The Week Songs Got Stuck in my Head

So, I'm totally not in the mood to do this right now, so apologize upfront if this isn't as entertaining as usual. We're going to return to the good old bullet point form.

• Monday-- I have to admit that I don't really remember what happened. I figure that I spent the first part of the day in class, and the latter part writing papers (we had three papers and a test due this week). Monday night was exciting though because President Chiddick (the one we went on the country walk with in the beginning) came to talk to us about the Blitz in London. It was really interesting to hear him speak. I had a lot to do so I was presssed for time, but I wouldn't have minded him talking longer at all. He was pretty young when the second world war started in Europe, but he can still remember a lot of it because something like that is kind of impossible to forget. He lived over where Canary Wharf is now, which was one of the poorer areas of town that got bombed really heavily. He told us about how when the war first broke out they sent him and one of his brothers to live in Wales with a random couple. Apparently in most cases the people that the children went to live with weren't volunteers, but it was something that was required of them and children would just be dropped off at their house if they had space. I think he said that they were there for a couple of years, and that their father only came to visit twice and they never got to see their mother. On the second time their father came he took them home with them. At the beginning of the war the bombing that the politicians and stuff said would come never happened, so people started to think that it never would so some of the parents took their kids home because they thought it was safe. It was really interesting to hear how much of a community thing the war was; obviously I've always known that but I never really realized to what extent it was. He said that everybody was required to something, even if they weren't fit for the army. His father worked with the fire brigade. They took the water from the Thames to fight the flames from bombings and such, and his father told him that at one point of the war the water in the Thames got so low because it had been draimed so much that you could walk across it from canary wharf to grenwich. That would have been a lot of water used for fighting fires... After President Chiddick was back in the city he said that the bombings would start as soon as the sun went down, and then wouldn't let up until the sun rose the next morning. They had a little bomb shelter like everyone else in the backyard where they would spend everynight. It was a small space, and the ground was just a little dug out area with dirt. Apparently it would fill up with water when it rained and you would just stand in it. He also said that they turned out all of the lights in the city, and that you could see the planes that were coming to drop bombs in the spotlights that they had. He and his brothers thought it was kind of exciting since they were so young, but he figures it must have been terrifying for his mother. He also talked about the food rationing they had. The food rationing actually didn't stop until a number of years after the war. He said that when the American soldiers were all over London before D-Day they were all known for the gum that they chewed, because it was something that they didn't have at London at the time. They had very small sugar rations, along with other things, that for weddings the brides would just make cakes out of cardboard and then decorate it to look like a real cake. Also as precautions no bells were allowed to be rung in churches for the entire time of the war, and they took down all of the road signs so if troops parachuted down from the enemy they wouldn't know where they were and it would delay them for a little bit. I'm pretty sure that they haven't put all of them back up. You've probably heard a lot of this stuff before, but it was really interesting to hear it from someone who had experienced it first hand. We learn about it in text book so it seems like it was forever ago, but it really wasn't. On a less serious note on Monday I also got horribly distracted and went shopping instead of doing all of the homework I had planned on...

• Tuesday-- I don't recall doing anything on tuesday other than homework and class (this might be a lie, everything blurs together by the end of the week) until after dinner when the whole program went to the Opera. I actually enjoyed it a lot. We had fun getting dressed up and stuff. It was a National English Opera (so they sang in English, thank heavens) production of Verdi's Aida. It was really well done. I wrote two whole pages on it for my humanities class (so far I'd never broken a page for those things) so that says something at least. I'm still a long way from watching operas for fun, but I liked going to this. Yep.

• Wednesday-- Field trip day! It's like we're in elementary school again but way better because our field trips are so much cooler and we have at least one a week. Life is good. So wednesday we went to Hampton Court, which is another Palace just outside of London. The architecture of this one was really interesting (you can tell that I'm in humanities) because half of it is Baroque and the other half is tudor because they ran out of money and such halfway through the rennovations. I like the Tudor side better because its cool and old and we've already been to a bunch of Baroque places. We got to run around there pretty much all day and check out things like the King and Queen's apartments and the massive kitchens that would serve 600 people. It's also supposed to be haunted by Catherine Howard, Jane Seymour and others which is a plus. Sadly we did not see them. We did however get to make fools of ourselves taking pitures in the gardens and making a music video of "I Love You Baby" which can be viewed on facebook. We also got to eat lunch in the restaraunt there because the program has so much extra money now that the exhange rate is so much better now. Commoners would have never been able to do that before, so that makes us cool I'm sure. After we got back we took advantage of one of the few open weeknights we have left to go see a musical! Oh yes. We saw Les Mis, which was amazing. I'd never seen it before so I had a lot of fun. Plays in the West End are beyond amazing, and the tickets are so cheap with student prices. Even when ou factor in the exchange rate their a lot cheaper than even like the traveling shows. So it's our goal to take advantage of that.

