Weekend trip to Stonehendge and more!

3/15/08
WOW! This week has been filled to the max with sitting on a bus and site seeing to absolutely everywhere. We started our trip with breakfast at 7am and I was on kitchen crew so I had to help clean up before we headed out to the bus. We pre-made lunches and I made two sandwiches this time because I had no idea if we would be stopping for dinner. Most of the other people had that same idea in mind. So after we packed our lunches we headed out to the bus. Anna Gordon and I sat together. This was great because the majority of the time on the bus we fell asleep and we were able to sleep on each other during the ride. The only complaint that I had about our bus ride was that the driver made a comment for everything that we passed and the speakers were so loud that you couldn't block him out with music on your head phones. Alot of the girls started quote books on the bus for the comments that he would say because he was so random with what he said. One of the things that he said was "We as humans do not own the road... the ponies do, so please stay out of their way." How random is that. It had nothing to do with what we were looking at out side. But that is how the entire drive was.

We started the trip with a 2 hour drive to Bath. This is where the Roman Baths were and we got to take an audio tour through them. They even sold warm Bath water for you to drink. After the tour we went to this milk shake shop called "Shake-Away" They are so good, I got a hot chocolate and they even served hot milkshakes. It was just a fun treat to get before we had to get back on the bus for another two hours.

After another 2 hours we went to the Moor (Large rock). It looked exactly like it would have been off of Lord of the Rings.

There were also these wild ponies when we got off and we took a bunch of pictures with them. One of them charged after my friend Anna when she went to take a picture with it, the ears pinned back and it started chasing after. I have never seen her so scared for her life. The view was amazing from the top and it was a great time for us to stretch our legs before we headed to Exeter where our hostel was.

Well I can now say that I have had my first taste of Alcohol. Yes I know what you are all thinking. Well it was exactly that. We checked in and then we ordered pizza. My professors told the guy at the hostel that they wanted to order drinks but Non Alcoholic. So when the drinks came out there was a bunch of orange soda and lemonade and I got the elder flower. But before I got the elder flower I got the orange soda. On the front of the bottle it said that it contained Alcohol in extremely fine print and it was so funny because most of our group had already finished theirs. My professors about died and tried to get everyone to stop drinking. After we got Pizza we went back to our room and we all talked for a long time and went to sleep because we still had a big day ahead of us for the next day. It was really hard to sleep that night also because the heater was up on high and we couldn't figure out how to turn it down so we opened the window and it cooled down a little but it was miserable at first.

For breakfast at the hostel we had a traditional English breakfast with eggs toast sausage baked beans and croissants. Then they had cereals and stuff like that. We got on the bus and had a two hour drive to Stourhead. It was the most beautiful place I have ever been too. If you all want to have a really good look at how pretty it is. Watch Pride and Prejudice and watch the scene where Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth (Kiera Knightly) are fighting and it is raining. They are in a big pavilion. YES, that is exactly where I went! It was amazing and it was just fun because we got to walk around the lake and take tons of pictures. Anna and I met this older couple taking a stroll through the garden and they told us that they lived in a cottage just up the road and they loved living there. We were really sad to leave there because that was probably one of the funnest places that we have been the entire trip.

Stone Hendge was the next stop on our list and it was about 2 hours away from that. I thought that it would be allot bigger then it really is but it was still a cool experience to see. They have it roped off so we weren't able to go very close to the rocks but we still got some really cool pictures of it.

On the way home we made a stop to Salisburry Cathedral. It was huge and we were able to take a tour inside. It was a really quick stop because we had to get home before dark so after that we got back on the bus for another 2 hour ride home. The trip was so fun and I am so glad that we went.

A Week of Plays!

3/14/08

Sorry it has been so long since I have put anything up on my blog. I wanted to wait until I had more pictures to put up for everyone.

The first thing that I went to see this last week was "The Sound of Music." We were originally going to see Phantom of the Opera but the place that we were going to get tickets at sold them for way out of our price range so as a back up plan we went to the theater for the Sound of Music and we got tickets for that night.The girls that I went with were Tori, Andrea and Amanda. The theater is at a place called Covet Garden and it is this fun square with shops and these Chinese lanterns hanging from buildings. The play was amazing especially because we got seats on the 5th row from the stage and the kids that were in it had the most amazing voices. Marie did an excellent job as well.

