Friends, Family, Londoners, Lend me your ears!

The months I had here are turning into weeks. And those weeks are quickly becoming days! I can't believe I've already been in London for 3 months. These next 2 and a half weeks I'm going to do everything I can to A, see and do everything I possibly can and B, not get trunky. Which is not going to be easy. While I've LOVED it here, there are definite things about America that I simply can't wait to get home to. So I refuse to think about them right now.

Last Friday we went to Stratford upon Avon to visit Shakespeare's birthplace. It was about a 2 hour drive from London and then we spent the afternoon there and went to the Royal Shakespeare Company's performance of King Lear. First of all, Shakespeare's house was amazing. I think I was mostly astounded that a 500 year old house could look as new as it did. Also... isn't it amazing how similar their lives were to ours? I mean, the house was a LOT like something you would find today, just minus the technology stuff. We do basically the same things they were doing 500 years ago! We've progressed so much, but in a lot of ways we're exactly the same.

After visiting the house we walked up to see Shakespeare's grave at the local church. Just our luck, we got there at 4:43 and the gate had closed at 4:40. We still got to walk around the graveyard, but his actual tombstone was inside the church out of sight. So I can ALMOST say that I saw where Shakespeare is buried. I saw the building?

The performance of King Lear that night was amazing. Very long and very hard to understand, but very well done. King Lear and Edgar both go insane and the actors were SOOO good. If someone told me they were actually insane I wouldn't doubt them for a second. It might have been slightly awkward when they were practically naked running around stage, but such is Shakespeare. Most of the time I didn't know what was going on until the end of the scene.

Yesterday for Lit class we went to a graveyard. We read The Graveyard Book for class, so in its honor we held class in an old graveyard. I have some SWEET pictures. It was hands down the creepiest coolest graveyard ever.

Today Paige and I went to the Imperial War Museum. There are all sorts of displays dedicated to the World Wars, but we focused on WWII and the Holocaust. The Holocaust display was so moving. There was so much information about the horrors that went on that I found myself having to skip over sections because I couldn't handle it. In reading about one of the camps there was a section dedicated to how they burned the jews and took their clothing and I had to walk away. The Holocaust is such a horrible thing and seeing so much of the evidence was frightening. There were pictures of the victims everywhere, statistics of deaths and camps, newspaper articles, clothing gathered from the abandoned camps, and videos of survivors. One thing i read really moved me for some reason and I wrote it down:

"An SS Non-commissioned officer gave the order: "Men to the Left! Women to the Right!" Eight words spoken quietly, indifferently, without emotion. Eight short, simple words. Yet that was the moment when I parted from my mother. - Elie Wiesel, Auschwitz survivor

Accounts like this were everywhere. There was an entire wall dedicated to the words of actual soldiers who were the ones inflicting the pain. I couldn't believe what THEY even went through having to shoot, gas, and harm the Jews. Many of them didn't want to do what they were doing. It was so tragic to read.

As I went to the museum today I felt so strongly the importance of letting this history live on. The Holocaust and horrible things that went on just 70 years ago need to be remembered and prevented. It's the least we can do for those 6 million people who lost their lives.

 Imperial War Museum

 This was a list of all of the different cities and how many people were executed from each one. I was amazed at how many were killed before the concentration camps even began. 

 The entire first floor had huge tanks, bombs, missiles, and war jeeps on display. Oh and there were massive fighter planes hanging from the ceiling!

 If it offends you to think that I sat in a throne that was actually somebody's tombstone, this was photoshopped. If not... that's exactly what I did. 

 Epitome of cool, creepy graveyard? Most definitely. 

 This is probably the portal into some freaky zombie land. So, naturally, I strike a pose. 

 This is in Trafalgar square. It's a countdown until the 2012 London Olympics. This picture was taken on Saturday when there were 489 days, 5 hours, 16 minutes and 16 seconds left!

Basking in the glory of Shakespeare!

500 years and still goin' strong!

Where Poppies Blow

For some reason the French are willing to let anyone into their county while the English make everyone go through an interrogation just to visit. Why is this?! We didn’t even have to get our passports out to cross the English Channel TO France, but coming home was a different story. It’s like that every time. Ah, well. Next time I need to worry about my passport will be on my flight back to the states anyway!

We crossed the English Channel via Ferry. Our bus just drove straight onto the ferry, we waited 2 hours, and we were in a different country! (I actually don’t know WHICH county it was, because we immediately kept driving for 2 hours.. All I know is that we eventually got out in Belgium.)

