what i'm missing.

i love being in london. 

i love the cultural diversity. 

i love learning new things. 

but i don't love being away from home and missing this:

most favorite cauliflower soup.

breyer's ice cream.

best rice krispie treats!

yum wheat cinnamon rolls. 

a family favorite, i WILL be back.

cheeseburger, lettuce and sauce only. side of fries. 

best salad. in europe, salads are NOT served as a main dish.

how are these people not overly huge??

can you tell i am deprived of quality food?

alright, i'll get back to my frosties and milk, bagels, and cheese & crackers. 

cambridge and more RAIN!

to begin finishing off our busy week, another day trip to cambridge was scheduled. another early morning and we were off. granted, three hours of sleep was in the works because of the harry potter premiere adventure. yes, i slept the whole bus ride. 


as we arrived, again, i thought, "what is there to do in cambridge for SIX hours????"
as we walked into the outskirts of town, there were tons of college (cambridge university) students campaigning for you to take them up on their "punting" offer. the majority of our group wanted to do this and we went down the stairs to the River Cam. 
punting is just like the gondola's in italy. so you have the long stick that looks like you should be pole vaulting and you put it in the water and it propels your boat/canoe forward. these boats weren't guided so one person from each group in each boat was the designated punter. it was an adventure to say the least. (how many adventures am i going to have on this trip?? ha, many more to come!!!) dr. gardner was our punter. it was so funny. so funny! you all would have died i think. 

this would be punting. so many boats in this river!

those were some sites from the boat. 

following the punting, i really didn't know what there was to do. it cost a few pounds to get into cambridge university and the most popular, king and trinity colleges. 

we decided to just wander the town. there was a small market going on with books, t-shirts and other items. too much down time in this town! 

a nap in the park was pretty appealing and that's what we did until the group was done at 3:45 pm! 

a clock that's right only every five minutes,

to signify the unpredictability of life. 

cambridge university.

great shoes!

the night concluded with a couple hours of doing laundry. 

yay for clean clothes!

saturday = not a very fun day on the trip. 

a "country" walk was scheduled for the day. at the beginning of the week, we were reminded that it was going to rain so bring what you had for the rain. i brought my blue rain jacket, umbrella and wore my nike's. little did we know that this walk was 9 MILES and in pouring rain. not the pouring rain in good ole' utah. the pouring rain that doesn't stop in england. 

it was not particularly enjoyable, to be modest. it was inevitable that we would get wet. some girls weren't very prepared. by that, i mean, wearing flip flops, no umbrella, and basically no jacket. (these girls were not from our group, we are smarter than that :) they were from the london center group that is also here from byu). 

i wasn't too worried about it being 9 miles. had the weather been sunny, the walk would have been wonderful. but i don't know of many girls that had a fun time. 

i was glad to be in warm clothes after that. 

obviously, i didn't take pictures in that pouring rain. my bag just got soaked, along with everything else i had on that trip! 

yuck. 

sunday entailed of a great sacrament meeting and an interesting sunday school and relief society meeting in the international ward. hm...

and a great presentation by george chittock, the man who led us on the rain tour of the countryside the previous day. george lived in london during wwII and he told of us his experiences during this time. the war museum featured in this post has a lot more meaning after hearing from george.

this week:

-school tuesday and wedneday. 

- globe theater, yet again, tuesday afternoon for a matinee showing of all's well that ends well. hopefully we have tickets this time. 

- kebab's after the shakespeare performance. 

- off to paris on wednesday afternoon! 

a special thanks to byu for opening up one spot in the section i needed for chemistry and a beginning gymnastics class! great. 

canterbury tales.

escuela (that would be school, in spanish) runs monday through wednesday, hence this week being completely packed. 

thursday was a day trip to canterbury. i thought to myself, what in the world is canterbury. what in the world is there to do in canterbury??? our trip was running from 8 am to 6 pm. lots of hours of uncertainty in there. 

most of us slept on the bus ride there (about 1.5 hours). we had an appointment at the canterbury cathedral, where Thomas Becket, archbishop of canterbury was killed. and yes, indeed, he was killed, if you catch my drift! it was very beautiful inside. the guide knew a lot about the history and about each small section of the interior. i may or may not have zoned out on his two hour tour. whoops. 