The next day there was going to be a single adults dance and a bunch of girls here at the center were planning on doing that for our Friday night. I personally wasn't in the mood to go to a dance and so some of the other girls and I went to this play called "Mouse trap" It is the longest running play in London and we got our tickets for a really cheap price. We went to the Box Office to get the tickets which was the biggest mess ever because the theater is not where it should be on the map. They changed location and so we went all over London looking for this place and we were all a little grumpy by the time we got there. We bought the cheapest tickets that they had which was on the back row but when we got there we moved up because alot of the seats weren't filled. The play is about this couple that opens a hotel and there is a huge snow storm and they hear on the Radio that there is a murderer out and they find out that the murderer is in their hotel. So it is a "who done it" kind of play. I really enjoyed it and it was fun to see an original London play.

Well this week we ran into kind of a predicament. The Wednesday we were suppose to go to the west coast of England (Penzance) and this past Monday we had a hurricane and it completely covered the town in water so our trip was canceled. We are now moving that trip to next week and going to Stone henge this Friday and Saturday. I am excited that we are still going dont get me wrong there is just one problem though. The young women in my ward have been planning a trip out to London from Mitcham for next Friday, but we cant do it any more because our trip was moved. The girls have been planning on it for a long time and now we are going to have to change the date for them to come out again. Its just kind of a pain.

This week I have Kitchen duty, its actually really fun. We have been listening to the sound track to "Wicked" and "Hairspray" while we clean and we will sing at the top of our lungs and everyone can hear us. Its pretty funny. I think that we have been the fastest group at Kitchen clean up, seriously. We are SO FAST!

Meg, Betsy and I have been talking the past few days about how we want to go see the play "Grease." So today we went to get tickets 1 hour before the show started and we were right in the middle on the bottom about 5-7 rows from the stage! It was so fun because after we got pictures with Danny and Sandy. Rocky did my make up again for the play, she is the best! I love it because I will go upstairs and ask her to do it and she will know what she wants to do before I even tell her. This time I wanted to go a little crazier with my make up because it was Grease that I was going to and so she put gold eye shadow on me and it looked so cool. The guy in the picture with me is Danny from the play and I even got a picture with me touching his hair! Meg and I wore almost the same outfit, our red and black were swapped. We had a blast tonight but now I am really tired and we have a really big trip tomorrow to Stone Henge so I will post pictures of that when I get home!

Also I saw the movie "The Other Boleyn Girl" and we were really hating life after that movie. It wasn't very uplifting to say the least so I wouldn't recommend it.

Tower of London and More!

As a class assignment for my Criminology class we went on the "Jack the Ripper" tour. It started around 7pm at night so it would give the tour a different feeling. We learned about how and why people think that he killed the prostitutes. It wasn't so much "scary" it was more disturbing. I didn't really know the story before but the tour guide took us to every single place where the killings took place and he described everything in detail but he talked allot about what London was like during that time. He told us that the London wall would separate the poor and the wealthy and how the people that would have children on the poor side of the wall would only survive until they were 5 years old because the water was so bad and hygiene was horrible with people just going to the bathroom any where because they didn't have a sewage system. These people lived in complete squalor. Any way allot of the ways that women would even be able to even feed them selves was through prostitution and they would sleep in shelter things for 2 pence a night. They would sleep with a rope strung across the wall and the would drape their arms over the rope and sleep standing up. (sounds comfortable huh) We also learned that Jack the Ripper was just a name that one of the journalist gave him during that time. No body really knows who he was or what happened to him. It will be a mystery forever.

The trip today started at 9am, when we had to meet in the class room to get our tickets for the Tower of London Tour. Joe Ostraff (my professor) gave us each a ticket and told us that we had till' 1:30pm to meet them in Greenwich at the Prime meridian line. This is where we were planning on taking our group picture.

We started our journey getting on the tube at Notting hill gate tube station and going to Tower Hill Station. As you exit the station there is an incredible view of the tower of London. We tagged onto one of the groups inside the tower where a Beef Eater showed us around. He took us to a church in the tower where Anne and Kathrine are buried (Henry the 8Th's wives). He also told us that there are 125 people that live in the tower. The man giving us the tour said that he raised all of his children in the tower. He also said that it was a great way to raise a teenage because at 10pm they lock up the tower and have a key ceremony. After the tour we went into the tower where the crown jewels are, and it was amazing! The doors into the room are huge bullet proof doors and there was just a ton of stuff (Like the Largest cut diamond!) And most all of the crowns from previous kings and queens. We then moved on to see the Torture instruments of Spain! I thought it was going to be allot more intense then it actually was but I still cant imagine having my thumbs in screws...ouch!

