short shorts and mini skirts...

...that's all you would have seen if you'd been in London the past couple of days. It has been so stinking hot here, it's unbelievable. It was like being in California in the middle of the summer, except that it's suppose to be cold and rainy here not super deathly hot. It's actually pretty tolerable until you get in the tube station and then you just want to die.


Anyways. I'm sure you would rather here about some cool adventures rather than the weather, so here you go. Yesterday started out...oh man I don't even remember what we did...ummmm...oh yeah. Ok so we got up and headed to Wimbledon. Tara's dad is the men's tennis coach at BYU and he played in Wimbledon and made it to the final four. So he's basically really cool. But anyways Tara wanted to go out there and she knew the cool places and I figured it would be something sweet to do with my life. So Amy, Hannah, Scott, Tara, Corey and I headed off to Wimbledon. It's actually not that far away, the tube will take you right there. We had to walk a little to get to the fields but whats new. Unfortunately, once we got there, we discovered that you had to pay to see the fields, which was disappointing. But seeing the field just wasn't worth 9 pounds. See it from the outside was cool enough though. And we got strawberries and cream, which Wimbledon is famous for, and they were pretty delicious. After we were finished up at the fields, we walked to the actual village. It was a pretty cute village and Tara took us to this pretty awesome Indian restaurant. So it was a good time overall.


After Wimbledon, oh wait. Actually before Wimbledon, we went to the British Library. This was also pretty cool but not something we felt we needed to spend an extensive amount of time at. Most of the library you can't get into unless you have a library card (which I'm seriously considering going back to get...). But there is a room that has all the really cool stuff like the Magna Carta, the Gutenberg Bible and Codex Sinaiticus. They also have a bunch of authors journals/letters/writings which was freaking awesome, though maybe that's because I'm a nerdy English major (even though sometimes you can't tell from the crappy writing of this blog). They also had hand written lyrics from the Beatles which was sweet.


Ok so now after Wimbledon. Tara, Kaylee, Corey, Scott, Jessica and Emily S. and I all went to Wicked. It was so freaking awesome!!!! I know I've already seen it. Twice. But I didn't have to pay to see Le Mis, so I decided it was ok if I used that money to see Wicked and I'm so glad I did. Elpheba was the most amazing thing ever. I can't even explain how amazing. Everyone else was really good too but Elpheba blew me away. That musical seriously never will not be amazing to me. I loved it!


So today we had really good intentions but not really good success. We had plans to go to the British Museum this morning but as I was getting cash at the ATM, which I don't even do that often so of course this would happen to me, the stupid machine eats my card. And on top of that the stupid bank can't get it out, they have to call a mechanic and I don't want to wait around all day waiting for it, so I have to go back and get it on Monday. I'm kind of freaking out about this, but there really isn't anything I can do about it. They weren't even nice either. No apologies or anything. So annoying. By the time all of that went down, we weren't going to make it to the British Museum because we had made plans to go to Camden Market at noon. In hindsight, I'm not sure why we wouldn't allow ourselves to replan, because we weren't meeting up with anyone or anything, but whatever. So we headed to Camden.


Camden Market is kind of confusing at first. It looks like a crappy street market when you first get off the tube, which is why I didn't stay very long the first time we went there like the first week we were here. But if you keep on walking past all the crappy street people, you get to the real market which is legit. I might even say that it was as cool as Portobello Market. We didn't even make a dent in seeing all of it and we were there for 2 hours but it was great, I loved it. I wish we had markets like that in the States. Or actually, more specifically, where I live. That would make all of my wildest dreams come true. I'm sure somewhere in the US, there are cool markets and I've actually been to some pretty cool ones, but none of them compare to the markets out here. They are freaking awesome.


After Camden, we came home for all of like 20 minutes before Amy, Tara and I headed out to John Keats house. There was a little festival there and Tara is a giant Keats fan. Tara had put our name on the list for the free concert/poetry reading. Except that when we got there, which was three different tube lines away, we discovered she wasn't actually paying close enough attention the day of each event and the thing we were signed up for isn't until tomorrow. Great news right? Uh no. So tonight there's was a free poetry reading but we had to wait an hour and we didn't actually know if we would get in. Luckily (for Tara mostly because Amy and I might have killed her otherwise) we were able to get in. I've never been to a legit poetry reading but it was cool. I'm not actually the biggest poetry fan on planet Earth, but the poets were reading their own work and giving background on it and a lot of the poems had references to London so that was sweet. We were disappointed that no one actually read any Keats poetry but we did get to walk around the house for free during the little 10 minutes break between poets and normally you have to pay. That was pretty awesome. So yeah it was cool. Interesting experience for sure.


