Island Rubies: Bond and Churchill Duke It Out

This week might be the winner for most things crammed into seven days. I'll do my best to remember what the heck I did.

Monday-- The day started with class, which while I'm sure that's the part you want to hear about the most I'm not going to write about it. When class finished I rushed out to try and do the Whitehall walk for my other class and I totally succeeded in doing it in two hours. It was actually a lot of fun. The weather was cold, but beautiful and the walk took me past all of the administrative type buildings in London and past 10 Downing Street, which is the UK's equivalent of the Whitehouse. And I took lots of pictures, like the one on top. I had to be quick in order to get back in time for our next adventure, to a reading of a new play. The Benfell's (the director and his wife) know a play write from back in Provo, and he's trying to get a production of his play put on in London next year because it's about Handel writing the Messiah and the 150th anniversay of his death is next year. So we got invited to go to the reading where they invite people who would give them money to put it on. It was very cool. We had our names on a list to get in, and the theater was very small so it was nice and intimate. It was fantastic to just see another part of the process that we don't usually get to. Even though the actors were reading from their script it was still really funny and I loved it. When the play finished I finally made it back home, where I promptly got distracted from anything related to homework and went and got some gelato with Annie and Michelle. Then I finally started working on the first of two papers.

Tuesday-- Tuesday started with my first run in forever. It was glorious, but absolutely freezing, which was something I hadn't anticipated. I only did one lap around Kensington Gardens and I thought that all of my limbs were going to fall off. Luckily they didn't. After my run I had more class, where I learned stuff. Then our program went to the matinee program of Oedipus. This was mostly cool because Oedipus was played by Ralph Fiennes, who plays Voldemort. So that was pretty sweet. The actual play was pretty interesting just because I've studied it before and they did it in a more modern style, but mostly I feel like you just watch stuff written by people like Sophocles because you think it's somehow good for your brain. When the play was over we attempted to buy advance tickets for Quantum of Solace, but ended up getting chocolate covered cookies from Marks and Spencer. Then I decided it might be time for me to try and write my paper again. Just when I thought I might be concentrating on my paper it started to snow, and all hope of getting anything done went out the window. Apparently snow in October is like some kind of a record here. It only stuck for a couple of minutes, but it was a lot of fun while it lasted. A couple days later a guy told us that this is supposed to be the coldest winter since the 20's. Figures it would happen while I'm here with limited clothes...

Wednesday-- Wednesday was day trip day, and we started at the inhuman hour of 7 AM. Meaning we had breakfast before that. But I grudgingly will admit that as always, it was worth it. Our first stop of the day was Canterbury, which was pretty cool to go see just because I've heard the story of Beckett being murdered in Canterbury Cathedral about 20,000 times since I was admitted into the program. I've even watched the Schama video on it twice. Plus it was cool to go there since so many people have made a pilgrimage there over the years to see Beckett's remains, which were supposed to have healing powers. Of course now people just make the pilgrimage to see the spot where his remains used to be. Luckily we didn't walk there, which would have been way more true to the whole pilgrimage thing. We definitely took the coach, which I appreciated. So the Cathedral was cool, and we got to wander around the town which was pretty cute. They had a market set up which is always fun. After hanging around there we all met up at the coach again and headed off the Chartwell, where Winston Churchill lived. It was pretty cool to go in there and learn more about him. One of the volunteers there was great; he told us all sorts of stories about the house and about when they were filming the movie A Gathering Storm there. I definitely bought two quote books in the gift shop because I couldn't decide between the funny one and the serious one. I have to admit that I never really saw the outside of the house though, because it was all covered in scaffolding since they're going to put a new roof on this week. So even though I've been there if someone showed me a picture of Chartwell I'd have no idea where it was. When we got back to London the day was far from being over. We went straight to the tube station where we went to Leicester Square where they were having the red carpet world premier of Quantum of Solace. Ya. It was sad because we were really late since we had been gone all day, but we figured that we'd never have the chance again so it'd be fun to just go see what an event like that looks like. It was actually really interesting. The main square was roped off, and there were some people who got there really early on the inside in another area. We were on the outside, where you couldn't really see anything except the other people. Oh, and there were two theaters that people were going into to see the movie. One for the famous people, and one for random other people. Apparently we got there just in time though, because not too long after we got there they announced that Prince William and Prince Harry had just arrived, and of course they played the Bond theme song. We were there for awhile, and could only see the screen with footage of what they were doing and we were like "well, it's kind of cool to just know that they're there". It was cool because they were actually going around and talking to a bunch of veterans individually. Because they were socializing with every single person, they eventually made it over to our side where as the guy next to us so eloquently put it, we were close enough "to hit them with a baseball". It was pretty sweet and we actually had a fantastic view because they weren't very far away at all. So now when people sarcastically ask us if we saw the princes when we get back we can say yes. That was pretty much the end of the party there, so we took a thousand pictures in front of the theater and then headed to Pizza Hut because food is good. Unfortunately eating in restaurants in Europe seems to take a considerable amount longer than in the states we didn't get back to the center until like three hours later and I had to write my paper ridiculously fast because it was due at midnight. Let's just say Bond was a lot more fun than the paper.

