The Last Sunday

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Today was our last day in our ward. I spoke in sacrament meeting on temples. It went well I think, though they did not get some of the jokes or movie quotes I dropped, but that’s okay. The bishop kept saying how grateful he was for us – how wonderful we are and how much we help. I don’t really feel like I’ve helped all that much. I did what I could and what was asked of me, so hopefully that was good enough. Our bishop gave us thank you cards and pens. It was rather cute. We took our final bus ride through the city to get home. I’m really going to miss this place.

After church we headed out to St. Paul’s Cathedral for Evensong. I’ve never been to any meeting of any sort for any other religion, so it was really interesting to me. St. Paul’s is a choir’s dream singing location – the acoustics are insane! I loved it. The sermon was interesting. I did not agree with everything he said. He was claiming that the gospel is unknowable and that you have to dig it out. I believe that the Gospel is plain and precious – it’s simple enough for a child to understand all the precepts. It was a really neat experience to go. How many times can you say you attended a service at St. Paul’s Cathedral? Maybe once in a lifetime J

I spent the rest of the afternoon napping, preparing for the long night of finals studying ahead of me. After dinner we had a testimony fireside – it was so powerful. I never really feel like sharing my testimony at these kinds of things, but I did tonight. It was a amazing meeting. Every person in the group is an incredible individual. I can hardly believe my luck in getting to be in this amazing place with them.

Pomp, Circumstance, and Science Fiction

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Today we began the day early in order to get over to Buckingham Palace and the Mall to get a good spot for the Trooping of the Colors ceremony in celebration of the Queen’s birthday! We all wore matching preppy sweaters that we got a Primark. I’m not sure why…but we did. Jess and I found a pretty good spot and we had some fun neighbors. The couple on our left asked about our sweaters and if they were from our school – I said no, Jess said yes. So then we had to explain the discrepancy in our answers, which was a funny and most embarrassing situation. Most people tend to think it’s weird when a big group matches clothing for really no reason. I began reviewing for our history final, and the couple on our right asked what we were studying for and we told them about our class and where we’re from and such. Both couples were really nice. When the actual marching and ceremony stuff started, we whipped out our cameras and took a whole lot of pictures. There was a long procession of guards, all of which were slightly different but I had no idea what each one was called or what they did. Some fancy cars with people with big hats on inside drove by.

Then the royal guard marched by, followed by some carriages. I zoomed in with my camera, not knowing that I would soon be seeing PRINCE WILLIAM in real life and taking a real picture of him!!! Woo! It was so cool! He was riding with his step-mother Camilla. Apparently Prince Charles was on a horse somewhere near them, but I didn’t see him. The carriage behind theirs was Prince Charles’ brother and family. Then the Queen’s personal guard started marching by – these guys were decked out in awesome gold armor and they had swords and everything.

And then…..we saw QUEEN ELIZABETH II!!!! We saw her in person! It was so fun! She’s such a cute lady. And then it was over. So we waited for like 2 hours to see people for 2 minutes. But it was so cool! I’m so glad we went. We were freaking out.

I left to spend the rest of the afternoon on my own. I would have liked company, but I was going to places that other people had already been or thought was weird, so I ventured on by myself. I went to the National Gallery – finally! I saw so many amazing paintings – Raphael, Michaelangelo, Picasso, Seurat, Degas, Van Gogh, Monet, Renoir – in real life! Like, I stood feet away from them. It was really neat. After the Gallery I exited the building and saw a street performer doing the most amazing tricks with a glass ball, just like David Bowie in Labyrinth but way cooler (if that’s possible) J It was so cool.

I then took rather complicated trip to a store called Forbidden Planet – it’s a science fiction store where they have all sorts of collectibles and comics and action figures and stuff. It was actually quite ghetto. The reason I went was that they had Doctor Who toys! Yay! I couldn’t leave Britain without buying myself some Doctor merchandise. They only have it online back home. So I bought some little collectibles – a TARDIS and a Dalek. I also bought some pins to put on my bags and stuff and I browsed the book section for quite a while. I’ve never felt so nerdy in my entire life, but I absolutely loved it. And the Dalek has actual wheels – it rolls and everything! I have yet to witness my mini TARDIS travel in time, though. On the way home I bought the rest of the souvenirs that I’ve wanted – silly things like a mini Big Ben (my favorite London site) and t-shirts and such. I still need one more thing – a gift for someone. But I don’t know what to get! I’ll think more in depth…

We ate Pizza Hut and then spent the rest of our evening studying for our finals. There’s so much material to cover for our history one, I think my brain might explode. Luckily the class is curved, so perhaps I’ll be fine. I still have a lot of memorizing to do for English though…blargh…School has been killing everyone here. Everyone’s getting sick and not sleeping, a bad combination. I’m not sick, but I’m afraid I’ll have the usual after finals melt down and get sick and have to spend all my time in Paris sniveling and in my hotel room instead of at the Eiffel Tower or the Louvre. Pray for our entire program – we need it big time!

Classes? She DONE!

Friday, June 11, 2010

LAST DAY OF CLASSES!!!!

She done! I love not having class. I still have finals….boo…but that’s better than more class.