We were ready to go to Greenwich around 12pm and look at some of the shops. This is a small town and it is a long walk through a park and up a hill to get to the Meridian Line so we thought that we would get a head start. When we first got there, we were starving so we found this little organic sandwich shop and I ordered a smoke salmon sandwich...after Alaska I never thought that I would eat fish again but I decided that I should give it another chance. I mean it has been a few months since I have ripped the guts out of a salmon. Well I should have gone with my instincts. They brought me raw fish with no smoked brine on it. One look at that sandwich and I said to my self "There is no way that I am going to eat that, I refuse!" So I took my plate back to the manager and told her that I mis understood that it was going to be raw fish, and so she replaced it with a tuna sandwich. It wasn't the best I have had either considering that it was 75% olives and I don't eat those either. So I had to pick them off. I am not a picky eater but there are 2 things that I absolutely will not eat, raw fish and olives. I got both of those for lunch that day.

We made it just in time to the Meridian line and the view was incredible! You could see London from way up high and I hadn't done that yet. We took allot of pictures and walked around in this astronomy center before we left for home. It was a good way to end our day.

Kent Coutryside Hike!

3/1/08

The week after I had arrived in London the stake President of Hyde park came to speak to the students here at the center. This is when we were assigned to our wards and given callings. While he was speaking to us he told us of a hike that we would be able to participate in not to far into the future of our stay here in London. We thought that we still had a long time before the hike seeing as that it would have been 2 months from the time that he spoke to us...well it has been two months since I have been here and the hike finally arrived.

Some of us weren't sure if we wanted to do it because it was 9 miles long, but he had told us that it would be through the country side in Kent England. Also we would have to wake up at 6am which didn't sound very fun. I wanted to be able to experience everything I could in England so I woke up at the crack of dawn and took a cold shower (the heater is still broken). We had breakfast from 7-8am and we left at 7:45am for the train station. It was about an hour and a half train ride outside of London and the scenery on the way was incredible, rolling green hills!

When we arrived we started out the walk at this church and we stopped and took some pictures. The entire hike I could never justify in pictures because it was absolutely breathe taking. We walked passed a river with ducks swimming it it and there were green vines hanging from the trees. We also saw alot of people taking "strolls" through the country side on their horses. There was a little cottage that we stopped at that sold frozen fruit. This store was in the middle of no where and they had the cutest little tea sets and lots of fresh, frozen and dried fruit. I bought a tea set there. I couldn't believe it because the price was amazing for it, the only problem is that that I was hiking...You will be happy to know that I made it home with the entire tea set not broken. We had to walk through this little town to get to the train and every house that we passed had a family name and then the word cottage after it, so for example (Neubert cottage). The town was so old and cute. I loved the walk and I am so glad that I went because it was beautiful!We also stopped at this old castle in the town, most of it was torn down but the outside walls were still up so we had a really nice lunch in the middle of it. The wind started to pick up and we got kind of cold towards the end so we left and continued our walk around the country side.

Stratford-Upon-Avon! Hello Shakespeare!

2/28/08
The trip started out extremely early in the morning, at 6:30am to be exact. I had to wake up that early in order to get a shower before we left at 7am. Its a really good thing that our water heater is broken or else it would have been a really miserable shower. Wait a minute...it was a miserable shower! The people that were suppose to fix it still haven't done anything and BYU has a contract with them so they are just being really lazy about getting it fixed. We are now going on a week of taking ICE cold showers here in London and it about freezes my brain every time. I have the biggest head ache after, and I don't even think that we are even getting that clean here because the soap will just freeze to us and crumble when we try to use it. It is NO FUN! The bus ride over there was about three hours and I was so tired that I slept most of the ride, which I hate doing because the scenery is amazing with the green hills and sheep and everything. It is just so pretty. The morning didn't just start off bad because of my shower though. A few weeks ago I had bought Phantom of the Opera tickets and we had planned to go on the same day as our trip, not knowing that we were going to Stratford Upon Avon. So we had to try and sell our tickets or else the four of us girls were going to be out of $50. One of the girls went to this University called Arcadia by us and put an add up for the students to let them know that we had tickets available for them to buy from us. We got a few responses and this made us so happy because then we wouldnt lose any money. Well, one of the girls here told the people that were going to buy them that she would meet them to exchange tickets and money. Well my friend forgot. I was pretty mad because we had been trying so hard to sell them and then our one chance to get money out of them she forgot. So she called them that night and apologized for forgetting and asked if they still wanted them. The obviously still did, and this is where I got a little confused. The girls told them that she would leave the tickets at the front desk at Arcadia for them to pick up and they could leave the money in the envelope that she left there for them. I didn't really understand that logic because we are in a foreign country and not everyone is honest, so I was extremely worried that we were going to get ripped off.

