Here We Come A'Courting

Dear Grace,

So, we've been having some interesting guests in our building as of late haha. So a couple of nights ago we had a drunk guy stumble into our flat asking in confusion how to get out of the building. After telling him he had to go back down five flights of stairs and out the front door, he seemed shocked to discover he had indeed gone UPstairs and not DOWN.

Anyway, a minute later, some of the girls heard a crash, and another minute later one of the girls came up from the flat two floors down and told us about this...

My theory is that the drunk guy fell down the stairs, went head-first through the railing, and discovered he had bloodied up his head a little before kindly smearing it on the railing for us and leaving pieces of broken railing all over the stairs. Oh England, you never give us a dull moment, even when we're stuck doing homework all evening, do you?!

Well the next thing we did was go see a performance of Shakespeare's Henry V last night, starring Jude Law (Megan, I seriously wished I could somehow have teleported you over here to join me for that!). One thing to note: it is impossible to be warm in a skirt in the dead of winter in London. It doesn't matter how many pairs of leggings you wear underneath.

After the show we waited by the stage door to meet the man himself, and I'm pretty sure Jack Frost made off with a couple of my toes while we were standing there.

(This is my dear friend Lindsey, who is a doll and I loveth her!)

So before you jump to conclusions, no, I did not in fact take this picture, nor was I actually this close. I was more like ten or fifteen feet away and couldn't get a decent picture, so I stole this from one of the other girls who officially met him and got his autograph haha. Still, it was pretty flippin' sweet to see the guy in person! He's as gorgeous as ever!

Also, the guy who played Gilderoy Lockheart in Harry Potter was there for the performance, and he walked right past me and I didn't freaking recognize him! It wasn't until I saw this picture on my friend's Facebook post that I realized I'd actually spoken to the guy as he excused himself past me!

All I have to say is, well played, memory charmer, well played.

Well anyway, onto today's extravaganza: Hampton Court! Hampton Court was the home of the Famous Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn and a bunch of Henry's other wives. So that was pretty dope to get to walk through those very same halls they once walked through.

(Hillary wins the prize for best photo-bombing haha)

I honestly have to say that my favorite part of the whole thing was the fact that before going into the palace, we were given velvet cloaks to wear to keep us warm because the palace isn't really heated at all. I seriously felt like I was some noblewoman, while at the same time also in a Lord of the Rings adventure. So basically I ran around the palace pretending to be a hobbit the whole time.

So once we were inside, I was just wandering around one of the great halls twirling in my cloak and taking pictures, when Henry VIII comes strolling in, brushes right past me, and sits down and starts reading a book!

I wasn't really sure if I was allowed to interact with him, but I took a picture all the same.

Then a group of elementary school kids came in, and I figured he was there to put on a show for them. My suspicions were confirmed when Anne Boleyn came in and joined us, so that was fun to watch for a bit. The directions as to how to get around the castle were confusing and we kept getting lost, and I'm pretty sure we went into areas we weren't supposed to go into a couple of times, but we had a grand little adventure all the same.

After that we tried to go home, but all of the trains had been canceled and we had to take a bus. I didn't find out the devastating news until later, but apparently a man fell and was killed on the tracks today. There was also another man who committed suicide by jumping off a bridge, and a man who stopped to try and help him was hit by a car and killed as well. Please keep these people and their families in your prayers for me. I'm just sorry that the news reports about the man who was hit by the train were more concerned about the delays his death caused than the tragic loss of his life.

Splish, Splash, I Was Taken To Bath...

 Dear Grace,

Good heavens what a trip today! We started off by heading westward into the countryside where I caught my first glimpse through the bus window of - can you believe it? - Stonehenge!

I was amazed to discover that Stonehenge is in fact right next to the road, and you can wave to it as you drive by. We of course got out at the visitor center down the road and took a tram out to the site itself. Another thing I was surprised to see was how thickly covered the stones are in moss. I realize now that pictures can't quite capture this, and it really is something you have to see with your own eyes. Another thing that surprised me was the fact that birds had made their nests in the holes of some of the rocks. All I could think was, "Oh sure, people aren't allowed to go up to the rocks anymore, but you still let the birds nest in them?!" Oh well. I think I didn't mind too much because I decided to wear a long skirt today.

(*Confused faces* "What is it?")

Well, there's only so much time you can spend marveling at the majesty of a giant, prehistoric Lego structure wondering how and why it was built, so back on the bus we went and rode off to our next destination...BATH!

I can't deny that I completely fan-girled out the moment I saw Bath for the first time through the windows of the bus. Of all the time's I've written or imagined stories about riding into a fairytale kingdom, this was exactly the sort of place I always imagined. I only wish I could have gotten pictures of the view on the way in! All I could think as we rode into the city was how I wished I was on the other side of the bus where they had the view!

 (Lovely ladies of Bath!)

 (Out for a stroll)

Our first destination in Bath was none other than its namesake: the Roman Baths.