Today after classes finished we rode the train out to Kew Gardens, which was absolutely gorgeous. We walked around for a while and saw some wonderful things – there was a treetop walkway and a greenhouse with plants I’ve never heard of and a really beautiful pond with lots of ducks, but we were all exhausted from all the homework and school stuff that we didn’t last very long. And we didn’t have any food, which is always bad…so we stayed for a few hours and then left. We picked up snacks at Tesco and then hopped on the train back. I tried catching up on history reading and didn’t succeed. But I watched some Doctor Who, so that was nice. In the afternoon I got food and then walked around some shops for a while. Didn’t buy anything. I’m all worn out with shopping. I’ve never shopped more in my life than I have while I’ve been here. My mom would be proud. I feel very frivolous and careless with my money, even though I’m not. At least I don’t think I am frivolous and careless…uh oh…maybe I am! Naw…

Dress in drag and do the hula?

Thursday, June 10, 2010

School here is an interesting experience. It’s so much more work than I thought it would be. Apparently, during winter semester, all the students did really horribly in their classes. They put a huge work load on us, more than what I’ve heard from other programs. Even one of our professors admitted that they are pushing us even harder than winter semester. It’s been hard, but I’ve actually not been terribly stressed about it. I figure that I’ll do what I can and that’ll be good enough. We just found out today, though, that the classes in summer semester aren’t going to require any outside of class homework – the directors of their program want them to enjoy London. It’s not fair. Not at all. We’ve had to sacrifice sleep and London activities in order to do all the work. It’s pretty frustrating. I mean, this really has been the best 7 weeks of my life. It just would’ve been much more enjoyable had the classes been a little bit more flexible – no out-of-class homework would have been heaven. I am so excited to not have homework, I can’t even tell you. I wouldn’t have traded my experience here for anything, though. Not a thing.

And tonight I saw………LION KING! It was really fun. It really made me want to watch the movie. Let’s face it – everything here makes me want to watch a movie. I have an extensive list of things to watch when I get home. Anyways, Lion King. It was really good. Little Simba and Nala were adorable and the music is super fun, as I expected. I thought the new songs they gave the hyenas were so stupid though. Chow down? I mean, come on. They’re the comic relief – they don’t need a song like that. The song I loved though was He Lives In You. It was so wonderful – I love the sound and feel of it, and I love the reprise of it in the second half. However, I was not terribly impressed with the first half of the play. It seemed all spectacle and no real dramatic tension, even though a lot of dramatic things happened. The more I think about it though, the more I like the first half. The second half of the play was absolutely wonderful – I loved it. I’m so glad I got to see it finally. It was a good one to end on.

And one of the best parts about today? I didn’t do any homework J Now I just get to stay up all night reading Mrs. Dalloway….blargh…

Sir Thomas is a big fat flirt

Wednesday, June 09, 2010

Today we took a train to Hampton Court. I was up late last night and all museum-ed and palace-d out, so I was not excited. In fact, I was once again thinking about finding a Primark or something instead. But as we picked up our audio guides, we could also put on a cloak! Like an almost Harry Potter-type cloak. That got me excited – I’ve never been to a place that gives you dress-up stuff before! We went out into the courtyards of the palace and found a fountain with awkward statues on it, so naturally we took pictures. We wandered around for a bit until 11 when we found some actor/character type people who were helping prepare for Henry VIII’s wedding to his sixth wife Katherine Parr. They invited us to come along. All the people in the cloaks (me included) were considered nobility. They taught us how to bow/curtsy and told us the rules of being in the presence of the king.

Then, in Henry’s apartments, we met first Katherine Parr and then we actually met Henry VIII! He came in and we all bowed and curtsied. He told us to rise and we presented him with a gift. And then, the woman that had been teaching all the rules, presented him with a gift that he found extremely offensive and he yelled at her and sent her away. It was awesome! My first thought was that it’s like British History Disneyland! It was so fun. We explored the rest of the palace, not all of it but most. There was this section on Young Henry VIII when he first became king, and they had a video playing – the guy playing Henry was reeeeeeally good-looking. Then my friend Jess said, “I suddenly have a very big interest in Henry’s early years.” Ha ha it was great. It’s amazing how attractive people make museums and such more fun J On the way out, though, we heard a creepy child’s voice whispering over and over “divorced – beheaded – died – divorced – beheaded – survived.” It’s the little saying kids use to remember what happened to Henry’s wives…So creepy…

We later ran across Henry’s friend Sir Thomas in a courtyard, telling a group of people how he had noticed Katherine Parr staring lustfully at his calf, so therefore she must love him and he was going to propose to her before she married Henry and whisk her away to some far off place. We didn’t get to see him actually talk to Katherine – I wanted to stay but my friends wanted to go see something else – but I know that he was obviously not successful because we know from history that Katherine married Henry. That would have been an epic romance, though, if she had run away with Sir Thomas – I would have preferred that. We did get to help Katherine pick out her wedding dress, though.