After Keats, we went for gelato in Trafalgar Square because that's the best way to end a night. =]

independance day

Today was a day all alone. It was pretty nice, I'm not going to lie. I love my friends out here, but sometimes it's just nice to be away from people, especially when I've been with the same 50 people 24/7 for the past month and a half. I started out my day with a journey to Hever Castle. Hever Castle is the childhood home of the Boleyn's. Anne Boleyn was Henry VIII's second wife and the cause of his split from the Catholic Church. I am a huge Tudor era fan. I may have already explained that in a previous post, but literally, I love studying the time period when the Tudors ruled England. It's fascinating. So naturally I was pretty pumped to go to Hever. It started with a train ride, which at this point isn't all that exciting anymore. Once I got to the station, I had no idea where I was going. I knew the castle was about a mile walk from the station but I didn't know what direction and there were no maps at the station because it was such a small station. Luckily I ran into a lady that basically lives next door to the station and she directed me where to go, which actually turned out great because she knew a faster and prettier way to get there rather than just following the road. She told me how to get to the footpath that would cut across and take me right to the castle. It was a great little walk. I love all the footpaths here in London because they are so scenic. There were a bunch of rabbits and this cool tree arch. And there was a field of sheep so I got to see some more of my future pet!


When I got to the castle, the entrance is on the outskirts of the land, and there is a lot of land. So when you walk in there is a hill and once you get over the hill, the castle is right there and it's great. The castle wasn't open yet when I got there but the gardens were so I walked around those. The garden isn't just a little plot of land full of flowers, its like acres of trees and flowers. So beautiful. It's kind of split up into multiple areas. There's an Italian garden, a rose garden, a rhododendron garden, a Tudor garden etc. There is also a giant pond. Actually I don't know if you can even call it a pond, it's more of a lake. Unfortunately, they had the Tudor garden closed off and the lake was so big I didn't have time to walk all the way around it. It was so pretty and peaceful though, I loved it.


When the castle opened, I went over there and walked through. It's 3 or 4 stories high, I can't remember for sure how many flights we ended up going up. It was fabulous and I had a great time there. The only thing I was a little disappointed in was the fact that I was expecting it to be pretty similar to when Anne lived there except that quite a few people owned it after Anne, which I knew before I went, I was just silly and not thinking that the building and the furnishings would change with new ownership. So it was really cool but I was crazy and thought it would be a little different than what it ended up being like. There were all these crazy old ladies wandering around at the same time as me though. They were gossiping about other crazy old ladies the whole time and that was pretty entertaining.


So even though it was absolutely fabulous, there was one big thing I didn't like about Hever. Because it is under private ownership instead of the National Trust like a lot of the other historic places around here, it was super touristy. It just felt like a big giant tourist attraction instead of an historic place. Even though other places we've been to are super touristy, they don't necessarily have the touristy feel. Hever had tourist written on its non-exsistant forehead. The castle had a bunch of random items of furniture stuck in random places, just to show it off. The gift shop was not only overpriced but most of the stuff in there didn't even have items relating to Hever. And they had turned part of the garden into this water maze thing for little kids so there were a million little kids running around with their parents. But I guess things can't be perfect all the time.


After I was finished with Hever and back in London, I went to Harrods. Harrods is a ginormous, extremely expensive department store. Not only could I not afford to buy anything, I couldn't afford to look at anything. There was an umbrella for 40 pounds or roughly 70 dollars. And a purse for almost a thousand pounds. So freaking ridiculous. Also, its huge and super confusing to navigate your way around. Even with my map. After about 30 minutes I decided Harrods was one of my least favorite places and I was out of there. Maybe I'm just not a real girl, but wandering around a store where I can buy absolutely nothing just isn't that much fun to me. But hey, now I can say I've been there.