• Thursday-- More class and such. You're getting the idea. After class though my mystery class went to the Imperial War Museum to see the Bond exhibit they had there. That's right, more Bond. It was pretty cool. They had a bunch of stuff on Ian Fleming and cool old Bond gadgets and such. They even had blood-splattered shirt Daniel Craig wore in Casino Royale. Good stuff. After the war museum we ran and got tickets for Lion King. Amazing. All of the dancing and costumes and everything was awesome. Plus, who doesn't like the Lion King?
  

• Friday-- We actually broke the pattern by not having class, but I did have to start out the day by waking up early and taking a test. But we made up for it by going to Borough Market. It's a huge food market and it is really tasty. I had a banana toffee muffin and frechly made pasta and freshly pressed apple juice... And this was all actually homework. I wish all of my homework involved going to outdoor food markets in London. Also for homework we went to Fortman and Mason, which is an incredibly upscale grocery store. It's been open since 1707 in Picadilly and you used to only be able to go in there if you were of a certain class. We went in there in jeans and we were seriously under-dressed. To go grocery shopping. They had the coolest food there, but I couldn't really afford it. After looking at lots of expensive things me and Annie decided to go on one of our walks for class, so we did the theater walk since we were already in Picadilly. We'd already been everywhere the walk had been since we've been to so many plays, but it was a lot of fun and we took a lot of pictures and such. That night I had to pay for my fun by buckling down and writing a paper though. But now I'm pretty much done with all of my homework until after Paris! So it was worth it. Plus nothing is ever open at night in London.

• Saturday-- It was a lovely day filled with joy and happiness. We went on the Little Venice walk, which was pretty nice and relaxing, and then we walked to Camden market where I may have accidentally spent a good amount of money and enjoyed every moment of it. The market just kept going forever and it was beautiful. So we spent lots of time there, and then came back to the center where I met up Kelsy and we went to Spamalot. Spamalot was just a ton of fun, especially since they made fun of other musicals like Phantom and Les Mis. Suffice to say we had a lot of fun.Today-- Went to church like normal and we got to watch a video in primary! I think I was just as excited or more as the little kids. We watched The Pincess and the Pea Chronicles: The Faulty Falcon where we got to learn that judging people is bad. So make a note of that all you boys and girls.

By the end of this week I had a weird mixture of Aida, Les Mis, Lion King and Spamalot stuck in my head. They're all good seperately, but a little strange together...

And now I get to go to Paris for a week! It's like a week off from school, but a thousand times better because we'll be in Paris. I love college trips. We had our meeting for it tonight and it consisted of them giving us money, maps, a metro pass, a museum pass, and then telling us that basically we can do whatever we want until we leave on Friday. I love my life.

Outside of the Opera House
St. Martin's in the Fields at Night!

Chillin' with Henry at his place.

The Tudor FrontLooking cute on the Baroque side

This is more like it.

Eating in the massive kitchen

Fresh Christmas meat anyone?

I'm glad that they know Portland is so great

Les MisLion King!Little ViennaA Little Sample of Camdenspamalot!

We Plunge into the Big Pit

This was another one of those weeks where I can't remember what happened in the beginning. Monday seems like it was a month ago, and we probably did do a month's worth of stuff. I thought we had no time in the beginning, but that was nothing compared to this. But I'm loving every minute of it! Well, I guess not so much the minutes that involve writing papers.