Funny side note: Remember my trip to Dover awhile back when we didn’t get to see the castle because we got the time wrong? Well, the Ferry left from Dover again. Turns out our 9:40 Ferry was cancelled and we had to wait until 10:40. Dover just isn’t our place apparently.

We got to Brugge, Belgium about mid-afternoon and had the day to explore. Brugge is absolutely adorable! It is a classic little Belgium town with the cute stepped-roof houses along every street and courtyards with cobblestone and horse pulled wagons everywhere. Lining every street are DOZENS of little chocolate shops selling the most beautiful chocolates in the world! Seriously – chocolate is a form of art. I never knew you could do so many different things with it. Needless to say, we all immediately fell in love.

We did a boat tour through the town first and where able to enjoy the town’s charm while floating down the town’s river/canal. Then we ate at the cutest restaurant, stopped to buy souvenirs (aka - Belgium Chocolate). The next morning we went to a chocolate museum first thing in the morning. Everything in the museum is made of chocolate and you just walk around licking the walls. It sounds disgusting, but the taste is so good you don’t mind swapping a few germs.

Okay, that was a lie. The museum just told the history of chocolate basically. Did you know the cocoa bean used to be a form of currency? I decided that in my quest to create a world-wide currency I’m going to take that up again. Apparently it only cost 10 cocoa beans for a dead rabbit. That sold me. I love dead rabbits.

After a delicious lunch of Belgium waffles (Sweet, right?) and an enjoyable afternoon in a Brugge square, we headed to Leper for the In Flanders Fields Museum. I was super excited for this because the song In Flanders Fields was a very special one to me as I sung it through high school with my choirs. It definitely lived up to my expectations. The museum took you through WWI and everything that happened to the soldiers. I felt such a reverence and was moved to tears multiple times. The most touching story was about the Christmas Truce. I’d heard the story before, but it was so different reading about it there. I read pages of accounts from soldiers about how both sides ceased fire for Christmas and joined together as brothers to celebrate. The poem In Flanders Fields was displayed in the middle of the museum. While the poem has always meant so much to me because of the song, I have  complete new respect for it now. The men that fought in those poppy fields were sacrificing so much and went through amazingly terrible things.

The rest of the trip was centered on WWI. We stayed in the French town Amiens Tuesday night and on Wednesday went to a battlefield where actual fighting took place. The trenches have been preserved so that we could see both sides lines as well as no-man’s land. Our guide spent about an hour and a half walking around with us and explaining what the soldiers would have been going through.

The trip was full of fun as well as reverence. While Brugge was pure enjoyment, Amiens and Leper taught me a lot about the First World War and what went on. It’s impossible to choose just one, but easily this trip was one of my all time favorites. 

 Standing on a Brugge bridge! The canal behind me is the one we went boating down.

 The stepped-roof houses were the cutest things.. I honestly felt like they too cute to be real. We could have been standing in a studio surrounded by perfectly painted backdrops.

 This was one of the town-squares that we spent a lot of our time in. 

 Chocolate Museum!

 Here's the square from a different angle... I guess I really liked this square. Another thing I loved about it was that there were hardly any cars anywhere. Everyone rode bikes or just walked.

I know this doesn't show you at all what the museum was actually like. Proof I was there maybe?

 These are the trenches from WWI that are still at the site today. In some parts you couldn't even see over the top they were so tall. 

 Our guide explained to us that each soldier's stone was exactly the same size no matter what rank, nationality, or name he had. There were also some tombs with 2 soldier's names on them because they had died so close to each other they had to be buried together. 

 Just to the right of the flag is a little piece of metal. That's a piece of shell that is still in the field. There are still tons of shrapnel and shells that never went off buried out in the trenches and fields. 

Everything about the museum just amazed me. What they went through, the fact that they dug the trenches, how they fought, how they died, and then how they are honored. I'm so glad I had the opportunity to visit battlefields and museums where I could develop a greater appreciation for WWI and the soldiers that fought through it. 

Luck o' the Irish!

Someone told me once that they drink green beer in Ireland on St. Patty’s day. I was all excited to actually be THERE on March 17^th and see for myself. Sadly, I still have no clue if that is a myth of not. I guess I forgot to take into account that I don’t spend much time in pubs to observe the color of other people’s beer.

We flew into Ireland on Tuesday in the wee hours of the morning and the first thing we did was go to a beer museum. Ever heard of Guiness? Well I’ve toured their first factory. It was pretty hilarious having a group of BYU kids tour a beer factory. The tour included a free drink at the end and the workers were kinda confused as we asked for waters and cokes instead of beer. The tour was pretty cool though. I learned a bunch of useless information about how they make beer. Apparently women get drunk twice as fast as men because we’re smaller and have more fat on our bodies. Good to know.

