Austenland

Dear Grace,

What an amazing day I had yesterday! First off, we made a brief stop in the town of Salisbury to see the cathedral, as well as the English Magna Carta that is kept there, so that was really cool. The cloister (below) was gorgeous, and I had a moment of imagining scenes from Beauty and the Beast taking place on these rooftops. Inside the cathedral, I was struck by how sacred the place was. I've never been inside a cathedral before with the early morning sunlight shining through the windows, but I could feel the spirit there as I walked around in that cathedral.

Next, we visited a town called Winchester (Lyssa, I know you'll appreciate this, haha). We had a tour of the cathedral where (I didn't learn until after we had left) Jane Austen is buried! (Also for Lyssa, there are a lot of ghost stories associated with this cathedral! But sadly I didn't have any salt with me at the time).

This was by far my favorite cathedral I've seen so far on this trip. The architecture and art were so different from everything I've ever seen before, and I think my favorite part had to be the choir (there's a different spelling for "choir", but I can't remember it right now).

There's just something about midnight blue and stars that this moonchild has a weakness for. Afterward we walked through the town and went up to see the famous replica of King Arthur's round table (which you will see in the video). I ended up hanging out with Tyler and a girl named Ashlin for the rest of the time we were in Winchester, and Tyler found a fruit stand selling bowls of delicious tangerines for only £1, so we ended up buying a couple of bowls. Fruit is SO expensive over here, so that was an absolute steal.

After Winchester, we rode for about an hour to a little town called Chawton, Where we visited Jane Austen's house! SO cool! One thing I learned there was that she used to wear a turquoise ring.

I also happen to wear a turquoise ring. Therefore, I am awesome. Just when I thought there was no way touring Jane Austen's house could get any more awesome, my professor, Dr. C, beckoned me over when I first entered the house and showed me that there was a little 19th century piano in the corner, and told me that we were allowed to play it if we wanted to. HOLY CRAP. Do you realize how awesome that is? I got to play on a piano in Jane Austen's house! I only took two or three pictures in there, most of what I took was film, which you will see in the video.

This quote was on a table in the front parlor of the house. I'm the kind of person who loves planning ahead and being prepared before I do anything, but I really liked this quote because it reminded me that you will miss precious moments if you always spend time preparing instead of jumping right in.

The song in this video has started to become the theme of this whole trip for me. There are so many moments I wish I could just freeze and never move on from. Moments I treasure because I know I'll never experience anything like them again, and moments where I feel the whole world finds balance and nothing is missing. Moments filled with breathless excitement and wonder, and moments overflowing with happiness. So much lately, I wish I could just freeze.

We got home super early last night - like around 5:30 or so. So, after doing a little homework, a big group in flat 2 set up a game night, where we all played Mafia until late. I feel kind of bad, because I wanted to stay up and chat and hang out with people longer, but I was so drop-dead tired that I went straight to bed right after the last game was over. Today I hope to be able to take a very long nap and maybe read a little of Pride and Prejudice (which I found a very nice copy of at Jane Austen's house for super cheap!) before taking a walk in search of some postage stamps somewhere.

Oh, Oh, Oh, It's Magic!

Dear Grace,

First off, please enjoy the new playlist I have tricked out my blog with today! The four songs on the list are songs I've written this week after some stuff that has been going on. Second, this post is going to consist entirely of photos and a little video clip at the end, because the only thing I have to report for this week so far is that I WENT ON THE HARRY POTTER STUDIO TOUR! All of the props, costumes, and sets we saw were the originals used in the films. We also got a little bonus because they had some of the animals from the films there that we could get pictures with, including Scabbers, Fang, Crookshanks, and Hedwig!

This castle was one of the coolest parts, I thought, because it took up the entire room (which was roughly half the size of a church cultural hall). It was so amazing to see the Hogwarts castle and if you looked at it from the right angle, you could easily imagine that you were standing and looking at a life-size castle in the distance. That was magical in and of itself.

It's the End of the World As We Know It

Dear Grace,

What a crazy week this has been! So first off, it has been fashion week here in London - can you believe it?! I can't believe how lucky I've been to be here during so many cool things that have been going on.

