A bloggy day in London town

I have been kind of dreading blogging because I am so far behind. The time is flying and I don't want to spend it in front of a computer! Hence, I have already pulled two all-nighters while I've been here to do homework and papers because I refuse to spend all day sitting in the centre being productive haha. But I was talking with some people last night and they were kind of appalled because I don't skype, skype-chat, gchat, call, or email my family every day, weekly, or every other week for that matter. Sorry guys!  My best effort at keeping in touch is this blog, and the best I can do right now is some more highlight pics from the last 10 days or so. I hope you like them!
P.S. -- to see some other stuff I've been up to in London don't forget to check here!

Les Mis!

The entire program went, but this is a few of us after the show 

Hampton Court
The group took a little day trip to he palace of Henry VIII. It was huge and pretty awesome, almost overwhelmingly so! My favorite part, of course were the gardens and the exterior architecture. It's interesting how the palace has a lot of different facades because different architects worked on different parts The rooms inside all kind of started to look the same after about the 3rd wing and the audio guide tour was too long-winded.

The Down House

This is Charles Darwin's home and the other stop on our little day trip. It's called the Down House because it's in Downe, England. I'm not going to lie, at this point I was kind of museumed-out, as I call it, since Hampton Court was a lot to handle, and I hadn't read Charles and Emma, like everyone in the English class did, so I wasn't too interested in this Darwin place. But then the bus rolled up to the cutest house ever with beautiful gardens and I was sold. It was interesting because the first floor rooms are preserved as they were when he and his family lived there, and then the top floor rooms are little exhibits. 

We got to take a stroll through the gardens and along the "sand path" Darwin liked to walk along while he thought. This was a pretty view back on the house.

 Wicked!
I had been wanting to go since I got here, but most people had already gone. So after dinner on a Tuesday, Nick and I randomly decided to go, along with Cara who goes to the same ward as me on Sundays. It was the best snap decision ever! We left the Centre at 6:30 and booked it over to the Apollo Theatre. At about forty minutes till the show began we got there and ended up getting 4th row, center tickets for 28 pounds! Perks of being a student, going on a weekday, and showing up right beforehand! I absolutely LOVED the show. The set, the costumes, the music, and  the cast were all fabulous. Elphaba's voice was amazing and Glinda was so funny. I wish I could go again before I leave!

4th row! So close I couldn't get it all in the shot!

Cara, me, and Nick before the show

 Cambridge!
The group went on another day trip to Cambridge a couple weeks ago, now. Of course, it is famous for Cambridge University, comprised of dozens of separate colleges spread throughout the city. The main reason we all went was because Dr. Miller had arranged with his colleague, the director BYU summer Honors program at Cambridge, to have some of the students there show us around and get kind of an insider's look at Cambridge while the whole place was pretty much shut down because of exams. Apparently they don't take exams every semester. They get to take a week of comprehensive exams after three whole years of school! Woof. Cambridge was quite enjoyable. Dr. Carey took us into a Wren chapel at Pembroke College and gave us some info on the colleges, then gave us a huge list of stuff we could go see with the students to take us around. I went and saw an exhibition on the emergence of the King James Bible at the Cambridge University Library. They had a real Gutenberg Bible so that was pretty awesome to see. The whole group reconvened at King's College Chapel for a little tour. As it turns out, John and Susan Tanner were in Cambridge for the day before they head out on their mission, and they hung out with our group for a bit, which was really nice of them. The highlight of the day though was "punting on the Cam," or riding in quasi-gondolas down the Cam River, which runs behind all the Colleges. It was so quaint but hard because you propel the little wooden boat with just an a paddle in the front, and an aluminum pole on the back! My boat had some issues with steering, to say the least, but it was really fun and beautiful!

 
King's College quad

punting down the Cam

Shakespeare at the Globe!

I thought I'd throw this in here; I've been to two plays at the Globe now: All's Well That Ends Well and As You Like It. They were both such fun shows, and it's awesome to be up close to the actors. They are so good! The day after As You Like It the group got to go on a tour of the Globe and the remains of the Rose, its predecessor. We saw a live rehearsal of Much Ado About Nothing, which was really fun to see and has the guy who played Geoffrey the butler on Fresh Prince!

Kelsey, Nick, Andrea, me, and Scott after the Globe Tour

Oxford!

Oxford was great. Me, Tara, Shelisa, and Hannah decided to go as a little sef-guided day trip a couple Saturdays ago since it's only an hour train ride away. We wanted to see some the HP sites there, the colleges, get some paraphernalia, etc. Our Oxford trip was fun, and I would definitely go back and do it again! It is more touristy than Cambridge, but they are both great in their own ways. 

Outside the Great Hall of Christ Church College, the inspiration for the Great Hall in the Harry Potter Movies, but NOT where they filmed it. We still wanted to go though and pretend it was. We were SO BUMMED because we ran to get there by 4:30, got there at 4:28, and the guy still wouldn't let us in. We sat on the steps and wept for a bit. I'm just barely getting over it.
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The Divinity Room where they DID film the infirmary in HP 1 and the dance lesson scene in HP 4!

This is during our climb up to the top of a church that overlooks the whole of Oxford. There were stunning views, which I included a couple of below:

Radcliffe Camera, designed by Sir Christopher Wren and now the reading room of the Bodleian Library.
It's one of my favorite pieces of architecture that I've seen so far!

Lastly, we ended our Oxford day with dinner at the Eagle and Child pub, the stomping grounds of J.R.R. Tolkein and C.S. Lewis. They would meet up and bounce ideas off each other and swap their drafts of Narnia and Lord of the Rings.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned! My next post is on North England, Scotland, and the Lake District! After that: PARIS. Brace yourselves, lads.

