Happy as a Clam

Yesterday was one of my favorite days in England. We visited Stourhead Gardens, Winchester Cathedral, and Portchester Cast le. You heard me, a real castle! Sadly the dragons were vacationing in Transylvania and the Knights were all at the Round table for a meeting, but it was still fun. First, we had a two hour ride (nap time!) to Stourhead Gardens. I highly recommend this place to anyone and everyone! In case you wanted to know, the scene in the 2005 Pride and Prejudice when Mr.Darcy confesses his love and offers his hand to Elizabeth (in the rain) is shot here. We all watched it that night and screamed "We stood there!" when that scene came on. I was pretty exciting. Stourhead Garden is officially my favorite place on earth. It was foggy that day and a light mist was sprinkling down as we trekked across luscious green grass around the lake to the Pantheon, Gazebo type building and breath taking scenery. It was heaven on earth and I was sad when we had to leave. Next we trav

Dear Blog reader, As most of you know I don't share my political opinions with anyone not even my own father. But, because it is such a wonderful day I thought I would make a quick political comment. If you think you'll be able to decipher from this what "side" I am on, I promise you that you are wrong because I am not a republican nor a democrat. I'm a fence sitter. With that being said, let's continue. Please excuse the wax figure of Barack Obama featured in this post but it's the only picture of him I had! My trips to the white house are few. Today was the first time I have ever sat down and watched a president be sweared in. To be bluntly honest it's because I never cared before. As a teenager politics were like the plague: something to be avoided. But now that I'm older and wiser too, I am interested. It's a lot more interesting than I thought. Not to mention, I've learned how much it affects me. Being in another country, I've rea

This is a documentary of my night at an A-list Party!!! Amazing, right? I know! The Beckhams were kind enough to invite me to their bash. I told the football(soccer) player and former Spice girl that I would be there at 6 pm sharp(which is18:00 over here). The host and hostess looked fabulous! Patrick Stewart showed up, and since his good friend Spock couldn't make it on account of The Enterprise breaking down, and Wolverine couldn't make it because he got in a fight with a cat(it was a big cat!) I opted to be his escort for part of the evening. Jolly good fellow...kind of...stiff, though. Then the real stars appeared. I was so excited to meet Leonardo! I had to turn him down on his offer to go take a trip on his yacht though. I told him no hard feelings, but I....get sea sick easily. Kiera Knightely was present and so was Nicole Kidman. Those women are amazons! So tall! They weren't a very lively group. Daniel Radcliffe. That boy. I put aside my mixed feelings for him an

1. Portobello Road. The cutest little shopping alley in London. There is food for sale, tasty crepes, adorable clothes, and fun looking places like the ones featured in my picture. They are darling! Plus, Notting Hill the movie took place there. 2. The Parks. They are so pretty. There are so many too. They have play areas, spacious green fields, lovely statues, ponds, fountains, everything you'd ever want in a park! Not to mention the are great for afternoon walks when you want to avoid crowds. 3. The London Zoo. This Tiger wanted to attack me! Look at that glare! Thank goodness for the glass or I'd be kitty food.

So, a couple of us wanted to go to The National Gallery and Trafalgar Square but we took one wrong turn and ended up in a sketchy part of town. There was graffiti everywhere and it was interesting. We ended up walking past an airport and eating in a train station. Haha. It was way fun, let me tell you. The next photo and story is Cambridge! We went there on Wednesday. The picture is of Verulamium a little place we stopped where they had a cool Roman mosaic and some old things like ancient jewelry and such. So fun! That's Elizabeth, Kate and me in the picture. Cambridge didn't excite me much so there are no pictures of it. Plus, my camera battery died. But we did go to an Evensong there and it was so amazing! The last picture is THE BYU LONDON CENTRE!!! Beautiful, right? I kknow! I feel so blessed to live in this lovely place. It's right aroound the corner from Notting Hill too! ever hear dof Portobello road? It's a walk and a skip away!