Now I'm just hanging out back in the Centre. No one else is back from their trip to Brighton so we'll see what the night has in store for me...

a new love for shakespeare

After class today, Amy, Tara, Hannah and I went to see "Much Ado About Nothing" at the Globe Theatre. Yes, this is the third play I've seen there. But here the thing, the other two times, I didn't have to pay for the tickets and we had seats. I wanted to experience the real deal being a groundling and it only cost me 5 pounds. And it was well worth the 5 pounds. It was probably my favorite Shakespeare play. So dang good. It is one of Shakespeare's comedies and funny it was. The actors were amazing as well. One of the main characters played Geoffrey in the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and another one of the main characters played Wallis in The King's Speech. So basically there were some amazing people in it. And it they made it even better because they interacted with the audience. This is another one of those things where I really can't explain how great it is but it was great.


Then we came back to the Centre for dinner and just kind of hung out here the rest of the night. There isn't a lot to do in London at night because everything closes. Unless you want to get food or go to a play or something. But that's ok because I was able to plan my days while we have the travel weekend. And it's going to be a great three days. You should anticipate the blog posts about them...

an ultimate london experince

Yesterday was fabulous. That's all you really need to know.


Ok fine, I'll give you more than that. First of all, I got to sleep in, if you can really count 8 as sleeping in. We had plans to go to Windsor Castle at 11 and there wasn't a whole lot I could do before then, so I just let myself relax a little bit that morning, which was great. So then at 11ish, like half our group left for Windsor Castle. I didn't know a lot about Windsor, but I didn't have any other plans and the program was willing to reimburse us traveling fees and entrance fees so I figured why not go. One of the best decisions I'd say. We had to take the train there, but it wasn't a very long ride, about 30 min. When we walked out of the train station, the castle was literally right there in front of us. And it was giant. And beautiful. I fell in love immediately. First of all, this is a legit castle. Remember that post a while ago about castles here not really being castles? This was a real castle. In case you weren't already aware, the Queen still takes residence in Windsor. I believe it is actually one of her favorite places, which is easy to see why. Hopefully you'll be able to see how amazing it is from my little blog post. So the castle is giant sized. I think it's bigger than Buckingham. And it's spread out on a vast amount of land. So basically I was in awe the moment I saw it. To add to the greatness of this experience, it was a beautiful day outside and the whole town is super cute and the land is super pretty.


Ok, so I suppose I'll actually explain to you what the inside is like to. As I said earlier, the castle is spread out, it's not just one building. So we walked into the square type thing and the first building we visited was St. George's Chapel. I really liked this chapel but I think that was partially due to the face that the audio guide was pretty spectacular. It gave cool information and it also reminded us that the chapel is an actual place of worship, which I don't feel like many of the other chapels have emphasized. They've all just been more of tourist attractions, which is kind of sad. It was a really pretty chapel, but I also felt like it was a little less ornate than some of the others we've seen and I prefer the simplicity. Once we got to the choir area of the chapel, we were looking around and then BAM. There's King Henry VIII's grave. In my head I was screaming "ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!" all excitedly. How freaking cool is that? And Jane Seymour, his 3rd wife was buried in the same place, along with one of Anne Boleyn's babies. It was amazing and I was so mad we couldn't take pictures. So we keep on walking along and there are a bunch of royal people graves there. It was so cool. But I was most excited about King Henry VIII. Even though he was one bad dude, he is so fascinating. It was pretty funny though because we were in the gift shop later and there was this English lady talking about the grave and she was like "I was so happy to walk over Henry VIII's grave!" But us American freaks walked around is as though it was some sort of sacred ground or something.


After checking out the chapel, we went to the State Apartments. First we walked through this room that had Queen Mary's Dolls' House in it. This is an actual doll house, except its more of a doll Buckingham Palace rather than a house. It was a present and it's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. First of all it has plumbing and toilet paper. Second the plates are made of real silver. And third the paintings are identical replicas by real artists. I wish my Barbie's had a house like that...After we went through the room with the Dolls' House we entered the State Apartments. It was amazing but I'm just going to go through some highlights. They had the bullet that killed Lord Admiral Nelson, who is one of Britain's great hero's. Pretty sweet. You know what. I just can't even really explain much more than that. I walked the rooms where the Queen lives. That's about all the description you need because basically that is freaking cool. One of my favorite places for sure.


