A Snippet of the Week

Monday – March 26

                Rented peddle boats at Regent’s Park.  Sooooo much fun.  The weather has been great, so we spent a relaxing (well, it was relaxing for me, because I just chilled in the back while my friends peddled) afternoon out on the pond.  An interesting fact – the ducks are veeeery fast and we did not succeed in running any of them over despite our best efforts.  After we got some delicious ice cream and that night we saw “War Horse”, a FANTASTIC show.  I thought it was going to be cheesy and dumb, because they use huge horse puppets, but it was one of my favorite shows I’ve seen in London.  After awhile you didn’t notice the puppeteers because they made the horse look so real and move exactly how a horse would.  A great play, and definitely worth seeing.  And yes, that puppet horse made the whole audience cry their eyes out.  An interesting tidbit – British audiences rarely give standing ovations to anything.  American audiences stand and applaud at basically every performance they attend.  But at least half the audience gave “War Horse” a standing ovation.  Pretty impressive.

Best weeping willow ever

Tuesday – March 27

                A continuation of the great sunny weather!  I went with my friends to the Victoria and Albert Museum that afternoon.  A GREAT thing about London is that all the major museums are FREE.  It’s fantastic because you can just take an hour out of your day and pop in and out of any museum.  I think all museums should be free.  You don’t feel like you have to spend an entire day looking at every single thing in a museum, because you can come back anytime.  Well done London.

                Then we got lunch at Nando’s, a great place near the center, where we got chicken sandwiches.  After we snagged some doughnuts at a bakery and ate them at Hyde Park on the grass.  I love living so near Hyde Park.  I can go running there in the mornings or spend an afternoon reading on the grass.  It makes me excited to get back to Provo and resume my bike rides to the park.  Ahhh, I miss BikeFriend so much!  This summer will be filled with LOTS of bike adventures around Provo.

Inside the V&A

Hyde Park

Wednesday – March 28

                Class trip to the Imperial War Museum.  This museum has tons of tanks, weaponry, missiles, and war memorabilia.  We just studies WWI in our history class and it was great to see actual items from WWI simultaneously.  It’s been really interesting to learn about history from the point of view of the UK.  They emphasize different things and state different reasons for getting into the war.  It’s not extremely different from the history we’re taught in America, but Britain emphasizes more of a stiff upper-lip and states different reasons for their involvement in wars.

                The museum had a section dedicated solely to the holocaust that we spent the most time at.  It reminded me of the Museum of Tolerance in LA that I went to in Middle School.  The entire exhibit was completely silent except for a couple movie clips that were playing in a couple different rooms.  It was a powerful exhibit to say the least.  I still can’t believe that something like that happened in our history and I hope we never allow it to happen again.

                That night I went to “39 Steps” with Mikelle and Lyssa, another GREAT play.  This play only has 4 actors who play over 139 roles!  It’s a mystery and is just about the funniest play ever.  Another great thing about living in London – you can just go snag some tickets an hour before the play.  We went over and got £15 tickets an hour before and got great seats.  So awesome!  This play had me almost crying it was so hilarious!  

Imperial War Museum

A piece of the Berlin Wall outside the museum

Oh, and 'Ripley's Believe It or Not' was right outside the theater.
Here I am with the tallest man on earth 

Thursday – March 29

                ANOTHER sunny day!  The weather has actually been pretty good this whole semester.  It’s only rained about 8 times and snowed once.  It’s been chilly for the rest of the time, but overall it’s been a really mellow winter.  And now the sun is coming out and life is great!  I went and read at the park and then met up with my friends to go bike riding.  London has all these blue bikes you can rent, so we rented some for an hour and rode around Hyde Park.  It made me miss BikeFriend soooo much.  But I’ll be reunited with BikeFriend soon enough.  I’d have to say that bike riding is one of my favorite pastimes, and this bike ride probably made my top ten favorite moments in London.

                That night I went to a playground with my friends that had a great wooden trampoline, a huge wooden circle that you can spin and get really dizzy on, and a giant fast slide.  We had so much fun messing about and acting like kids.  A man came over and told us to “never stop having fun and playing on playgrounds!  No matter how old you are!”  Thank you sir, that’s exactly what I intend to do.  It was a blast, and I almost threw up from getting so dizzy.  It was a great warm night and I laid down on the grass, looking up at the stars to keep from falling over from dizziness.  You could see a couple stars out and I just listened to the night sounds of London.  London really is a great place.  There is so much to do here and it’s easy to go from one area to another all the way across town pretty easily.  You’re never bored in London (especially if you have great friends like I do).  I’ll miss the excitement and the fast-paced life I’ve had here.  It’s been a great experience and I’m so glad I’ve been able to have had so many adventures in the past few months.  The rest of the night consisted of making muddy buddies and consuming basically the whole box.  Delicious.

