Yesterday we had Stake Conference at church. Some of us decided that this would be a great time to go have church at Westminster Abbey. First of all, let me help you with the pronunciation. Its west-min-ster. Not west-min-i-ster. There is no extra 'i.' Ok, now that we've cleared up that little pet peeve...so we decided to go to the Sung Eucharist basically because it was at a good time. None of us have any idea what the differences between services are. Nor do I really even understand the whole church thing out here because I thought that Westminster was a Church of England church. But then the pastor (I think that's what he's called..) said something about the Catholic church so I'm thinking that maybe they still reference the Catholic church since the Church of England was only created so that Henry VIII could get a divorce. Who knows, but enough with the history lesson. I hadn't been in the Abby before this, but it was way pretty. I'm more excited to go back on the tour though and see all the places people were buried. So many great people were buried there. We walked past Isaac Newton and I sat next to William Blake. Pretty cool stuff. Anyways, so most of the service was sung (hence the 'Sung' in the title of the service) by this amazing choir. I mean seriously they sounded beautiful. Apparently they had a bunch of little boys in the choir too but I missed out on those. Probably because Tara's head was in my way. Or because I'm just kind of oblivious sometimes. I couldn't tell you what the sermon was about because I may have fallen asleep during that part...but I do know that he referenced Shakespeare at the very beginning of it. I'm not going to describe everything that happened, but basically I prefer my own church over church at Westminster Abbey. It was cool to say that we've done it, but it was just kind of a weird experience. Especially since most of the people there I'm pretty sure were tourists, which just makes church feel kind of fake.
After the service, Tara, Amy and I went to the Tate Modern. As you may have guessed, this is a museum full of Modern art. If you've heard me talk about my visit to the MOMA in NYC, your probably wondering why I subjected myself to another modern art museum. Well, here's what I was thinking. The MOMA, though definitely not my favorite museum, did have some pretty interesting stuff in it, and I feel like the Tate Modern is just one of the museums you have to visit if your in London long term. That was a poor decision on my part. There was some Picasso there, which is always cool to see just because it's Picasso. And they had this statue called "The Kiss" that I liked. I was able to get through the entire 5th floor ok and I wasn't completely hating it. But then I went down to the 3rd floor. (Just in case your wondering why I went to all these random floors, the 5th and 3rd floors are the permanent galleries). The 3rd floor was the weirdest thing I've ever experienced. I went into one of the galleries and decided there was no way I could do the rest of the floor. So instead I found the gallery full of Picasso and peaced out of there. I was disappointed because I didn't see Monet's "Waterlilies" but Amy told me that we could peek our heads back in there and she would take me to it real fast so I didn't have to torture myself finding it.
Tara and Amy were working on stuff for their art class at the museum so I just came home and hung out around the Centre. Nothing else super exciting happened. Corey, Amy, Tara and I watched Northanger Abbey after dinner. It's a Jane Austen movie, but it's way different than any of her other stuff. And the kissing scene at the end of the movie was so incredibly awkward, we ended up watching it three times while laughing our heads off.
There will probably be no exciting news from today as I've decided to dedicate my day to homework so that I can enjoy the rest of my week. Wednesday afternoon is the start of our free travel weekend. I'm staying here in England but because I won't have any classes or any planned activities with the group, I want to be absolutely free to do all of the exciting things I have planned. I bet your dying to here all about these plans, but that just stinks for you because you'll just have to wait until it actually happens.
P.S. I just spelled checked this here post and I definitely wrote that someone 'sayed' something. Sometimes I wonder if I'm really in the right major...
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