So my first adventure of this week had to do with my trip over to a toy store called Hamley's. Apparently Hamley's was established in 1760, and is the world's oldest toy shop (254 years old, to be exact) and it's still going strong today. The most exciting part of going down to check this out was the fact that as soon as we turned onto the street where it is, I recognized it as the street where Colin (my British dad) and I first walked on in London! I remembered the building where we went to his business meeting and the street we went down to park and where he got me lunch at Subway that day! (Thanks again for that, Colin, you're the best!)

Okay, on to the big stuff. We had our first overnight trip on Wednesday and Thursday this week. It. Was. AWESOME! On Wednesday we headed out bright and early at 7:00am to go to a little town by the name of Glastonbury. One thing I hadn't realized before we got on the bus was that we were putting our bags in the baggage compartment under the bus. I had put my hat, scarf, gloves, and lunch in my bag, and out of sheer awkwardness I was to embarrassed to ask the driver if I could get in there to retrieve them, haha. Fortunately I dress in basically every layer I've got anyway, so I managed to make it through the cold okay.

We had a guided tour of the grounds/ruins of where the old abbey used to stand. Our tour guide was a super funny guy dressed in medieval garb, and he had even grown out his beard to go with the costume!

Legend has it that the bones of King Arthur and Guinevere are buried here, so that was sweet to see that! It rained on us pretty much the whole time, right up until we had to get back on the bus, of course haha. That's when the sun finally came out.

Our next stop was a town called Tintagel (tint-agile), where the ruins of a castle on the cliffs are rumored to have been the very castle where the legendary King Arthur lived during his lifetime! We have a guy in our little family named Ryan who absolutely LOVES castles and King Arthur stories, and I thought he just might swoon from it all!

The ruins were incredible. I've never seen anything like them in all my life. Everywhere there are foundations of where walls must have stood once, but now there is a carpet of grass on the ground unlike anything I've ever seen before. It's so fine and soft it's practically football turf, and it just grows there naturally. Perhaps a bit of Merlin's magic still lingers on these grounds...

The best part about exploring these ruins was the view. Anywhere you went on the hilltop you could climb over to the edge and just sit in awe of the landscape (if the wind didn't blow you over or dry your eyes out of course). At the tallest point of the hill you can see everything in every direction of both land and sea. No wonder the castle was built here! No invasion could ever sneak up on you!

I don't exactly understand why those strong winds can kick your butt so much, but by the end of our time here, I was exhausted and glad to get back on the bus for a while.

We had a very pleasant and scenic ride to our hotel (although truth be told, I slept through most of it). When we pulled up I was very excited when I realized our hotel (The Victoria Hotel) was pretty close to the beach, and even more excited because Rose was my roommate! When we walked through the front door I immediately fell in love with the place. It was one of those elegant hotels I've seen in old movies, but never in modern hotels. When Rose and I got up to our room, I started freaking out because our window had an ocean view and we had a wardrobe and a dressing table as well!

Well, as you can imagine I was absolutely starving at this point as I had not eaten anything since 6:30 that morning. So, Rose, Dr. C and I all went out to a pub down the street where I had my very first dinner of fish and chips!!!

I realize that this wasn't served traditionally wrapped in newspaper, but I was just so excited about FINALLY getting to try fish and chips that I don't even care!

I made a new friend that night as well! One of the guys from our family - Tyler - happened to walk into the pub where we were eating to watch the Olympics, which he invited us to join him in after dinner. I ended up taking him up on that offer and we had some pleasant conversation whilst watching curling. When we headed back to the hotel, I was overcome with the urge to play the piano and sing in the lobby, so I skipped over there to do so only to discover that it was horrendously out of tune! When Tyler opened up the lid, we initially thought the inside was covered with dust, but when he blew on it and the dust didn't budge he said, "Whoa, that's not dust, that's mold!"