Thursday-- More class. Class was followed by a "quick" trip to the Library and then the Soane museum. It ended up being that I couldn't find the book I needed for my presentation in mystery class, so I went to a ton of bookstores and never ended up finding it until yesterday night at bookstore number seven. I went to all of these stores instead of actually writing my mystery paper, which was due sooner. I also went to the Soane Museum, which I had to make up for from when I was sick. We were supposed to go look at some paintings, but the place was kind of creepy. This Soane guy must have been the definition of eccentric. It was just a little house, but it was jam packed with all sorts of statues and columns from neo-classical buildings and even a sarcophagus. Who has all of these things? There wasn't even any room to live. I expected some crazy person to jump out from behind a dark corner (did I mention that it was dimly lit?) in the basement at any second. They should definitely film a horror flick there. I didn't stick around there too long. The highlight of my errands was walking by a fruit stand where I got three amazingly delicious asian pears for a pound. I should have bought way more. Of course after my trip I got home just in time for dinner, and thus did not work on my second paper. After dinner we went to the Royal Festival Hall to hear Mozart (and another guy) being performed. I, being tired from the week, may have spaced out a little bit. But don't worry, I still appreciated its beauty. After the concert I'm pretty sure that I did something other than homework, but I can't remember what it was.

Friday-- Halloween! Friday was also a London Study day, so our whole program took a boat on the Thames to go check out Greenwich. The boat ride was a lot of fun and we took pictures as usual. It was also fun because a group of girls in the program dressed up as all of the characters from Peter Pan. They looked pretty fantastic. Anyways, back to the boat ride. It was really fun to be able to see the city from the water. We rode (boated?) past what is considered to be the financial capital of the world. It was really interesting, if that's even the right word, because the guide talked about the bad economic times. Apparently 30,000 people have been laid off in that area of the city alone. There was a big building with a hole at the top of it. He said that it used to be a major US bank. They took the sign down the same day the bank went under. Definitely rough financial times. But back to to happy thoughts. When we reached Greenwich they let us loose to go wherever we wanted (by the way, Greenwich is still considered to be part of London), so we went to the Royal Observatory where they keep the official world time. One of the girls set her watch there so she can now always claim to have the right time when people ask her. The Royal Observatory is also home to the Prime Meridian and they totally have a line there showing it. So we stood with one foot on one side of the world, and the other on the other side. Now my goal of being two places at once is complete. After seeing a giant telescope we went to the market, and then headed back to central London because a bunch of people had to do homework (lame). This marked the beginning of me and Annie's search for anything pumpkin flavored. It was Halloween and we wanted pumpkin chocolate chip cookies or pumpkin bread really, really bad. We went into every little pastry shop and grocery store we could find but had no luck, which was really unfortunate. We still haven't given up hope. Our first mission after we got back though was to get tickets for that night to see Quantum of Solace. We decided earlier in the week that to celebrate Halloween we were going to dress up as Bond girls and go see the movie, so we did that. We got the tickets, and then me and Annie went to High Street Kensington (which is only like a ten minute walk) to try and find "Bond girl clothes". We decided that pretty much everything there was Bond girl material. In fact, we think that must be where they shop. However, we realized that we don't have Bond girl money. We went to T.K. Maxx (just like T.J. Maxx, but with a K. Go figure) and tried on stuff for fun but didn't end up getting anything. Instead we opted to ransack everyone in the center's closets. It worked out really well. So we got all dressed up and then headed off to the movie, which was fantastic. Go see it now. We had a ton of fun getting dressed up, and even more fun taking pictures as Bond girls after we got back. We have a series of photos documenting Fred Weasley meeting the Bond girls. Good times.

Saturday-- I started the day off in the traditional day-after-Halloween tradition by eating candy for breakfast. It was only a little bit. I watched a the video for British Studies at the Wimmer's, and then continued my quest for the elusive mystery presentation book. I got back just in time to leave with the group to go see The Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde in Richmond. The first half of the show was really slow, but the second half was hilarious so it made up for it. The play was definitely like 3 hours long though, which wasn't so great for my paper writing. Of course, when we got back I went out to dinner with Annie at Tuk Tuk (tasty cheap Thai food on Queensway) instead of going to my paper. But don't you worry, because after that I went back to the center, sat down, and wrote my paper in exactly an hour. Then I went and watched the fourth Harry Potter with some people so we could celebrate the fact that we saw David Tennant and Ralph Fiennes live on stage. I also got caught up on uploading pictures to facebook.

Sunday (AKA Today)-- Today I woke up to the surprise that Alex, one of the other girls in my ward was sick and that I had the pleasure of teaching her primary class at church. I'm sure it was a quality lesson, considering I didn't even have the time to look at what the lesson was on. So I ended up giving a improv version of the story of Ammon from memory. Then the kids (who were age 4 to 7) got to draw what they thought Ammon looked like for the next half hour. There were also a few failed attempts to get them to sing involved. Overall I'd have to say it went pretty well though, because nobody died and the kids all seemed pretty happy at the end. After church me and Lindsay decided to go on one of our walks for class because it was just a beautiful fall day. It was a fantastic idea. We did the Holland Park walk, which is actually right in the area where we live. The walks are fun because we get to see a lot of the areas that we might not have found otherwise. The neighborhoods were really cool and there were all sorts or really sweet houses. It almost didn't even seem like we were in central London anymore. It was funny because it seemed like we were in a completely different area, but we were really just across the street. It was the perfect crisp fall walk. I'll have to go back. After the walk and dinner we had a group devotional where we sang lots of hymns which is always fantastic. Any excuse to sing hymns is always good. Then I wrote this blog. Then end.

So, that's it. Tomorrow we're going to Wales.

If this blog somehow wasn't enough reading for you, here's a link that has the cool history of the place where we live. So read it. Here's a sample, Ernest Shackleton the Antarctic explorer lived here. http://magazine.byu.edu/?act=view&a=1690

Toodles.