london.

wow! it has been a long 4 days. its weird that ive only been here for 4 days. our days are so long and so intense that everything blurrs together in one big clump and time seems to stand still almost anyway. here is a major recap.

SATURDAY

friday moring just flat out sucked. lets leave it at that.
so the flight to new york wasnt that bad. it went by pretty fast. i fell asleep for lots of it. then we just watched tv. then the flight to london was brutal. we were in the plane on the runway at jfk for over an hour before we took off. which was super fun. my tylenol pm had almost worn off by the time we actually took off. fabulous. the plane from new york to london was freeeezing and bumpy so i didnt get much sleep. i officially hate flying over night. it's terrible!! but I survived. :] the customs lady gave me a really hard time coming through. she made me answer a whole bunch of stupid questions like who i lived with at home and who was paying for my trip and what my major was and when i was going to graduate. it was brutal. it took me a super long time and she asked a ton of questions. we got our bags and realized that delta was in terminal 4 and the other girls that we were supposed to meet to get on the shuttle were in terminal 3. so we had to go all the way across the terminal and down 2 super long escalators and then get on a train to take us to terminal 4. whew! when we finally got there… our shuttle wasn't there. rachel and i ran around the terminal trying to find him (i was the one that had reserved the shuttle so it was my job to find out where he was) for seriously 15 minutes. we tried to ask the information desk but they were no help. they were actually kind of rude. but whatever. we finally found him. well he found us. he was half an hour late. when we went to get on the shuttle bus we all went to the wrong side of the car and just stood there. the driver got a good laugh. driving to the centre was fun. it's so pretty here. and so so so different. there are tons of old buildings and houses - i love them!! most of them are super tiny. and it’s so green here! its lovely. side note- London drivers are NUTS! when we got to the center we got divided up into rooms. on the first floor there are 8 girls, the third floor has 16 girls, the fourth floor has 18 girls and the fifth floor has 6 girls. you would not believe how many stairs there are in this place. it is ridiculous. ts ridiculous. for that reason im glad that im on the main floor. :] anyway, so after we got unpacked and everything we went on a walk around the neighborhood. its a fun place. there are tons of shops and restaurants around. theres a starbucks on every corner just like in new york. it was really sunny and we did a ton of walking. we walked around the neighborhood then we came back to the centre for a delicious dinner. after that we went out to buckingham palace, big ben, westminster abby and st james park. we walked forever. blah. it was good though. the weather is beautiful during the day when the sun is out. but the minute the sun goes down its freezing. that night we found out that we have no hot water until atleast the end of next week. a boiler blew up so they had to order a new part. lame. so, at this point, I haent showered since Thursday night. cute.

SUNDAY

we walked to church through the park on Sunday morning. it was amazing. it was about a 20 minute walk through a gorgeous park on a gorgeous Sunday. I loved it. i almost fell asleep in church so many times. the jet lag finally hit. i slept perfectly all nigh on saturdayt once i actually fell asleep but i was still so tired. after church we walked home slowly then we went to the london history museum. we got off the tube at a few wrong stops and walked around a lot so it took a while. it was super nice weather again. the museum was mostly boring but there were a few really cool things from the roman times. when got out of the museum we saw a london boy scout parade...even though im pretty sure that they werent quite called boy scouts. it was fun. we got lost on the tube. a great adventure. that night we met with the stake president who gave us our ward assignments. I found out tonight that my bishop here is going to give me a temple prep class and my recommends!! they will be signed by a london bishop and stake president. that's pretty cool huh? I'm kind of stoked. my bishop is this super young guy. He's probably like 30. his wife is from minnesota. they met while she was on byu study abroad. hahah. they have a 5 week old baby girl who is super adorable. tonight we went over to west end. we weren't quite sure what it was but the bunk bed told us to go (so on the wood between the two bunks i guess it is kind of tradition to sign your name and semester and what your favorite part was and give advice to the new people in the center. so we spent a long time reading the bunks this afternoon cuz its hilarious. so we've got a few good ideas of stuff to do. hah) anyway. we got on a train and a group of boys followed us into our car. they sat the entire train ride staring at us. owe get up to get off at our stop and they totally follow us. so we faked them out, pretended to get off and waited until they were off then got back on. personally i think it was super tricky. so we went on a few stops and our super great west end adventure turned out to be lame. there was nothing there. probably cuz we never actually made it to the real wet end. we just eneded up on some random street. when we got on the tube to come home another group of boys were yelling mean things at us in the station. like..hitting on us by calling us rude names. it was annoying. everywhere we go we get cat calls. its funny.

