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dear readers:

I am going to Scotland tomorrow and I'm leaving Bingley (name of my laptop. tentatively. if you think of a better name, let me know.) in London, so I will get you all up to speed when we get back!!!
I hope I see lots and lots of kilts.

love,

kylie in london

update!

I have been dreadfully unfair to my faithful readers. Lo siento. Get ready for the update of this past week. I'll start with Tuesday, since you already heard about the Tower of London on Monday.

tuesday:

We had class this morning - our Brit Lit class, which consisted of a discussion about the Sherlock Holmes novel we read this past week and then an hour-long grammar lesson. Apparently there were some problems with our papers that we turned in last week....

After class, I took the Tube by myself for the first time, which was rather exhilarating. I took the tube to Tottenham Court Road to get to the British Museum, where I met up with RACHEL AND WALLIS!!! (They are my roommates from BYU, for those of you who don't know. Rachel lives in England, about 45 mins away from London. Wallis came to visit Rachel for a week.) So, I met up with them and it was a surreal thing to hang out with them...in London. Still it was awesome to catch up with them!

The British Museum was awesome, too. I saw very amazing things, like the Rosetta Stone, Parthenon Sculptures, Egyptian hieroglyphics, and mummies. I forget how much I love history until I am face to face with it.

After the British Museum, we went to the National Gallery, since Wallis hadn't been there. I love the National Gallery. So far, it's my favorite museum in London. We went through and caught some of the more famous paintings. I think that I will have to go back one more time to finish up at my leisure.

After our museum time, we got yummy 99pence ice cream cones and ate them as we chatted and stolled through Leicester Square. That is how cool we are. Unfortunately, that was the end of playing with roommates in London, since I had to be back at the Centre for Evensong at 4:45, but I had the best time with Rachel and Wallis!

For our post-dinner adventures, we went to Picadilly Circus (the times square area of london) to get tickets for a show called "39 Steps." It was a mystery play (a.k.a. we got extra credit for our british mysteries class for going), but it was very funny. The amazing thing is that there were four cast members and they played several parts each. I love going to plays here and that one was just delightful.

wednesday:

Anyway, today we hopped onto our coach to drive a short (it felt short compared to our long excursions last week in cornwall – it was really about 1 ½ hours, which still isn’t bad) distance to Oxford. I have been so intrigued by English universities. Here is how English universities work, including Cambridge: it’s made up of lots of different colleges that are like their own little teeny university and altogether they make up what is known as “Oxford.”

I wish we had had more time to wander around and explore Oxford and I wanted to find the bookstore, but instead we enjoyed the wonderful scenery and I’ll buy a sweatshirt on Portobello Road. We got a tour of one of the colleges by a student who actually goes there, which was really fun and interesting. She was super cute too! I love the English fashion scene…well, a lot of it.

Anyway, Oxford is beautiful! The college we saw had quads where you can’t walk on the grass and it’s so pristinely kept and the building are so old. Lucky us, we saw a boys’ cricket team in uniform, which was great. Everything was so old, though, and you could tell it was absolutely seeped in tradition and history. We toured the Cathedral at Christ Church college at Oxford, which is the smallest cathedral in England. Also, the place where they filmed the Great Hall for Harry Potter was closed to the public (lame), but I consider a pilgrimage mostly complete for we took a picture by the stairs that lead to the Great Hall. Yes, the very stairs. Yes, I am a Harry Potter fanatic.
After Oxford, we drove only a little further to Bleinheim Palace. May I just express and emphasize how much I LOVE castles and palaces…royal residences. It was stunning, breathtaking, awe-inspiring! The palace is still in use by the 11th Duke and Duchess of M---- something….Anyway, they still live there, so we tour the other wing that is open to visitors. The palace was gorgeous inside – don’t laugh, but I kept getting real visuals for my novel! It was so ornate and so elegant!

