I run into poles.

This week has been filled with lots of walking. Apart from classes, I've been on 4 of my 12 London Walks this week! Some of them are definitely better than others. Today's walk... not so great. And by "not so great" I mean - nothing amazing. Hmm... maybe I'm getting too used to London. I'm sure YOU would all think it was amazing.

On Wednesday we had our day trip to Oxford. I would feel so outrageously cool if I went to school there. *As in - my head would explode of too much ego. So it's a good thing I don't. Because then there would be brain/head guts for you all to clean up*. (Dad that was for you. It's something I can hear you saying. Normally I wouldn't have written anything so cheesy, but I was inspired by my love for you at this moment.) We spent all day visiting the different schools, eating in famous pubs where famous people like Bill Clinton and C.S. Lewis have eaten, browsing in shops where Lewis Caroll got his ideas from Alice and Wonderland from, buying Oxford merchandise... you know, all the normal day-to-day things. Oh I almost forgot! How could I forget??? They filmed parts of the Harry Potter films in Oxford. We walked through the Great Hall at Hogwarts. Then the sorting hat put me in Gryffindor and Mrs. McGonagall told me i'd be starting school there next year.

Alright, maybe that was a bit of a stretch. I'd probably be Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff.

Last night I went to Phantom!! The entire time I was absolutely amazed with the Phantom's voice. He was INCREDIBLE. Come to find out, he has also played John Valjean in Les Miserables and was voted the best John Valjean EVER in 2006 by the British Academy Awards or something. Best EVER. I don't doubt it. If I had the chance to see him in Les Mis, I might be willing to do something drastic. Like break the law or something. THAT is how good he is.

Oh yeah.. One last thing. Today, on our walk, I walked in to a pole. Not "holy cow, that was close!" And I didn't have time to slow down so as to not feel the FULL effect. I was full on walking down the street and suddenly my face was smacking metal. We were all stunned for a second realizing what had just happened, and then we laughed for a solid 5 minutes. I will be surprised if I don't have a bruise.

Haley and I at the Alice in Wonderland shop. Alice, I took this thinking of you. So I hope you see this. 

For all you muggles out there.. this is what the Great Hall at Hogwarts looks like. If you even know what that is. 

Christ's Church College. One of the many Colleges at Oxford. 

If you can't read the small print, it says: "An education in intoxication." Oxford is so my kinda place.

My walkin posse 

This bridge connects 2 buildings... Kinda like how mine and Amber's houses will be connected when we live next to each other. It symbolizes the connection between the old part of Oxford and the REALLY old part of Oxford... Kinda like how my husband will be old and Amber's husband will be REALLY old. 

Sharon Liz Haley and I on another walk!

You think that a beautiful gargoyle can't exist? We pose to correct you. 

We almost murdered a duck at this lake. Or at least made a murderer out of one..? It's amazing what birds will do for a little food. 

Seconds after the pole incident. 

Execution? Bring it on.

If the upkeep wasn’t so ridiculously impossible and the sheer ownership slightly absurd, I’d want my backyard to look exactly like Hampton Court Gardens. Of course perhaps it’d all equal out to be a bad thing, because if it did I would spend over half of every day walking around in my backyard and ultimately get nothing productive done.  What is Hampton Court, you ask? Hampton court was King Henry VIII's favorite house. And He had 60 houses, so that’s sayin something! Actually.. If it was my house, it would be my favorite, too. No offense to my beautiful home in St. George. Basically what I'm trying to say is this: King Henry VIII may have been a fat old man who killed lots of wives, but he had nice taste in garden-ry. In fact, I think I'd be willing to marry King Henry VIII despite his executing wives fetish. I'd die early, but my short life would be spent in those beautiful gardens! 

Friday was our day trip to Hampton Court and then Darwin’s house. At Hampton Court we got to tour the rooms and apartments of Henry VIII and Mary II and see the Tudor Kitchens and of course the beautiful gardens. My favorite thing, after the gardens of course, was the stacking dolls at the gift shop. There were stacking dolls of King Henry and all 6 of his wives! Funny, huh? I was dying. Oh, or the chocolate bars. I wanted to buy those and then eat off Ann Boleyn’s head or something. Didn’t know I was so horrible? Mwahaha.

Darwin’s house was slightly less cool, but still enjoyable. I mean, he is the father of evolution. And I have been learning about him since 6^th grade. We actually read a book about him for our literature class last week. It made the whole experience WAY more interesting. I actually like Charles Darwin a lot. He was a swell guy. Did you know he was a total family guy? Like a loving wife and 10 kids. I got to see his actual plants. In his actual greenhouse. And… Oh!! Get this. His wife took piano lessons from Chopin. And I saw her piano! SOOOOOO that means I saw the piano of a student of Chopin. SWEET.

Friday night I watched Mean Girls. I’d never seen it before. Apparently I had to see it in order to leave adolescence. So here’s announcing – I’m an adult.

