two tours and a pastry

So as the title suggests my Saturday consisted of two tours and a pastry. So in the morning we took a tour of the globe theater.

Our tour guide was very animated and obviously loved his job. While we were on the tour we couldn't take pictures because there were actors rehearsing on the stage. It was really cool to see and I'd rather see that then take pictures anyway. After the actors were done we were able to take pictures.

The coolest thing about that was that one of the actors was Joseph Marcell who is the actor who played Geoffrey on The Fresh Prince of Bel-air. We also saw him later when we were walking from one tour to the other. I thought it was pretty cool but some people were totally freaking out over him, which I thought was kind of silly.

The thing I found most interesting during the tour is when the guide talked about what people would wear to the theater and how heavy the clothes were and how the man would stuff their tummies to make them look fat because if you were fat you were wealthy enough to afford all the food you wanted and if you were fat you were attractive. I like their way of thinking! :)


After our Tour of the Globe we went to the Rose Theater site and had a tour-ish thing there. The Rose was interesting because right now it's just an excavation site with a office building over it. The developers of the building made sure not to damage anything important while they built their supports for the building but it was still pretty odd because we were basically in the cellar of a office building looking at basically just an outline they had done with lights telling us where the original walls and stage were. The thing I really didn't like about the rose tour was that the woman who gave it was more of doing a sales pitch to help support their efforts to make this a better tourist site. It was just really odd and I felt like I was in an hour long infomercial instead of a tour.

So after our tours Cami, Cali, Ashlee, Ellie and I went to Portabello Road again so that Ellie could buy a ring she had been thinking about all week and so that the other girls could look for scarves. The reason I went......To get another pastry the size of my head! :) Ellie and Cali also shared their Jamaican Food with me and I bought them the apple cream turnovers too. I'm pretty sure I got them addicted too! :) It was great and Cali and Ellie both got some artsy pictures of our eating experience.

So those were the highlights of my day.

Better than a family of munchkins

So I think I will explain my day backwards so I can explain my title. So tonight we went to Wicked the musical. It was amazing and so fun and great and fantastic and I loved it!! So I have seen it before so I wasn't sure I really wanted to go but I'm so glad I did. So now to explain my title. So we were sitting at the back of the floor seats and we were commenting on how we didnt want anyone tall to sit in front of us and I said "wouldn't it be great if a family of Munchkins sat in front of us" because then we could see really well. Well no one sat in front of us and at intermission Preston and I decided that that was even better than a family of Munchkins. :) It was great and we had wonderful seats.

we also had a fun chocolate experience at intermission. Brie bought me a chocolate bar for cutting her hair, yes I even have clients in London! anyways we put the bar in Ellie's purse and it melted but we decided to eat it anyway, it was fun.

So after Wicked we were all craving non melted chocolate so we went to the grocery store on the way home and the girls all got very girly things. Preston got crumpets and Tea. We were grateful to Preston for putting up with us tonight. As Katie so lovingly put it "he's just marinating in Estrogen on this trip" so funny.


So this morning we went to the National Theater for a tour. It was really intersting. Our tour guide ws great and she new a lot but was also very theatrical so it made it a fun tour. We got to see basically everything that goes in to a show and it was amazing to see all the people it takes for one show. It really made me realize that the actors are really just like the cherry on top, usually my favorite part but without the ice cream, the hot fudge and bowl and spoon you wouldn't have a sundae. Anyways, it was cool because we got to see them putting together the set for a show that we are going to see later in our stay here. My favorite part was when she took us into the painting room and wee got to see them dirtying up a canvas that had wallpaper painted on it because it was going to be inside a pub, it was very cool. I really loved everything about the tour and it really made me miss my friends back home who like to do all the different parts that in the end make up a show. :)
that was basically my day, with some homework in between.