This was a bathhouse built over a natural hot spring by the Romans in 70 A.D., and this main bath area still remains today. The thing that impressed me the most were the metal pipes the Romans had installed to pump water in and out of different areas, exactly as we do today. It amazes me that the Romans had running water all figured out, and the English neglected to preserve that knowledge :S

So I went into another area where you can toss a coin into the pool to make a wish, and wasn't too surprised to see videos of Romans projected on the walls walking around in towels or soaking in the water. I was quite startled, however, when I turned and saw the bare butt of a totally naked Roman guy toweling off! Let me tell you, when you're used to American censorship, you might find yourself screaming things like "My eyes!" when these things happen.

At the end of the tour, you have the opportunity to drink the water from the baths, which is full of minerals and stuff and supposedly has healing properties.

Not very many of us agreed with this theory, and many of us felt a little funny for the rest of the day after drinking this stuff. Seriously though, I kept having super heavy dizzy spells afterward, and I'm pretty sure the taste had a remarkable resemblance to clay or something.

Why did I wear a skirt today? Well I'll tell you. BECAUSE WE WENT TO THE FREAKING JANE AUSTEN CENTER! THAT'S WHY!

I have to admit that it's rather difficult to feel elegant and refined when you're wearing several pairs of leggings and knee socks and boots under your dress, but at least I still got a few good pictures today. The museum mostly consisted of an area in the basement where you got to try on 19th century costumes, which were too big for all of us, but I think we all pulled it off quite nicely all the same :)

(Betsy and me fighting over Darcy)

After the museum we got to wander through Bath for a bit before heading back home. Lindsey and I stopped at a pasty shop where I got to try my very first meat pie! Let me tell you, it was DELICIOUS. We also stopped at a little chocolate shop where I picked up a box of candies for pretty cheap. The lady at the counter was super nice, and she let me steal a lot of chocolate buttons from the sample bowl while we were chatting.

(Other part of the museum - writing with quill pens and ink. This was my souvenir for Bath! Also, I fail at calligraphy :P)

The Canterbury Tales

Dear Grace,

Where oh where to begin my tales? So this week on Thursday a group of us went to the home of John Wesley - the creator of the Methodist faith. I don't have much to say about the trip except that after reading 80 pages or so about John Wesley's life, I feel like the laziest person who ever dared to call herself religious in the history of the world!

The religion class that required me to visit this place has been so interesting, because the professor has been teaching us world history that has truly opened my eyes. For the first time in my life I have seen how everything came together to pave the way for the gospel to be restored on the earth. Methodism has a lot of similarities to Mormonism, and it's amazing to see how John Wesley's work in spreading the Methodist faith helped prepare the world for the true and restored gospel.

Anyway, I took this next picture for my daddy: one of our tour guides decided to give all of us girls a tour of the men's toilets! He pointed out the name of the manufacturer - I kid you not, I am not making this up - the dude's name was Crapper. His name then became an alternative for the word "toilet," as well as the word "poo" (crap). What a way to be remembered, eh?

So after the tour we all headed home, and were accompanied by an unexpected guest on the Tube! He kept randomly flying around our heads and the whole time all I could think was "Please don't poop on me!"

So anyway, a group of us decided that we were going to get up early the next morning to go stand in line to try and get tickets for Coriolanus (which is sold out, so you have to wait in line for standing tickets). I must emphasize (for my mother's sake) that I absolutely adore Tom Hiddleston, and so far he is the only man on the planet that I have gotten up at 6:00 a.m. for (okay Mom, you were right, I will get up early for a boy :P)

But I digress. So in the middle of the night I wake up to this clinking sort of sound - the kind of sound you'd get when dropping a coin onto a pile of coins, or from stacking coins into a column. That's what it sounded like to me, anyway. For a minute I thought Betsy was doing something like counting her money for some reason, so I rolled over loudly to hint that she was disturbing my slumber, but I noticed that she was still in bed. After a second I whispered, "Betsy, is that you?"

"No."

"What is that?"

"I don't know!"

I wasn't particularly alarmed by this at first, because this place is so old and creaky that any number of things could be falling apart and making that noise. However, I have to admit that I seriously wondered for a minute if our flat might be haunted or something. It would account for the noise and the fact that our room is always freezing anyway. So then I whispered, "Should I turn on the light?"

"Yeah."

So I flicked on my lamp and we could see that there weren't any serial killers in our bedroom, but the noise was coming from the bathroom. So, I attempted to tip-toe over to the bathroom (unsuccessfully of course, because the floor creaks and groans like a dying whale), and stopped at the door when I realized where the sound was coming from. It was the stupid PestContro thingy plugged into our wall! I have no idea what purpose it serves, but it has something to do with electrical shockwaves or something. What I'd like to know is if it just needed to have its batteries changed, or if it was secretly fighting ninja rats or something in the walls.

We were able to sleep after that with the comfort of knowing there weren't any serial killers sharpening knives in the bathroom (which was what Betsy thought the noise sounded like). Every time it clinked after that, I liked to imagine that it was working like a shock collar on any unwanted rodents that might be attempting to lay siege to our flat.

Well, an hour later we crawled out of bed and groggily bundled up to go wait in line for tickets. Halfway to the Tube station, Betsy asked me, "Do you have your oyster card?" And to my dismay, no, I did not in fact have my oyster card! I ended up having to buy a Tube pass, and since I was so tired I mistakenly paid 9 pounds for a day pass instead of 4 pounds for tickets to and from the theater. As if things couldn't get any worse, when we got to the theater, there were already the maximum amount of people in line for the number of tickets offered.