Once we got back from the castle, we hurried and ate some dinner and ran to Her Majesty's Theater where we lucked out and got cheap tickets to Phantom of the Opera. IT WAS SO AMAZING!! Literally, all of my wildest dreams came true watching it. I loved it more than I can express. Except the chandelier dropping was kind of a disappointment. It wasn't spectacular at all and that was one of the parts I was most excited about. Very sad but the rest of it was amazing so I'll just pretend they had a spectacular chandelier dropping.


Basically it was one of the best days of my life. As is almost every other day I've been here in London...

an abbey here, an abbey there

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...

future olympian bicyclist. no big deal.

Yesterday was dubbed Harry Potter Day. Amy, Tara and I went to all of the Harry Potter sight's we hadn't already seen. Our first stop was platform 9 3/4, which to our great disappointment, was closed. They are doing construction where the actual platform is, so instead they just had this dumb plastic wall thing outside King's Cross Station. Pretty sad. But we took pictures anyways, since it's the best we could do. The next stop was the street where Harry, Ron and Hermione apparate to in the seventh movie after the wedding. The cafe isn't real, but the street sure is and it's call Shaftesbury Avenue, just in case you were curious. While we were checking that out, we found this tourist shop that we stopped in and FINALLY found Kate Middleton engagement rings. I promptly bought one and fulfilled my souvenir wishes. The next stop on Harry Potter tour was the Ministry of Magic. We had high hopes for this because the building looks absolutely wonderful in pictures. The building they used was Great Scotland Yard and we only had partial directions of how to get there, so once we didn't know where else to go, we just started asking random people on the street. Tara went up to one guy and asked him if he was a muggle, to which he answered no. Tara relied with "Oh, perfect, then can you tell me where the Ministry of Magic is?" He couldn't, and walked away giving us pretty strange looks, which just made it all the more funny. Finally we found where everyone was telling us to go, but they all directed us to New Scotland Yard instead of Great Scotland Yard. So disappointing. We had no idea where to go, so we ended up back on the tube to go find Diagon Ally. We did indeed find it, but it's normally a market and it's only open on weekdays, so there wasn't anyone there, which was also kind of sad. So overall Harry Potter Day didn't go quite as successfully as we had hoped, but it was fun nonetheless.


After we finished all of our Harry Potter sights, we went to the Tate Britain museum. Tara and Amy had to go for their art class and I just went along because I hadn't been yet. It was not my favorite museum. There were some cool exhibits, like the ones that had real paintings of actual things in them (ex: the Romantic exhibit was cool). But most of the museum was more modern stuff and I'm not really a modern art person. There was a painting of Ophelia from Hamlet called Ophelia (profound, I know) that my high school teacher showed our class when we read Hamlet, so I was pretty excited about that because it's what I always picture when I think of Ophelia (because you know I think of her so often). That's one of my favorite things about going to all of the museums here. I get to see all of these paintings that I've seen pictures of but now they are just right there for me to see whenever I want to see them. But anyways, I didn't stay very long and came back and did some homework and tried to get my blog to post my Scotland stories.


Once Tara and Amy got back from doing the stuff they had to do at the museum, we went on a walk for class. This walk was through a bunch of London's parks so we decided to bike through them instead of walk. London has this great bike rental system, which I think it wonderful and every city should have it. Our professor has some family visiting from Lincoln, England and so one of their cousins, Jared, came on the bike ride with us too. I was pretty hesitant about this bike ride at first because the last time I rode a bike was a good 10 years ago. I was way out of practice and just kept picturing myself falling flat on my face. But I sucked it up and went along anyways. That's one thing I feel like I've done more in London than I ever have in my whole life. I'm pretty much willing to do anything here, including things I wouldn't have done back home. But it always turns out great...maybe that's a lesson for me? So we get the bikes and we head of and it's really true when they say you never forget how to ride a bike. I didn't have any troubles at all! I mean it started out a little wobbly but once I got started it was fabulous. I was pretty pro. Minus that I wouldn't go over curbs because I still thought I might die, so I just walked the bike over the curbs. haha


Once we had finished our bike ride, we went over to Trafalgar Square because it's one of our favorite places. There was a football game (soccer in America) yesterday between Manchester United and Barcelona. Barcelona won 3-1 and even though we're Manchester fans, we celebrated with the Barcelona fans in Trafalgar Square, just for the fun of it. And fun it was. There were police officer everywhere and fans were lighting up flares but the police just sat there and watched. It was great. There was just excitement in the air. The only not so great part was the couple who were basically eating each other because they were making out so badly. Gross.