AND THE GROUNDS!!! The gardens and fountains were stunning! They had paths, and pristine grounds and a LAKE and I LOVED EVERY MINUTE OF IT!!! It was so expansive that I just wanted to run forever and fly kites and frolic and skip and laugh! I feel so free here!!!

thursday:

After class, I went with several girls to the Imperial War Museum, even though I’ve already been, I only saw the last floor when I went. Today I went to the other floors, which included the Holocaust Exhibit. It was an extremely sobering. By the end, I nearly felt…hmm, what’s my word…sick. Sick about what a horrible thing it was. I found it to be good to go, but it’s not a pleasant experience.
So, to establish emotional equilibrium, we got ice cream after the museum and then went to Primark, which is a huge store full of wonderfully stylish cheap clothes. I bought black tights (a London fashion must-have), black sweatpants, grey tights, and black flats. I’m not emo, I promise. :)
We ate a wonderful spaghetti dinner and then a few of us went to see a musical called “Blood Brothers.” I had never heard of it, but we had excellent seats and I quite liked it. I was unfamiliar with the music, and it wasn’t particularly memorable music, but the story was shockingly tragic towards the end. The acting was fantastic, as the actors portray themselves from ages 7 to late 20s. I thought they were super talented.

Apparently, thursday was our half-way day. And I'm feeling pretty sad about that, actually. Still so much to see and do in London!

friday:

hello! this morning we went to the London, England Temple!! We took the Tube to Victoria Station, and then we a train to East Grinstead, where we took a taxi to get to the temple. All in all, it's about an hour and a half each way. The temple is absolutely beautiful and the grounds are amazing. It was a perfect clear day today - a perfect temple day. Also, we planned and scheduled with the temple ahead of time, so that there would be enough workers in the baptistry. It was a wonderful, fabulous experience!!!

Starting today, I am on kitchen duty, which means I help with dinner prep starting at 4 in the afternoon. I was in charge of washing dishes after they were used in making the dinner and then using Hobarth, the sanitizer.

happy london!!

the tower of power

I don't particularly know why I called the post what I did. I think I just like the rhyme. And it leads you to my day on this beautiful Monday.

WE WENT TO THE TOWER OF LONDON!

But, before that, I must describe my excitingly independent morning. I woke up a bit late, even after eleven hours of sleep, because I have a wee bit of a cold, so I figure the best way to rid myself of this hinderance is to get a little more rest and eat more fruit. So, I woke up at 9:30 and showered and then I headed over to Whitley's, which is a mall sort of place, but they have a grocery store there called Marks&Spencer, where I proceeded to buy a bag of clementines and then I stopped at a little kiosk to buy chocolate-covered cranberries to munch on during the day. I then stopped at Starbucks on my way back to the Centre, and bought orange juice and a muffin. I ate my breakfast on the front steps of the Centre, already feeling much better.

Okay, so here's the exciting part of the day: the infamous Tower of London.

I have always been so fascinated with the history of England, especially with Henry VIII and his wives and I know there's so much more about the Tower of London than just Henry, but that is what introduced me to the Tower of London. Then, I learned more and more about it. I can't explain it all now, but you're welcome to read more about it here.

So, we get there and I did NOT realize how huge it is! We meandered along the wall and into the towers and on the green and in the White Tower and saw where Anne Boleyn (among others) was beheaded, and read about the history or the place and I soaked every minute of it in. Some of you may know why I needed such acurate mental/photographic evidence of the place....

Anyway, I loved the Tower of London!!!

We came back for dinner, ventured out for dessert, and I took some photos of the London Centre interior for you to see where I live. Some people went out to see a movie tonight, but I need to get my rest because I'm planning on getting better by tomorrow.

this is our parlor/front room. awesome. and that's all for now, folks.

I LOVE LONDON!!!

cornish pixies

Our English road-trip to Cornwall was absolutely amazing!! Cornwall is the the southwestern-most part of England and it's beautiful!

I left you at our second day in Cornwall. We left our hotel in the morning and made our way to Tintagel. Tintagel is my very favorite part of our Cornwall trip. It is the supposed birthplace of the supposed King Arthur. It is very epic, there. Seriously, that is the word to describe this place: epic. Castle ruins upon cliffs. Again, epic.

Also, Cornish pasties are very delicious. Like handheld pot-pies. Mmmm. One of the very best things that happened to us was the DVD market stand right before we got back on the coach. Everyone (okay, twenty of us) chipped in a pound each in order to buy all 5 Harry Potter DVDs. THAT is what I call bus fun. Harry Potter is magical.