Standing outside of the Donmar Warehouse with 

my overpriced Tube pass and no ticket for Coriolanus :'(

Fortunately I was with cleverer people than myself, and they happened to remember that across the street, Matilda the musical was playing, and they were selling 5 pound student tickets at 10:00 a.m. 

So, we waited in front of that theater for a few hours and got tickets for Matilda. I honestly have to say that it took me about five minutes to figure out that Miss Trudgbull was played by a guy! And what's more funny is that he/she was my favorite character! I walked around for the rest of the night spitting his catchphrase ("Maggots!") at my friends (after letting them know it was a term of endearment for going to the show together, of course).

Well, after that, our next adventure began yesterday at Bodium Castle! I was thinking, "Oh cool, a castle," until one of our professors told us that it was featured in Monty Python and the Holy Grail in the Lancelot scene, and then I was like "OMG! THAT CASTLE!?!"

I wanted to get a video of me reenacting the French taunt scene from one of the turrets, but my camera had problems and didn't take the video, and then we were out of time. Fortunately I can use the phrase, "Oh well, I'll get it at the next castle we visit!"

Something that puzzled me about the architecture of this castle was the doorways and the stairs. For one thing, I know that people were smaller back in the day and all, so my head just barely clears the doorways. What puzzles me is,

Why did these people build such freaking tall steps when they were so short?!? Seriously, our tallest men had trouble climbing up these bad boys!

After only about a half hour at the castle, we hopped onto the bus and rode on over to the famous town of Canterbury. Once again we didn't have much time until our tour of the famous Canterbury Cathedral, so we kind of just hung out in the square until we were to go in for our tour.

While we were waiting, there was a guy there playing his guitar and singing. A few of the girls suddenly noted with alarm that his fingers were bleeding. Apparently he didn't have a pick, and it was so cold that the finger he was strumming with had started to bleed. So, instead of dropping some change for him I popped into the giftshop we were standing in front of and bought the dude a Union Jack guitar pick instead. Then I turned into jell-o filled with butterflies when he thanked me in his adorable accent and started singing Skinny Love for us.

I couldn't believe our luck when we finally got into the cathedral and discovered that the choir was there rehearsing for their performance of the Messiah, which was taking place that evening. If I had to imagine what a heavenly choir sounded like, it would be exactly this. I really think that Handel's music was always meant to be sung in great halls like this. There's no sound like it in all the world.

After our tour not much else exciting happened except that I got an adorable clock for half-price in one of the gift shops because it was broken (which I can easily fix), and we got stuck in traffic for an extra couple of hours trying to get back into London.

I'm nervous today because I was called to give a talk in sacrament meeting next month in my ward. I really hope I'll do an okay job! We'll see how that one plays out. Stay tuned...

Day At The Museum

 Dear Grace,

I promise I'm going to get on to my latest adventures right after my first story. So I'm incredibly stingy and didn't want to pay something like $15 to do a load of laundry, so I had the (not so) brilliant idea to wash my laundry in the bathtub. I do not recommend doing this. It kills your back, and takes a lot of time. Anyway, I had to get clever finding places to hang everything to dry (which took a couple of days).

So, yeah, I think I'll either keep up with the wash or else go to the laundromat next time. So today we had a very long day of walking and climbing a goodly number of stairs on our travels. We started out at the monument that was built in memory of the 1666 fire that burned down most of London...

...and walked and walked and walked around the city seeing the sites and occasionally hanging around some places...

...checking  out various lovely things along the way like churches and cute little shopping plazas (which I would have liked to stop at and see, but we didn't have time).

At last we came to our first destination: St. Paul's Cathedral! All this time I've been able to see the dome of this building from various places in the city, but I always thought it was some sort of city capitol building. I couldn't believe it was a cathedral until we went inside!

Sadly they didn't allow any photography inside, which was a truly spectacular sight, but if you ever get the chance to travel to London one day, I HIGHLY recommend you stop by St. Paul's for a peek inside. The other best part of the tour was when we climbed 528 steps to get up to the lookout point above the dome. Best. View. Ever! From up there you can see all of London stretching out before you for miles and miles in every direction.

After meandering at the cathedral for quite some time, we split up to go to lunch. Most everyone here seems to be able to eat out for every meal, but as I am a pack-your-own-lunch kind of girl, my fellow sack-lunch buddies Briona and Betsy and I all took a little stroll down to Postman Park to have a little picnic, which I thought was much more fun :)

(That is a pack of gum on my butt, just FYI)

After lunch we walked down the street to the London Museum, which was my favorite museum I've seen so far on this trip.

After the museum, we were pretty trashed, but no so trashed that we didn't stop to pick up some cakes from the store on our way home! I seriously don't understand how everyone here isn't morbidly obese when they have such good chocolate and so many amazing pastries and treats everywhere! We're going to watch Pride and Prejudice tonight after we do some homework, and we're motivating ourselves to do that by not eating the cakes until we're done!