Time to get the homework done...you'll have to come back to hear about today's adventures.

a wee bit of scotland

I warn you now, this post could probably win an award for worlds longest post. I typed it up in Word and it was over 10 pages long double spaces. So just like my last trip post, I've broken it up into logical places so you can take a break when you get bored. And then when you feel like being tortured some more, you can easily come back and finish reading. enjoy.

also, for some reason it's not letting upload pictures. so hopefully i can get that to work in another post later so you can actually see the things I'm talking about.

sleeping beauty ugly

We left for our trip North this morning. It started with a bright and early wake up at 6 so that we could pack up and head out before 7:30. Then it was a three hour bus ride to Lincoln, where we stopped to eat our lunches we made before we left and check out this castle. Here’s the thing about castles. In my mind, castles are these great big cool magical things. Like the Disneyland castles. Ok maybe not like the Disneyland castles, but definitely bigger than the castles that we’ve seen so far. The places they call palaces are more like the castles in my mind but the places they call castles are more like…mansions. So still big and pretty cool, just not as big and cool as I thought they would be. Anyways. So then we drove another couple of hours to York, where we stayed the night. Here’s my problem with busses though. I cannot stay awake for the life of me. It is a serious problem. I fall asleep whether I want to or not. And then I don’t even fall asleep looking cute; I just look like a freak. I either have my mouth wide open and my neck lolled to one side or I have my whole entire head hanging forward and rolling around all crazy. I am not a normal person when it comes to sleeping while sitting. I’m sure many a people have laughed at me while sleeping on the bus.

Once we got to York, it was only 3ish so we had the rest of the day to explore. We basically just got lost but that’s ok, it was still cool. We found a little street market that was closing down for the day so we got a bucket of strawberries for only1 pound. And then we wandered some more and try to get into this castle and this castle museum and this Viking museum and a few other things and all of them cost a buttload to get in so we vetoed them all. Finally we decided just to get some dinner because apparently the whole town shuts down at 5:30. Every shop we tried to go into was closed. But then we discovered that none of the places to eat open until 6. So for that half an hour, your just stuck doing nothing. Finally we got into this little Italian place that had early bird specials from 6-7, which is a weird early bird time seeing as how I find that a pretty normal eating time. It was a good little restaurant, though I definitely prefer my mom’s spaghetti. After dinner we searched for something to do until 7:30 but with no real avail. We ended up eating warm cookie dough from Pizza Hunt and standing in the cold until our Ghost Tour started at 7:30.

I was pretty terrified of the Ghost Tour when we were standing there waiting for it to start. I don’t always do so well with scary things but I figured it couldn’t be too bad because it was still light outside. It doesn’t get dark around here until pretty late. So this older guy (he was grey haired so I’m allowed to say older) dressed up in like olden time clothing walks down the street with a super creepy face creepily ringing this bell. So we all conglomerate around him, because that’s what you do when you see creepy people on the street right? He starts us on our tour and let me just give you the short version of things. First of all, not scary. At all. Second of all, pretty funny so worth the money in the end. Third of all, he was kind of a dirty old man…there were definitely some dirty jokes stuck in all of his little stories. Anyways, short summary of it all because I don’t really even remember any of his ghost stories, it was funny but not scary but still cool.

After Ghost Hunt, the town was still closed down so we just went back to the hotel. There were only two people to a room and the hotel people had assigned us rooms alphabetically. Crazily, Tara and I ended up in the same room, which ended up being perfect because then we could all watch a movie and not bother anyone else’s roommate. So Tara, Kaylee, Amy and I watched Shakespeare in Love, which was in the Centre and was rated for age 15 and up in UK ratings. But UK definitely has a more liberal rating system because if you weren’t already aware, Shakespeare in Love has quite a bit of nudity in it. We ended up fast-forwarding through various scenes, thinking that once we had gotten through one, we would be safe for the rest of the movie. It was a good plot line but the unnecessary naked people in it made for quite a problem so it won’t be on my list of movies to watch again.