So apparently ocean climates are not good for pianos, haha. Oddly enough though, in spite of the mold and the piano being painfully out of tune, I don't think I've heard the sound of anything so wonderful in such a long time. I've missed my piano sorely since I've been away from home. I think I must have played for at least an hour, maybe even more. There were a few people in the lobby who sat and listened to me and applauded me after each song; I haven't performed with such ease for so long, so that really did my heart good.

The next morning I woke up at 7:00 to a beautiful, warm and sunny day. So nice, in fact, that I didn't even need my coat! I hurried downstairs for a traditional English breakfast, which I was absolutely stoked about! I never would have thought that having baked beans for breakfast could be so good.

After breakfast I hurried out for a breath of fresh air and a quick walk on the beach. Unfortunately all I had time to find was a place with a walkway in front of a rocky beach where the high tide made walking impossible anyway. All the same, it was so wonderful to stand there with the waves crashing in front of me and feel the spray of the mist on my face.

Once we were all loaded back onto the bus, we drove for a little over an hour or so to a place called "Land's End."

Land's End is basically the very Southwestern-most tip of England, which they seem to take great pride in. The little house in this photo had a plaque on it that read "The first and last refreshment house in England." It was pretty biting cold there, and there was some pretty wicked wind that drove the cold right into you. Land's End was beautiful, but I was grateful to get back on the bus out of the cold wind.

Next, we drove about another hour or two to see St. Michael's Mound. I basically saw this out the window:

and thought, "Boy, wouldn't it be awesome if we got to go see that?" And then, as if some genie had been listening, the bus turned around after we had passed it and drove us right over to it! That's when we were told that this incredible castle on an island was St. Michael's Mound, and that that was where we were going! I can't even tell you how excited I was!

We couldn't walk across the causeway because the tide was still in, so we ended up taking an amphibious truck-boat vehicle over to the island (Rose was debating on names for it, including the troat and the buck). When we got to the island, we seriously only had like 30 minutes to explore, so we booked it up the hill to get to the castle. I made it about a quarter of the way before giving up and just walking.

But, as you can imagine, every second we had there was totally worth it. Legend says that this island used to belong to a giant who used to wade over to the main land to steal livestock from the locals. Then one day a boy named Jack came along and cleverly killed the giant by tricking him into falling into a hole and burying him there. He then became known as Jack the giant killer.

When it was time to go, the tide had gone out enough so that we could walk back across the causeway. Rose and I were thrilled because we felt like we were in "The Scarlet Pimpernel."

A three-hour bus ride later, we came to a little town called Exeter. We had the opportunity to see the cathedral, which was beautiful and had some painting styles I haven't seen in cathedrals before, and then we had the rare privilege to be shown one of the four oldest manuscripts of medieval literature. According to the curator, this manuscript is over a thousand years old. I was amazed with how good of condition the book was still in, despite its age!

Once we were done at the cathedral, it was dinner time. I'm pretty sure just about everyone went to dinner at a place called Nandos (which I'm not overly fond of personally), but I wanted to go check out a book shop before going to dinner. I wasn't there very long, but by the time I had gotten back to where everyone had been, they were gone. So, I resolved to just head into a pub or something by myself for dinner (which I was secretly pleased about, because as I have said before, I'm avoiding American food and chain stores as much as possible), when who should I run into again, but Tyler! He invited me to go with him to go get something to eat at a grocery store, which would be much cheaper, and I was only too happy to join him!

After that we went to this little place to get a cup of tea with the time we had left:

I have to say, Tyler has to be the classiest guy I've ever met in my life. I don't think I've ever met someone who would willingly go with me to get a cup of tea, let alone be the one to suggest it! We decided to get a table upstairs, because the view was prettier, and there also happened to be a group from our family having dinner there.

They shared their desserts with us, and Tyler and I had another long chat over a cup of tea. I've deeply missed being able to really talk to someone like Marne or Lyssa all this time, so it was really nice to have a meaningful conversation with a friend.