The whole time at Stratford I couldn't stop thinking about the tickets, it just made me sick. But when we arrived home we got an email from the people that got the tickets from us and they said that Arcadia wouldn't let them leave the money there because the University didn't want to be responsible for all of that money but the woman said that she would meet us anytime to have her pay us and she thanked us for the tickets. So in the end it did work out and I am so glad that the people that took our tickets were honest because it would have been so easy for them to have just taken them and avoided paying us.

So now that I have gotten that story out of the way want to tell you about my visit to Stratford!

Our first stop was at Anne Hathaway's cottage! My professor told us that this is the place where she lived before she married John Groburg...Well if you know your history well enough, there was another Anne Hathaway who was the wife of Shakespeare. This is the cottage that she grew up in and it was so cute. As we pulled up you could see this small little garden in the trees with this cottage that seriously looked like snow white cottage. It had a straw roof and the flowers were so pretty everywhere. The tour didn't start until 10am so we were able to wander for a while. I found a gift shop for the cottage and they sold these really pretty prints of the house and the flowers so I bought two of them. One of my professors wives gets the biggest kick out of me because I am always looking for really pretty prints to buy of places that I go to. But I look at it as a really good investment for when I have my own house and I can have the pictures hanging in there. The picture with Mike and I holding the little things that say "Out, damned spot!" Are erasers, we thought that they were pretty funny.

So after the cottage we went to Shakespeare's birth place. My professor thought that he was funny and asked me where the epidural room was in the building. It fooled a few of the girls, they actually thought that Shakespeare's mom would have had an epidural when giving birth to Shakespeare. It was pretty funny. The whole town is so old! Just eh houses an everything you can see from the pictures have stayed the same and alot of the floors haven't even been replaced from his time. CRAZY!

We also went to this old church where Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway are buried. It was a really great experience to see that and get pictures with it.

We had a play to go to at 1pm called Henry the 4th by Shakespeare. Well it was fun....at least the beginning and the end, I don't remember much of the middle, seeing as that I fell asleep because I didn't understand most of what they were saying and there is obviously no music involved so I crashed pretty fast. I should have read a summery of it before but I didn't so the play was really confusing. It was a really great thing to end the day with because we went on an entire Shakespeare tour and then we got to end the day with one of his plays. It was a beautiful town and so fun to just walk around in. We left for home around 5pm and made it home in time for dinner and it gave us time to relax from our long drive.

Last day in Scotland!

2/23/08

This is the last day of our trip and I will tell you that I am so excited to go back to London. I have realized through my travels here in Europe that the French (at least in Paris) are grouchy, People in London are friendly, but the people in Scotland are really really friendly. The Scottish people are just alot more laid back then alot of the other people.

We started the day at 8am and slowly got out of bed to have breakfast and pack to go home. I had bought a banana and a granola bar the day before so we just hung out at the hostel for breakfast that morning as we packed. The girl in the bunk below me (Brittnee) bought bagpipes and was trying to figure out that morning how she was going to get them home. We were all so tired from our hike in the rain so we were in no hurry to get up that morning. My feet hurt so bad because I had hiked in my rain boots and those were the only shoes that I had brought for the trip. So I was starting to form blisters even though I was wearing all of the socks that I had brought (which was 5 pairs). That morning I put on all of the clothes that I had brought (which wasnt much) and this made it alot lighter for my back pack. I am sure that I smelled really good wearing all of my dirty clothes, I felt like a home less person.

We made our way back out of the hostel and we wanted to go back to a few shops before we left for the plane. The gypsy store was at the top of our list and I bought a journal there.

Some of the girls wanted to go to the Edinburgh University to see what the college looked like so we made our way down there. It was really old looking and we came across the school library, the sign to it read "Library Pub." I have never heard a library being at a bar but that is just the way that they do it in Scotland I guess. We also made our way up to the English department and were able to see some of the papers that students have written that were graded by their instructors. They were extremely harsh and I realized then and there that I was not cut out to be a student at a university like that.

On our way closer to the bus station to catch our plane, we made a quick stop to the national gallery of Scotland. I bought a childrens book that has scottish words in it, its called "Katie goes to Grandpa's Ferm" I had to buy it!

For lunch we went to this place called "Chocolate Soup" They have chocolate pancakes and they really do have chocolate soup! I just got a sandwich because obviously I needed somthing more then just a melted down candy bar. But the place was so fun! We were trying to kill some time so we were in that restaurant for about an hour. Once we finally had the energy to walk again we headed up towards this hillside that has a bunch of old Roman ruins. We stopped on the way at this really neat graveyard and took some pictures there.