After a delightful (oozing sarcasm) coach ride, we went to a random beach. I'm really not sure what it was called, but there was nothing there except the beach and I loved the beach. It was a jacket beach. (There are jacket beaches and swimsuit beaches. This was a jacket beach.) It was just invigorating to breathe that fresh sea air and to run around on the sand! The water was freezing, but it was SO clear and I love the sound of waves crashing epic-ly on the rocks.

Yes, I love beaches. Even jacket beaches. Actually, especially jacket beaches. You can be pretty sure I was the first one with my shoes off running towards the water whilst everyone was watching with their shoes on from a safe distance. Eventually they all followed my lead. I'm pretty much a trend-setter.

We made it back to the hotel in Polperro, where we swam in the posh swimming pool. Then, we had good times by about ten people coming to our room, where we made hot chocolate and read Harry Potter aloud (using voices). Best day ever!

Our last Cornwall day (yesterday) was a day that began with us waking up just as the fog was rolling in over the beach and we could hear the foghorn and the waves. We left Falmouth after breakfast. Today was a rainy little day and I’m glad that it was rainy today instead of yesterday when we were hiking around on cliffs! Our first stop came after two hours of restless bus sleep (I did fall asleep but I was exhausted by the time I heard Dr. Durham’s “wakey, wakey….”).

We toured the Exeter Cathedral and had lunch (mmmm. Pasties.) before climbing back onto the bus and driving another two hours while watching Harry Potter 2, which came in the set that we all chipped in to buy for bus fun.

After our long middle drive, we arrived at Jane Austen’s home. It was the cutest little place; actually not really little because it had two floors, but it was just super quaint. I could totally imagine the little lady that was Jane Austen creating her Elizabeth Bennett there. It was really very charming.

And I did not want to get back on the bus.
But I did. And I got some sort of foul excuse for sleep until we got back to Palace Court. We ate a fun little place called Nando’s and I had a chicken pita and “chips” a.k.a. fries before coming back to our flat in Palace Court. I should have gone to bed. Instead, I watched a movie up in the classroom.

I'm not gonna lie, I have either allergies or a cold. Which means it's time for bed now. I'll catch you up on today tomorrow.

I LOVE ENGLAND!!!!

status

so, i cannot wait to tell you about the rest of our trip to Cornwall, but since we got back tonight, everyone in the Centre is using the Internet right now, which slows it down. But, we're popping in a movie so I'll hang out for a while and maybe people will drop off and go to bed and I can suck up their internet. :)

polpero rocks my world

Okay, get this: we left on a road trip, while we're already on a trip! Trippy.

We left London and drove for a total of four/fiveish hours today. Today was quite drizzly - just a side note. Our stops included the beautifully rustic and charming town of Polperro. It is a coastal village and it was gorgeous! The tide was low, so I walked across the damp sand, feeling the sea air blow and play with my hair as I climbed the rocks to view the panaroma of the village on one side and the open ocean on the other. I would love to come back to this place.

Our other stop today was a brief stop in Truro, to look at the cathedral.

Our final destination, which we have not fully explored yet, is another coastal town called Falmouth. We are staying in a Best Western hotel, and it's right across the street from the ocean! I lucked out on my hotel room, too, because our room has a balcony facing the ocean and I can hear the waves crashing steadily from right here on my bed. I loved the sound of the ocean. But, I can testify that this ocean is freaking freezing. Yes, I got in. Submerged. Completely. Only three of us can proudly claim that we got into the ocean all the way. Swimsuits, underwater, salt water, freezing cold, then running back across the street to the hotel to get in the hot tub (which wasn't hot) and then a nice warm shower, followed by pleasant chatting amongst friends. I have the best life.

this is the view from our hotel balcony. awesome.

I LOVE ENGLAND!!!

sunday, monday

If you didn't read my huge post from last week, do that. If you have, proceed to read!

The above picture is me outside our church building in Kennington. It's a half-hour tube ride away and ta-da! I go to the Spanish-speaking branch, which is a little intimidating because my Spanish is a wee bit rusty, but I love it!

Sunday was Mother's Day, so it was awesome to skype the fam.

Our fireside on Sunday was given by the stake president, and he told us about when we was growing up in London during the Blitz. It was super interesting and he was the cutest old English guy ever.

