The Exhaustion Is Hitting Me

Edinburgh
Abbotsford

Harry Potter Castle

This week was full of interesting experiences. Bright and early Monday morning we hit the bus to head to Scotland. We did so much in so little time, but I'll just give you the highlights and not bore you with the less interesting details.

City of York: I loved the feel of this town. Even though I'm getting sick of all the Abbeys we go to, it was definitly worth it to go to Yorkminster because you could climb to the top and the view was spectacular.

Castles: I'm truly obsessed. I don't know what my fascination is, but I seriously love all castles. So you can imagine my excitement when I found out we were staying at a castle! Who knew you could even do that? The castle we stayed at was the same one where Harry Potter was filmed. You know I'm gonna claim that.

Durham: The trip as a whole was filled with gorgeous views that I can't even do justice by describing. But behind the Lake District, Durham was definitly the highest ranked when it comes to eye appeal. We were only there for 12 hours, but Kylee and I managed to go running twice just so we could soak up as much of the views as possible. There was this river you could run along and it was the most serene area!

Ambleside: the best way to describe this place is a little sailor town. I was so fun. We went on a boat ride, and it was freezing, but there were castles so I was fine. I decided that 20 years from now I'm going on my second honeymoon there. Ha I have my second decided, but not my first.

Hostels: okay now I'd like to think of myself as a girl who can endure quite a bit when it comes to rougher areas. The first couple nights I was surprised by the cleanliness of the hostels we stayed in. However, our final night was the sickest thing ever!! We stayed in this one hostel and the whole thing stunk or urine and there were spiders EVERYWHERE! I seriously didn't know how I was going to sleep there. If it hadn't been so cold and windy I'm positive it would have been more sanitary to sleep on the grass outside.

All in all Scotland was great!Scottish people are super friendly andthe more north you go, the prettier it gets. Now I have 9 days left in London and then back to Provo. I feel like I've accomplished all I wanted to and been to MOST of the places on my "London checklist".

Are you in the que?

Hen Party
Hampton Court Palace

the Jordans flying a helicopter


Portsmouth

This week has been a riot. And looking back, I feel like this week started two weeks ago. I swear the time goes by so slow. I think it's becase we try and cram so many activities in one day, plus keep up on schoolwork, plus keep in touch with our peeps on the mainland. It's exhausting, let me tell ya.

Wednesday we went to Portsmouth. It's a quaint little town on the coast. Finally saw the Atlantic. It was just like the Pacific. We saw some really interesting navy historical sites. I would bore you with the information, but I've spent the past couple hours doing papers(while facebooking and ipoding and organizing pics, I'm a really inefficient student out here). Anyway it was fun to have a little change of scenery. I really missed that ocean smell, it was good to be by the sea again.

Thursday we had a midterm. Our time here is half way over....CRAZY! I'm too scared to check my grade. I went on blackboard but chickened out and didn't even log in. I'm such a baby. Anyway, to celebrate we went to Hyde Park and layed out. It was actually kind of chilly, but I just feel like my skin is getting so white here.

Friday was very eventful. We went to this place called Hampton Court where King Henry VIII resided. I feel like most historical sites in London are themed around King Henry VIII, he was a big dea though. He started the Reformation because he wanted a divorce from his wife and the Catholic church wouldn't recognize it. See, I'm learning lots out here. Annnnnyway it was beautiful. The gardens were amazing. I could have just hung out there all day. But we had to get home because we were going to see Les Mis! Which was great. I wish I had a little more energy when watching plays. I feel like I'm always worn out here so anytime we do an activity where I'm sitting in the dark, it takes a lot of effort to not doze off. Don't worry though, I stayed awake for the whole thing.

Saturday=favorite day of the week. We went on this 9 mile walk in the country side. So BEAUTIFUL! I know I say that a lot on my blog. But I felt like I was in a fantasy land or something. I've decided that if I ever live in England, it would be in the country. We went and saw these lavender fields and they were unbelievable. Hands down the prettiest field of any other crop. We also saw a couple castles. I really love castles. Then that night we all went out to Hard Rock Cafe for a Bachelorette Party. One of the girls here is getting married four days after she gets home, NUTS! Don't worry, of course she is younger than me. Haha but bachelorette parties here are called "hen"parties, and bachelor parties are called "stag" parties. We were lucky enough to run into some fellow henners, but they were much more intoxicated than our group. Quite entertaining.

Bonjour!

Palace de Versailles

Kylee

View from the top of the Eiffel Tower

Eifell Tower

Louvre

Baguettes!