So, as per tradition the week started with Monday. Monday and Tuesday we had a church history trip, so we got up super early and got onto the coach as usual. We were half awake only 10 minutes away from our first destination when BAM! they tell us what we're doing. Professor Wimmer was just doing his normal little spiel about where we were going when all of a sudden we finally get the details about what we'll be doing. We knew we were going to a coal mining museum before, but what they had failed to mention was that the mine is the museum, and that it's 300 feet under ground. That woke us all up pretty fast. I'm actually glad that they didn't tell us what we were doing earlier because I don't think that going into the coal mine was something I would have wanted to think about a lot. Oh, by the way this is in Wales and was at the Big Pit. Look it up. It's still considered a working mine. It was funny because when we got there we had to wait in a line first, and the line wrapped around and there were several TV monitors where you could see other people about to go down and stuff and we're all like "it's just like Disneyland!". And then we realized that this was actually real. Minor difference. "Miner" difference. Haha. Ok, I got that out of my system. Basically this place ended up being awesome. After waiting for a little bit we went over to the lift where we were given real hard hats with sweet lights and packs to go around our waists equipped with the battery pack and an emergency air filter. We knew this place was legit when they made us hand over our cameras and other electronics that had batteries so we wouldn't accidentally start an explosion while we were down there. Then we got to descend down into the pit all packed into an elevator that Amber wouldn't have liked at all. Being down in the pit was the same and different than I imagined at the same time. It was really dark, so you couldn't see past where the group was, but the lights on our helmets actually lit up the area pretty well. The mines themselves were pretty damp, and the majority of the time we were walking around we had to duck our heads because the ceilings were so low. When you weren't too focus on not hitting your head or stepping in a mysterious black puddle you could see the veins of coal in the sides of the walls. All of the tour guides are former miners, so we got to hear all sorts of first hand stories while we were down there. He started working in the mines when he was 18 in one of the smallest parts of the mines. He had to lie down to saw at the side. Apparently the whole time it was wet and the water would run down through their shirt and come out of the bottoms of their pants. Another story he told was about the rats. They kept live horses down in the mines (we got to see the stalls where they were) so they would feed the horses down there, which would attract the rats and there wasn't really anything they could do to get rid of them. So apparently he was working down there one day when all of a sudden he heard a massive group of them coming his way and they just all swarmed over him. He said that all he could do was get down and put his hands over his face. That doesn't sound like much fun at all. He told us the story when he was talking about the little boys that they used to employ to open the doors. They didn't give the boys any light, so they would just stand there in the complete dark with a cheese sandwich in their pocket. And then the rats would come. Not fun. It was while he was telling us these stories that we got to experience total darkness. We turned off all of our lights, and all that was left was the dark. You seriously couldn't even see you hand in front of your face. I tried. And then you just heard the dripping coming from down the mine... I loved going down there. Once we went down I was actually perfectly comfortable, but I couldn't imagine working there all day every day in the dark. It's one thing when you're on a tour, but it's another when you're working their day in and day out in horrible conditions. Not to mention how dangerous it was. They told us a story (while we're still down in the danger zone of course) about a single spark that set off a massive explosion in one of the mines. 400 people died-- almost the entire community. I couldn't imagine that kind of devastation. And then even if those types of accidents didn't happen just breathing the air and being down there was horrible for your health. Our guide said that he went on strike for a year to stop the mining practices in England when Margaret Thatcher was PM. There are still some smaller mines in operation, but in England at least mining is pretty much a thing of the past now. When we were talking to someone at another stop later in the day he remarked what a special experience it was to go down in the mine now because we were able to go down with someone who used to work in the mines, but that in 30 years or so there wouldn't be anyone left with that first hand experience. Going down there was by far the best part of the trip. It's hard to fully appreciate what it would have been like to work there until you see it for yourself.

Ok, we're still on Monday but that was such a massive paragraph that I figured that I better split it up or else everyone would be so intimidated they wouldn't even try to read my blog. Oh, a little side story before I move on to our next adventure. While we were waiting for the lift to take us back up our guide did what everyone here seems to do-- he started talking about the election. Seriously as soon as we start speaking and they figure out we're American the first thing they start talking about is politics. And I'm not even talking about just this week, it's been the entire time we've been here. It doesn't matter where we are either. I've had the exact same conversation at the art gallery, Chartwell, at a street vendor, in the bottom of a coal mine... It's really interesting to hear what they say. First off, they all love Obama. They also think that someone is going to assassinate him. Their conspiracy theories can be quite entertaining. Most of their views tend to be kind of hypocritical though, and it's really starting to get on all of our nerves. They tend to think that they know everything. We've had several ranting sessions to vent our frustrations so we don't take it out on the next innocent Brit who tries to make casual conversation about the election on accident. But enough of that. We'll now return to Monday's activities.

