London Day 7

Well yesterday was a day trip to Stonehedge and Bath

Tada!
Jami and I

It's great when you are placed in a screensaver

Supposedly the rocks heal or make you fertile and you can feel a vibe from them if you almost touch them. Basically what it is is that the rocks are really dense so you can feel the heat waves coming off but when you touch them they're cold because they're good conductors. Facinelli (my teacher) asked if I was a science major after I told her all of that haha

We really loved those rocks

Bath is where the Romans, after they conquered Britain in 43AD, had their baths. Obviously. There is a hot spring that has been running for thousands of years

Jenn and I waiting for the rest of the group. Picture courtesy of Chase

Group picture

By the bridge over the river in Bath

It was a long day but a decent relaxing trip. Last night we spent the entire night doing homework but I guess it is study abroad

London Day 6 part 2

Here are some pictures from what I was telling you guys about yesterday

-Jami and I eating our lovely cheap meal at home
YUM

We found the bird woman while we were wandering around lost

By St.Paul's Cathedral

St. Paul's

Day 6

Well no pictures for today because I'm using Jami's laptop while she sleeps (yes she did give me permission) and I don't really want to mess with uploading pictures on her computer and then worrying about them. Plus, I'm really tired and have a huge amount of homework that needs to be done for my 2 classes on Tuesday.


Well this morning the 5 of us (Myself, Jami, Chase, Angie, and Jenn) went over to St. Paul's Cathedral again and got a group picture in front of it that we need for one of our final class projects. After we got our picture we went to church there. Yes..... a Mormon went to an Anglican church. And wellllllllll... let's just say I'm not converted. It was okay. The lesson had a good message about service and was given by a woman which surprised me but the meeting as a whole was just all repetion and chanting. One reason we went was because the cathedral is closed to visitors today and also when it's not closed tourists have to pay 10 pounds to get in. So we went to "worship" instead. We did leave about half way through but so did a lot of other people.



After St. Paul's we had some lunch. Jami and I brought along some sandwiches we made today. We just sat outside in the lovely sunshine and talked and then took a few more pictures by the side of the church. When we first got there the church bells are ringing which sounds really cool and is awesome to listen to but after about 5 minutes of bells it just becomes a bit if a nuisance.



About 1:30 we split our ways. Jami and I caught the Tube to church and the other three went to a football (soccer) game. The meeting started a bit late & we went to a singles ward. It was.... lame. No one even talked to us at all. We were absolutely invisible. After sacrament meeting we talked to the bishop and asked him for the best way to get to the London temple and since they are going there June 12th they had exact directions printed out so we got a copy. Too bad they're going after we leave London. Jami and I were really tired and she didn't feel so well so after that we went home and managed to get a little bit lost on the way but guess what? I looked up at the sun and figured out which way was West which helped to navigate our way home.



Once we got home I made a quick dinner. A real dinner. I was impressed with myself. Jami and I scarfed it down and now as I said before she is taking a nap so hopefully she will feel a bit better.



That's all for now. I think we may wander over to Hyde Park later. It's 6pm now but it doesn't start really getting dark here until after 9pm which does not aid us in going to bed and getting up early.

London Day 5

Okay well this is just gonna be mostly pictures because I've been in this hot computer lab for almost 3 hours now and it's been a looooooooong day.



Today I went on an all day trip to Oxford.



Here is baby Jesus at the Christ Church

The entrance to the Great Hall at Christ Church (only referred to as the Great Hall though in the Harry Potter movies. Above me is where Umbridge hung her Ministry of Magic decrees)

The steps at Hogwarts in the 1st movie where McGonagall talks to the 1st years

Items for a true gentlemen. There are a lot of shops like this

The scene in Harry Potter where Malfoy turns in to a ferret was at this college in Oxford but it was closed when we were there due to people graduating.

In front of a church called St. Michael's or something

This one is for Tabi

The Radcliffe Camera

The inside of the "Great Hall" which had to be electronically modified or something for the movie because it's too small

Celine in the Christ Church

Ice cream truck. Some girl came up to the people in line and told them to leave because it was a bad ice cream man and there was another place on the next street that gave you twice as much ice cream for the same money

My Thai lunch. Sooo delicious. Chicken and cashew and egg fried rice

Some beautiful buliding in Oxford

Bike anyone? there are hardly any cars in Oxford. Just buses and bikes

People like to sing and play their instruments everywhere here. There's almost always someone in the Tube. I actually liked this guy though. He was singing the Hallelujah song. I'm not sure of the title but it was in Shrek.

