2 Days of Illness and Midterms!!! Bleh.

All of Tuesday and Wednesday was devoted to class, coughing, doing homework, blowing my nose, and researching Elizabeth I for my midterm paper. It was a grand time. I want to live those two days over... and over... and over again. (Thick with sarcasm)

The one time I went out on Tuesday this is what I saw on my walk. They are EVERYWHERE! I thought it was funny actually! What are the odds that there are Mormon haters in London by some random museum!!! Go figure.

BUT!!! I took an hour break and watched the Olympic Torch go by my house!!! There was a small parade and it was really fun to see!!! The Olympics have officially started! I'm so lucky to see them again!

I look super sick, ignore that part. GO TEAM GB!

I'll post more about the Olympics later :)

Also here as an epic picture. I had front row seats to watch the torch run by.

Yeah. This is real life.

NIGHT!!!!

My Future Home: Eynesford

Well. I found out where I'm moving folks!!! Sorry that it's not ANYWHERE near the States... but.... the place I found is just TOO perfect. So just be happy for me.

Eynesford in Kent. Heaven on earth. I'm fully convinced. I took a train out to Kent to start my hike with one of the sweetest men I've ever met: George Chittock (I mentioned him earlier). We strolled around the town as a group and then headed out to the countryside and farm area. It. Was. To. Die. For.

This is also where I found my dream home. Here's a picture... a little ways down. I'm too lazy to separate the pictures today.

On my way to the farm!

Lavender farm store, with some...

LAVENDER ICE CREAM!!! Sounds weird right? It was delicious.

Most addictive drink. It's not actually root beer... but it is... kind of.

Gorgeous views!!! I'm moving here. It's official.

My FUTURE HOME!

The view right outside the picture above. It was too perfect.

It's right by these lavender fields, with a stream trickling by the front, and a white picket fence. Also the trees arching over the stream. Seriously. Garden of Eden status. Everyone made fun of me for stopping and taking a picture but I had too!!! Documentation so I could remember where I was going to be!

We then headed over to the local Parish and sang Hymns in the chapel. Not to toot my own horn, but we sounded like angels.

Unfortunately, we had to leave the beautiful countryside and make it back in time for our tickets to "Chariots of Fire"!!! You know the movie from the 80's?? Well, they did a 1924 Olympics Paris version. It was so cool!!! I was really wondering how they were going to pull of the whole "running theme" on stage, but they actually did an awesome job! The director was so creative and pulled everything off perfectly!!! At the end of the show they did a "fast-forward" type thing to the modern day Olympics that are taking place in LONDON!!! It got me pumped!!!!

NIGHT!!!!

Siiiinnnnggging in the Rain!!!

Went to a Cricket match today!!! Local Cricket player (Dan Hough) that plays in one of the leagues came and ATTEMPTED to explain the beautiful game to us. We headed over to the game and had awesome seats! It was pretty fun to see! I was EXTREMELY confused... It was a mixture of baseball, bowling, golf, and perhaps Monopoly thrown in there. Needless to say I didn't follow at all. But I had a fun time pretending. While there, one of the food vendors talked me into trying wild boar sausage. It was interesting. Cricket and wild boar is the equivalent to Baseball and hotdogs! Go figure!

Sarah and I enjoying a professional match of Cricket! England vs. South Africa!

Mmmmm... boar!

That night I went to "Singing in the Rain"!!! It was so fun! I've loved getting to go all of these different shows! This was just an upbeat show that made me want to get up and dance. My favorite number was obviously when they sang "I'm Siiiiiinging in the Rain...."

Kind of dark pic, but here's our group!!!

They had rain. Falling. Inside. On the stage. It was epic!!! They had umbrellas and were tap dancing, and you could see the splashing. It was such an amazing effect! I would definitely go see it again... if I had the money to!

We could have been in the show!!!

All in all my day was pretty splendid! Cheers!

Tears of Joy and Self Induced Jet Lag...