After descending into the pit we wandered around the mining buildings for a bit and then went to the Natural History Museum in Wales where they had a ton of buildings from all different time periods. It was pretty cool. We got to explore and take more ridiculous pictures. We learned that houses back in the day were really dark, but not nearly as dark as the coal mine.

We crashed for the night in Cardiff, which would have been pretty cool since it's the capital of Wales, but unfortunately it gets dark insanely early now (like 4:30) so by the time we got there you couldn't see anything. We attempted to find our way into the city from the hostel but we only made it as far as Tesco (a grocery store) where we bought candy. So we just spent the night avoiding doing our reading for class by talking in the hostel.

Fortunately the sun did come up the next day, so we were once again able to go out in the world and do things. We didn't stick around in Cardiff though. Instead we headed for good ol' Tintern Abbey because I'm with a big group of English majors and Wordsworth wrote a poem there. I think the real objective of this program is to retrace the steps of Wordsworth and Jane Austen. The ruins were really cool though. I like ruins. They're way more fun than un-ruined things. So we got to explore the grounds there, and of course the gift shop as well. No stop is complete without a trip to the gift shop. We also had a really nice moment when the group all came together and we started singing hymns in the center of the abbey. Even though the roof was gone the place still had fantastic acoustics. That was probably the best part.

Then we returned to England, where we stopped in the sweet little town of Ledbury to scavenge for food. I got a tasty smoked chicken and apple sandwich at a little cafe with Michelle, in case you're wondering. It was quite enjoyable. We also went into a little homemade chocolate shop where I got the best mint truffle ever. Then we all met back up as a group to start our church history tour of the area. We actually met up with the same tour guide we had in Preston, so that was pretty cool. We started in town, and then we got back on the bus and drove over the the Benbow farm, which was nearby. The Benbow's were early converts to the church in England and their farm is the center of a lot of church history in the area. The church had a huge amount of success in the area, so a lot of what happened there ended up shaping the church back in the states as people immigrated to Utah. We also got to see the first chapel that the church had. It's pretty much the cutest little church I've ever seen. The church actually didn't own it anymore for a really long time, and then just a few years ago some members in the area saw that the farm the church sat on was for sale and they all came together to raise money to buy it at the auction. Apparently before someone had just parked their tractor in there. Now it's been all refurbished and people can go to visit it like we did. Oh I forgot, prior to visiting the church we hiked up this huge hill/mountain where the apostles would meet and reflect on things. It was absolutely gorgeous. You could see for miles up there.

That was then end of the trip. But don't worry, this chapter of my blog is not yet over because there are still five more days left to report. I told you that we did a lot. Wednesday was a pretty normal day. From what I can remember (which isn't much) I just went to class and did homework until dinner. Boring, I know. But don't worry it gets better because after dinner I went to see Zorro the musical! Those of you who are acquainted with my Zorro obsession (all of you need to watch the 1950's TV show now) will understand what joy this brought into my life. It's a brand new musical that just started this summer and it's awesome. There was fire and fencing and stunts and flamenco dancing and it was basically all one giant fiesta. Definitely one of my favorite things that I've seen so far. Viva El Zorro!

Sadly Thursday did not involve Zorro, but it was a great day nonetheless. We had class in the morning, but then afterwords I finally went to St. Paul's (the program went the day I was sick). It's massive and beautiful. All of the design on the inside is just so intricate and detailed. Also, yesterday just happened to be it's 300th anniversary. They had a huge festival and people got to go in for free. But I didn't go then so let's backtrack to Thursday when I did go. I basically just wandered around, and then wandered up the millions of stairs to the stone gallery where you can get a great view of London. The very top is closed until February, but I got to go to the almost top, which was almost as good. After St. Paul's I went to the science museum for my British studies class where I got to see some of the first steam engines. They're huge and can't even produce as much power as a kid on a tricycle, but you got to start somewhere. So I stayed there for a while and then walked home through Kensington Gardens to get back in time for dinner. After dinner our program went to the Mousetrap, which has been playing continuously for 56 in the West End. Crazy, I know. It's the longest running show in the world. It's an Agatha Cristie mystery, so that was pretty fun.

Friday was a good day. More class followed by going to get tickets to Hairspray and then returning for dinner and then going to Hairspray. It was fabulous. You really can't stop the beat. Nor would you want to. It's also fun because some of it is different from the movie.