Monday was great, because we did so much! Just like we do everyday; cram our days super full of awesome London-ness.

Our day began with a trip to the National Portrait Gallery, which was interesting, but not as cool as the National Gallery. I liked the modern portraits the best, but another good one was the portrait of Shakespeare that is supposed to be one painted from life. History abounds in this city.

After a few snaps of the gorgeous skies in Trafalgar Square, we went to the Orangery at Kensington Palace. mmmm.

Following a quaint lunch at the Orangery, we went to an area called Little Venice, because of the canals. It also was very quaint.

After dinner, a few of us went to Pizza Hut to get pazookies, which are absolutely divine. Perhaps a new favorite dessert. We came back to the Centre and wrote our papers for class (due tomorrow) whilst watching Becoming Jane in the classroom. It just made me happy to remember that I had seen James McAvoy in real life this past week! :)

thanks for reading, my faithful readers!

i love london!

dear mom

i love you.

p.s. keep checking my past post! i just got it all done yesterday!

i don't mean to overwhelm you

Dear faithful readers,

May I offer a sincere apology for leaving you hanging. Our internet here at the London Centre has been quite sub-par this past week and I finally am getting some service here, so I'll try and catch you up the best I can!

Love, kylie in london

tuesday (cinco de mayo):

A couple girls in my room and I went around all day wishing everyone a happy cinco de mayo, which was funny for some reason. Maybe it's because we're in England. I don't know. Either way, happy cinco de mayo! Today we had our British Mysteries class and had an interesting discussion regarding the book we read for class: The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole. I really like my class; it's interesting, it's fun to discuss literature, the professor is great, and we're in London.

After class, I spent the morning and some of the afternoon doing reading for next week's class. We're reading Northanger Abbey for next week. Then, a few of us went and bought tickets to see a show...

Yes, yes, that's right! I saw WICKED!!! I have all the songs memorized thanks to the CD that Mom and Dad bought in New York a few years ago, but I have never seen it myself...until now. And you know what? Everyone says this, but I loved it! I thought it was so fun and the performers were incredible! I can't wait to go back and see it again....yes, I think I will. Our seats were awesome, too - ten rows back, smack in the middle of the row. Lucky day? I think so.

Another exciting announcement from Tuesday: since we haven't had hot water the whole time we've been here, Dr. Durham said that because we've been such troopers, they were going to pay for all of us to go on the London Eye!! Yay!

wednesday may 6

This morning I camped out at the Centre to read more Northanger Abbey before several of us went on a another one of our Walks. This particular walk took us to the Chelsea area of London. It was a long, exhausting sort of walk, but exciting to be walking around London, just admiring the history around every corner. And enjoying taking pictures of streets where fictional people live...James Bond perhaps....

After getting back from the Chelsea walk, we ate dinner (always SO good), and then ventured out once again for another walk, this time on the South side of the Thames. Good times in London, tonight:

This is our gelatto stop in Leicester Square, which is a happening, busy place in the nighttime, so we got our treat and sat outside and just chatted and people-watched. London is the best place to people watch - it's even better than the HFAC! :)
And we decided to have another grand adventure after our gelatto, so we found the theatre and the stage door and waited for this guy:

This is picture of James Mcavoy (he's in Becoming Jane, Wanted, Atonement...) was taken by yours truly! We got there early enough to be right in front when he came out of the stage door and we were right in front of him. He signed a scrap of paper I had and I said "thank you" and he smiled and said, "Thank-you. Cheers, darling!" Yes, James Mcavoy said it to me. He was super personable and made sure he signed everyone's papers and said thank you to every person for whom he signed.

Good day.

thursday may 7

Today was another class day -European Fine Arts. This class consists of discussions such as "What is good art?" and then assignments to go to the main museums in London and fill out assignment sheets. A good class? The answer is yes! My group has to present on the Imperial War Museum, so we went to check it out today. We spent an hour in there, splitting up the museum by floor. I had the basement floor, which was about the two world wars. I found it to be very interesting. Very sobering, but very interesting.

After the Imperial War Museum, I met another group at the National Gallery. The National gallery is gorgeous and HUGE with SO MUCH ART!!! I spent nearly two hours in there, and I know I have to go back to catch the rest of it. I LOVE art museums and just to spend my sweet time taking in all of the amazing pieces. I love seeing the pieces in real life after studying it from a powerpoint presentation. Can't wait to go back to the National Gallery!