dumbledore’s army

We started out the day going to York Minster. This is another one of the England’s many cathedrals. If I remember correctly, it’s the largest cathedral in the northern part of England. But every cathedral says they are the biggest somehow so I could potentially be making that fact up. But it is really famous. We got a tour around it, which was nice. It makes cathedrals so much more interesting when we actually get information about them while looking at them. Otherwise, as one particular friend likes to say, it’s just “another flipping cathedral.” The windows in York Minster were absolutely amazing. There were so many of them and a lot of them had been fixed up so they were really clear and pretty. They are in the process of restoring a bunch of the windows and the ones that have already been fixed up are some of the coolest stain glassed windows I’ve ever seen. I didn’t know before that visit that when the stain glass windows would get cracks in them, to fix it they would just put another line of lead in it. This is why they are so hard to tell what the heck they are pictures of most of the time. I thought they were just always crazy complicated pictures but this is not so. They are actually very understandable when there is only lead in the original places. I think the stained glass windows were my favorite part of the whole minster, but it was a great place as a whole.

After the minster we had a little over an hour to explore before we had to get back on the bus. As we had already discovered yesterday, basically nothing it free. But we did find the ruins of St. Mary’s Cathedral. Or Abby. Or something. I don’t remember but they were these great big ruins and they were awesome. The best part you ask. Well the best part would have to be the man who was basically naked and sun bathing right in front of the ruins. All he had on were these super tiny shorts. I took a picture for you all to appreciate the view as well. It reminded me of the time my parents took a picture of mr. thong man in Mexico forever ago. If you don’t know that story, then you’re probably better off, but anyways. Here’s the question you should all be asking instead. What the heck was this man doing sunbathing in front of these ruins? He really had no better place to do his sun bathing? What a crazy.

After this fun filled experience, it was time to go back to the hotel to get on the bus. It was quite a walk and so we walked along the top of the city wall. Once we got to the bus, we drove the 5 hours to Edinburgh. I must have a lot more experience with long car rides than some of my fellow study abroaders because 5 hours doesn’t seem like a particularly long drive to me, but some people thought it was an insanely long ride. I’m glad I’ve had lots of long driving experience or I’m sure the drive would have freaking stunk. Once we got to the hostel, the rooms were assigned again. This was sort of disappointing only because me and some of the other girls already had great plans for rooming together, but that’s ok. We have a great group in our room and it’s fabulous.

By this time, it was time to eat so we went to The Elephant House, which is the café where J.K. Rowling started writing Harry Potter. It is a great place. Not only was the toilet seat in the bathroom decorated with an assortment of Harry Potter pictures, there was a place to sign up for Dumbledore’s Army, directions to Tom Riddle’s grave and the food was the bomb. I would love to be able to go there all the time. Not necessarily for the Harry Potter aspects, but because it’s just a great atmosphere.

Edinburgh is dumb just like York and everything closes way early so there were slim pickings on what to do after dinner. We ended up climbing Calton hill, which is basically a hill with a bunch of old ruins and monuments. It was beyond description. I’ll just let you look at pictures so you can see what I saw. Except for obviously I saw it in a much cooler way than you will be seeing it as. Sorry to rub it in…While at Calton Hill, we had climbed one of the monuments for some pictures. Kaylee hadn’t come up yet and Amy was calling to her to come over except that Kaylee was walking sort of behind these two guys who thought Amy was talking to them at first. So one of us saved it by saying Kaylee’s name but the boys still came over anyways and offered to help Kaylee up and take our picture. It was kind of awkward at first but then we started talking to them. One of them lives in Edinburgh but is originally from Ireland and the other is from Long Beach, California. Mr. California was just visiting and Mr. Ireland was showing him the sights. Hannah and I ended up talking to Mr. Ireland, which was cool because we could talk to him about both Ireland and Edinburgh. I love talking to the locals.

After the ruins, we just ended up coming back to the hostel. Nothing to exciting but the day was long enough without a huge party to end the night.

finding nessy

So this morning we got up early and went to Tom Riddles grave because nothing was open yet (even though it was 8. What is wrong with these people?). It’s pretty legit. And there was a grave for a Moody, a Black and a McGonagall. Looks like maybe Rowling went to gravesites for name inspirations. Afterwards, the stores were finally started to open so we went looking in those but then we saw the rest of our group walking to the castle, where we had plans for a tour. We joined up with them then instead of meeting them at the castle.