 MONDAY:

I took a tour of Parliament!!! It was amazing! I wish I could have taken pictures and shown you all how beautiful it is inside... but they have very strict rules! My favorite was the House of Commons, because their color scheme is all green (which is my favorite color) and also there was a scene from Sherlock Holmes filmed there. I feel lame relating everything to movies, but I do. So alas! Afterwards, I visited Borough Market for the heavenly grilled cheese sandwich. Just as good as the first time :) I was pretty exhausted so I headed home to do some homework. Unfortunately I fell asleep! For 5 hours!!!! That's right. 5 hours. Pretty pathetic right? I mean, I guess it was needed... but here's the thing! If I sleep past 10:30 am I have a really hard time going to sleep at night! I basically just gave myself.... self induced Jet Lag ALL OVER AGAIN!! I'm so confused right now. I ate dinner and it felt like breakfast. Weird stuff.

Parliament

So after wasting away my afternoon I thought I should at least do something fun for the last bit of my evening. And believe me... I DID!!!

I went to go see The Dark Knight Rises in the very first theater in London! Everyone had been talking about going to see it so I thought I should jump on the bandwagon and see what all the fuss was about. I had seen the first two and thought they were pretty good but I only saw them once. But let me tell you. I'm fully converted to the ways of Batman. This movie made me CRY. I'm not kidding you. The ending was just so mind blowing and happy that I started bawling. My friends took a picture of me.... here it is. Pretty pathetic I know... Anyways. It was a good night! I had lots of fun!

Chels took this picture. It wasn't planned. I'm an UGLY crier in case you didn't know!!!

Sharing some Ben and Jerry's with Ali and Chels!!!

My prayers go out to the families impacted by in the Colorado Massacre. What a tragic event, words can't describe the sadness we all felt when the news reached London.

SUNDAY:

We had a pretty difficult time getting to church today... It took us a total of 2 HOURS!!! Yeah. Half way through I was all ready to give up and just go home! Especially since I had gotten only 1 HOUR of sleep the previous night. (the Jet Lag that I was telling you about...)

Blackheath!!! Right by our church!

The BEST chicken sandwiches at the market by our church...

After church, the rest of the day was devoted to homework. Lucky me... But what was very fun was getting to listen to my friends new album!!! "Green Things" by Emily Brown. You all need to check it out. I met her at EFY and became great friends with her! She just left for her mission! She is the most talented singer. I KNOW that she will do great things.
For dinner we had the most delicious mac and cheese. Pretty sure it was made of gold....We loved it. There were NO leftovers. Then I crashed because I was running on fumes!!!

Richard III and Biking

 Today was fun! Pretty low key but I think that's just what I needed. In the morning I headed over to the Imperial War Museum! It was very interesting to see a different countries view points on WWI and WWII, and how it affected them differently. I spent the morning looking around different exhibits, and quickly grabbed some lunch (sketchy sushi from a tent...vender....man. I'm guess it wasn't legit and I could die in a couple of hours) at a market before heading over to see Richard III at Shakespeare's Globe Theater.

Like a boss.

This was an ambulance that they used in WWI!!!

Sketchy sushi!!!

At the Globe we got standing seats... so I suppose they aren't really seats then are they! Ah ha! Realization. Anyways... I had standing "seats" and started getting really sleepy because of course I haven't been getting enough sleep lately. Side note: I kept having nightmares that the Woman in Black was right outside my window. Back to the story though. I was starting to fall asleep standing up... doesn't sound possible does it! Well, I can make the impossible happen because I started to drift off while standing up. The usher/attendant for the theater apparently saw me from far off in the distance and came rushing over! At first I thought she was mad at me for not paying better attention. Little did I realize that she thought I was fainting! Or at least about to faint. After much discussion I was able to convince her that I DIDN'T need medical help. Or perhaps I did and it was the sushi settling in!!!

So I have about 50 of these on my camera from this whole trip. I thought I should add one. Sarah folks.

