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!