Tuesday night we all ate at the oldest pub in Ireland. The Brazenhead Pub. The food was DELICIOUS. Once again, I think we amuse people when none of drink any alcohol. Wednesday we were given the entire day to do whatever we wanted. So we roamed Dublin all day! We visited the “biggest city park in Europe”, went to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, a little market, a street festival, and shopped for fun souvenirs. Wednesday night is when weird St. Patty’s stuff started showing up. This city goes CRAZY for St. Patrick’s day. There was green everywhere, carnivals, street performers, and then just weirdos. I saw people walking around dressed like swans, chickens, and foxes. What do those have to do with St. Patrick’s Day? Beats me.

The dancing in the square on Wednesday night was super fun. A huge stage was set up in the middle of the street with a live band playing Irish Music. Then they’d have different dance instructor people teach the crowd different Irish Dances. I wish I could say I’m now the master of the river dance, but alas. I would basically just kick and swing around because I never had any idea what was going on.

Thursday was the big day. St. Patrick’s. We all of course had to get dressed up in everything green we had, paint our faces, die our hair, etc. etc. in order to fit in. Green was EVERYWHERE! It was totally awesome. I’m used to St. Patrick’s Day being an extremely small holiday that just gives kids an excuse to pinch each other. Not in Ireland. There was a parade through the center of town that was supposed to start at noon and we had to sit in our places at 10. We sat there for over 2 hours and then when the parade did start, it lasted about an hour and a half. Now, I’ve seen many a parade in my day. Mostly St. George Utah style. This parade was unlike any parade I’ve ever seen. It was probably the creepiest thing in the entire world and still haunts my dreams. Nothing seemed to have anything to do with St. Patrick’s day. Every float was some really creepy looking giant villainous animal. We just stood there for 2 hours wondering who on earth put this insane parade together and what kind of drugs they were on.

We spent the afternoon wandering the streets and enjoying the celebrations everywhere and then left for Kilkenny. That’s where we stayed on Thursday night and explored on Friday morning. They have a sweet castle that we toured with beautiful grounds. Then on the way back to Dublin to catch our flight on Friday night we stopped in Cashel. There was a giant Abbey/Cathedral/ruin thing that was awesome. In the spirit of the week I even got a grass stain jumping off one of the walls! Staining my pants green just to show a little St. Patty’s pride. That’s true Irish devotion for ya.

In conclusion: where on earth were all the leprechauns, rainbow, and pots of gold? I clearly need to do some more research on this whole St. Patty's day thing, because maybe America has the wrong idea. Maybe swans, foxes, and chickens are where it's at. 

 Haley and I drinking our beer at the Guinness Tour House. A little sour for my liking, but overall good quality. 

 This was at the "biggest city park in Europe" that I mentioned. The big stone tower behind me is called the Wellington Monument... and I have no idea what it's for.

 Someone please tell me why on earth you'd dress up like a fox and go out dancing in the streets for St. Patrick's Day?!? 

 Yes. Sharon and I wore Shamrock covered boxers over our pants. 

 This is us waiting for the disturbing parade to begin. 

 I took TONS of pictures during the Parade so that I'd be able to prove how insane it was. Unfortunately, I can't show you all of the floats, but here are some. Pictured above: creepy black dog of death.

 This is a giant cockroach. GIANT COCKROACH!! In my mind, enlarging the nastiest insect ever to walk the earth and marching it down the middle of the street is NOT something I wait 2 hours to see. But maybe I'm crazy.

 This is a band. Of Moose skeletons. Kinda cool... in a creepy way of course.

 It took us a minute to realize what this was. This is a bird carrying a dead dog in its talons.

 I call this one CLIFFORD WITH RABIES. 

 Ramzi, Sharon and I at the Cathel Rocks in Cathel. 

 Jumping down from this wall is how I got my grass stain. (Might I add that Ramzi was too chicken to jump and climbed back down the baby way.)

 I wish you could see this picture better. My eyes reflected and look completely white. It definitely adds to the mummy/"raising from the dead to haunt you" feeling. 

This was my favorite picture of the entire trip, so I had to include it. Ramzi struggles a wee bit.

Spoon me.

Our road trips are coming to an end! We only have two left now – Ireland this week and France/Belgium the next. Last night we got back from a 3 day trip to Wales.