The Edinburgh castle is way sweet. We took a free tour from one of the worker dudes at the castle and he basically just showed us the different places we could check out while we were there. But he was really nice and answered a bunch of questions Tara, Hannah and I asked him after the tour. It’s interesting how different the Scottish accent is compared to the English accent. I mean they are so close but their accents are completely different. I think that the Scottish are a tad bit more difficult to understand. Ok, maybe more than a tad bit. Some of them are super hard to understand. I feel like they talk really fast so it just doesn’t work very well. But back to the castle. The coolest part was probably the Crown Jewels. They were gorgeous and there was this little museum thing before you got to the jewels that told a bunch of the Scottish history which I really liked because I didn’t know hardly anything about Scottish history. I mean even though their history is so closely linked to England presently and they have been ruled by the same monarchs for quite some time, they still have a very different history and I didn’t know basically any of it. I will definitely be catching up on my Scottish history when I get him, especially about Queen Mary. And no, this is not a joke. What else am I going to do this summer?

We spent quite a while at the castle so by the time we left, it was lunch time. We were so impressed by The Elephant House yesterday, we decided to go back for lunch. The food really is delicious and the place is so cute. Then after lunch we went back to the shops for some souvenir junkola. Basically every store had the same stuff and it was all pretty expensive, so I didn’t buy much and sorry family but you aren’t getting much. Once we had finished, we went to the train station with plans to go to Loch Ness to find Nessy. Yes, this is a serious plan. Yes, I wanted to go so badly. And yes, Nessy and I are on a first name basis. We went to the info desk at the train station so that we could get there in the most efficient way. And she informs us that it takes 4 hours to get there. And the train doesn’t leave until 4. Dreams of finding Nessie were shattered and I sat in the station and cried. OK. Maybe I didn’t cry, but it was pretty devastating. I can’t believe I’m leaving Scotland without seeing the Loch Ness Monster…

Since all of our hopes and dreams had been thrown out the window, we decided to go back into town to find a dance studio. Tara wanted to find someone that would teach a highland dance class so she could do a little Scottish jig. We found the dance studio and they found us an available class that was a 20 minute bus ride away. It didn’t start right away so we decided to go to the Loch Ness Experience. Sounds freaking exciting right? Well we get into the theater for this thrilling event and we stick our 3D glasses on and our big DJ headphones so we can hear and get ready for the ride. And about 15 minutes in, I fall asleep. Quite the experience, let me tell you. It was this weird, old documentary with a bunch of information I could have found out on Wikipedia. Oh well. I learned some new stuff about Nessy and that’s better than nothing I suppose.

Afterwards, we went back to the hostel. I decided that I didn’t particularly want to spend my money on a highland dance class so I let Hannah and Tara do their thing while I went off with some of the other girls. We didn’t do much, just grabbed some dinner and then came back and we are now watching Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. A great way to end the night, if I do say so myself.

my pet sheep

This morning was a pretty chill morning. We were leaving Edinburgh at 10 and there really wasn’t really a whole lot more I wanted to do there. I absolutely loved Scotland, it was by far one of my favorite destinations, but everything I would have done couldn’t really be done real fast this morning. So instead I slept in, which was really weird because I haven’t done that the whole time I’ve been in the U.K. Scotland is a beautiful place and everyone was so nice. I feel like I got to know the people of Scotland so well even though we weren’t there for very long. And I love all the sheep farms. I have decided, after driving past the thousands of sheep we’ve passed while on the bus the past couple of days, that I will be getting a pet sheep when I have a house. And it will be an indoor sheep that is potty trained and I will shave it often so that it just stays small and cute and we will frolic in the grasses together and it will be absolutely wonderful. I hope whoever marries me is okay with this plan. Also, in case you were wondering, no I did not eat haggis, nor did I ever have plans too. Sorry but that’s disgusting.

The bus ride was just another bus ride. Nothing exciting there. It was about four hours until we got to Windermere in the Lake District. The Lake District is mostly private land but then the government turned it into a National Park. It feels like real England here and I’m loving it. It’s so nice to be away from the city and in a little village with indescribably beautiful scenery all around. We went on this boat ride around the lake which was cool except that Loch Ness would have been cooler…but anyways. Then we wandered around the little town and it was super cute , except that just like every other place we’ve been too, everything closes super early.