Horses and Little Eagles

So today was a very full day. We had originally planned on going on the Bus Tour around London but when we went outside to leave it was raining so we decided to change our plans. Most people were really sad that it was raining but I was actually pretty excited because that was the weather I was expecting so all the hot sun we were getting was making me question if I was actually in London or not! :)

So Cami Ashlee and I decided to go to Buckingham Palace and when we got there there were a lot of other people there and we didn't know what was going on but thanks to a lovely guide book given to me by Tyler and Saffron we learned that we got there just in time to see the changing of the Guards. Unfortunatly it started to rain really hard and they cancelled it due to the bad weather so we didn't get to see it which was a bummer. It also made me think about what they do if they cancel it, do the guards on duty just have to stay there for longer? We didn't hang around long enough to find out. After a few pictures we decided to head over to the Queen's Mews which is where the horses and carriages and cars are kept.

So the Mews was really interesting to me. It wasn't very expensive and we got free audio tours so that was great. some of the highlights for me included:

~seeing the carriage that Will and Kate rode back in from the Abby was cool. It had its top on so it looked different but still cool.

~Seeing the newest carriage in the collection which happened to be a present from the people of Australia.

~ Seeing one of the Queen's cars, which I learned was specially designed to be extra tall so that she can stand up before getting out. That reminded me of Princess Dairies when she says, "a queen never slides" :)

~The other thing I found really interesting was the Coronation Carriage. It weighs 4 tons and to get it out of the room it's displayed in they have to move the wall. It's pretty cool.

After going to the Mews we went to see Westminster Abby and Parliament in the day light. It was cool to see. Am I such a dork that I want to go to a session of Parliament more than I want to go through the Abby?

After all of that we decided to go to the Tate Britain, not to be confused with the Tate Modern. It was pretty interesting but there was way too much naked art for me!

this is the museum.

After that we went home for a little before we went to the play Little Eagles.
Little Eagles was an amazing play. It was all about the race to space but form the Soviet side. The main actor was amazing. Some of the best acting I've ever seen, really. The play was really intense and usually I don't like that but it was done really well. Its a brand new play so I would recommend it but in less you are in London you can't see it. I really enjoyed it.

A Lazy London Day

So Wednesday was a very lazy London day. We had class in the morning and then went to the grocery store in the afternoon. After that we did home and just took it easy since we had such a full day the day before. It was really nice to just relax and get stuff done. It really made it feel like this is my home, which is a good thing because it is! :) I did promise myself that I would post a picture for every day so here is my picture. Those are two or my roommates, Cali and Ellie yes I have a roommate with the same name as me. It can be confusing but I love her so I don't mind sharing my name. this is what our room looked like all day.

A Very Full Day.

So Tuesday was a very busy day. We left in the morning at about 9am and I didn't make it home till about 11pm. I was really grateful I packed a lunch before I left, my mama didn't raise no fool! :)
So the first place we went was to the British Library to look at there special collections room. It was interesting because the room seemed really simple and they didn't make a big deal out of anything in it but the things it held were absolutely amazing. I'm just gonna list a few of the things that I found cool, unfortuantly you couldn't take pictures and I totally forgot to take a picture of the library itself. First of all they had Jane Austen's writing desk and some of her actual writing which was cool to see. They also had one of the First Folio by Shakespeare which is the collection of his work that his friends put together after his death in memory of him. The also had the Magna Carta which was so cool to read about and see. One of my favorite displays had a lot of the history of the bible and the English language. Which included a lot of very old fragments of scriptures and an original Gutenberg Bible. It was a very spiritual moment to see the progress and it made me realize how absolutely blessed I am to have it always at my fingertips on my phone. The part of the special collections or "treasures" room as they call it was the music part. It included pieces written by Beethoven and Mozart and it was cool to see where they had scratched parts out and reworked parts and things like that but the part of the exhibit that brought tears to my eyes was seeing Handel's Messiah. It was so amazing to see his notes in the margins and everything. I loved it.
So after the Library we had time for lunch and I was fully intending on eating my lunch that I had brought until I heard that there was really good and really cheap Indian Food nearby. So I decided to go with the others and get that for lunch and I's so glad I did because it was really good. I was also proud of myself because I had no idea what it was and I ate it anyway.