sorry, i have to do one of these! ha!

we had a tour of canterbury tales afterwards. do i know anything about canterbury tales? nope. learn more here. i don't know enough to teach you all! it was cheesy and funny i guess. 

the town of canterbury was so cute! a little quaint and small. no there weren't any hobbits. i wish there would have been more free time, but we did what we could in the time allotted! 

best ice cream i've had here. seriously.

left to right: heidi, kathryn, hilary, me, katie, chrisse, kendra.

one of my faves.

we made it back home, made some food. and grouped up for the harry potter midnight showing!! we scored some tickets all together which also included showing part #1 for free at 9 pm. i'm sorry to admit, i was not caught up on the movies or books so i had to have a recap from the girls on the tube ride over. i felt pretty updated and was ready for the adventure! surprisingly, not too many peeps were there dressed up and crazy. in fact, the 9 o clock movie was hardly full. i thought harry potter was big in london? hm. guess not. i loved it! and just twenty minutes later, i would be seeing the second part! wahoo!

second part was great. and it was definitely packed, much relief. it was an adventure in and of itself. i loved it! i am feeling motivated to read the books now. (i stopped reading after number 4). 

i encourage you all to see this! 

i don't have the group pictures but there were 15 of us. it was such a venturesome night, to say the least. we decided to take the bus ride home (runs from 1 am to 5 am, what a crappy shift??). hm... someone was smoking ON the bus. i about suffocated. another guy pulled out some weed right in front of us too. i thought he was going to light up, but he waited until after he was off the bus. thankfully. 

we made it to flat 2 about 4 am on the dot. three hours of sleep is awesome. i don't encourage that. 

there are some interesting people here in the UK. 

i have noticed that:

- most do not move for you when you are walking on the sidewalk

- most do not smile, not even the little children!

- probably one in three people smoke. 

- i feel like they are speaking a foreign language, even though we     BOTH speak English! what!

i've kept track of a few people that have stuck out to me. 

so far, the ratio of grumpy people to pleasant people is 5 to 3. the bad guys are winning. i hope that changes!

who names their store, mustard?? 

p.s. anyone in sections 28 of chem 105 at byu, please drop it so i can add? please and thanks! ;)

near piccadilly.

this week has been a crazy time. we haven't had much free time for things have been booked with us together as a group. 


wednesday, however, we did have free time after class! 
and seeing Les Mis was our activity for the day. 
of course, i'm sure you're catching onto the trend of: "walk to the tube stop and ride." that's a daily occurrence. 
we got a little turned around after coming up from the tube but we made it there in time. hilary and i bought our tickets a little later than everyone else and we had "obstructed view" tickets. i was thinking, oh boy this could be not enjoyable, but as the play started, we saw basically all of the stage except the front right corner. 
let me tell you, this was so beautiful. jean val jean had the most beautiful voice. it was one of those that you get chills while he is singing. i thought it was fantastic.

it was so packed with people, good pictures were hard to come by.

afterwards, some of the group wanted to go back to the flat but hilary and i figured that since we were in central london, we might as well stay there and walk around. after all, oxford street and regent street have some of the best shops in london. and don't forget the little hole in the wall places too. we wanted to find a store called, topshop, and had nowhere to start. of course, we needed directions. i went into a place and the man directed us. i noticed his accent and asked where he was from. nigeria! of course, i dropped the fact that i was going to zimbabwe. we chatted about that for a while. you know when you talk to someone and you can tell that they need to talk for a few minutes? (not meaning that in a mean way, at all) but hilary and i listened and i could tell it made his night! we continued on. found topshop. 

makin' some calls.

piccadilly circus. (in HP 7!!)

and i wanted to find some KEBABS! andrew has reccommened these to me and i had to have one. i asked for more directions and we wandered and wandered to edgware road. this was sketchy. kebab's are of the indian food genre. but as soon as we turned right and turned down edgware, it was a significantly dominant arab area. as we walked, i could tell people were looking at us like, are these girls crazy? (it was still light out, it's like til like 10 pm ha). i had no idea where to go. some places had titles in arabic. very confusing. 
yet again, i asked for directions. finally, the kebab shop was found. i was expecting a small little shack place, but this place had inside seating, and don't forget the 10+ men outside smoking hookahs! yes, hookahs!! i got the kebab after all, it was wondeyful. we got out of that place quick as a whip and i enjoyed the kebab in the tube station. it was full of sliced chicken, salad (lettuce), tomaaato, green pepper, and a sweet garlic sauce. yum is all i can say. it as so great! you allll would love it, i'm certain. 