Once we got to the hostel, we grabbed a room key and we got to choose our roommates and there are eight of us in the room. We all went walking around the hostel because we’re on this hill in the middle of all the beautiful greenery. It’s been raining off and on all day. I really can’t describe how Englandy it finally feels. I mean London is great and I absolutely love it there, but I love the quaint little village England a ton too. And maybe I feel that way more than usual because I’m pretty tired of big giant city all the time. I hope you can get just a glimpse of the amazing area we’re in from the pictures.

Now we’re just all hanging out at the hostel. It’s a super cute hostel and is pretty homey feeling. Because it’s raining and we’re a pretty good walk from town, there really isn’t any other option than just hanging around the hostel, but that’s ok. It’s refreshing to have an earlier night in. That was probably the most boring thing you’ve ever read, but it just hasn’t been the most eventful day but don’t give up on me, tomorrow could hold stories that will amaze you. Or maybe make you fall of your chair laughing. Or maybe make you fall of your chair asleep. Who knows. You’ll just have to wait about...mmm…2 seconds to find out…

“i don’t care if i die”

This morning started out packing up everything again and loading it on the bus. We drove about 45 minutes to some other town in the Lake District to check out the Beatrix Potter museum or something along those lines. I don't think anyone was really excited about this. We all just wanted to be on our way 'home' as we now call the Centre in London. I didn't even know who the heck Beatrix Potter was or that she wrote Peter Rabbit until this trip and I don't think I've ever even read Peter Rabbit. So clearly I was being a super happy camper about this stop. We got there about 25 minutes before it opens so we just wandered around yet another town. The whole wandering random towns that all look the same is getting kind of old too. I don't feel the need to wander around every town we stop in. But anyways. Enough negative nancy. So we wait until 10:30 and our professor reads the sign again and finds out that it actually doesn't open until 11 on Fridays. So again we wait. At 11 we all come back together and are informed that it actually just isn't open today....Seriously. Pretty ridiculous. And I blame it all on our stupid travel agent who had been less than impressive this whole trip. (She doesn't even have everything planned out for us for the next two weeks. Uh hello? We kind of need to have that done.) Even though the museum is closed, we are still forced to wander around for another 45 minutes so I end up at this bakery and buy an entire loaf of delicious bread for lunch. Super exciting stop.

After the non-existent visit to Beatrix Potter, we drive another 45 minutes (ish) to get to this place where we are going to hike. It was a beautiful area and I had no problem hiking. Our professor made it sound like it was just kind of a stroll through and he said it was shorter and easier than our last hike so I was thinking it was going to be more of a walk than anything else. It definitely started out that way. We were on a paved road and when we got off the paved road it was a pretty clear path. We saw a cool sculpture by this artist who does random sculptures in nature without expecting them to stay put. This one was turned into a sort of wall thing though, so I'm thinking it'll stay there for a while. We also walked past a pretty little river/waterfall. and past a giant old slate quarry. So it started out great. But then we got to the part where he told us we were going to hike up the top of the mountain where there is no path and the whole side of the mountain is muddy from the rain the day before. Sounds great huh? Yeah it was. By the time we reached the top, almost all of us had muddy brown covered shoes. And then we got to climb back down the muddy mountain. Fabulous. It was really pretty once we got to the top though, I just wish I had been a little more prepared for what we were going to be doing because it definitely wasn't a stroll through nature. My favorite part of the hike though was toward the end when we were walking on the paved road to the bus and I suggested we switch sides of the road so that we were facing oncoming traffic and that way we wouldn't die on the side of the road. Kaylee just goes "I don't care if I die," summing up the entirety of our day. Exhausted and partially annoyed, we were all ready to be done and get home.

Once we finished our hike, the next stop was a bathroom and then home. They wanted to make the bathroom stop a dinner stop as well, so we drove for about an hour and 45 minutes before stopping again to use the bathroom and grab some food. Then finally it was home free. Another 5 hours on the bus, playing name that tune and dancing like freaks in the middle of the aisle and finally we are back in London. It was a great trip but it's nice to be back to the familiar.