WIMBLEDON

Today we finally went to Wimbledon, which is only like a mile from my church, who knew.  Anyway, I like to think I’m the expert on tennis here but Shelby and Anna are tennis goers too.  The three of us, Jordan, and Brooklinn and Rachel went out but the last two didn’t take the tour.  Touring the All England lawn Tennis Club was definitely a highlight of this trip.  I had the same feeling I had when I left Singing in the Rain.  We couldn’t stop smiling.  We were so giddy.  Wimbledon as a whole was smaller than I expected but I didn’t care because I still couldn’t believe I was at Wimbledon. WIMBLEDON.  We were taken around the courts, Henman Hill, and the interview room, where we got to sit in the exact same chairs as tennis legends have interviewed.  How I wish I could be here during the tournament and then the Olympics only 3 weeks after.  Our guide said the ground crews have been preparing for the past two years to re-grow the grass in that time.  She also told us that for Wimbledon they train 300 local school-aged tennis players to be ball boys and girls, but in the end they only use 200 of them.  Too bad for the other 100, with my luck I would probably be one of the unfortunate kids so it’s a good thing I’m not a local.

After Wimbeldon I went with Shelby and Anna to Camden Market cause they were craving donuts.  After a long day all over town and riding the tube for at least two hours we were home right in time for conference at 5.  The time difference is actually kind of nice because we had all day to do stuff but still get spiritually enlightened without wasting our day.  Now Kaylee, Christi, and I are just eating our Domino's pizza and waiting another hour before the second session to begin.  I just wish I were home in my pajamas cuddled with a blanket watching conference on my big comfy couch.  Only 13 more days until I'll be reunited with my comfy couch...and bed.

Henman Hill with Shelby, Jordan, and Anna

Centre Court!

I guess my Aussie boyfriend digs Brits

look who I found!

This commercial pretty much sums up my day since I started it out at Tesco and then traveled to Wimbledon

Kew and Kahns

I feel like since the semester is winding down so are my blogposts.  The big trips are over.  I've seen most of the museums and done most of the touristy stuff.  But today we took our last "big" day trip to Kew Gardens.  It really wasn't big and it didn't really take all day.  We took the district line out at 10:30 and Kaylee, Christi, and I were back at 1:15.  The garden was ginormous but the flowers haven't bloomed yet so it was underwhelming.  It's apparently the most famous garden in northern Europe, so I'll take their word for it.

The sun was shining though, and we wanted to be outside so we headed back to Bayswater and got some take-away from Kahns on Westbourne Grove.  On the way we walked through Whiteley's and stopped at Cranberry.  You can purchase deliciousness in a bag for only a couple pounds.  Rachel told me about this stand and I purposely stayed away for fear of becoming addicted.  Good thing I held off until now because I definitely will be going back at least once before I leave in two weeks.  So with our curry and candy in hand we headed over to Kensington to have a picnic.  While the other two laid out, I finished my reading for Tuesday.  Since that's done, I can relax tonight.  I'm staying home because I've been out the last couple of nights and I just want to hang out here.  Plus, I'm performing in the talent show on Sunday with the Mason girls so we're going to practice.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Simon Seville - one of the chipmunks at Whiteley's

After practice:

Practicing a Disney song is hard with little girls, especially when one doesn't know it and the other one belts it.  Ellie got really tired by the end of it.  I just had to snatch these photos of her.  Just letting you know, I did not tell her to pose.  These are 100% candid.

But we made it through.  We celebrated by taking pictures after:

Hannah and Ellie

Rachel, Hannah, and Ellie

I'm Gonna Soak Up The Sun

Usually I hate warm weather that doesn't require some kind of sweater or sweatshirt when you go outside.  However, today I wanted to soak up every minute I could of the crisp spring day.  So, in between English 395 and Religion, which was our last, I packed my Cath Kidston bag and headed to Kensington Park.

part of the class with Brother Jones

  I first chose a nice tree on the south side of the palace and then moved to a bench.

After religion class, which was our last, I headed back over to Kensington but this time by the pond.  It was so nice to be outside in a park...and so did everyone else.  There seriously were thousands of other people there today.  It was like a public swimming pool on a hot July day.

After dinner I still hadn't been outside enough so Kaylee and Christi invited me on their walk.  We first walked down through Holland Park and then came back and walked down Embassy Row.  Once we were at Kensington High Street we walked down the south side of Kensington Palace and then back up through Embassy Row.  We saw some lights on in the palace and loitered to see if we could spot a royal.  We spot a young man in a striped blue casual collared shirt who had dark hair.  We want to pretend it was Harry in his new bachelor pad, but it probably wasn't.  After stalking the royals we made a quick pit stop back home and then walked down Bayswater til we hit Lancaster Gate.  At that time we had been out almost 2 1/2 hours so we decided to call it a night.  Christi did the calculations and figured out that we walked 5.6 miles.  Not bad for a nighttime stroll.