Arch De Triumph

Notre Dame

Montmarte

We had a "free weekend" this past weekend where we had no school activities from Thursday-Saturday so 7 of us girls took off to Paris. Crepes, pastries, creme brulee, baguettes, the food was SO GOOD. I'm actually so grateful I'm not in Paris on a study abroad because I'm sure I would gain so much weight.

Fortunately, we were able to fit a week long's worth of activities into 50 hours. How, you ask? Well you sleep very little and you go through each museum at turbo speed. This probably wasn't the best way to really observe Paris, but it was a blast! I felt like we did so much but out of Montmarte, Notre Dame, Arch De Triumph, the Louvre, the Eifell Tower, and Palace of Versialles I enjoyed the most cliche out of all of them:the Eifell Tower. The girls I was with had to do some convincing to get me to go up to the top, but I'm SO glad I did. The view was beautiful. Paris at night=most gorgeous sight EVER.

Even though I enjoyed Paris, not everything was perfect. We had some interesting run ins with guys on the Metro. Literally, our first step onto that thing and guys were using the little english they knew to hit on us. One guy even said "How are you?" and then before we answered he said "Good Morning". Haha he must have just put the only two lines of English he knew together. Also, we had some hotel issues. Basically, I'm 99%sure that the movie Taken was filmed into the hotel one of my friends booked and everything about it was super sketc. So, naturally we spent a total of half an hour there and cut our losses and went and found another hotel.

Since I only got to be in Paris for a weekend I have decided that I must go back and spend more time there. Being there for only a little over 2 days was kind of a tease. Nevertheless, I'm so glad I went!

Cheers!

Big Ben

Wicked!


The Group

Stourhead

Pride and Prejudice

Bath

So pretty!

Stonehenge

Sorry I'm the worst blogger ever. It's been over a week since the last time I updated, but I have been kind of busy and I try not to be on the computer too much. BUT I have made a resolution to keep my blog more up to date, so we'll see how it goes.

Last Monday I got the chance to go see As You Like It at the Globe. I actually wasn't very excited because I didn't know this play very well, but It was a great play! It was really funny and it was so cool being in the Globe. It was such a good atmosphere. Afterwards we also just hung out ad checked out the London Bridge, which is so pretty at night. I feel like a lot of things in London are a lot prettier at night.

Wednesday was a big day for the Study Abroad program. Our day started with Stonehenge. I decided that it was built for a really intense game of hide and go seek. No, I'm kidding. Kind of. But no one really knows the reason it was built. We spent about 45 minutes just listening to all the different theories of why it's there. The bus driver said it was a way to get tourists to pay to look at some rocks, haha,he was pretty amusing.

We then headed to Bath and spent sometime exploring the Roman Baths. I decided if I ever get the chance to come back and live in the UK(I know dream on, right?) I'd want to live in the city of Bath. There were such nice people there and there was the most beautiful river running in the center of the city.

Finally, we went to Stourhead. What's that? Wellll this is where Pride & Prejudice as filmed. As you can imagine, the girls in my study abroad we're soooo pumped about this. Personally, I'm one of those girls who falls asleep when Pride and Prejudice was playing(I actually did sleep the whole bus ride because they had this movie playing) I thought Stourhead was going to be really boring. I was so wrong. Most beautiful place I've ever been. Hands down. Gorgeous lakes, massive trees, and the cutest bridges everywhere. Oh and the gardens were insane! If you ever get the chance to go there, DONT PASS IT UP!

Thursday was a big day. Wimbledon, round 2! haha. It was SO HOT! I was dying. But we spent a good 7-8 hours watching tennis. One mixed doubles, One girls doubles(not gonna lie, kind of boring, I just don't think I like girls sports that much, unless it's serena) , and one men's doubles. I think the men's doubles was my favorite. The match was so close, and so long.

Friday we went to Southall and explored 3 different Indian temples. Different experience, that's for sure. It was interesting to see how different they worship. It really strengthened my testimony and made me appreciate how sacred our temples are to us. It was weird for me to just watch others in their temples because I always consider the times I go to the temple to be so personal to me. I would be a little taken back if someone was just observing while I did baptisms.

Friday night I got to go see WICKED!!! I had seen it in LA last summer, but I actually enjoyed it more in the Victoria theater here. Any of you who have seen Wicked know exactly how happy I was on Friday night. It was great. Go see it if you haven't.

Saturday we spent in Portabello Market, which is a massive market north of Hyde Park and there's TONS of tourists. It was so packed. But there was food, clothes, jewellery, pretty much anything you can imagine.

Tonight I get to go see Chicago! I'm so pumped.