The entire palace, gardens and all, was so beautiful. There was also a maze – supposedly the most famous maze in the world – which we wandered through until we found the center. We also reenacted a bit of Harry Potter, of course. And then we headed back through the palace to get out. On our way to the exit we ran into Henry VIII again, walking with Sir Thomas. The guard walking in front of Henry told us to lower our eyes so we curtsied, and then Henry told us we could rise. He proceeded to compliment our beauty, and Sir Thomas started hitting on us. He was like a foot away from me. The following dialogue followed:

Sir Thomas: (distracted by us) very beautiful…

Henry: Sir Thomas, you attend me.

Sir Thomas: (catching himself) Right, your majesty. Right.

Henry: (to us) It is nice to have beauty surrounding us. And you have beauty in abundance.

Sir Thomas: They have beauty in their what? Oh, in abundance…oh…

Ha ha it was the best. I loved it. Totally made my day – a guy who’s been dead for hundreds of years hit on me today – it’s not every day you can say that!

I then had a magnum gold for lunch – nothing better than ice cream for lunch. And we rode the train back to London. On the way home we stopped at Primark and bought a few things – I got a shirt, a blazer, and some shoes. I love Primark. And after dinner, we went to see Oliver! with the entire group. It was so fun – I’ve never seen it live, but I know all the songs. It was really great to see it live.

Harses harses harses harses...

Tuesday, June 08, 2010

Today I woke up at 4 AM to study for my English midterm. I studied, then slept for a bit, then went to breakfast in the Servery, then read and studied some more. I then attended class. After class, we headed to the Banqueting Hall which I’m supposed to write a short paper on but really have no idea what to write about at all…It was a fabulous room, very beautifully decorated. It has paintings on the ceiling depicting James I’s apotheosis (ascent into heaven as a divine king). That’s what they tell you anyways. My theory, however, is that the angels are in fact bringing him down from heaven and removing his crown, rather than giving him the crown and flying him up to heaven. He looks worried in the painting, which is why me theory is valid…anyways…today was just a lot of studying. We did get to see War Horse, a play. That was good. The plot was so predictable and far too sweet for my taste – it was basically Black Beauty in WWI. But the effects were awesome – the horses were puppets. Yes, puppets, but the most intense puppets I have ever seen! They were so good it got to the point where I forgot there were three guys operating the puppet right in front of me. Way cool. Once again, we were in a irreverent mood and ended up laughing through the predictable, cheesy ending, pretending to cry, etc. I think being tired causes me to revert to a six year old boy persona. After the play I traveled quickly home and took my English midterm. I think I did rather well on it, but that’s not the best part – the best part is that it is OVER! Woohoo! That is a marvelous feeling. Now there’s just finals in 6 days and then my birthday! A free day to play in London on my birthday – best birthday present ever J

Come on, Dover! Move your bloomin’ castle!

Monday, June 7, 2010

Okay, so I recognize that the subject of this blog doesn’t make sense…but in visiting Dover today I kept thinking of that scene from My Fair Lady. Awesome.

Dover is beautiful! The castle/keep is ginormous and there are all these underground tunnels that were used in WWII and some from medieval times and stuff. Castles are boss. They say that on a clear day you can see forever…or at least to France. Unfortunately it wasn’t clear enough to see all the way to France. But it was still beautiful. I have to admit though, I’m getting a bit museum-ed out. It’s just so much information to absorb all at once. Eek.

In the museum at Dover, however, we did find some gems. Jess told me to come look at this little room behind glass. I looked in, around a corner, and there was this creepy Indian guy looking back at me! It was a wax figure, naturally, but it scared me so bad I screamed (see picture). And then, in the next room, we found this weird frightened little wax boy…not totally sure what he was there for, but there he was. It was entertaining to say the least.

After Dover we traveled to Canterbury to see St. Augustine’s Abbey and Canterbury Cathedral. The Abbey is just ruins now, but there was plenty of opportunity for climbing and photos. When climbing on one of the pillars I accidentally dislodged a rock…I felt really bad so I stopped climbing…and posed as a Greek statue instead! We pretended to sacrifice Jess on an altar, and I learned that Anglo-Saxon kings have sweet names, like Ethelbart and Dragostonic and stuff like that. Awesome.

Canterbury Cathedral is the place where Sir Thomas Becket was killed by knights of Henry II. We kinda loudly re-inacted his martyrdom…in the cathedral, on the very spot. Let me tell you, it was epic. But afterwards one of our fellow students chastised us and now I feel kinda bad. The things we’ll do for art. That video should be up on facebook soon too. We were kinda in an irreverent mood today, like almost rebelliously irreverent…I don’t know quite what it was. Maybe we’ve seen too many ruins and castles and cathedrals and it all just was too much – we exploded! In fact, half the time we were trying to find someone to ask if there was a Primark in town. There wasn’t…but we did eventually find a Waterstones (bookstore) where I purchased Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone! Woo! I may eventually have to get them all from here. But the first one is enough for now. I’ll just have to make it back to London 6 more times J

We ate dinner at a pub around the corner from the Centre tonight – such a fun place! And such great food! I seriously loved it. And it was relatively cheap for a pub too, which made it even better. I would like to go back. So tasty. I’m going to miss pubs when I’m back in the states. You can find them everywhere here, and they always have the best food and chips (fries, for you Americans).