Christ's Church courtyard

The end. Now I leave. Hallelujah.

London Day 4

I just wrote this entire blog and then it deleted on me. So frustrating. Well Friday we started out the day with running a few errands since it was our first day off. One of mine was to mail my first postcards and of course since I am a typical tourist we took pictures to remember the moment.


After that we took the tube over to King's Cross Station. Does that name sound familiar to anyone? Hopefully it will if you are a Harry Potter fan.

Yes King's Cross Station... that magical location in the middle of a muggle world where Harry Potter first steps into the wizarding world.

Well due so all of the muggle tourists that have most likely been searching for this special location, a platform 9 and 3/4 appeared and as muggles we were able to stand at the wall and wish to go through but alas! (as Dumbledore would say) the wall would not let us magical folks in. I wish y'all (yes I now have a Texan accent since I've been living in London) could see my facial expression more properly because it would make you snort with laughter. I think I was a little bit too happy about visiting the platform. Everybody else was quite excited to go too. There are quite a lot of Harry Potter fans although I can't imagine why you wouldn't be one.

[Angie, Chase, Jennifer, Me, Jami]

For lunch we stopped in at a local pub and had a pint or two. Or three. . . Actually while there Chase informed us that this was his 4th time having fish and chips in London which is pretty sad because we hadn't even been there 72 hours yet.

After lunch we went over to Trafalga square where they kindly put up signs to remind the world of London's demon pigeons. Those people from Mary Poppins shouldn't have given the bird woman their tuppence (??). They are creepy little birds. They follow you very closely and will not be moved unless you kick them although that doesnt always work either.

At the base of a monument for some short guy that won a war there are the 4 lions made out of French canons that I mentioned previously. Well, we decided to climb on those lions like little French children. And guess what? we had a lovely time. BTW, if I mentioned this previously I apologize but the short guy that has a statue at the top of the monument was shot and died about 10 minutes into the battle he won so they needed to preserve his body until they returned home so they picked him in a barrel of gin. Well it turns out that when the barrel got home it was only half full and there were holes in the barrel about the size of straws. I guess some sailors got thirsty.

There are also 2 fountains out in front of the National Gallery/in Trafalga Square. We walked through about 100 rooms in the National Gallery looking at paintings from artists like Van Gogh (you know that painting with the sunflowers in the vase? ya I saw it from about 2 feet away), Da Vinci (one of my favorites), Piccasso (I cannot figure out why he is famous), Monet (okay artist.), and Turner (my new favorite painter). After about 2 hours I wanted to collapse. Art is not my thing. While walking down the streets we decided to try on some of the latest London fashion? Gorgeous, right?

Later on we walked back over to the House of Parliament/Big Ben/Westminster Abbey/the London Eye/the Thames River. Ya they're all in basically the same place. Saves walking time I guess.

These lovely coppers were in front of the House of Parliament. Although you probably cannot tell, I think I am grimacing or have a look of fear on my face. Want to know why? The bobby on the left said to me while the picture was being taken "I'll hold you just like this since you're such a lovely looking lass" or something very close to that. Policemen are not supposed to be strange like that. And no he wasn't just joking. He was a creeper. The guy in the giftshop at the National Gallery had already taken care of the flirting for the day. My heck.

Ain't it just so cute?

This woman was my failure dresser for the day. Her denim skirt turned into capris. At the same time that is was a skirt. Ew.

A group photo at Trafalga Square. [Chase, Angie, Jennifer, Me, Jami]

This was one of my photography shots for the day. It's at the edge of the Thames river which here is pronounced "Tems" Jami thinks that the London Eye makes a nice hat.

This is some Victoria garden that we crashed in on the way to St. Paul's (which we never reached). We never figured out what the building was. We all just sat on a bench (well Jami was on the ground because we ran out of room) for about half an hour because we were too tired to get up.