Following dinner, our group traversed across the Thames again to be about as legit as it gets; we went to the Globe Theatre and watched a performance of Romeo and Juliet! The real Globe watching Romeo and Juliet! I know! The performance was fun and I loved it! I had another one of those I-cannot-believe-I'm-actually-here-in-London moments during the play.

friday may 8

Today we pretended to be posh. In other words, we went to Harrods. That place is insane, like a museum instead of a store. I wonder that they can stay in business, since no one can afford to buy anything there. It's fun to look, though. The food galleries were amazing, too. I did buy a yummy ham and cheese croissant for lunch and then a beautiful raspberry tart. Nearly the only place in the store where I felt like I was allowed to touch anything was the childrens' book section, where I had to buy the Bloomsbury edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. I just love it! It is the original way that Harry Potter was published, with the original cover art, as opposed to the new stuff in the other bookstores. I'm so happy about my Harrod's purchase!

Following the Harrods adventure of the day, we came home to eat our yummy foods, since eating in the store was absolutely out of the question. After that, I took my first warm shower in two weeks!

It was bliss!! I have been taking ice cold showers since we got here and to take a long, warm shower was one of the best feelings ever!

Our adventure for tonight:

We sat front row balcony and I loved it! It was so so so so good and Enjolras won the prize for being my fav at this performance but Jean Valjean and Javert and Eponine were closely tied. I love that musical! Seriously, musicals are up there on my fav things ever list. The music for that one starts and I get the chills. There is good theatre here. Of course.

May I just go on for a bit? Thank you.

I am in love with this city. I love nearly everything about London. I love the atmosphere, I love the Centre, I love the sights, I love the tube, I love the Thames, I love the skyline, I (mostly) love the Londoners, I love the people in my program, I love the gardens, I love the wrong-side of the street driving, I love the pubs on the corners, I love the accents, I love London!
I LOVE LONDON!!!

saturday may 9

Saturday is market day! So, we went to Portobello Road to grab a bite to eat before heading down to Westminster to catch a ferry. Getting to Westminster was tricky, since the Circle Line of the Underground is out of service this weekend, but we made it there and got on our ferry up the Thames to Greenwich (up the "teh-ms" to "gren-ich"). Our ferry driver was a delightfully sarcastic fellow and we got some good pictures whilst riding up the river.

Just so you know, you can check out more pics on Facebook, but loading pictures on Blogger takes like forty hours (gross overexaggeration. really, about two minutes per picture.) So, I choose carefully. Anyway, our charming ferry took us to Greenwich, which is famous for being the place of the Prime Meridian.

This is Greenwich. Super quaint!

We visited the "Queen's House", which was a let-down, except the cool architecture and beautiful views it offered. It was built for royalty, but hardly any royalty ever lived in it. It's full of art of military victories. From there we hiked up the hill to the Observatory where the Prime Meridian line is. For some reason, I found it to be really fun to stand across the Prime Meridian. I mean, who chose that spot for the world's time to start? I dunno....

Pretty views, though.

After spending some time (haha, i'm so funny) there, we went down to the Greenwhich market and bought lunch before heading back to London.

After we came back to the Centre, I ran my laundry in these awesome dryers that actually dry my clothes! Love that! It's been a while since my clothes have come out a dryer fully dry! It was a day to catch up on normal life stuff, such as laundry and chatting with the fam.

For dinner we went to a pub a little way down the block and I finally had fish and chips, which I find to be a delightful meal. Finished it off with gelatto and that makes one very happy girl. Good thing we walk so much...a line from You're Got Mail comes to mind: "[She's] a fat guy! Yep, [she's] a fatty!" That's what would happen if we didn't walk so much.

Tonight we watched a movie up in the classroom and then a few of us gathered on the stairs and read the first chapter of my new Harry Potter book aloud to each other. All in all, it was a great day.

I LOVE LONDON!!!

whew! and that catches up the week you've all missed. I apologize for the lack of Greenwich pictures...I am unable to upload them now. A picture of me astride time will come at some point. Hopefully the internet won't be so sporatic this week and I won't have to overwhelm you with so much adventure at once! :)

my new favorite places

I have SO much to tell you all, so tuck in for a long haul of storytime!