We left Thursday morning and drove 4 hours on the bus to an unknown city. Maybe if I had been awake for any part of the bus ride I would know! But alas. Sadly I don’t think I could tell you what direction Wales is from us. I know it’s north, but that’s about it. I just get on the bus, sleep, and get off when I’m told.

Anyway. I digress.

At the unknown city we picked up a tour guide who we spent the next four hours with going to church history sites. He talked to us all about the first members of the church in Wales. The Benbow Farm, if you’ve heard of it… we went there. It sounded painfully familiar to me, so I’m thinking maybe it’s some huge church site that I really should have been more impressed with?

That night we actually stayed in Northern England at a Hostel. The highlight of the evening was when we found a book “So you Think You Know Harry Potter?” It had 1000 trivia questions about HP. My dream book. This was one of the hard questions: "What was the password to get into the Prefect bathroom?" If you know THAT, you are a true HP fan. 

Friday we drove to Wales and went to the Big Pit first. It’s an old coal mine that they’ve shut down and now just use as a museum/tour place. We got to put on legit mining hats and gear and go deep down in the mine! The craziest part was when our guide had us all turn off our head lights. He wanted us to see how dark it was for the little 6 year old boys who worked in the mine. I have NEVER experienced such pure blackness before. I couldn’t see my hand 3 inches from my eyes! (Which I realize isn’t all that impressive considering I was wearing black gloves…)  But you could feel the darkness it was so intense. It was really cool to learn about the conditions in the mines and how things worked. The horses apparently had to live down in the mine 50 weeks of the year! Sad, huh?? Oh and our guide made us all sing our National Anthem before he would lift us up to ground level again. We sounded glorious FYI.

Friday night and Saturday we stayed in Cardiff and were left to explore. My favorite part was roaming on Saturday morning. We found a market! If you’ve been reading my blogs AT ALL you will know that in the past few weeks I’ve developed a love for markets and their nuts. There is always a stand of nuts where you can buy all sorts of candied nuts and stuff that are SO GOOD. I bought 3.50 worth of almonds, cashew, and yogurt-covered bananas. Best purchase of the trip. Hands down. I tried to eat them slowly so they’d last all day… but I failed miserably. They were gone in 20 minutes. I’ve decided that I may go to a market here in London the day before I come home and purchase every yogurt covered dried banana there. That way I can have at least a 3 day supply until I can find some back in America. 

The Benbow Farm. Lots of cool history about the Benbow family, but mostly i was just reminded why I can't ever live on a farm. It smelt SO bad. SOO bad. 

An alley we walked down to get to one of the church history sites. Mostly I just wanted you all to see how cute Haley, Sharon and I look from behind. 

Haley and I in front of a church we visited. I wish I could tell you more about it.... I wasn't listening to our tour guide.

We hiked to the top of a hill and it was so windy. The wind could almost held my body weight! Apparently it isn't always windy though because Wilford Woodruff used to hike up there to meditate when he was a missionary in England. 

Tintern Abbey

Charlie's Angels meet Tintern Abbey Ruins. 

This went better in my mind. It's supposed to look super cool and hip. Oh well. 

I think the way we all posed says a lot about our personalities. Sharon is doing some flamingo bird thing, I'm masculinely pointing off into the distance, and Haley... looks like she needs to go to the bathroom. Or like the next Marilyn Monroe. Take your pick.

We mine coal. 

So there is this Welsh Spoon tradition that I fell in love with. Boys used to carve spoons for girls they were interested in or in love with. If the girl accepted it, it meant she returned his feelings and they courted. They were called Lovespoons. Apparently this is where the term "spooning" originates. So there were wooden spoons everywhere with different symbols in them that meant different things. This was only part of what a shop claimed was the biggest love spoon ever. 

My game face. Bring it on Under Armor.

This was the massive jumprope... easily 100 lbs. Give or take a few. 

Sharon and I with our yogurt covered dried bananas!!!! Point for Wales. 

RomAmoR

Considering my last post, I'll skip past the travelling horror and dive into the wonders of my Italian vacation.

We got to our Hotel on Via Serpente and immediately set out to exploring. We had no idea where... or what really.. everything was, so we just walked. It wasn't hard to find everything - the Colosseum is at the end of our street! So we walked past the Colosseum and passed TONS of cool stuff! It took us 2 hours to get to St. Peter's Square and then we headed back to the hotel. I think it was over a mile of walking one way.. but it's so hard to tell when you're soaking in the glory of Italy.