Saturday was quite possibly one of the best days I've had in a long time. We didn't have anything scheduled for once, which was glorious. I probably should have used all of that free time to write my three papers that are due this week and start studying for my test, but that would have been lame. Instead me and Annie decided that since everything always closes early we could go enjoy the day and then just work on homework at night. So part one of our grand day out was the Lord Mayor's Show, which is a parade that has been going on for 400 years. The grand finale of the parade is the Lord Mayor (riding to somewhere important to do some traditional thing ) riding in an carriage made of real gold. The English go all out. We got soaking wet (like literally soaking wet. My shoes were mush) but we decided that it was totally worth the experience. Plus, the only parade Annie has ever been to was in Ogden, Utah and I'm pretty sure that does not cut it. I have to admit that as fun as this parade was though that I still like the Rose Parade better. But, I am a loyal Oregonian.

After we saw the golden carriage we went to the Tate Britain, a art museum, where we were good students and looked at the paintings we were supposed to for humanities (of the romantic era, for those of you who were wondering) while attempting to dry off a little. We succeeded a little bit, but unfortunately it was raining even harder on our way back to the tube station. But, when we arrived at our next stop, the National Gallery, we emerged from the underground to find that the sky was temporarily blue. So we smiled and then looked at the rest of the paintings for class in the gallery after running into one of our professors. By the time we were done at the gallery we were starving, so we headed off to Covent Garden where we decided to go have fun because we're fun loving people.

I officially love Covent Garden. On Saturdays they have a market set up there with all sorts of entertainment. They also had toy stores. I LOVE toy stores. I bought a toy mini cooper to add to my collection (I believe this will be my fourth little one to go with my big electric one. Now I just need someone to give me a real one) and mostly just loved life. They even had a classic little store that looked like it came straight out of the 1800's, which it probably did. Just to give an example of how awesome this place is, when we came out of one of the toy stores there were street performers outside. But these aren't just your ordinary street performers. No, there was a five violin ensemble playing classical music, with the occasional opera accompaniment. Where else does this happen but London? So we just had a fantastic time completely losing ourselves to the atmosphere and forgetting about all the stress of school and trying to find out where to live next semester and enjoyed ourselves. We even got the most delicious beautiful looking cupcake. It was banana toffee and came from a adorable little store. I decided that life couldn't get much better. The sun went down though, and so we decided to head back and do "homework" after we ransacked Mark's and Spencer for food (including a tub of cookies) for Sunday. Then we went home and took wonderful warm showers to get the feeling back in my toes and watched two movies (Penelope and Casino Royale) while "doing homework". It was seriously the perfect day. I could live in it forever. Did I mention that I love London?

Finally we make it today, Sunday. It was a much more relaxing day. We had stake conference so we went to that, and then I locked myself in the library where I attempted to write people on facebook back and stuff. I really apologize for being so bad at that. Please don't take it personally; I barely have time to check my email. But know that I love you! Consider this blog as a personal letter to you. These things seriously take me like four hours to do since I have so much to write about and the internet here is about as fast as a snail.

Well, until next time! Enjoy this assortment of pictures. I'm going to sleep.

Going down!

Our goal was to avoid getting the Black Lung.

Us at Big Pit

Do You Know Where We Are?

The Cock Pit

Sheep!

Can You Find All of Us?

Tintern Abbey

I Knew that You'd Want A Visual of My Sandwich

The Streets of Ledbury

On Top of of the World! Ok, maybe not quite.

I think this represents what goes on on our trips pretty well

The Cutest Little Church Ever. Nice Contrast to St. Paul'sView of London from St. Paul's

The Mousetrap

Viva el Zorro!

The Vikings took over the London Streets

Santa! Who doesn't like Santa?

Newspaper boy!

Sweetest Taxis Ever

The Grand Finale all Decked Out in Gold

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.

Canterbury Cathedral

The spot where Beckett's remains used to be.

Winston Churchill's Bench

Winston Churchill's House. Can't tou tell?

Super Sweet Hats

Bond!

We had to take pictures like this. It was like required.

Paparazzi style Prince William shot. I'm kind of ashamed.

The theater

By the end I'll have a picture of Big Ben from every anglethe Prime Meridian My side of the hemisphere is so much better than hers
The Bond Girls. Don't mess with us.

Bond Girls meet Harry Potter. We had fun.
The beginning of the walk today.

Random Cool Street We Didn't Even Know Existed

We Also Found Giant Turtles