Well... I went to LONDON!!!!

I want to make some sort of conclusion or something... This is actually taken straight from my Theater class final exam, and I think it says everything I wanted to say. Sorry it's a bit lengthy, but I wouldn't post it unless I thought it was worth while.

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Before I came on this trip, the only things that ran through my mind were sports and science. I knew everything about the BYU basketball team, and I had a million physics equations memorized, but I was definitely lacking in my knowledge of the arts. I had always given the arts a back seat in my life. Even in high school, volleyball even had precedence over choir. Then in college, I never knew about BYU's productions, and I had been to the MOA only by accident. I liked theater when I had the rare chance to see anything, but I never gave it a lot of thought. I was the kind of person who only did whatever my friends were doing, and I simply didn’t have any theater friends. I wanted this program to help me become more rounded and come to appreciate theater more and that is just what happened for me. I really only expected to enjoy theater more, but I came to understand that it’s not just for entertainment, and it can be used to make you think and examine yourself, and learn life lessons.
One key point where I learned that theater can impact your life was during the production of The Real Thing. Elizabeth mentions that a commitment of marriage is something that you have to commit to every day. I realized that this advice is actually really important in real life, and that it could help me in my future relationship with my husband. I realized that theater can open my eyes and my heart to new ideas in a more personal way in which films just can’t do. There’s something about seeing the actors in person, and when they’re being true to their character and honest, it can touch my life more personally.
Through this experience, I was able to inspect my life, because it was like a break from the real world. Without my phone, or my usual friends and activities, I learned more about being an individual and learning more about who I really am, and how my friends, volleyball, or chemistry and physics don’t define who I am. I was able to be completely on my own, make new friends, and throw myself into a lifestyle that was completely alien to me. This changed me to realize how individual I am and challenged me to define myself not by what I do for fun, but how my experiences and relationships with other people define my personality.

June 10th Happy Birthday to ME!

This was my last day in London :( About half of our group, including Annie had left. Shamae and I decided to venture out and have a Londonesque day. Basically we wanted to take pictures of everything we hadn't taken pictures of yet. We started out with walking through the mews near our flats, and we took a bunch of pictures of cute little English scenes.

they have these signs for silly tourists like us, who don't know which way to look

The next thing that tickled our fancy was making our way to Buckingham Palace. Can you believe I hadn't been there yet? 6 weeks in London, and I wait 'til the LAST week to go? Weird, I know. We just took some pictures outside the gates and of the funny guards with their tall furry hats.

That night, me and some of the girls who were still in London went to "Mama Mia," and it was SO fun! I really wasn't very excited to see it because I didn't really like the movie at all. But this play was awesome! All of the musical numbers were so fun. The best part though, was at the end. They had basically a concert for their curtain call, and sang more ABBA songs. And the audience stood up and danced! It was a perfect last thing to do in London, (Dance party and a musical? Of course!) and an awesome Birthday present!

June 9th

So.. as I said in my last post, I spent the night in the front room. Well, I was convinced that it was amazing to sleep there, until someone decided to come in at 7 am and type on their computer while eating a noisy breakfast. 7 am!! You'd think two sleeping people would deter someone from doing their business in there. There was a perfectly good table sitting right outside the door! And for some reason, this person who I won't name, didn't get the hint at all, when I rolled over and stared at her for a good 20 seconds, and then asked, "what are you doing up so early?" She didn't get the hint at all! So much for setting my alarm for 9 am. I even said that actually. And she still didn't get the hint. Anyway... If that wasn't a bad enough morning, I had to take my Shakespeare final too.

Shakespeare final = not fun. It consisted of 10 quote matching sections, 5 short answers, and a 5 paragraph essay. I did OK on the quote matching, but the short answer section was pretty hard. I'm not a theater person, and it was all about defining theater terms that I have maybe only seen once, while it's probably old hat for a lot of others. Again, serious disadvantage, but hey, it's my fault for doing a theater study abroad, right? Oh, and do I need to even mention the 5 paragraph essay? Of course it sucked!

Although the first part of the day wasn't so great, I was determined to make the second part better. After class, Annie, Jason, Christian, Melissa, and I went to Lion King. ok ok, it was a matinee showing, and there were a lot of kids there. But, it made it sort of fun because they were extra excited about everything. My biggest complaint however, was that they booed Scar in the curtain call! Booed him! Come on, teach those kids some manners. Other than that, the show was really cool visually. The costumes were really vibrant and imaginative.

After Lion King, Annie and I were hungry, so we squeezed in time for Wagamama. I know I know, it was my third time! But in my defense, I had something different each time! We were in a bit of a hurry, but we made it on time to our last show for the class, called Joe Turner's Come and Gone. I want to tell you about it, but honestly, I'm not sure what it was about. I thought it was cool, and interesting, and the acting was great, and it was kinda crazy. But I have no idea what it's about. It was kinda crazy.

June 8

I really need to keep up on this blogging thing.