Weekend Update

Once again, it's time for the photo update! I've been having a blast and here are some of the highlights during the last week or so. Enjoy!

We saw matinée of The Children's Hour on the last day it was showing. It's a drama that starred Keira Knighley and Elisabeth Moss, among others. The plot reminded me a lot of Doubt and kind of Atonement too. I liked it a lot; it was very thought provoking and the acting was so powerful. All of the actors were really, really good. And it wasn't Keira's stardom that blew me away on stage, it was the amazing passion that she put into her role. I'm really glad I decided to see this instead of a Broadway show that I can see in the US some other time. 

 

 This is some of us waiting outside the stage door at night after the evening finale performance. We tried to wait and get autographs after our show, but the bouncers told us none the actors were coming out. Lies! They basically all did, except for Keira. So we decided to come back and try and get a glimpse and hopefully a picture or autograph, and we did! We got there at 9:30 and waited for over an hour for the show to finish and the cast party to wind down before we finally saw Keira! We were front row behind the barricades, so we all held out our things for her to sign and luckily a girl in my group got good pictures. She was so cute and so nice, but her autograph is a scribble, haha. Unfortunately she didn't have time to stop and pose with us (and nearly 100 other people waiting), but she was right there, inches away and talked to us for a second, which was great!

Abbey Road!

Reenactment! -- I guess I'm Ringo

(we all ran and posed in groups of four when there wasn't traffic)

I signed the wall on Abbey Road!

Part of the group that made the pilgrimage 

(Nick, Jason, Catherine, me, Sydnie, Shelisa)

Portobello Road Market on a Saturday morning

(Nick, Andrea, and me)

The London Eye!

A group of us spontaneously decided to go ride the London Eye last Monday evening. It was kinda pricey, and a glorified photo op, but it was really fun still!

Me, Kelsey, Alison, Alexa, Hillary, Nick, and Sam

The Trip West: 

Stonehenge, Bath, Wales, Cotswolds, Durdle Door Beach, etc

This past Tuesday through Friday we left the city and headed west out into the countryside a bit. We traveled by coach (bus) and stayed in a pretty nice hostel in Bristol for three night but ventured out into little towns and the countryside by day to see some cool stuff. Let me just tell you, the English countryside is one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen. Seriously. If you ever come to England, do yourself a favor and get out of the city for at least a day. It's breathtaking. I didn't get a ton of pictures because I was just watching it go by, but everything is SO green. It reminded me of New England at times when it was more woodsy, and then there were acres upon acres of rolling fields and farmland. So pretty.

Shelisa, me, Amy, and Tara in our room in the hostel

We were lucky and got a bathroom and shower right in our room!

Stop #1: Stonehenge!

Stop #2: Avebury Circle 

(14x bigger than Stonehenge, predates it, and you can get up close to the rocks; pretty cool and the tour guide lady was hilarious)

Stop #3: Caen Hill Locks

(These are in the town of Devizes. Don't ask.

It was a 2 hour impromptu side trip because Dr. Miller really likes locks and walks)

Stop #4: Bath

We started out by going to see the Roman Baths and took the audio tour, which was interesting, but I get informationed-out pretty quickly. Overall, Bath was fun, but not for a whole day, just so you know if you ever go. There's the baths, the cathedral, shops, the royal crescent, some museums, a park, spas, and it's pretty touristy. Still, just seeing the ancient Roman baths was pretty awesome!

Me at the baths, and you can see part of Bath Abbey behind me

Stop #5: Tintern Abbey, Wales

This was, surprisingly, one of my favorite parts of the whole trip. We'd seen a lot of cathedrals, historical sites, etc, so I was kind of getting overloaded by the time we hit Tintern on day 3, but I was blown away by the scenery here. Tintern is the ruin of a Cistercian monastery that dates back to the 12th Century. The ruins were really neat, but I was awed by the beautiful wooded hills around it. It is nestled in a small valley that was exquisitely lush and green. The abbey and scenery were the inspiration for the Wordsworth poem "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey." The whole time I was there I just thought of dad and how much he would have loved it -- for the beautiful sights and quiet peace of nature, the connection to poetry, and the rich history.  

Green!

The whole fam damily

Stop #6: The Cotswolds

The Cotswolds are a famous part of the English countryside that is known for the quaint, cozy villages with their cute tea rooms, pubs, and cottages. We stopped for an afternoon in one town called Chipping Campden. They set us loose to get lunch and explore, then later we went to another little town and from there started out on a 4+ mile hike/walk on one of the many public use trails that meander through rural England. It was great just to get out and walk after a few days of bus riding. Once again, I couldn't get over how beautiful the landscape was. We traipsed, Sound of Music-style, through grassy, rolling hills, Sacred Grove-esque woods, fields full of sheep, farmland, etc. I highly recommend doing a hike if you're ever in the English countryside. 

 One thing about England is that pretty much anyone can walk through your backyard if it's part of one of the national trails. We walked by this great country manor that was surrounded by pastures with horses.

Looking back down on the little town and the beautiful valley

Stop #7: Durdle Door Beach, Dorset County

Durdle Door was definitely another highlight. The beach is famous because of the awesome natural limestone arch. A steep hike up some cliffs and then back down again was required to get to the water, but it was absolutely gorgeous and worth it for the views, even though it was cloudy until we were leaving!

Some of the girls along the hike

Amy, me, Tara, and Shelisa on the beach

The trip was great, but it was equally great to get back to London and the comforts of "home," which include having the internet. Saturday I just went to the National Portrait Gallery for art class to do my sketches, did a little shopping on Oxford Street, and spent the night catching up on hw and stuff. It's taken me two days to get this all blogged, so enjoy!