End of Week 4

Wednesday night and Thursday early morning were completely devoted to studying for my History and English midterms. No one slept much but we had lots of study groups and discussions going on so I studied adequately. I survived midterms, took a nap then went to St. Paul's Cathedral with Diana and Coryl. We spent a ton of time there. We climbed the stairs to the top (sound familar Mom?) and spent probably 30 min just talking and looking at the city. Then we went down into the crypt and gift shop. We saw the tomb of John Donne (we read his poems in English) and Sir Admiral Nelson. We then read our book for English while waiting for a half hour for Evensong to start. I listened to the first bit, then I decided to shut my eyes while listening, then you guessed it I fell asleep. Diana fell asleep as well and Coryl said people around us were laughing at us because we were nodding our heads while sleeping. One lady tried to get out but we had our legs outstretched so she had to go the other direction and climb over a bunch of people... no one was upset it was just entertaining. Maybe I should fall asleep more to give people a good laugh. We hurried home and got the last bit of dinner.

View of St. Paul's ( and London Eye in the background) from the dome

Me on top of St. Paul's Cathedral

Thursday night a big group from the Center went to the new Harry Potter movie! It was a fun movie but since I haven't read the 7th book the ending left me hanging. I guess I'll have to read it someday...

We came out of the theater and it was pouring again. I walked with a girl under a very small umbrella for about 10 steps and thought, "forget this" and started running through the streets of London holding up my skirt and getting soaked. By the time I got back to Palace Court there were people from the program jumping in puddles and running around in the rain. We had a fun night, I don't know if I've ever gotten so soaked from simply a rain storm.

Dillan, Sammie, Me, Caitlin, Lexi, Adrian, Katie, Alison, BJ, and Sarah S.

On Friday everyone went to Hampton Court. Many kings and queens have lived here starting with Henry VIII, William and Mary, etc. Think Versailles on a little bit smaller scale. Big windows overlooking large fountain. Lots of gardens and big state apartments in the manor. Supposedly the world's most famous maze (using hedges) is in the gardens, we made it to the center in about 6 minutes.

Me, Caitlin, Lexi and Sarah in front of one portion of Hampton Court

In the gardens of Hampton Court

Upon departure we walked into a mini mart type store in the train station and lo and behold we discovered a Magnum Temptation bar. We had been drooling over advistisments in the tube stations of this new type of Magnum (ice cream) bar, and had searched multiple Tesco's and ice cream places for this particular bar to no avail. We were very excited to eat our gourmet ice cream bar (it wasn't quite as good as we had hyped it up to be but it was very good).

Next we headed to Camden Market. We had heard it was a good place to shop. And I was not disappointed. Knock off designer stuff, cheap oxford/cambridge attire (usually overpriced), cute boutiques, cheap food, and tons of unique clothing. We are learning that most markets sell the same clothes (literally, I have no idea where they are all getting it!), but this stuff was much more unique. We probably bought too much but it was fun. I am pretty desperate for another pair of shoes so I got some slip on walking/semi-cute shoes for 12 pounds.

Me on a cool seat

Friday night we relaxed before our big country walk on Saturday!
Woke up early on Saturday. An hour and a half or so of traveling out to the countryside where we met Brother Chittock and 2 of his brothers. Brother Chittock's calling in the local stake is to organize our assignments and he's done some firesides. And he led us on a 9 mile country walk on Saturday past small churches, old castle ruins, cute village towns, lavender fields, meadows straight out of The Sound of Music, and even a golf driving range :) The castle where we ate lunch was really only a few walls left standing but it was awesome and we played frisbee inside the walls and climbed on the structure of what was left. Its an old Norman castle from the 1200s. By the end my feet were shot but we had a great time.

Lavender Fields

Caitlin and I

Sarah, Caitlin and I in front of a random castle

Frolicking (Sarah, me and Megan)

Dad this one's for you, we walked through a driving range

We got Thai food for dinner back by the Center and showered before heading for a ballet performance Coryl had gotten us tickets to. We were missing Megan's (my roommate who is getting married 4 days after returning from London) bacholerette party - but they were out late and I was very tired so it worked out. The ballet was intersting. It was a Russian ballerina touring on her own doing her own show about her life (fighting through struggles and such). It was definitely contemporary, and in between each of her pieces there was an opera number which I started to get used to by the end. I probably wouldn't ever do something like this again but it was a good experience. The best part of the night was stopping at Ben and Jerry's on the way and sharing a belgian waffle with Phish Food and Caramel Chew Chew flavored ice cream on top. Ever since I got here I've been wanting to try ice cream on waffles and it's divine!

Robyn, Kaitlin, Coryl, me and Sarah before the Ballet

Sunday morning began with the usual hour and 15 minutes to church while planning my Primary lesson on the tube. Between walking up to the piano for 4 different hymns during Sacrament Meeting, teaching senior primary for sunday school, and doing crowd control/playing the piano for primary. Its fun to have such an active church experience :) My favorite part is teaching the boys sunday school. Its hard but rewarding when they get really excited about something. Today I had one of them read the heading to Doctrine & Covenants Section 57 and one of the boys picked up the date and of the revelation and realized it was July 20 1831. Even though it was actually the 19th, they thought it was the 20th today so we figured out it was the 178th birthday of this revelation and we sung happy birthday. It was fun.

Tonigh I'm procrastinating packing for Scotland this week. We are stopping at Fountains Abbey, York, Durham on the way to Edinburgh. Then after a day and a half in Edinburgh we are spending a day in Ambleside in the Lake District, and then to Preston to see some Church history sites and the LDS Preston Temple. We'll return Friday night. No laptop for 5 days -- oh, what will I do? :)