Saturday morning was perhaps the best thing that’s happened to my taste buds since I’ve been here. We went to Bourough Market.. Which is basically a food market. We spent the whole time sampling tons of delicious food and then finally bought lunch. We tried jam, salsa, oil and vinegar, fruit, curry, olives, lots of cheese, bread, cheesecake, nuts, granola, humus, and butter. I ended up buying Vietnamese chicken curry and rice. Ramzi got a Kangaroo burger! Is that legal? I didn't know you were allowed to eat Kangaroo. So, naturally I had a bite. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to say I've chewed Kangaroo. It's not too bad actually. We decided we’re going back every Saturday morning we can for the rest of the time we’re here. And I won’t eat breakfast next time before I go!

 The far side of Hampton Court. Those awesome looking trees were in rows everywhere.

 Can you say... Pemberley? I felt very like I was living in a Jane Austen world. 

 First try. Success!

I tried to include pictures of all different parts of the garden, but they still don't do it justice!

 This little lot of land was one of Darwin's experiments. He planted weeds and had them compete with plants to see if they were competing for survival. AKA - Survival of the fittest! Thank you 10th Grade Biology. 

 Sir. Charles Darwin's house. 

 Sharron, Ramzi, Haley and I in front of the fabulous Bourough's Market

 Oh yeah.. I forgot to mention this part. There were dead animals EVERYWHERE! About 5 seconds before this picture was taken, I was smiling. But then I was chastised for smiling next to dead bunnies. So then I thought of Thumper and came up with this face. 

 "Bring me the Head of a Pig.." I can't imagine Brian Regan was meaning that literally. Cause I'd never want that thing delivered to me on a plane. 

 Hence my extreme fear of underwater animals. 

Me on Tower Bridge. In the freezing rain. I LOVE LONDON!

I went on a date with a missionary for Love Day.

So for Valentines day I didn’t have a boyfriend or a date… so I went for the next best thing - A missionary. One of my friends from Freshman year is serving in South London and we have been talking about me going down to visit him! It just so turns out that this visit went down on the day of love!! Elise Haley and I took a train down to Windsor for the afternoon and met a group of missionaries there. It was Elder Whitehead and 3 other Elders, plus two sister missionaries. We all went to lunch and then walked around the Windsor Castle. It was so weird! I had no idea missionaries were allowed to meet with us like that? But it was their p-day and their president okayed it. Cool huh? So I had a date with a missionary on Valentines Day. Ha go spread THAT rumor around.

Another cool thing about that whole trip was learning to use the trains. We really had no idea what we were doing, but we ended up in Windsor!

That night we went to a Ballet! And not just any ballet.. the Swan Princess Ballet. I mean Swan Lake. Do you realize how similar they are?? I know The Swan Princess is an animated princess movie, but get this: prince forced to marry, follows swan and discovers she is a swan by day and princess by night, falls in love, is tricked into proclaiming love to the evil twin, bad guy who cast curse is killed. The only difference is the fact that in the end of the Ballet… the prince and princess both die. But that’s okay, it was still good!! I’d never been to a ballet before, but I decided I’m a fan. It’s AMAZING what they can do!

Yesterday we went to Southall. What is Southall, you ask? It’s basically a section of London that is Indian. Like Chinatown, but Indiatown? We went as a group to see the temples and eat the food. And guess what?! I had no idea how much I loved Indian Food! I ate so much I really thought I was going to explode. I ate more than I did at Thanksgiving. No joke. The temple was unreal. We had to put scarves on our heads and take our shoes off, and then we went and sat on this white sheet in a HUGE domed room. There was an altar at the front and men singing Indian music. The whole area was so different than any part of London we’ve been.. I thought we’d left the country!

Today we went to the London temple! For all of you living in Utah: never take for granted the temple you have. Hold that… TempleS. How many temples are in Utah, like 45 by now? I have never lived more than 10 minutes from a Temple and I’m used to being able to go whenever I want. Today was the only day I’ll be able to do baptisms all semester! It was such a lovely day. There was a group of 27 of us that went. It took an hour and a half to drive there and then we stayed for about 2 and a half hours. As we all sat in the room waiting for each other we sang hymns. The spirit was so strong and we all benefited from it so much. I needed the comfort that the temple brings. And now I have to wait another 2 months to feel it again back in the states!

 They tried to get me to bow for the queen.. but I didn't feel like literally kneeling in the middle of the street. Call me crazy.

 Haley, Elise and I in front of the "Long Walk" that runs in front of Windsor Castle

I feel like the missionaries are our body guards in this picture. I'm sure there's a good gospel analogy I could plug in here. 

 Windsor Castle!

 Sisters - Us - Elders

 Elise and I just before Swan Lake

 We had front row balcony seats at The Royal Opera House

 Meet the swans of the lake

 This is actually me, Liz, Elise, and Paige. I know you thought we were Indians.

 The Indian temple with a really cool name that I unfortunately can't spell or pronounce...