I finished my day with a lovely dinner, and a bike ride through Hyde Park!!! It was so fun, I felt like one of the "Londoners" just going for a short ride. Except it was clear that I wasn't actually from here because I had the hardest time staying on the left side of the path... AH I'M LIVING IN LONDON!!! Sorry. I just realized that again. Sometimes it seems to good to be true!

Bike ride through Hyde Park!!!

I thought this was a creepy photo of me... and thought I should share.

Oh! Then I went and got "Snogs" Frozen Yogurt. It's all the rave here, but funny enough it is just like Spoon Me back at home. Anyways.... Good night from across the pond!

The Woman in Black

This might be a fairly short update folks because I'm so tired!!!!

Today we went to Kew Gardens after classes. Kew Gardens is this HUGE garden center that is truly lovely! We had a lot of fun walking around and getting lost all over!

I put flowers in my hair :) It was just too tempting!

See the Olympic rings in the background??

We left for dinner and then had the brilliant idea of going and seeing "The Woman in Black". This was originally a play that has now been made into a movie (starring Daniel Radcliffe aka Harry Potter). We were lucky enough to get tickets to the play!!! Who knew there was such a thing as a scary play!!! Because I sure didn't! It was frightening. I flat out screamed about 4 times. So hopefully I'm not too afraid and will be able to get some sleep!

Go see the film if you want to scream your "knickers" off! (all said in a British accent)

We were already scared and it hadn't even started!!!

EEKK!

Sarah and I.... getting nervous! And for good reason too!

NIGHT!!!

The Tourist Trap and my Home-Boy Will Shakespeare!

Another joyous day on my favorite mode of transportation (note: that statement was thick with sarcasm) COACH TRIP!!! At least this bus had a better color scheme than the old barf colored ones we've had in the past. So it made it more bearable.

We headed out to Warwick Castle! This castle is roughly 1,100 years old! I was so excited to tour around it and learn more about the history of the place. Little did I realized Warwick Castle is a BIG GIANT TOURIST TRAP!!! Heed my warning folks! This is the medieval equivalence to.... Lagoon! Or... a scarier Disneyland. For those of you who don't know what Lagoon is. Anyways. We get there and they have all of these little kid things to do... I don't think our professors necessarily realized this fact. Pretty sure I was the only one over the age of 7. Talk about embarrassing!

I'm the "Village Idiot" for getting stuck in the Tourist Trap of England!

I still had a bunch of fun though. I practiced some archery. I'm pretty darn good too... I suppose you could say I'm the female version of Robin Hood. Not to toot my own horn... I actually was pretty awful. I missed the target that I was actually aiming for, and hit the center of one far off to the left. Everyone was really excited for me getting the center of the bulls eye. Little did they all know I TOTALLY was aiming for something 10 feet to the right. But I still took credit for being awesome, because I didn't want to crush their spirits.

I'm a natural.

After I headed to their... medieval wax museum! They had those back then. In case you were wondering. Anyways, I was walking through the museum and noticed that someone put a piece of FUDGE on one of the characters nose!!! I lost it. Here's a picture of me (pretending!) to eat it/lick it.

YUMMY! Awkward fudge on wax figures nose...

We didn't get too sucked into the tourist hullabaloo, got back on the Coach and headed to STRATFORD UPON AVON! We went to Anne Hathaway's Cottage, looked at her beautiful gardens. Then headed to Shakespeare's Birthplace/Home. Sidenote: across the street was the cutest Peter Rabbit store (I'm obsessed with Peter Rabbit and Beatrix Potter) I was so giddy! So we toured Shakespeare's house, learned more about his life in Stratford, and spent some time in the area. It was really fun! I loved how well preserved everything was. I couldn't believe I was in the same place that such an iconic playwright grew up! It was fun :)

Perfect day, rain and English gardens :)

Peter Rabbit "Specialist" store, cracked me up!

Skakespeare's Birthplace!

Visiting Shakespeare's grave!

We got back on the bus, rode home while watching "She's the Man" (this movie is quoted all the time so it was very fitting), went and got some GELATO, and crashed in bed once I climbed all 4 stories! NIGHT!!!

Heart attack on a plate!!!