Friday – March 30

                Class trip to Kew Gardens!  Great weather AGAIN (YES!!!) and Kew was beautiful.  There weren’t a lot of flowers (because they’re just coming out of winter and are just beginning to plant the flowers) but the grounds were beautiful anyways.  We got to go into several greenhouses and my hair ended up curly and huge from how warm and moist they were.  We saw water plants and some fish in one area, and I hurried through that area.  Fish just really creep me out.

Greenhouse at Kew

Inside the greenhouse

More greenhouse

On the walkway above the treetops in the greenhouse

Creepy sea-worm

The reason I have nightmares

Don't talk to him.  So disturbing.

Trees in bloom :)

               One cool thing there was the tree-top walk, where they had a short walk high up where you could see the tops of the trees.  The trees were still bare from winter, so it wasn’t very pretty, but hey, I got to walk among the tree-tops.  Oh, and Kew had several wild peacocks and chickens running around the grounds.  How exotic!  And kind of terrifying because it took me back to when I was about ten years old and was chased by killer roosters on my Grandpa’s farm.  I tried to keep clear of these chickens, because you just can’t trust a chicken.

The tree-top walk

Add caption

Pretty high up!

The peacock.  Obviously.

Demon chicken that ran right in front of me.

Raining tree blossoms at the station :)

   That night I went to the Turner exhibit at the National Gallery.  I LOVE Turner.  Turner and Monet are definitely my favorite artists (both Impressionists).  Turner had a great style of painting – he uses broad, light and airy strokes and paints nature scenes.  He uses pastel colors and his paintings are soft and blurry.  I love the emotions in his artwork and his use of watercolors.  A fantastic exhibit.

My favorite piece in the exhibit

Countdown for the Olympics outside the National Gallery

 Saturday – March 31

                We went to Portobello Market to do some souvenir shopping and to check out the fun antiques and booths.  Portobello Market is my favorite out of the Saturday markets in London.  Borough Market is full of creepy food and weird meat, Camden is full of creepy punks and Goths and things they would like, and Portobello is full of awesome antiques and joy. 

\

BikeFriend's cousin at Portabello

Trees in blossom :)

Walking through my neighborhood 

My home for the past 3 months

                 We hit up the Army Museum to see a War Horse exhibit for Lyssa’s history paper (free museums!) and then went to a free outdoor chocolate festival.  We imagined it would be an awesome festival with free samples, beautiful displays, and much joy.  It was like 14 small tents with expensive chocolate and lots of people.  Not so cool. 

I was taking this pic and this lady turned around right as I was taking it.
She looked at me like I was a total creeper!  But it was HER fault she was in my pic!

                We went back to the center and from 5-7 we watched general conference in the classroom.  It was definitely a new experience.  It made me miss being home and watching conference in Bakersfield with the whole Chipman/Davis clan or in the comforts of my apartment.  But you have to make do with what you have.  In between sessions we got dinner at Tuck-Tuck, a DELICIOUS Indian restaurant near the center (get the sweet and sour chicken.  I get it every time) and then from 9-11 PM we watched the second session of conference.  REALLY weird to watch conference and then go to bed for the night.  But conference was fantastic as usual and I loved seeing some of my girlfriends who are in the MTC right now in the choir.

March 24, 2012

That morning we walked through York to see some of the old medieval part of the city on our way to York Cathedral.  The city of York has retained much of its medieval structure, with timbered houses, narrow, winding streets, and cobbled roads.  It was a cute little city, and in some parts cars aren't allowed to drive in the street, which was awesome.  European drivers never give pedestrians the right of way so I've been run over a couple times.  

The Shambles

A foggy morning walk to York Minster

Early morning in York

                York Minster is England’s largest medieval church and we were treated to a great tour by an adorable tour guide who was sure to show us all the funnier quirks about the cathedral.  He showed us a carving of a cat chasing a mouse right under one of the deceased archbishops, a series of archbishops who had the same face, a pane of stained glass that depicted the upside-down crucifixion of Peter but where it had the face of Christ (they have to take the stained glass out to clean it and had mixed up the heads when they put it back in), and a tomb for the wife of a prominent member of the church who had died in childbirth (this was her 25^th child that finally did her in).  

York Minster

Archbishops with the same face

An angel playing the bagpipes

Cat and mouse

                York Minster has stunning stained glass and contains over half the medieval stained glass in England and our guide explained the lengthy process they have to go through to clean it.  One wall had the glass taken out to be cleaned and he told us it would take years to clean all the glass in the cathedral.

Some of the oldest stained glass in the cathedral.
It's over two stories high!

Oh, and Mickey Mouse is commemorated in York Minster.
Check it out.

After York Minster we had our (*tear*) last bus ride back to London.  It was a good long four hour ride, so we had lots of time to say sad goodbyes to our faithful bus driver, Phil.  We ran off the bus and kissed the solid ground of London.  I went with my friends to see the Thames River at night and, in a true American fashion, snagged dinner at McDonald’s.  Overall a very successful week of traveling.