Some girls were talking about how fast the time has flown here, and how soon we'll be going home, and I must confess that I've been getting in a funk over it today. I wish I didn't have to go home; I wish I could stay here with these people in this program for at least another semester. I'm really going to miss my friends and our creaky held-together-with-duct-tape flat. I'm going to miss taking the bus and the Tube everywhere and randomly going on adventures in the city at the last minute. I'm going to miss my trips to do laundry at Metrogate, and the precious minutes I steal to play the piano and write songs in the basement of the church. I'm going to miss the food and the shops, and I think especially, the tea.

It's only natural to enjoy that little treat here in England, but we don't have anything like a tea shop back home. We don't have a place that requires and even encourages you to sit down and enjoy yourself, read a book, stare out the window and just take the time to think and not have to sit at home for a while. I'm really going to miss this place.

Tea Time With Tolkien

 Dear Grace,

I'm starting to feel like I have a few days with a lull, and then a few days with a tornado of events all crashing in together crazily, leaving me too exhausted until a day or two later to write about anything. So, to start off, Betsy and I went on a quest for an autograph from Tom Hiddleston. He performed his last show on the 13th, but after waiting around outside for two hours, we learned he wasn't going to come out and sign autographs! I was so disappointed (and albeit secretly throwing hate-daggers at him for being so frigging difficult to meet!), and we decided to just give up and go home.

The next day was Valentine's Day, and unfortunately we all woke up to by far the coldest, wettest, and most miserable weather we have experienced yet. That dampened my spirits a bit for our excursions for the day. I always bundle up like I'm preparing to hitchhike my way through Siberia on days like this, but when it's too windy for an umbrella you get wet very quickly, and with strong winds blowing the freezing rain into your face, it's hard to think about anything but that moment when you can go inside somewhere - ANYWHERE - to get out of the freezing wind and rain for just a minute.

But I digress. Crappy weather aside, we started the day off with a tour of Westminster Abbey - the abbey where William and Kate were married.

One thing I've forgotten to mention is how much of a William and Kate fan Betsy is. I wish you could have seen her face whenever the tour guide mentioned those names! I thought she just might keel over and die of happiness. After touring the abbey we walked down a few blocks to an art museum. Unfortunately, I wasn't the most sociable person on that walk, because the freezing wind-rain in my face pretty much took my breath away. We went straight home after the museum and bundled up on the couch under our blankets and turned up the thermostat until our brains had thawed out enough to think straight again.

So one thing I got myself as a little Valentine's Day gift was this bad boy right here:

This is by far the biggest box of chocolates I have ever seen in my life, and what made it even better was that it was from my favorite chocolate company, and what made THAT even better was that the entire box only cost 6 pounds! I've basically been freaking out over it ever since haha.

That evening some of the girls and I (Betsy, Briona, Kelsey, and Molly) all went out for dinner together. They ended up eating at a little deli place at the Tube station, but I had had my heart set on going to a sit-down place, so I went down to check out a little tea shop I'd been curious about. Since the other girls had already eaten they decided to go home, but I was so excited about it that I decided to have dinner there.

This has been the most curious Valentine's Day I've ever had, and I'll tell you why: even though I was left completely alone that night, I didn't feel lonely at all. I enjoyed a nice dinner while reading The Hobbit, and I don't think any fancy candlelit dinner on some rooftop could have been nearly as charming or romantic. Plus, the experience gave me the opportunity to make the joke that I celebrated Valentine's day by having dinner with 14 men haha (for those of you who haven't read The Hobbit, laugh anyway).

When I got home, our entire flat watched Notting Hill together. It's so much fun to watch films and TV shows that were filmed in London now, because I get so excited when I can say "Oh! We've been there!" "Bus 9!" "That was on one of our walks!" "We go past that every Sunday!" "Why did they take that route? It would've been way faster to just..." etc. you get the gist.

Too many words! I took lots of pictures, don't worry! So the next morning we got up early and embarked on our journey to Oxfordshire to see Blenheim Palace.

As my good friend Rose (Rosie) put it, this was a palace truly deserving of the adjective "palatial." It. Was. GORGEOUS! Seriously, this was the first place I've been to where I felt like I was walking around the grounds of Pemberly or something!