On Sunday I got to sleep in (hallelujah!) because the branch to which I got assigned doesn't meet until 2 in the afternoon. Which means I slept in longer than I should have, but I needed that sleep. Next week, the four of us who have later church (everyone else leaves the centre by 9:30) are going to go on Sunday picnics in the park and look at the Sunday art. It will be our "Sunday Morning Finer Things Club."
The branch where I go to church is 45 minutes away on the tube, changing once until we get to a real chapel, where I attend the Spanish-speaking branch! Yep! I come to London and I'll get to work on my Spanish. And I know now, if I didn't know before, that I need to work on my Spanish. I can pretty much understand unless they speak really quietly, but speaking it back is a little bit harder. I will be in the Primary during Sharing Time, helping with whatever they need me to do. Yesterday, I played the piano for them because they are practising to sing for Mother's Day. I love it! I got really really really tired though, during Sacrament Meeting because it's later in the afternoon and I had to concentrate really hard to what was being said. I can't wait to go back, though!
We had a fireside on Sunday evening up in the classroom given my Dr. and Sister Durham. Then, we should have gone to bed because of our early start today (Monday) but instead we played games down in the kitchen, which was totally worth it despite the 5:30 awakening time this afternoon.
Yes. We woke up at 5:30 to eat a breakfast and pack a lunch for our day trip today. It was very very very early, but we all managed to amble out to the bus a.k.a. "coach" by 6:30. It was a lovely coach - not one of the charming charter buses that have that crusty circa-1970 casino rainbow stripe down the ceiling and funfetti fabric on the seats. It was a classier, cleaner, more English bus. Complete with bags for our rubbish.

so, this is my morning bus face...i'm pretty cute, i think.

Our first destination? STONEHENGE!! Okay, call me nerdy, but I have always been so interested by Stonehenge and I was so excited to get to see it in real life. Usually people walk around the stones with an audio tour ("and on your left is a large rock..."), but our group came early and our directors swung a sweet deal: we were the only ones there and we got to go up right to the rocks and touch them and explore them and feel the ancient spirits of mysterious millenia past. Really though, it was the coolest thing to explore Stonehenge right up close! AMAZING!

It is right in the middle of the gorgeous English countryside. Seriously, the rolling hills and greenery and fields of wildflowers is simply breathtaking. It is exactly what I imagined, but better because I was living it!!

Our next stop after Stonehenge was a quaint little place called Wells. We toured the Wells Cathdral, where I took about a zillion pictures. I love cathedrals, and we got to take no-flash pictures in this one. So I took advantage of that and took lots and lots and lots. Also, the guy that gave us the tour reminded me of the historian guy on Monte Python that gets run over. Awesome.

The town of Wells is super quaint. I would quite happy to live there, I think. We also toured the gardens of the Bishops' Palace next to the cathdral. I'm not sure exactly the function of the Bishops' Palace...probably a place for the clergy of the cathedral to live in centuries past. In any case, we had fun taking pictures in the lovely gardens.

The town was great, because they had a maypole in the middle of the cobblestoned town square, while playing some Frank Sinatra whilst we bought hot chocolate in order to get a free muffin as well. England is fantastic!

After Wells we drove next to Stourhead. Look familiar? It is where they have one of my very very fav scenes from the new Pride and Prejudice - the epic DTR scene in the rain. Yes, yes, I was there, and I stood in the very spot where Mr. Darcy first declares his love to Elizabeth Bennett! I feel like a very girlish part of my inner soul was completed today. :) The gardens were absolutely breaktaking, too. I LOVE ENGLAND!!!!

Then, the three-hour bus ride back to London. I slept as much as I could on the bumby road, but I hated to miss the countryside out of the window. It was absolutely gorgeous!
It was amazing how happy it made me to pull into Palace Court. Some friends and I booked it for the Pizza Hut (nice, sit-down, take-a-long-time restaurant here) and snarfed our faces before coming back to the Centre, where now we sit watching Pride and Prejudice in the kitchen whilst typing our various blogs about the fantastic day that we had.

I LOVE ENGLAND!!!

p.s. sorry that it took so long to get these pictures uploaded. hope you like them!