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.
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.
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