scotland

you can tell the semester is coming to the end because i'm having a hard time keeping up on my blog! but a few weeks ago we went to scotland. scotland is absolutely beautiful! it is very different than london but i fell in love with it so quick!

ok so while we were there we were able to go to edinburgh castle, we went to fountains abbey, tried on some kilts, and we crossed over the english channel and went to new castle!

fountains abbey

dani and i

edinburgh castle!

new castle

hadrians wall with my "momma" for the semester

BUT...

the best part about coming home was coming home to this package from my cute momma!

sorry i know this post is super lame and short with no detail but i figured i maybe should post something even if it is short. enjoy the pictures! ill go into more detail for my next post!

xxx

March 4, 2013

so i wrote this last week and never published it so here it is now! i'll post a new one from last week soon!

it's time for me to blog again. sorry i've not been on top of it. things here in london are still just moving right along and we are having a great time! alright so about two weeks ago me and mckenna decided to go explore chelsea. i quite enjoyed it since it's "my" city (joking) haha but really though it was fun to just wander around and have no agenda. we were suppose to go to buckingham palace but the queen is there right now so we weren't able to go:(

i was able to go to a play that week as well. i saw woman in black and it was awesome! i want to see the movie now. also that same week, on saturday i was able to go to the temple! it was an amazing experience! it was a smaller temple but the spirit there was just as strong as ever before. we were actually very lucky to be able to go. the hyde park stake was having their temple day for the young single adults and they were kind enough to invite us. they hired a coach to take us. it took about an hour to get there then once we got there we ate lunch in the cafeteria then had a few hours to spend walking around the temple grounds and inside the visitor centre before we were able to go in and do baptisms.

last week we went to canterbury and spent the day walking through the canterbury cathedral, walking around town, and going to the norman castle. we always love taking trips because it means getting out of the centre and seeing new things.

i saw two different plays last week, both were incredible! first i saw the phantom of the opera. it was just as good as the last time i saw it. the second play i saw was (drum roll please)... LES MIS! i was absolutely blown away! the music was phenomenal and just seeing it as a live performance adds so much more emotion to it. luckily for me, i get to see it a few more times before i come home! i cannot wait!

ok so last friday we went on our weekly walk. at the end of the walk we ended up at borough market which is one of my favorite food markets here! there is so much variety. anything from kabobs to fish to jam and to desserts and treats. everything looked so good! ok that night a bunch of us girls decided to go to a movie. we went and saw safe haven. lets just say that when you have this many girls and no boys, we live vicariously through these love stories we see in movies and on stage. we all loved it!

saturday we were able to take a tour through the houses of parliament. it is absolutely incredible! unfortunately they wouldn't let us take pictures inside so the only ones i have are from the outside. sorry! ok so after we went through the houses of parliament we took the river boat to greenwich. this was probably one of my favorite things that we've done here so far! i LOVE being on a boat but especially here in london on the thames. there is so much to see and it was so pretty to see the city on the river from a bit of a distance. we got to greenwich and walked through the market. markets here are the favorite thing to do everyday! it's always fun to walk through the markets and see what they've got.

well this next week will be so much fun! we are headed to scotland on wednesday! i'll make sure to take lots of pictures so i have something to show for it. well i'm off to take a quick nap before my class starts!

xxx

the time of my life

first off, i'm sorry i haven't updated this for a while. we've been busy and i just run out of time too much! ok well two weeks ago we went to WICKED and i promised to post pictures from it so enjoy!

Did i mention i sat on the FIFTH ROW?!

this dashing man is otherwise known as FIYERO! 

alright so we were able to go to cambridge college about 2 weeks ago. SO PRETTY! but it was extremely cold. we had the day to walk around the campus and explore the town. they had the cutest market that we walked through.

the grass every where we go is ALWAYS bright green. its amazing!

ok so three weeks ago we started thinking about things and realized that on valentines day we were going to be at a greek play and wouldn't be able to do anything fun. so we decided to have a valentines "date" with all of the girls, the weekend before valentines. a group of 5 of us took it into our hands and planned it. only half of the girls knew this was happening while the other half was to be surprised. us 5 decided who we wanted to ask and we did a scavenger hunt for them. at the end of the scavenger hunt they were informed of the date but their dates were kept a secret. well saturday came around and we all went to pick up our "dates". we started off by having pizza at home with all the girls then from there we all split up and did our own thing. a group of us decided we would go get dessert then go on the LONDON EYE! basically, my valentines was incredible and it'll be extremely hard to top in the future!

