And Now for Something Completely Different...

A big hello from across the pond!

(Okay, so I've been in the UK nearly 3 weeks but this is the first you're really hearing about it, thanks to my extremely busy schedule.)

The last couple of weeks have been the most awesome of my life. And since I'm so behind on blogging, why don't I just take you on a tour of my first bit of time in London...

First off, the flight. Unless you have flown for 12 hours before, you have no idea what it was like getting over to the UK. You want to sleep, but you can't because the person in front of you has his chair pushed all the way back and your pillow is too tiny. However, it was all worth it to finally make it to London. We arrived in Heathrow and took a cab down to the lovely London Centre.

It was still morning, and because our professors are so nice (and a bit cruel), they decided it would be an excellent idea to keep us up that entire day so we could overcome jet lag. So it was time for a tour of the area. Let me show you...

Can you believe that? I think that's the most ingenious thing I've discovered about London so far. They have all of these huge beautiful parks that people can use. If you take a walk down further, you run into this guy...

That is Prince Albert. It's the sweetest thing. He was married to Queen Victoria and he died quite young but Victoria loved him all her life. She made all of these monuments and buildings dedicated to him. Beat that, Will and Kate.

We actually live in a pretty "posh" part of London. At least, it's one of the most expensive places to live. And I guess Ginny Weasley (or the actress that plays her) lives somewhere nearby. That's when you know you've made it, friends. Cheers to BYU for owning this place.

So I will give you a rundown of the rest of my first London adventures (this may get a bit choppy as I do not want to bore you with the million things I've done). Here goes nothing.

June 24: Walked to Westminster Abbey. Saw Buckingham Palace and Trafalgar Square for the first time. Realized that London is HUGE. We ate lunch by the Thames and avoided an Indian man trying to sell us cheap sunglasses and Will & Kate memorabilia (I've name dropped them twice now, but my contract required one more). Saw Big Ben and Parliament. Embarrassingly, I thought of V for Vendetta right off the bat. No, I will not blow up Parliament (I'll save those kind of shenanigans for my trip to France). Westminster Abbey was absolutely gorgeous. There were a zillion people in line, but when you are a cool student traveling with 39 other students, you get in the secret back way. Could only take pictures in the cloister, but the cloister looked like Hogwarts so that was okay. It's a little creepy to think of how many royals are buried under that building. But it's also a powerful thing. I cried in the Poets' Corner. That's really the closest I'll ever be to some of those incredible writers while I'm on earth. I really wished I knew more about Catholicism, particularly to figure out why some of the coffins had animals (including a porcupine) at the feet of the person.

June 25: This was one of two free days that we have in the program. And we took advantage of every second. We started out with Portobello Road. This road has a market (amazingly called Portobello Market) that's open every Saturday. The street is a mile long or so and it's totally filled with little shops and stands. There are people performing on the street, too. It's great. My only purchases were two gorgeous necklaces. The designer said Taylor Swift bought from her stand and she had pictures to prove it. So goodness gracious, I have a necklace that Taylor Swift owns. That's right! Went to see "The Hoarder" next. We deemed him the Hoarder because it's this man who donated all of his stuff to London when he died to use as a museum. We were imagining really crazy stuff, but he had bits of destroyed Greek buildings, an Egyptian Tomb, paintings from people I've actually heard of in Humanities... it was wild. After that, we got tickets for a play in Leicester Square. It is called "The 39 Steps." It's definitely not a play that will make you sit down and think about your life, but it was super hilarious. We were in the front row, and the main actor totally spat on me at one point because we was enunciating his words. Actor spit is awesome.

*HARRY POTTER MOMENT* While we were in "Theatreland," I totally found Shaftesbury Avenue, where the trio gets apparated at the beginning of the seventh book. I nearly got run over by a double decker just like in the movie so I felt pretty legit. *MISCHIEF MANAGED*

June 26: Church. They split our big group into smaller groups so we can serve in different wards around the London area. We took a train out to the church building. We actually missed the first train and then we got onto the wrong train... it was a bit of a fiasco. But the important thing is that we got there. I now belong to the Clapham Common ward, which has been one of the great joys of being in London so far. I'm not kidding. The ward is tiny (I thought my home ward was getting small, but they don't even have a full bishopric), but the people are so strong. They really know the gospel and live it.

Well, folks, you'll have to wait until my art assignment is done to hear the next installment. I'll try to be better about posting from here on out, but the Internet is super slow so please check Facebook for tons more pictures. :)