 Indian food!

Elise and I at the London Temple:)

Cheers!

Our longest trip yet turned out to be a complete success. I now have a new favorite country. SCOTLAND!

It took 5 hours on a train to get there, but since we left early Wednesday morning, we still had plenty of time to explore Edinburgh once we got there. We checked into our hostel and then all headed straight to the Edinburgh Castle. Considering the troubles with our last castle.. this one was infinitely better. We stayed there for almost 3 hours exploring and taking pictures. And the view over Edinburgh was amazing! I felt very royal just standing on the walls. 

Funny story. We headed back to the hostel before going to dinner, but then decided we would wait even longer to eat. So I went to my room and was supposed to meet everyone downstairs in the Lobby at 6:00. It was only 5:20, so I took a quick nap. Next thing I knew it was 6:45. CRICKEY! Ha I hadn't even taken my boots off, so I literally jumped out of bed and ran out the door. I had no hope that they were still waiting, but I knew where they planned to go for dinner so I ran there. They weren't there. I thought I was going to spend my first night in Scotland completely alone because everyone was already out doing stuff. (And yes, this is how our life is with no cell phones. You have no hope of finding anyone once they've already left.) But I ran into Professor Crowe and his wife and decided to have dinner with them! Just me and the Professors. Boom Baby! And lucky me just as we finished eating, the girls all walked by and saw me. Perf! Apparently they had come to my room and knocked really loud like 3 times.. but i was out cold. 

Thursday was my favorite. We were given the entire day to do whatever we wanted with a list of ideas. We started by going to parliament and watching a debate for a few minutes. It was really boring.. but I still loved hearing their sweet accents. So I enjoyed it. Next we went on a hike to Arthur's seat. What started out as 11 of us ended as 4. Everyone else either didn't want to hike or had bad shoes. I was INSISTENT that we go all the way to the top! It was the one thing I had really wanted to do. I'm proud to say... It was the best thing we did all trip! It was sooo worth it. The countryside is absolutely beautiful. Paige, Carly, Elise and I climbed all over the hills. My favorite was when we stopped at one of the peaks and sang our favorite hymns. 

The rest of the day we went to museums for children, monuments for burned witches, THE CAFE WHERE J.K. ROWLING STARTED HARRY POTTER, creepy cool graveyards, and the production of Annie! It was another day with LOTS of walking around. 

Let's see.. Friday we went to New Lanark to see an Old Cotton Mill Factory and then to Stirling where we slept. The factory was pretty cool, but my favorite part was actually hiking to the waterfalls next to it in our spare time... and then in Stirling we went to the Stirling Castle! Not as cool as Edinburgh, but Carly and I did see the Gents restroom! We had been sitting and talking about flatulations when we realized that a boy was listening to us and laughing. Of course we had to make a quick exit!! We left immediately and looked for the nearest escape. We didn't realize where we'd escaped to until we were staring at 5 urinals. 

And Friday night? We were super cool and went to a movie. Baha we felt so American! Actually.. it made me pretty homesick, but we won't talk about that. I love it here still. Anyway, we went to Gnomeo and Juliet. It's definitely a movie I wanted to see with my family. It's our type of stupid humor. So I loved it, of course. The funniest thing to me was that the dad kept getting his words mixed up. So his enemy called him ILLITERATE and he responded, "I am not! My mother and father were married!" There's a taste of it for ya. 

On Saturday morning we went to the Wallace Monument. He'd the dude that the Braveheart movie is about. Only I've never seen it.. so it wasn't AS cool as it was for those who had. All I know is... they were insanely stoked. But his sword was bigger than me!

I feel like that was such a shallow run down of everything that's happened the past week, but there ya have it! The Scottish people are DEFINITELY the nicest we've come across. They were all so happy and willing to answer questions. Also, they all say cheers at the end of everything! I may or may not start doing that as well.

P.S. If it seems like I'm wearing almost the exact same thing in every single picture... that's because I was.  

Edinburgh from the walls of the Edinburgh Castle. 

I missed my dog when I saw this. Probably because most of the time when I was home I wished she would die... 

Pirates of the Caribbean anyone? 

Elise, Paige and I in front of the Parliament building. 

The hike! Top 10 list of best things I've done on Study Abroad thus far. 

If you're wondering about my puffy marshmallow coat and the shining sun... yes I was very hot. But too lazy to take it off. 

Call me Arthur cause I'm on his seat. 

Another Kaylee moment caught on camera. I'm always just perfectly placed in my surroundings and people can't resist taking pictures. It's a curse. 

I am now a TRUE Harry Potter fan. If all the midnight movies didn't count. 

Yeah.. the waterfalls were kinda yellow.. but it was still pretty?

Stirling castle gate. 

On top of the Wallace Tower Monument

Bring me the head of a pig. And a goblet of something cool and refreshing. 

I couldn't even lift that thing, let alone kill with it.