The first thing we do upon returning is buy a map. On the back is a Top 10 list of things to see in Rome... hmm. "Sharon, didn't we pass... wait... 7 of these just barely??" Colosseum - check. Vatican City - check. St. Peter's Square - check. Monument to Emmanuel the II - Check. Saint Angel Castle - check. Pantheon - check. Foro Romano - check. To say we were staying in the heart of Rome would be an understatement. We were staying in the belly! Our location was PRIME!

We had 5 days to visit everything we wanted, eat as much Italian food as we could, and relax in the beautiful city. Thursday we went to Vatican City all day. My favorite part was the top of St. Peter's Basilica. We hiked the 551 stairs to the top of the dome and could see ALL of Rome. Then I sent a postcard from the roof! They had postcards you could buy, stamp and send right there. I guess when we went to the Sistine Chapel that was pretty cool, too. Psh... more like WAY COOL! I saw the Sistine Chapel! I can't even explain it. We could have spent all day walking through all of the museums and chapels. I tried to get an appointment with the Pope, but alas I don't speak Italian, so they couldn't understand what I wanted. So we went and got pizza instead.

We went to an Italian Market on Friday and Saturday morning, toured the Colosseum and Roman Forum, went to the Pantheon, and shopped whenever we got the chance. At nights, we went to the Trevi Fountain or Spanish Steps. You wouldn't believe how many people hang out there every night! It was so fun to just sit and enjoy the people and atmosphere. Not to mention the legend. Get this:

According to the legend of the Trevi Fountain, "One's return to Rome is guaranteed by drinking its water and by throwing a coin into its basin." Needless to say, Sharon and I did both at least 3 times. We're convinced that means we'll return to Rome at least 3 times. And I drank a lot, so I'm thinking probably 4. The fountain at the Spanish Steps also had good water, but I didn't hear of any cool legends. Basically I drank a lot of fountain water this week. If I die of some foreign disease, don't mourn. I enjoyed every ounce of it.

We did so much in the five days that we were there, I can't possibly write everything. We enjoyed Pizza EVERYDAY for lunch - no exaggeration. There were little pizza shops everywhere where they would cut off however much you wanted and then you'd weigh and pay! We listened to Italian accordion street players, ate gelato, bought Italian underwear, ate at adorable Italian family-owned cafes, and walked the beautiful streets of Rome!

At dinner one night, I used our Italian Phrase Book to ask for the Bill. The cute Italian Chef pretended that my Italian was flawless and complimented me. The best part was - he actually DID understand what I said because he brought us the bill immediately!

We also visited the Bocca della Verita. Translation: Mouth of Truth. If you stick your hand in it's mouth and tell a lie, it bites your hand off. I guess you'll have to wait to see me next to know for sure if you can trust me. For all you know I made up this entire trip, I've never been to Rome, and the employees of Ryanair are warm and friendly.

This is the view from the street our hotel was on. That building at the end? That's the Colosseum.

There is a post box at the top of St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City and a shop where you can buy/write/send postcards! Only one mailbox on earth will be graced with the lucky honor of receiving this here postcard. I'll let you all wait in anticipation hoping it's you.  

From the top of the dome! St. Peter's Dome was the most visible, but you could see EVERYTHING from up there!

The fountain at the bottom of the Spanish Steps supposedly has the purest drinking water in Rome. But I'm pretty sure everyone just told me that so they could watch me look like a fool trying to drink it. 

This is the Trevi Fountain. Definitely high on the list of popular tourist hang-out spots. I guess that's why we were there so much... being tourists and all..

THE MOUTH OF TRUTH! I may or may not have lost a hand last week. You'll just have to wait and see when I return! or.. you could just look at the next picture. 

Toss a coin and make a wish...

.. and drink from its basin, and you will return to Rome one day! 

The door to the right of my armpit is where the Gladiators would go and then be lifted into the arena to fight. Seeing this made me want to go back in time so bad! How cool would it be to see this in its glory days?? Except.. actually I'd probably be really grossed out. Minus the fighting/killing part first. 

Our friend the Accordian Player! We passed him everyday on the steps and we'd toss him a few coins. On the last day, he played Let it Be by the Beatles and a man at the bottom was singing it in Italian. I think he did it for me to thank me for the 20 cents I gave him.

This is part of the Roman Forum behind the Colosseum. It was HUGE! Basically there are ruins EVERYWHERE and it's really fun to imagine what Rome looked like 2000 years ago. 

I included this picture because of the green umbrella. It started raining, so I bought this umbrella from a street vendor for 3 Euros. It broke. This was a common theme of the trip: Never trust Italian Vendors.

This is not a toy. This is an actual car that actual men drive. GROWN men.