Imperial War Museum

Today we took a field trip to the Imperial War Museum.  Dad would've loved this museum, and I would've loved going through it with him.  I've been excited for this museum all semester.  Call me weird, but I love WWII and that whole era.  I think it's fascinating.  I realized I looked like a little school boy walking around with my camera clicking away pictures non-stop.

Even though we went as a group I ended up going through 99% of the museum by myself because I went at a little slower pace.  There were exhibits on various different wars, the holocaust, and heroes.  They also recreated the trenches from WWI.  I didn't really want to go in by myself because it was dark so I waited for a couple to go in and I followed.  Good thing too because some girls were in there pretending to be wax figures trying to scare their friend.  I don't know if they scared her, but they sure scared me.

At first I wasn't going to go into the holocaust exhibit but decided to turn around and walk through.  I'm glad I did.  Yes, it was terribly depressing and I even shed some tears, but I was overcome with a wave of emotion.  I'm so grateful for the freedom that I have in America and am even more grateful for those who have fought and continue to fight for me today.  I couldn't help but think of my cousin Troy who is in the Army right now.  He served in Iraq for a couple of years and is now in Germany.  From the pictures he has shown us, I have caught a glimpse of the horror and devastation our soldiers see everyday.  I'm eternally grateful for Troy and the other men and women who put their lives on the line for me everyday.  We're excited for him to come home next month for good.

In other news guess who just moved next door?  Prince Harry!  Now both the royal Princes and Princess Kate live on the grounds of Kensington Palace.  I still have two weeks to catch a glimpse of a royal.  Wish me luck!

It's my blog so I can post two times a day if I want to

This is more for me than for my audience, which consists of probably 3 people.

We voted to have a talent show before we leave but no one really signed up, so naturally our professor decided to sign up for us.  This is the email we just received with the line-up.

Gotta love those Masons.

Another Sunny Day in London

Alexis, Kaylee, and I in Regents Park

Today's activities included:

two loads of laundry, Regents Park (with the class), Christmas Shop off London Bridge tube stop, walking along the Thames, walking over Millennium Bridge, riding an authentic double decker to Trafalgar Square, and getting some serious reading done on the tube ride home....and this was all by 2 P.M.

Christi showed me this music video and I'm a little embarrassed to say that I'm obsessed.  I know they're like 5  British Justin Biebers but the song is pretty catchy.  The video takes place all over London and coincidentally I saw a lot of places where they filmed today.  So if the photos aren't enough watch this video and you'll see what my day was like...

except without the music and fans chasing after me.  I told them to take the day off cause they still have 2 more weeks to follow me around.

Spring has sprung

It's downright spring here.  I wanted to take advantage of the summertime weather so Kaylee and Christi accompanied me down to the Shepherds Bush Market to buy some lace my mom semi-requested.  My mom has talked about this market so I've known about it for a couple of years.  There's also some fabric stores in the states named Shepherds Bush after this market so I was expecting something somewhat nice.  Sorry to say mom I was really surprised (and not in a good way).  You might not be getting lace, I couldn't find any that was even remotely nice.  There were a couple stores with fabric but most of them had little trinkets and junky stuff you would find at a yard sale.

After being disappointed that I couldn't find mom lace I decided not to let my outing be spoiled so I said goodbye to Christi and Kaylee and did some much needed grocery shopping at Morrisons.  The weather was so nice outside that I wanted to soak in the sun.  So with my authentic Cath Kidston bag and my grocery bag in hand I walked the two tube stops back home.  I skipped out on the tube for two reasons: 1) the weather obviously 2) I've definitely gained weight here and so I thought the first step to losing that said weight is walking everywhere when possible.  It felt refreshing to walk home plus I totally looked like a local!  It's nice to know my way around enough that I can now look at things around me.  For instance, on my way home I observed everyone and their dog on walks, a group of uniformed school kids who had serious anger issues, and only 1 instead of the 5 usual policeman guarding the Russian embassy.

We had an early dinner because tonight we saw War Horse, Rachel's all-time favorite play!  Actually I went to this play with a bad attitude because I've heard Rachel talk about it before.  I knew it was long and they used puppets.  I don't know why but I pictured hand puppets.  As you can see by the picture they definitely were not hand puppets.  The horses actually moved and sounded like real horses but it was weird to see 10 (including the men inside the horse) legs instead of 4.  The play was really long and the whole storyline was kinda ridiculous but other than that it wasn't half bad.  I want to see the movie now.  Good thing it'll probably be in redbox by the time I get home.

