Letters To Grace: ~One Little Touch And Love's Knocked Me out!~

Dear Grace,

So I didn't realize until a couple of days ago that I never shared my adventures in Greenwich with you! Basically last Friday I took a water taxi on the Thames river over to Greenwich to see the royal observatory and the prime meridian line (the line that divides the right side of the world from the left). Unfortunately they now charge you £5 to see the actual line, so none of us ended up getting to see it, but I do know that at some point as I walked around the observatory I was in two different hemispheres at once for a split second. Pretty sweet!

After that we went to a museum that I think used to be a palace or something. In any case, it was beautiful, and I got some lovely footage of it. The second half of my day consisted of a last minute evening adventure over to Chinatown to get something for dinner with a group of my friends. We walked down to Piccadilly Circus...

...which is like the Times Square of London, and then we took the Tube over to St. Paul's cathedral and walked from there to see Millennium Bridge (where the first part of Harry Potter 6 was filmed). Little moments like that are the moments I'm going to miss the most when I leave here.

It's amazing how something as simple as standing on a bridge can make you stop and stare in wonder. Standing on that bridge over the Thames river you can see St. Paul's cathedral, Tower Bridge, The Globe Theater, and a vast expanse of the city all around you, all of which I hadn't seen by night before. It's those little moments that really get to me; those little moments suspend time for a while and give you a taste of magic.

Okay, on to my latest adventures. On Thursday I went with friend Molly to watch Rose ring the church bells at the chapel down the road from our flat, where she has been taking lessons all semester. While we were there, a sweet little old British man offered to take Molly and me up into the tower to see the bells, so that was pretty incredible. That day also happened to be Rose's last day there, so they let her take part in ringing the bells that day.

On Friday I checked an item off of my bucket list by visiting the Natural History Museum (which you will see at the beginning of the last video in this post), and as for yesterday...yesterday could not have been a more perfect day. To start the day off, I took my last final exam, and what should I see at the top of the page, but this:

I think it's worth noting that Rose is the person who wrote this exam, which I think proves what an awesome professor she's going to be :)

Once I finished my exam, Rose and I went down to the National Pillow Fight held in Trafalgar Square. Oh. My. Gosh. Can I just say that London is the best city EVER?!? As soon as we got up to the fight, Rose suddenly turned around excitedly to show me a pillow someone had randomly handed to her.

Seriously though, what other city in the world holds a giant pillow-fight party where thousands of people show up in their pajamas armed with pillows and an appetite for some good old-fashioned juvenile fun, as well as supplies live music to increase the already high level of epicness and bags upon bags of goose feathers to throw in the air so that it looks like a snowstorm of angel wings straight out of heaven? On top of all that, there was a guy standing above everybody on the railing of the National Portrait Gallery in his underwear with a megaphone and a pillow raised above his head like some heathen pillow-fight war chief, calling for us all to have a grand and glorious battle.

Yes, I'm going to miss London very much. I think I need to get me a government job or a husband over here very soon so I that never have to leave.

Well, covered in feathers and full of a lot of good laughs, Rose and I headed over to this little pub to grab a late lunch.

The upstairs of this place is decorated just like the front parlor of the original 221B Baker Street, so it was quite a bit of fun to basically enjoy a British meal of bangers and mash in Sherlock Holmes' front parlor.

After lunch Rose headed off to catch the first session of General Conference (which I've decided I will watch/listen to later on the long bus rides this week) and I headed over to St. James' Palace, where the guards wear red uniforms!

Sadly they no longer allow you to go stand next to the guards to get pictures at these places, as I'm sure some stupid tourists kept getting to pushy or too friendly, and they now have a rope/chain set up. Still, I was thrilled to finally see the red uniforms, so I can check that off my bucket list.

My last grand hurrah for the night took me back to Trafalgar Square, where Briona, Betsy, and I all walked up to one of the theaters to meet - can you believe it?! - Mr. Darcy!!!

I was so upset when we first got there, because there was quite a crowd of people and I feared I wouldn't have any hope of a photo op or the man's autograph. Fortunately, one of the stage hands came out to tell us that there was an after-show party, and that the actors wouldn't be coming out for another hour or so. That took care of about half of the crowd, so then my hopes were renewed. After the hour was up he still hadn't come out, and more and more people had left.

I was perfectly okay with this.

Finally, at around 12:30 or so, the man himself finally walked out the door, and those few devoted of us left pounced on him. I was absolutely tickled because I got him to autograph my very pretty edition of Pride and Prejudice, and then I asked if he would be willing to take a photo with me of him kissing my cheek.