Today we all went to have tea (come on, it's England! you have to have tea!) at The orangery (don't worry it was peppermint tea), a cute little place right next to Kensington Palace. Afterward a couple of us decided to go take pictures of the peter pan statue. It took forever to find! We walked all around the park and finally found it after walking in a huge circle. The cutest little British man came to talk to us in the park. We were looking at a tree with a latin name(I think) and the last part of the name was superbum. We had to laugh. The cute little old chap comes up and says to his wife, "Look, these girls are looking at a tree." We giggle and he starts going on about how to speak English the RIGHT way (with a british accent) and tries teaching us how to say "study" correctly. It wasn't stud-e it's "stood-a." It was so funny. He told us places we had to visit too and asked us about America. He told us what he thought of Bush and tha

I thought I'd post some pictures of the things that make this place home (temporarily). For one, there is the BYU London centre.It is beautiful and amazing and the Sheullers (the couple who live here and run it) are so incredibly nice and funny. Now, that staircase is a lot bigger than it looks. This photo is from the top floor looking down. I'm on the 4th floor and get to climb around 80 stairs (we counted) to my bedroom, so you can guess how I feel when I get downstairs ready to leave and realize I forgot my wallet: Kill me now! But I will be in shape when I come home! Also I put up some pictures of the Tube (that's the underground. Like the subway but not, there is a separate subway) which is my new favorite form of transportation. I love driving but this is SO much better! It's fun, fast and easy! It's really funny: In London (and most of England I assume) you don't socialize on the tube. You don't make eye contact, you don't talk, you sit quietly i

On 10 January, there was a huge protest in the streets! The protesters were marching from Hyde park, near where I live, to the Israeli Embassy in Kensington (also near where I live on the other side of the street. They want Israel to stop bombing Gaza. We went out and took pictures and some videos. It was intense! They had dolls representing dead babies, they had chants, they did prayers and they marched! What a sight to see! P.S. If my parents or anyone of the like are reading this, I was a safe distance away. I put up some of the pictures.

In the past four days I've had some time to explore London. I got to see all of its trademark places like Parliament and Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, and the many beautiful parks. I've met some brilliant British people also. Such as the boy who took our picture at Buckingham palace and I think when we all came up and handed him four cameras, he panicked! Haha. It was really funny. Or the guy who told one of my friends to loose weight and one to watch her cleavage (we are all fine weight-wise and wear Mormon modest clothes by the way, he was just a little senile). Apparently he was trying to hit on us but we were more disgusted than anything. Then there is the sidewalk chalk drawer who was pretty good. We've met a lot of Americans. We met a girl studying abroad from Penn state, some boys from Wisconsin and some boys from New York. It was pretty great. So, enough jibber jabber. Here are some pictures for all you duckies back home in the States. =)

Photo 1-This is what I was leaving behind: Snowy Salt Lake City. Photo 2- That is Paddington Station. It was huge! Photo 3- In our tiny British Taxi. The poor man had to shove all our luggage in.

Well, not only did the de-icing process make both my flights late, but it was freezing cold! I couldn't feel my toes ten minutes out of SLC. New York was cool. I saw Long Island as we were landing and it was all lit up and the beaches were white. Pretty awesome. Plus there were tons of lighted boats (probably coast guard) on the sea shore. 4 hours in the JFK airport can be summed up as: dirty, awkward, cold. The end. The flight to London was SO long. I think 6 or 7 and 1/2 hours. I felt really bad for the guy next to me. He was really really tall with super long legs and the lady in front of him refused to put her seat up. seriously! The flight attendants came around before take off and asked everyone to put their seats up. She put it up then five seconds later down again. They had to come ask her again. Needless to say her chair was down the whole way there and poor tall guy was squished. One thing I learned from my flight: James Bond movies are very fake! You know how he's a

Well, T-minus 12.5 hours and I am all packed! I fit everything in my duffel bag and little suitcase. Amazing, right? Now I'm just finishing up last minute things like signing my passport, downloading vital data onto my mini laptop and squealing every five minutes. If it keeps snowing I might panic! NO more snow! I want to get out of Utah! Stuck in New York: I can handle that. Stuck in Utah: not so much. P.S. I'm going to use my total of 26 hours of travel time (there and back) to FINISH WAR AND PEACE! That monstrosity of a book is 1400 pages and I am determined to finish it! Yep, yep. Okay. Time for bed. I have to wake up at 5:30 tomorrow. Yikes!