The North-est I've ever been from home

Monday (3/19)

We loaded the bus early Monday morning.  This time I finally got my own seat.  Yippee.  Our first stop was at Iron Bridge.  I’m not exactly sure the significance of it but it has something to do with the Industrial Revolution and making it possible for the Golden Gate Bridge to be built….?  Anyway we stopped there and then headed to Preston for a tour.  I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy as I was when I saw the temple and MTC.  I had to use the restroom so bad.  A lot of people did.  Thankfully we were given a couple minutes before we left, this time with President and Sister Walker the MTC President and his wife (also President Hinckley’s eldest daughter).  President Walker is Jessica T’s uncle and was kind enough to take us to some church sites in Preston.  We went to the Market Place where the first missionaries first proselyted.  After they took us to Avenham Park.  The park is next to the River Ribble where the first baptisms in the British Isles were performed on July 30, 1837.  From there they took us to 15 Wadham Road.  You've probably heard about this address many times before, but if you're like me you probably didn't recognize it.  This is the apartment where President Hinckley lived when he sent the letter home to his father saying he was wasting his time and money and that he wanted to come home.  His father replied and said, “dear Gordon, I have your recent letter. I have only one suggestion: forget yourself and go to work.”  It was really incredible to hear President Hinckley’s own daughter relate the story of her father at the very place we’ve all heard about.  She had told that story at least 10 times at that spot and she still gets emotional.  There definitely was a spirit there.

Sister Walker telling us about her father

After that we rode another couple hours on the coach to Ambleside where we stayed for the next 3 days.  I love this part of the country.  Rolling hills sprinkled with white sheep everywhere.  Very picturesque.

For dinner that night half of us went somewhere only one other group (non-BYU students) has ever been allowed to go before to eat.  Dove Cottage.  Yes, we ate a candlelight dinner in William Wordsworth's home.  The house was extremely tiny to fit 25 people with food but overall it was a good experience.  Not many kids can say they've even food Wordsworth ate (the recipes were from his sister) in his own home.

Dove Cottage -- picture stolen from Kaylee's blog

Tuesday (3/20)

We really do have the best director here.  Nick Mason has some serious connections and made it possible for us to work with Wordsworth’s manuscripts.  Because we are such a large group we had to split into two smaller groups.  My group got to work with the manuscripts first.  We did various activities at the Wordsworth Trust library, which included looking at first editions, personal letters, and transcribing them.  It was pretty dang hard to read some of the handwriting.  I’m sad snail mail has been lost but email sure makes it easy to read what they person is writing.  So we didn't fall asleep or lose interest the staff fed us a morning snack, lunch, and afternoon snack.  We also got a private tour of Dove Cottage because we didn't get to go through the whole house the night before.

After a long day hanging out with Wordsworth a couple girls and I ate a delicious Italian meal before going back to the hostel and playing Nerts.

The Wordsworth Trust Library

Wednesday (3/21)

While the other half of the students were working with Wordsworth we went on a walk through the country.  It was absolutely gorgeous.  I won’t even attempt to describe it because my description or my photographs can never do it justice.  After the morning walk Christi, Kaylee, and I ate some wonderful potato pasties and each tried a different dessert from this cute little bakery called The Apple Pie.  We then boarded the bus and drove to Beatrix Potter’s home called Hilltop.  There we met the real Peter Rabbit.  We actually met multiple because we saw at least 6 bunnies.  Before dinner we did another “hike.”  It really wasn’t that bad except we booked it up the hill so we were all out of breath at the top.  The view was pretty but I still think the view of the Salt Lake Valley is prettier.  The end spot of our hike was a little hostel where we had dinner with the curator from the Wordsworth place and some poet.  Again the food was surprisingly good.  It was kinda weird that we ate at a hostel but I’m guessing it was the only place in town that could host our large number.

Group A

Christi, me, Ashley, Mikelle, Lyssa, Matt, Shelby, and Becca

The group with Phil our awesome bus driver.
I bent down and missed the picture...I'm the little black blob in between Kaylee and Christi's heads.

Sarah, Emma, Stacie, Christi, me, Aylea, and Kaylee

at Hilltop

Aylea, Kaylee, Christi, me, and Matt on the hike

Thursday (3/22)

We left Ambleside super early because we had a long drive to SCOTLAND.  After crossing the border we stopped at New Lanark, a little industrial town.  We stood in line forever for something we though was important.  It ended up being this pathetic ride that resembled anyone haunted house that you ride around in one of those seats that goes at a snail pace.  According to the New Lanark website “a highlight of any visit is the fascinating 'Annie McLeod Experience' ride, which features the ghost of mill girl Annie who magically appears and takes you on a journey back in time to 1820.”  Lies.  It was a total waste of 10 minutes, really 30 because the line was so long.  That pretty much took up the whole time we had to spend there so we quickly grabbed lunch and headed back up the hill to the bus.  Two hours later we found ourselves in Edinburgh.