Before we went inside, we had an hour to wander the grounds, so we took a walk following a road to a farm. Along the way there were pheasants EVERYWHERE.

Apparently these pheasants are viscous and dangerous, so visitors are cautioned to beware ;)

Inside the palace we came across one particular feature that was a true delight for me: the library! No sooner did I see it and think "Beauty and the Beast!" than five or six other girls said my thoughts out loud. We are definitely BYU.

The other best part of the palace was the gardens, which Andrew, Lindsey, and I all went exploring together and in which we discovered a beautiful waterfall.

On the other side of this bridge there was a whole clearing covered in snow drops. Snow drops have become my favorite flower since I've been here, and they bloom everywhere and anywhere there's grass. I much prefer them alive though; I picked one to press in my journal and I realized that there's nothing like snow drops in life. They almost look like they could be made of glass.

Our next stop was none other than the AMAZING town of Oxford!

I get seriously envious of the people who go to school in this country, because I have as of yet to encounter a college whose beauty didn't take my breath away. I think what I like best is the fact that it's not just one part of town that's the university area; the whole town is the university. On top of being an amazing, gorgeous, historic place, Oxford also happens to be where they filmed parts of Harry Potter! So I was basically fan-girling out the whole time because I felt like I was walking around the grounds of Hogwarts for the entire tour.

(Outside of the hall used for the infirmary and the Yule Ball dance lesson room)

(Inside the same hall)

(Staircase where the 1st years walked up!)

There were other sites, but this post is already long enough, so I won't get into those now. Apparently it was mid-terms for students on the campus, and to celebrate the students dressed up and ran around campus taking pictures everywhere, so we kept encountering things like this:

And this:

Well, at the end of the tour I made for DANG sure to get my butt over to this particular pub for dinner:

This, my dears, was the very pub where the Inklings club used to meet (which included J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis), and where Tolkien's idea for Lord of the Rings was developed. I'm so happy that this became the very first pub I've ever been to because for one thing, Tolkien and Lewis made this place legendary, and for another thing, we had a table under this roof:

This was also the place where I had my very first cup of tea in England!

Oddly enough, I've never liked tea before, but whether it was the charm of this place or something else, I couldn't say, but I enjoyed it immensely! (I actually enjoyed it so much that I wanted more for the rest of the night, and craved it all day today as well!) I also had my very first meal of bangers and mash. Let me tell you, it was DELICIOUS.

And, of course, the icing on the cake was the fact that I'm surrounded by friends in these adventures that make them so much more memorable.

(Clockwise: Hali, Dr. C, Rose, Jillian, me, Jacqueline, & Hannah)

I'm winding down now because I'm exhausted and also because I'm about to Skype with Mum and Dad before I go to bed. I just wanted to throw in a few pictures of where I go to church out in Lewisham, which is a suburb of London.

Today was SUCH a beautiful day! The sun was out and shining from sunrise to sunset today, and I find it funny how I was out in like 35-40 degree weather going "Oh my gosh, it's so nice out today! It's so warm and sunny!" I was so happy when a group of girls decided to go on a walk in Hyde Park, and I invited myself to go with them. I think it's a crime to waste such a beautiful day sitting inside.

Something I love about England is when I encounter things like this:

I don't know what type of flowers these are, but they're growing everywhere in the grass, along with the snow drops. They're basically like the dandelion weeds of this country, and I can't help but feel like I'm in fairyland when I see them everywhere I go. I can't wait to see the miracle of spring when it touches this land. What a treasure that will be!

So we came across this stacked boulder structure in the middle of the park, and I tried to take a picture of myself lying in front of it, but then it tried to kill me.

So, of course, I had to lift them up like Hercules to keep from getting squished and then put them back before anyone noticed.

The girls also showed me where the Peter Pan statue was, so that was fun to snap a photo of that while we were there.

 

Gosh I love this place and all of the people I have the pleasure of enjoying it with! There are so many people in this family who I wouldn't have initially thought of as my friends, but it has been such a joy to get to know so many of these incredible people and make so many unforgettable memories. This is truly the experience of a lifetime; I wish it never had to end.