Tuesday, Tuesday... I'm having a hard time remembering what I did...

I know I started out the morning with the final for my Theater class. That went really well. It was basically a reflective final, about how I learned and grew from the experience. I really enjoyed the final actually. I felt like it worked better than a regular final that tests on facts about what I learned, because this way I was able to figure out what I learned on my own. And it was virtually stress-free, which made it that much better.

Anyway, after the final, I went back to the flats, and spent some time in my room writing/dreading my very last paper, studying for the Shakespeare final, and distracting myself with facebook and blogging. After a while, I finished my paper and I was tired of being inside, so I decided to take the 10 to H&M. Before I got to London, I thought I'd be doing a lot of walking around, but in reality, I barely walk around London. The tube and the buses take me everywhere. For example, I walk out of my flat, about ten yards to the bus stop, and I take the 49 to Gloucester station, or the 9 or the 10 to the High Street Kensington tube station most of the time. And that's the stop that happens to be right where H&M is also. I really love H&M. I found some cute things for my niece and nephew there.

After I went to H&M, I went back to the flats to see if anybody was doing anything fun, but there were still quite a few people still writing their papers. After Shamae finished hers, we took a trip to the grocery store where we picked up some digestives for our family to try. Everyone lived off digestives the whole trip. They're little cookies that are like graham crackers and they have chocolate on one side. Well, I guess you could get them plain, but we like the ones with the chocolate.

When we got back, we ventured to the cubbard under the stairs for the first time! That's where the boys live in the flats. We had never been to the boys lair before. It was like a whole other foreign country. Well, sort of. We basically had a party, but not really. Just sat around and chatted. Afterwards, Shamae and I headed back up to our flat on the 5th floor and had a sleepover in the front room. That front room really grew on me. It was SOOO much better than my room, and I'm sad I didn't discover it earlier. Oh well....

Why all the Elephants?

So, why all the elephants? Well, to tell you the truth, I really don't know. But enjoy my pictures.

June 7- My list is DONE!

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away..... Oh yesterday came suddenly

(more on that in a minute)

Yesterday was SO COOL! We had class, and found out that we had extra money left over from the program, so each of us got back 60 pounds! 60! I was pretty excited for that, needless to say. Also, we found out that we would get a free lunch after class! So, we went back to our flats, and had a giant pizza party. Oh, and it was no Dominos pizza. It was real, legit, European gourmet pizza. It was SOO GOOOD!

After class, some of us decided to go to the British Library. Ok. The British Library is probably one of the most amazing things I have seen this whole trip. Let me just tell you what I saw there...

p.s. these are all like.. original manuscript type things

The Magna Carta

Handel's Messiah

Bolero

The Wedding March

Beethoven- Violin Sonata

a Gutenberg Bible

Leonardo Da Vinci sketches

Beatles lyrics! (those were way cool, they were written on the backs of envelopes and birthday cards)

Lewis Carrol's original Alice in wonderland manuscripts

one of the oldest printings of Beowulf

one of Jane Austen's notebooks

A page of what is accepted as Shakespeare's handwriting

Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet plays- as old as 1692

Beethoven's tuning fork

And basically a lot of other really cool old things. I can't even name them all. After the Library, we of course, went to My Old Dutch for some awesome Dutch Pancakes. And this time I took pictures, so get ready to be amazed.

Pretty awesome huh? You know what else is awesome? I saw Wicked again. I HAD to ok? Don't judge. I love it. And it was even better the second time! When I got home, Annie was working on her packing skills, and she had bought a billion scarves during the course of the program, and they were all on the floor just waiting for me to turn them into a giant scarf outfit for Annie. So, here's Annie, the scarfmonster.

June 5- hottest day EVER and June 6-Sunday

So, the hottest day we have ever had took a toll on us.

It was a Saturday, so what did we do? Portabello Road!!

I had some things on my list that I needed to get for people, and I was very successful. However, we spent about 3 hours there in the hot hot sun. And then, we took our journey to the British Museum. However, we were EXTREMELY tired from Portabello road, so we just saw what we wanted to. We saw an easter island dude, and the Rosetta Stone.

After the British Museum we were all so tired, we went back to our flats. My plan was to go to the British Library, but my feet were screaming in agony from all the walking at abbey road the day before, and all the walking at Portabello. We had hoped to take the bus to our flat, but sadly, the bus wasn't running normally because of this protest....

Which was right outside my flat as you can see my flat is there in the picture. It was a protest for the Israel - Palestine Gaza conflict thing going on. They chanted, "Free free Palestine!" The same protest thing that kept us from eating at My Old Dutch last Monday. Anyway, I was really tired, and the sound of the helicopter was kind of soothing.. So I took a much needed nap in the front room, and it was blissful. I spent the rest of the day catching up on my blogging.

Ok, so the Rosetta stone, and the protest was cool and all, but the best part of the day was my purchase at Portabello Road. I found the cutest skirt for 1 pound! So of course, I bought it.

Aww... aren't I cute? Honestly, cutest skirt ever. But wait....