kebab = yum!! (not pronouced kebob. keBAB).

we are definitely getting the hang of things around here. i love the tube! it is set up so easily, probably for tourists like me ;)

okay, i'll say it: 

one of blogs i frequent, blue lily photography, they take beautiful photos. wendy, tyler and their two children have traveled the world! i have followed their travels and enjoyed their posts. they have been gone for four months from their home in temecula, CA. they are back in the states now and posted about being gone for so long. 

they have had so many wonderful adventures and met new friends, but at the end of the day, they missed their family & friends at home. 

i feel the same. i have had so many adventures, have a brain and heart full of memories and my travels are only halfway done! it's been amazing so far, but i can only picture how much better it would be if my closest people were here with me. it's weird for me to think of waking up at 7 am, knowing my friends are all together watching a movie. i miss the comfort of home, friends, food, and familiarity. i can't wait to get back. 

but for now, i will live it up for me and all of you! 

photo courtesy of Blue Lily Photography.

my day of birth.

celebrating my day of birth (which was 20 years ago, whoa.) was wonderful here in london town!


started out at 12:02 am with some great birthday wishes from friends back at home :) you know who you are.


had a great sleep, woke up early to work out and it was great. and proud of myself for doing that. it's hard to do when i am so tired each night getting into bed. the extra 30 minutes of sleep helps during the day. but i woke up early anyway!
kathryn dropped off a little package my momma sent with her. inside were some cards and notes from my friends! the best.


school for a couple hours and we were heading immediately to the train station to go to the globe theater for much ado about nothing. a few of us left to grab our lunches at #2 (i will refer to our flat as #2 from now on!) a medium length ride to the theater, small walk, and we were there! 


as a group, we met at the front. dr. anderson said there was good and bad news. 
bad news first: our booking lady at byu failed to tell us that when she went to book tickets for us, the play was sold out. so we got there ready for our play, with no tickets. mind you, that is mess up #2/#3 for her. i was not pleased. not even the fact that it was my birthday, but she gets paid to book things for big groups like us and she messed up big time!
good news: we were heading to westminster abbey for a walking tour. 


side note - the globe theater is right by the millenium bridge which is in harry potter.

another train ride to westminster and we were there. exiting the tube stop and again, BAM, big ben greeted us!

across the street and around the corner was westminster abbey. it was so beautiful! still, i do not understand how these abbeys are constructed? how did the intricate detail get there? especially when it wasn't built recently and we have all the technology and tools we do? another mystery. 

inside, pictures weren't allowed. it was a sight to see. and remember, kate and william were married there just a little bit ago. 

her gorgeous dress:

she is beautiful.

cool clock!

me and suzanne.

thrilled!

the inside was incredible. i can't even describe it! there were tombs from so many of the kings from the 1500-1600's. and the oldest door in england. built in 1400. a lot of history in there! 

i'm glad we went. our tickets were standing tickets for much ado about nothing, a three hour standing play wouldn't have been too enjoyable... 

all of our group was split up throughout the abbey but some of us gathered again to head to dinner for my birthday! we did settle on the italian place that hilary and i visited, here. the food is too tasty to pass up! i may go back for a pizza. 

left to right: hilary, chrisse, kathryn, angela, megan, sara.

left to right: katie, laura, brooke, kjersti, suzanne, me.

tortelloni that was wonderful!!

the girls pitched in to pay for my dessert. wonderful. 

not as good as my apple crisp, but it filled the void!

the flat was the relaxing abode for the night. i updated some blog posts and relaxed a bit. it was a great birthday!

i am so grateful for all the friends i have! it was so fun to read through my facebook page and see all those who cared about me and wished me a great birthday. 

i love you all! i have the best friends and family. seriously. i win!! 

remember, you can click on the pictures to enlarge them and view a better image! i could post them larger but then the post would be even loonnnger.

oh. hilary got me this:

i spotted it in a shop on the other side of town. didn't get it, but she did. sneaky sneaky.