After eating we all met at Trafalgar Square to go to the National Gallery and the Portrait Gallery. So we went to the Portrait gallery first and I realized something very important about myself while in the gallery....that I don't like portrait galleries! :) There were some pictures that were interesting because I knew who the people were but the pictures of the people I didn't know didn't interest me enough to sit there and read all the things about them so I was done with the whole 3-floored gallery in under an hour.

So unfortunately no one in our group does galleries quite as fast as I do so I went over to the national gallery by myself and didn't really have time to do the whole thing but I did have time to see the really famous ones that they outline in the map that you get at the front. So I did that and met the rest of my group outside to go on to the Globe theater. While in Trafalgar square I got some really good pictures.





So then we went to the globe and we got there early so I ate what I had brought for dinner and it was great. On the way over we saw St. Paul's and we walked across the millennial bridge.The we went to a lecture called "setting the scene" before we went to All's Well that Ends Well. To be honest the lecture was really boring and it was basically everything we had already discussed in class the day before. But it was a good nap before the show, even one of our professors fell asleep. Then we saw the show. Besides our tickets being not very good seats and the fact that I was cold because I didn't bring a coat it was an amazing play. I really enjoyed everything about it even the bad actor who played the king. The whole experience in the globe was just fun. After that we came home and I made friends with a girl in my group named Kasmin who was nice enough to link arms with me on the way home and walk really fast so that I wouldn't be too cold.
To anyone reading this I apologize for the terrible grammar ect. I don't proof read before I post, I'm usually too tired.


this is the view down the river from the Millennial Bridge.


St Paul's and the Globe

Les Miserables

So I didn't post last night because we got home really late from the play but it was an amazing day. In the morning we had class and then a group of us went to Chinatown. Chinatown was a little bit of a let down because it was just really small. It also wasn't the greatest time for us to go because none of us were hungry and really the only reason to go is if you want to eat.


Last night We went and saw Les Miserables. IT WAS AMAZING. So before we went I knew most of the music and some of the story but I had no idea what it was going to be like. The first great thing was that we had awesome seats for a great price, we got a student discount. The second thing that was amazing was that the whole play was sung. I've seen musicals before but never where there was not a single spoken word, I Loved it!! The singing was absolutely wonderful also Eponine totally stole the show for me, her voice was just so beautiful. The whole thing was just great I don't think I can say that enough. Anyways, I totally cried at the end which I didn't think I would do but who was I kidding. I would go see it again, over and over. Best night in London so far. Another great part of last night is that I actually got decent sleep. :)

The other good thing was that in London they have Cadbury cream egg McFlurries! they are so good!!!

Sunday

Today was really nice. We got to sleep in because church wasn't till 1pm. So at one we went to church in the Hyde Park ward which is a pretty big ward. Testimony meeting was great because all the testimonies were very heartfelt. Then we had a special meeting with just our group and the Stake President. He was a great man and very spiritual, our little meeting was amazing and I felt the spirit really strong during it. The stake president challenged us to get out of our comfort zones and really try to serve the people in the wards we are being assigned to and that if we do we will become stronger people and will be blessed to know ourselves better. After that the lady who taught the relief society lesson taught on personal revelation and it was great. The way she taught really reminded me of my mom though so that made me miss home a little.
this is the building I go to school in and we went to church in. The rest of my time here I will be going to church in a building about an hour away.


After church the rest of my day was pretty chill. We ate and did some planning for our travel week when 5 of us are going to Spain. if anyone has suggestions on places to go there, don't be shy to suggest! :) Then we had a little fireside with our teachers about how the arts and religion intersect, it was great. Overall just a peaceful Sunday. Going to church really makes this place feel like home! :)