our group with our "dates"

me and my date

scoop... best dessert i've had here!

we may or may not have had a dessert overload that night...

our group

view from above! INCREDIBLE!

abby and i on the london eye

my date is hotter than yours!

best valentines ever! thanks abby! xx

later that week we were lucky enough to get to tour through westminster abbey! it is absolutely BEAUTIFUL! as we walked through it we were able to see where many famous people were buried and see how incredibly detailed everything is. it was incredible!

we had to get a picture with big ben because we obviously just don't have enough!;)

last tuesday was PANCAKE DAY! we were lucky enough to have our amazing cook as well as our faculty cook pancakes for us. made me feel so at home with some delicious buttermilk syrup added in the mix. 

the next day, so wednesday, we went to frederic leightons home. everything in his house was a bit over the top but it was ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE! i'm in love with his house. the theme that was about the home was a peacock. most of the rooms were colors within a peacock feather, he had turquoise tiles on his walls, even within the fireplace he had tiles to match a feather and he has feathers infront of the fireplace. such a beautiful home. wouldn't mind having it for myself!

just a little preview of this killer fireplace!

thursday was valentines! when we woke up, the three boys in our group bought all the girls flowers and a chocolate bar so it started off a great day! that afternoon a few of us decided to treat ourselves to some nice gelato from herrods and macaroons from laduree! it was divine!

i also had a secret admirer who left me these beautiful flowers! 

happy valentines to me!

we get boy deprived and had a little "kiss attack" after our greek play.

no need to worry, we are still interested in men.

haha ok so over the weekend, starting friday, we went to hampton court which is where king henry viii lived. luckily, the day we went we had blue skies and it had warmed up a bit. the gardens there are beautiful and the palace was huge! saturday we had a relaxing day. went on our walk that morning then came home and cleaned. i was able to go to dinner with my favorite people; jacob and anna!  

hayley and i

christina, hayley, and me

i love my friends!

probably one of the prettiest days here! 

me and dani

bright colors filled the skies and all the surroundings that day

but the real beauty was on sunday. yesterday our group of students here had the incredible opportunity to put on a fireside for a group of people in brighton. originally i wasn't planning on going with the group but at the last minute i decided that that is where i needed to be and i am so glad that i went! we had to meet at the train station at 4:30 so we could catch our train at 4:45. when we got there we found out our train was delayed a good hour and a half. we were stressed out because if we didn't make it then the fireside wouldn't happen because we were the fireside. george, our director, was able to figure out another way to get there but we would've had to switch trains with a very short connection to catch. when we found out what train to catch i felt like i was in gotham city trying to flee and get out. EVERYONE in the train station started running to catch the train. things were flying in the air, people were being pushed and falling down. it was pure madness. we finally made it on the train and were on our way to catch the second train. we made it to the second train and headed on our way to brighton. by the time we got to brighton it was 7:30. we were 30 minutes late BUT all in all the fireside went perfectly. we had a few musical numbers and some of the students spoke about their conversion story. the spirit there was SO STRONG! basically i was a mess from bawling like a baby.

coming home was another story. we knew when we needed to get to the train station so we got there in plenty of time but with our lucky, the train was delayed. we waited in the train station for an hour before we finally changed destinations and got on a different train. the train ride took a good hour at least, maybe longer. but we got back into london around 12:15 pm and of course, no tubes were running anymore! we wandered around trying to find a bus to take. about 30 minutes later we finally found a bus to take but it wasn't going to get us all the way home so we had to get off and find a different bus. after another 30 minutes our bus came. we hopped on, all with great attitudes and happy (but really we did have great attitudes). we got home around 1:30 and were all so tired. all in all it was well worth all the troubles we had from travelling because of the spirit we had with us from the devotional! because we got back so late, our professors were kind enough to push classes back an hour! but class in starting so i guess its time for me to pay attention now!

xxx