feet were killing us once we got back to the hotel, and we were exhausted. I'll blog about the third day tomorrow, because it's going to take me quite a bit of time. My first two days in Paris were probably two of the best days ever! I've got church early tomorrow, and I need to get some sleep. I got called to be in Young Women's, and I loved my first Sunday last week! I'm excited to go tomorrow. Hopefully some of the young women show up this time, cause last week no one came but the presidency!

Word, Sworth!

Platform 9 3/4 

Fish and chips at Cafe Diana

We started out the day with three hours of history class, then headed to Cafe Diana for fish and chips, which I loved! After that, we took the tube into King's Cross station, yes, THE King's Cross station, and went to platform 9 3/4! We got pictures there with a cart sticking out from the wall with a plaque saying Platform 9 3/4. It was so cool! That's one thing I can now check off my bucket list :) We went to the British library next and saw some really cool things. We saw original Shakespeare folios, original manuscripts of Jane Eyre, Paradise Lost, and Wordsworth poems. My friend Amanda and I have a joke where we say "word!" then add "sworth," so that it sounds like Wordsworth. She's an English major too, which probably makes more sense :) We even saw Jane Austen's real writing desk with her notebook! We saw one of Beethoven's original violin sonatas, and Handel's Messiah! One of the coolest things on display were the original lyrics to songs by The Beatles like "Yesterday," "Michelle," and "Ticket To Ride." The lyrics to "Michelle" were written on the back of an envelope. It was so cool to see!
     After the museum, we went shopping at Primark. It's always so hot and crowded in there, and today was a little bit hectic. It was a successful shopping day though! I got two pairs of shoes for 7 pounds! We couldn't stay long at Primark, because we had to head back to the center for dinner. We went to see Phantom of the Opera after dinner, and it was so amazing! The first half was good, and then the second half was even better! I thought all the actors had amazing voices, especially Christine. The Phantom was a little shaky on the high notes, but other than that he did great. I just think of Gerard Butler so highly that I don't know if anyone can compare! We all agreed that the set and the music was great though. I think that's been my favorite play/musical we've seen so far! After the play had finished and we came outside the theater, there were four guys setting up for a dance routine, so we stopped and watched them. They did cool break dancing and were really good! It was so fun to stand in the square outside the theater and cheer along with everybody. Today was a really good day :)
     Now, we're all packing for Paris tomorrow!! We're leaving at 6:15 am, which means another early morning. We'll be taking the tube to a chunnel station, called Eurostar, then taking that into the heart of Paris! I'll get to see the Eiffel Tower tomorrow! I won't be taking my laptop with me, so I won't be blogging for the next three days. I'll be sure to write down what we do though, so I can post about it. This is such an awesome experience, and I can't wait till tomorrow!

"Wait, The Queen's Dead?!"

Buckingham Palace

Lion Statue at Trafalgar Square

     Today was a very jam-packed, but super fun day! We didn't have anything but class scheduled today, so as soon as that was done we headed off into London to see a few things on our own. I went with Katherine, Amanda, and Kayley to Buckingham Palace, which was cool! We got to see the guards with the red jackets and tall furry hats, but they were inside, so we couldn't go right up to them. There was a pretty park next to the palace that we walked around in called St. James. There was a cool statue of Queen Victoria and some other smaller statues and fountains outside the palace, so we got some pictures there. We decided to walk to Trafalgar square from there, and on our way we passed a statue that said, "Queen Elizabeth, 1900-2002." One of us, I can't remember who, said something like, "She was 102 years old?" Then, I said, "The Queen's dead?!" I promise I know that the Queen is still living, but her name is Elizabeth, so you can see where the confusion might have come from.    Anyway... Trafalgar Square was awesome! It was actually one of the places I was most excited to see, because it was a place that President Hinckley visited a lot on his mission. We got a picture with one of the lion statues, and it ended up being a lot higher up than we thought! We had to help each other up, and we probably looked hilarious struggling to get up there. They've also got a clock counting down the time until the Olympics. Only 81 more days :) We won't be here during the Olympics, but we are going as a group to take a tour of the Olympic sites, and that'll be cool! We went to the National Gallery of Art next and spent a couple hours there. It was amazing! I'm not sure why we're not going there as a group. My favorite paintings were ones from Monet, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, and Da Vinci. Going to the gallery made me even more excited for the Louvre, which we're going to on Thursday! I'll blog more about Paris later :)