MONDAY

Monday it rained allll day. we went on a walk called the "walk of the stars" where a bunch of famous people lived down in chelsea. we saw the old hospital and where a bunch of authors lived. we ate a a cute sandwich shop. it was owned by italians. unfortunately, we paid with pounds that were expired apparently so we had to find different money to apy with. he chased us out of the store onto the street. not so cool. then we found a bus stop becuase it was freezing and we didn't know where a tube station was. the bus was fun i guess. more exciting almost than the tube. we changed our clothes and then went out to the v&a for the afternoon. we saw a baroque art exhibit and the jewlery room and the cast room. then it was time to get home cuz we have to be home every day at 4:45 for "evensong" where we get announcements and have a prayer and stuff. dinner is usually super yummy here. that night we went down to leicester square to see a show. we ended up getting cheap last minute tickets to stomp. it was super fun.

TUESDAY

finally updated! I am proud of anyone who read that entire post. as if anyone actually cares that much. but I didn’t want to rewrite everything so I basically took emails that I had sent to greg and my mom and coped and pasted them. thus the intense length. don’t expect that every day. haha. anyway. today was our first class. it's gona be easy. after class we went to the sherlock holmes musuem. we rode the bus down there which was super fun. it took like 40 minutes but it was cool to see everything - which you totally miss on the tube. we sat up top which was cool. its super scary though. the buses get so so so close to the other buses. like inches away. once we got off the bus it was a pain getting to the actual museum cuz we kept getting lost. then the museum cost money and we didnt want to pay so we ended up not even going in. but it was okay. then we went to the cabinet war rooms and the imperial war museum london. both were awesome. the cabinet warm rooms are where Winston Churchill basically planned out and directed ww2 during the bombings in London. it is underground rooms and dorm sort of rooms. there is a kitchen and living quarters and map rooms and strategizing rooms and whatnot. one day everyone that was living slash working down there packed up and went home. but left everything there. exactly the way it was every other day. then they locked the outside doors and never came back. so everything was found in perfect condition. papers still in stacks, tacks still on walls. one commander even left his sugar cubes in his desk in an envelope – and they are still on display. it is basically exactly the way it was found. even all of the chalk boards and calendars and clocks are just the way they were on the day that everyone left. it is super super cool. in the imperial war museum we went to the holocaust exhibit which really was cool. tonight we went to a play as a group. we saw a view from the bridge by arthur miller. it was kind of dumb...but whatever. we had to go and it was free. so last nigh i took my first cold shower. it was so cold that my head hurt within seconds. and i saw my first mouse tonight . they get stuck on these pieces of paper that have mouse trap glue on them. so theyre alive and trying to jump around, but they're stuck on sticky paper. it was shrieking and yelping and disgusting. I have almost gotten hit like 5 times already. its hilarious. the taxis come speeding around the corner of the opposite side of what you would expect. and the buses practically drive on the sidewalks. its ridiculous. but it makes for a good laugh.

anyway. pictures to follow. promise.
it gets annoying to have to take a pcture on two or three cameras every time we take a picture so we’ve kind of developed a system where only one person takes the group pictures then transfers them onto our computers. so I don’t actually have the pictures yet. haha. but soon!!