When we got to the Roamn Ruins it was a great way to end our trip to Scotland. The weather was beautiful and the view was almost as incredible as the view from Arthers Seat.

This is actually a great view of Arthers seat from the hill of the ruins.

We finally made it to the bus station to catch it over to the airport. And once we got to the airport we met the rest of our group and talked about the great time that we had in Scotland as we waited to get on our plane.

When we got home I found out that the heater to our shower was broken, I know, Great thing to come home to right? I am so mad and tired and cold that I just went and got in the shower any way and it was so cold that the soap just froze to my skin, I dont even know how clean I actually even got but it felt alot better after I was out. That is the end of my trip to Scotland!

Long rainy day in Edinburgh

2/22/08

Today is the second day of our trip to Edinburgh and we were so tired so we slept in until 9am. After we finally slugged out of bed we got all of our warm clothes on because the plan for the day was to hike Arthers seat. It is the tallest mountain point in Edinburgh and it looks over the entire city. The hike isnt that bad, but when you combine rain and wind it tends to make it a bit more difficult. We were given a locker to put our stuff in at the hostel that Andrea and I shared. I put most of my stuff in there because I didnt want to have to pack all of my things up the mountain. I took the most essential things with me up the mountain like my passport and money but most everything else I left there. I had worn two pairs of leggings under my jeans and three shirts along with a sweat shirt and my coat with rain boots. I was completely bundled up. We had to walk back down the Royal mile to get to the starting point of the mountain and as we got there it started to pour down rain. Not just sprinkle rain, but it was blowing side ways! But that didnt stop us. This was our one time in Edinburgh and we wanted to do everything, rain or shine. I was really glad that I wore my boots because the girls that I was with were soaked at their pants even in the first part of our hike.

As we got closer to the top it started to hail and the wind was so strong that we had to stop and hold onto some boulders so that the wind didnt blow us off the mountain. It was getting really scary but we were determind! As we got to the top we had to hide next to some rocks for the wind to go down, 10 minutes into us waiting at the top the sky cleared and the sun started to shine through. It was the most incredible view from the top. We could see the Isle of Skye across the way and we could see the entire city and even farther! Pictures wont ever justify the view. Just as we got the good weather we decided that we better go back down before it got worse. Half way down the mountain the wind started to pick up again and we were glad that we werent on top of the mountain any more. We were able to see a natural well and some old Roman Ruins on the hills as we made our wayto the bottom.

When we reached the bottom we looked like we had just gone swimming in the river. I was completely soaked, everything was; including my passport, journal, camera case (luckily I had kept it in my pocket so that it wasnt damaged). This put us in a delema because the clothes that we were wearing were the only ones that we had. so we couldnt go back and change...we had nothing to change into. So we went to a Starbucks right up the street and bought lunch and hot chocolate. It was a good place to relax but I think the people were a little upset with us dragging water into the cafe. Wet and cold we decided to go to the palace of Hollyrood, where the queen lives during the summer when she comes to Scotland. This is also the palace where Mary Queen of Scots lived. We were able to get audio guides and listen to the many stories that went on in this palace. We heard a story about Mary and how she was having an affair with her secretary and her husband found out and stabbed the man 57 times in her bed chamber (which we got to see!) this is the palace that she lived in before she went to England to ask Elizabeth for help, in which Elizabeth put her in prison for 19 years before her execution. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall during this time period. Marys son James is the one that united Scotland and England.

After our tour we decided that we needed a break so we found this movie that is 3D of Locness. We didnt end up going on the tour with the rest of the group so we decided that the best way to see Locness because the rain was so bad would be to see a 3D movie about it. Did you know that the Locke is as deep as 2 of the Edinburgh castles! That is so crazy.

Dinner was next on the agenda and we were starving! So we found this little Italian place that was so good! The waiter started to talk to us about American politics and the elections and his friend got mad and told us that we were not allowed to discuss that kind of thing there. It was pretty funny because they are both from Italy. Nothing goes on after 6pm, so we headed back to the hostel after that. We were all so tired and we decided that one more day of not showering would probably be ok, but my hair was so bad because I hadnt washed it in 3 days so I washed my hair in the sink that night and it is just so weird because the bathrooms at the hostel are combined so males and females are together. That was weird to adjust to and I tried to not spend much time in there. That night I was looking forward to a good nights sleep and putting on dry pajama's.