     One of our favorite places to eat is a little cafe called Pret A Manger, and they're all over the place. We don't know how to pronounce it in French, so we just say it like it sounds. It sounds pretty funny to say it like that! We got dinner there, then took the tube to the University College of London to see something pretty interesting. This guy named Jeremy Bentham donated his body to the university when he died, and they keep his body on display in the school! It's stuffed with straw, and he only has a head made of wax, because rival schools kept stealing his real head. Gross, but cool! We walked all the way to the university to see him, then when we got there he was stored away in a box! Usually he is on display, but we think that maybe he was put away because it was a bank holiday today. None of us know what a bank holiday is, but most everything was closed today because of it, so we just kept blaming everything on the bank holiday. After that disappointment, we walked to this gelato shop that Katherine wanted to show us. Do you know the muffin man? The one who lives on Drury Lane? :) We walked down Drury Lane on our way to get gelato, which was kind of cool! The gelato place is called Scoop, and it was worth the walk! We were going to go to Covent Garden next, which is in a scene from My Fair Lady, but it was getting dark by then and it had been a long day. We want to go back sometime though. I always love coming back to the centre after a long and tiring day. Even though I come home exhausted, I feel like I'm getting the most out of my experience here. I just love walking around London and finding things I didn't know about before. I'm thinking I should probably find out what a bank holiday is though :)

Husband Hunting

Brighton Pavilion

A briny beach

     This morning, we woke up bright and early and traveled to Brighton, the famous vacation spot in England. Our professors told us there was a beach in Brighton, so we all got so excited to go! In Pride & Prejudice, one of the characters says that Brighton is the place to go to find husbands :) After a two hour coach drive we get there and it's about 46 degrees and windy. But at least it wasn't raining! We went to the Brighton Pavilion first, which was built by King George IV. His dad is George III, who was the king during the Revolutionary War, and who ended up going crazy. George IV built this huge pavilion on the beach in Brighton to get away from his wife, and his insane dad. The Pavilion was huge! I heard "pavilion" and thought of the little dinky thing behind our stake center back home, but this place was like a palace! Some rooms had pink carpet, pink wallpaper, pink furniture... It was designed in the oriental style, so there were dragons all over in the rooms. It was pretty cool actually! This is pretty random, but we learned that makeup back then was made of beeswax, so if the women got too hot, their make up would slide right off their face! This is where the phrase to "have a long face" comes from. Bet you're so glad you know that now! After touring the palace, we went to the beach. It was freezing and windy, but still kind of fun! I've never walked around on the beach in my rain jacket and rain boots, so it was a new experience stepping in the ocean in my boots. There were people swimming in there, which blows my mind, because it was so cold! We walked around Brighton Pier for a little bit, got some food, and watched a parade that was going through town. At first we thought it was a protest, cause we've seen a lot of those lately, but this was just some fun parade with floats and little kids.

Canterbury Cathedral

     We got back on the bus and drove another two hours to Canterbury, to see Canterbury Cathedral. This cathedral is famous, because in medieval times a priest was praying inside at the altar and was murdered by four knights from the king. You can even still see the blood stains on the stones! Just kidding, you really can't :) But, you can see where the stone is worn down in front of where his shrine used to be, where people would crawl on their hands and knees to worship in front of it. The cathedral has been in use for over 1,400 years! I couldn't get over how old it is. We got to do something pretty unique while we were there. We went to a service called Evensong, which I think they do every night. This choir of boys from ages 8-13 sang to us, and we got to sing a hymn with them at the end. I tried to imagine my little brother wearing a robe like those boys and singing like that, but I just couldn't! The boys were actually pretty good. They could sing super high! As part of the service, the whole congregation recites a written-down prayer together, and we read along until this part that says, "We believe in the Catholic church." It was really interesting, and I'm glad I got to go to that. It was cool singing inside a chapel as old as that one.
     Tomorrow is my first day in my new ward! We were supposed to get an email with our callings, but our bishop never sent it. I guess we'll find out tomorrow, though. Church starts at 9, and we've got about an hour of travel to get there, so it's going to be another early morning. I'm excited though! I think this is going to be one of the best things about the program. Cheers everybody!