Edinburgh is now in my top 5 favorite cities.  I can't really put my finger on why but I just loved it.  After checking in at the hostel we walked as a group up to the castle.  I already had a little picture of what it would be like cause I had talked to Troy (cousin) who was there only 5 days before me and he posted pictures on facebook.  The view of Edinburgh was panoramic from the top and absolutely breathtaking.  After that Kaylee, Christi, Aylea, and I headed down the Royal Mile and saw the High Kirk of St. Giles (church), the Scottish Parliament, and Holyrood House (some royal palace), the Parthenon (or one wall of it because they never finished it) on Calton Hill, and some awesome bagpipe and drum players on Princes Street.  After exploring pretty much the whole downtown we headed back to the pub connected to our hostel where I tried haggis.  Aylea bought some so I had to take a teeny tiny bite just to say I've tried it.  It was pretty disgusting.  I will never eat it again.

Edinburgh Castle

Jordan, Kaylee, me, and Christi at Edinburgh Castle

the Parthenon

the Scottish Parliament.  Self-timers are sometimes misleading when it comes to height. 

Edinburgh Castle with Arthur's seat in the background

Friday (3/23)

Some kids woke up at 5 A.M. to climb Arthurs Seat.  This is where Orson Pratt dedicated Scotland for missionary work.  I was going to go but decided not to because I already saw the hill from the castle and the view was virtually the same form both places.  I'm glad I didn't go because apparently it was so foggy you couldn't see anything anyway.  We only had a couple hours to do stuff before leaving Scotland so Kaylee, Aylea, Christi, and I went souvenir shopping in the little time we had left.  There were three Christmas shops within a mile of our hostel (2 were less than a block away).  Of course the two that were nearest were closed.  But don't worry family thankfully the third was open but had less of an ornament selection.  After perusing the Christmas shops we walked down to the Elephant House.  Until someone reminded me I didn't remember that this is the place where Harry Potter was pretty much born.  It's the little coffee shop where J.K. Rowling first started writing the series on napkins.  I have no doubt that we definitely used our time wisely and saw most of the important stuff in Scotland.  I probably will never be back there so I'm glad I got to see as much as I did.

I look disgusting but I found dad everywhere.  Apparently his name is very Scottish!

At 11 A.M. we packed onto the bus for another long drive back to England.  Kaylee, Christi, and I missed the memo that we were suppose to pick up lunch before boarding the bus so by the time 3 o'clock ticked around when we stopped at a rest stop we were starving.  We quickly ran over the freeway to the Burger King.  I've never eaten there before but it sure tasted good on an empty stomach.  Good thing too because we wouldn't have a chance to eat until much later.  An hour after the rest stop we arrived at Fountains Abbey five minutes before their gates shut.  Part of me was just wanting to get to York for the night, the other part was grateful we made it in time because I was sick of sitting on a cramped bus.  Now I'm really grateful we made it in time because Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal were absolutely beautiful.  Fountains Abbey are the ruins of an abbey founded in 1132 by 13 monks.  It became one of the richest in Europe, which is easily seen by the enormous ruins.  I felt like I was on the set of a Harry Potter movie.  It resembled the halls of Hogwarts.  Studley Royal is a water garden at the other end of the valley which was pretty but because it's still somewhat cold it wasn't as spectacular as it would have be in the summer.  From there we had a semi-short bus ride to York where we stayed for the night.  We walked into town (or so we thought) and couldn't find anything to eat so we settled for Sainsbury's and then called it a night.  We were pooped after 5 1/2 hours on the coach.

Patrick, Kaylee, Jessica, me, Christi, and Rachel at Fountains Abbey

doesn't this look like Hogwarts?...kinda

Saturday (3/24)

Another early morning for us.  We loaded our luggage on the coach at 8:40 and then walked along the old Roman wall to York Minster.  We got yet another tour around a cathedral.  Even though this time it was the largest gothic cathedral in Northern Europe it looked a lot like every other one we’ve seen. They all start looking the same to me after a while, which is a pity because I have stopped appreciating them more than I should be.  After the tour we had an hour to get lunch before the long drive back to London.  We didn’t miss the memo this time and definitely didn’t skip out on getting food.  Christi, Kaylee, and I walked back to Subway and got a sandwich to go.  York definitely comes alive in the daytime.  There was way more restaurant and shops than we thought the night before.  We peeked into a couple shops on the way back to the coach.  And surprise, we found another Christmas store.  But no luck on good ornaments.  5 hours and one long rest stop later we were finally home in London.  After unpacking the three of us and Cami walked through Embassy Row to Wagamamas for dinner before relaxing at home.  It feels good to be home and it dawned on me that I’ll be home home in 2 ½ weeks.  I better make the most of it now.

Christi, me, Emma, and Kaylee at York Minster