England... it was fun! the night we arrived, we all went to the grocery store. It was huge and the isles were actually big enough to walk through! It was magical. The first day, Courtney and I went on the tour to Leeds, Dover, and Canterbury. It was interesting. We both wanted to sit by a window and she sat in the back while I was in the middle so we didn't really talk to each other the whole time which was a tad interesting. Our tour buss was more like a tour van. It was really small. Leeds was really cool. I enjoyed looking around. I also really liked their dog collar museum. I don't know why, but I found it pretty fascinating. The aviary was cool, too. Courtney said one of the birds actually said hello to her. Courtney and I split up but I didn't have the time so I was a little stressed out on my own. We only stopped by the beach in Dover because it was raining pretty hard core. We were there just long enough to collect some rocks and take pictures. Canterbury was fun. It was still raining a ton. We had a lot of time there, too so we had time to wonder around. I was super hungry and I didn't take out any cash so I had to eat at a place I knew would take credit card. That place happened to be Subway. :) I've missed subway. It was in a super old building which was fun. The workers there were Italian. When I asked if I could use credit card, they asked to see it, so I had to reach through my money pouch in my pants in front of them. They all ogled of course. Later, one asked me “so, you have a boyfriend in America?” and I just laughed. It was pretty funny and also a little embarrassing. The Cathedral itself was really cool. I was trying really hard to find structural differences between that cathedral and French ones that i've seen. I couldn't really think of any which was disappointing. I tried asking one of the old workers there but all he said was that it was for a different religion and that it was much more used and better kept up. There was no arguing with him there, but that wasn't the answer I was hoping for. Oh well. That's just me trying to apply my new knowledge. I couldn't really find the exact place where Thomas Becket got the ax... but I am pretty sure that I walked right over it. I've always been on Henry II's side anyways. Henry II was pretty fascinating.
Courtney and I got home really early. I just wanted to study so bad- actually I take that back. I just knew I needed to. Kirsten told me I needed to put in a little more effort into studying so I thought i'd give it a try. 2 ½ hours and a soar tongue later, I had like 300 flash cards with all my vocab. I felt really ridiculous because I didn't think it would possibly actually help me. Well it helped a lot, actually. I'm working on it for my next test, now. oy. Too much vocab!! Well, that's all I did that night. Courtney and I also stayed up being goofy. We were both too tired to get ready for bed so we were just staying up and laughing for a long time.
Well, next day, Ariel, Courtney, and I headed out for yet another tour. Shaina opted out on coming with us so I practically didn't see her the whole trip. First we headed out to Windsor castle! It was so cool! I saw so many original paintings there hat I have seen in books. I was ecstatic. I was moving really slowly just ogling all the pieces of art and Ariel and Courtney were impatient and left me in the dust. I really wanted to practice my knowledge of art that I had learned while there and try to name all the monarchs I could. My art major friend, aka ariel, was not there to help me, though. I was also left watchless.. I ended up going to the buss 30 min early. The buss driver was all “you're kidding me, right? You have tirdy more minutes left!” I couldn't understand “tirty” until I realized that he was Irish. Well I could have had a little more time at the castle :( oh well. At least I didn't get left behind like some other unfortunate couple did.
Our next stop was stone henge. It's always really fun to go there. At first I didn't take a ton of pictures because I felt like we already had a ton of pictures of that place. I just decided to take some silly ones for the fun of it, so I initiated it. I've realized that I don't really like looking at my pictures of just buildings and such so I just wanted some fun ones of Stone henge. The sky was gorgeous so I ended up taking some pictures anyways. We all bought really cute matching rings while there. They were in the shape of stone henge :)
Next stop was bath. I got a little snap happy there and took tons of pictures. I was overly paranoid that they were going to leave me again so I kept being all “guys! Don't leave me!” and they were a little annoyed cause I was moving slowly again. I just don't see the point of going places if you aren't going to learn anything about them! I didn't want to just hurry through and see everything, I wanted to take it in. it's taken me all this time to finally realize that. Oh well. I also insisted that we go take the waters in the restaurant. It didn't taste as strong as I had thought it would! I basically chugged it while the other girls had little sips.
I took a nap on the bus ride home. I woke up what felt like two hours later, but we were in the middle of england, and unable to get into London because of traffic. I was a bit confused for a bit. We finally made it in like 2 hours late. After, we went to some cheap place for fish and chips. They were nasty. The skin was still on the fish. I also did this thing where I was going to try not to take out any money the entire weekend. It worked! :) it was nice too. I don't need extra pounds laying around.
The next day, Ariel and I went off to Hyde park and to see buckinghamm palace. At hyde, we just sat there and dog watched. We miss dogs.. After that, we went to England's big museum. It was really cool. I really wanted to see the bog man. I forgot that the really cool bog people were actually in Dublin so I was a little dissapointed in the one there. It was still pretty neat.
I then wandered off to the victoria and albert museum all by myself. I didn't have a lot of time before meeting back at our hotel to get to the train station so all I really got to see were the bronze sculptures and the fashion section. It was pretty neat. :) ariel went off to the museum of london and said that “it was not that great” which shocked me and I tried not to be mad about it, cause I loved that place. I guess artifacts from every-day life isn't really her thing... i'm still trying not to be mad about it, haha. Well i'm glad I did two tours. I ran out of things to do in London just in the one day! I figured out why London is so ugly. It just doesn't have the same strict building codes as Paris has. After all the damage from WWII, ugly soviet era buildings went up like daises. Gross. It's a really gray City. I much prefer the countryside of England.
Monday was looong. The only thing worth reporting, really, is the YSA FHE. The ricks canceled their FHE again. Ariel and I just stayed a super long time talking to everyone. I didn't mean to stay so long and I always feel bad doing that. We just spoke to Todd, Miro (who stole my new ring...), and Edward. It was fun. We talked about all sorts of random stuff. Todd brought up the whole evolution thing again. I said I wasn't even freaked out about having a common ancestor as apes, he freaked out a bit. I said I wasn't going to argue it cause I wasn't entirely sure, but I wasn't going to say it's absolutely wrong either. He was shocked. Miro said he liked the way I thought, though. What a silly kid.
That night i spoke with mom. for some reason i was just feeling super down and out. She helped me realize that i've been focusing on negatives rather than positives. it's always nice to get a reminder that you need to be positive. I've been making a conscious effort to change and the last few days have been GREAT! happiness is a choice, and i'm working on choosing that :) now to get others to do the same... but yes, life is good right now :)
I guess also, that a guest speaker came and spoke to us about her music. She's composer of modern music. I totally forgot her name. Someone will have to remind me to find that out, later. I guess I don't understand music like I thought I did, because I always thought there was a beat and a melody but hers didn't have either. It was very modern. Very interesting. She also told us her conversion story. It was interesting as well. Very different. Basically she just had a ton of visions I guess. .
Religion was the next day.... and basically I'm going to have to finish this update after Loire Valley. I'm too tired to do it now. Someone remind me to actually do that! Ugh. There's so much to do :S Love and miss you all!
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