They're actually HIDEOUS SHORTS!!! Oh, and the best part is, I bought TWO. Way to go Jill, way to go. But you know what? I just figured I'd rock it- so I wore them for the rest of the day. They are actually really comfortable.

I ended up spending the rest of the night in the front room. Shamae and I stayed up watching Daxflame videos on youtube because they are quite addicting. Not to mention hilarious. By the time I decided to go to bed, it was about 2 am. I meandered into my room, only to find that it was very uncomfortably warm, and the window was not making any difference. It really was the hottest day ever, I promise. Also, I may or may not have a roommate who snores. So, after a few minutes of failing to fall asleep, and throwing a few books at my roommate to get her to stop snoring, I took my pillow and duvet, and went back to the front room, and spent an evening of bliss on the couch next to the big open windows. It was purely bliss, and I'm considering doing that again tonight.

Oh, p.s. now it's sunday, and I'm COMPLETELY caught up on my blog! yay for me! Today at church was great. I love testimony meeting in this ward because most of the testimonies are about conversion stories, and everyone who comes up is from a different country. It's just amazing to hear about them and their story. I also love how the church is the same everywhere. It is so well organized, and I know it is all inspired by God. There is such a supportive community in the church everywhere. No matter where you go, you're not alone in the church. Even here, I feel like this ward is home. I love it. Today was wonderful, and I love the spirit I feel at church. All I'm doing now is hoping to keep that same spirit throughout the rest of today.

June 4- smart shopping

Camden Market, Abbey Road, Covent Garden, Harrods, H&M, Wagamama

Man, this day was stacked to the brim of stuff that I did.

We got a group of us together, and the first thing we did was go to Camden Market. I'd have to say, I'm pretty proud of myself. I was thinking about getting a leather jacket, because tons of girls have them and they look great on them. Before this trip, I would have never even considered a leather jacket, but then I wanted to get one because they looked so good on everyone! Well, I didn't give in. I didn't get one! Yay for me. I helped Shamae buy one though, and we got it down to 25 pounds :) The vendors in Camden are so funny. They're different from Portabello because some of them try to hit on us and flatter us, and they are actually a little more aggressive, in the sense that they make it hard to walk away because they might follow. However, they are easier to talk the price down because- (this is the best trick ever). If you walk away, he'll drop the price to what you want :) Today was funny because one of the vendors was sweet talking to Shamae a whole bunch. He was calling her pretty, and a supermodel, and even singing to her. Kind of nutso. But we got out of there alive, and then treated ourselves to some fresh squeezed orange juice. YUM.

we girls at Camden

Right after Camden, we took a long tube ride to Abbey Road. We were hoping for a cool picture on the famous cross walk, but we didn't exactly know where it was. SO... It was like the first day of Paris ALL OVER AGAIN. We wandered around going the wrong way in 3 different directions until we gave up and took a picture on just some cross walk on Abbey road. Just as we were taking the picture, however, some guy on a motorcycle sped by while pointing behind him, and I'm pretty sure I heard him yell, "It's back there!" So we walked about ten yards, and sure enough, there it was! So then we took a legitimate Beatles picture.

ours, and the original

The best part was all the people around trying to get that picture, and how funny they looked when they walked because they wouldn't walk normally. We actually sat there for a few minutes laughing at the people walk across.

When we got bored with that, we headed to the market at Covent Garden. Covent garden wasn't my favorite market. It was very touristy, and very crowded. But they had great street performers. I heard a rumor that they had to try out to perform there. My favorite was a string quartet that did some amazing pieces.

After Covent, we headed to Harrods. I know I have told you about Harrods before, but it is one of those places that you just have to be there to really understand. Everything is designer. We wandered mostly through the womens section, and they would have sections for Louis Vuitton, Dior, Juicy Couture, Dolce & Gabbana, Burberry, and I could go on and on. And the prices, oh the prices. They were insane! We found this hideously ugly blue fuzzy vest thing by Louis Vuitton that was 3000 pounds. And no, I didn't accidentally add another 0. Three thousand pounds. And it was hideous. HIDEOUS. I wouldn't be caught dead in it. I just don't get it. I really don't get it. Harrods was quite the experience. It was interesting to see the kind of people who actually shopped there. We went through the kid's toys section too, and we were able to get these cool glitter tattoos from a girl doing a demonstration.

After Harrods, we decided we wanted to go spend our money like smart shoppers, so Robyn, Hannah and I headed over to H&M. This was my first time at H&M, and I kinda went crazy. I spent 80 ish pounds, but hear me out! I got 4 shirts, 2 skirts, 1 pair of shoes, 1 headband, and 1 pair of capris. That's a good deal if you ask me. Take THAT Louis Vuitton. And I even had to sadly say no to a few things. H&M is definitely my style, and I'm sad there isn't one in Utah or Idaho. After that, we were hungry after our super long day, so we ate at Wagamama. I know, AGAIN. But it was even better the second time!