very last day. tragic!

okay. this is a picture of me and my parents in London at Trafalgar Square when I was little.



today i made it my mission to go take this picture! My grandparents have this picture hanging in their house, along with pictures of my other aunts and uncles in the same position at the same booth. so..its super hot today. and super humid. not a fun combination. but sam and i set out in trafalgar square in search of this telephone booth. we had the original picture on my ipod to make positive certain that we had the right one. so we ran around sweaty trafalgar square for a good 15 minutes trying to find it. we finally realized that a new tree had been planted when they redid the square and it hid the telephone booth and the street sign and the monument. so. here is my attempt at the picture. sad. but i promise its the same booth. i was so disappointed!!


today was also the day that i picked to wear flip flops all day... nasty huh?


classic telephone booth... :] so fun.

most of the group went to st. pauls cathedral for a choral eucharist today. it was a really neat experience. i really enjoyed seeing the choir. the little boys were so adorable! this place is so amazingly beautiful inside. i wish they let us take pictures! its so pretty.



this time tomorrow i will be landing in atlanta! USA here i come!

last few days of london! :[

Today we went to see the Trooping of the Colors. This was so fun. It was basically a huge parade of all of the Queen's soldiers and horses and such. Plus the Queen made an appearance.. aaaand the Princes :] It only happens once a year! And it just so happens that it was today! score!
We got up at 630 this morning and went down and stood there for 4 hours to get front row. Pretty awesome.




prince harry and prince william :]



Queen Elizabeth
More prince william :]







Abbey Road :]



Delicious treat at Maison Bertaux

More delicious treats at this cupcake place in Chelsea called LOVE. So cute.


At each bus stop, it lists the important places in the area. At the bus stop at the top of our street it lists "Brigham Young University". The Centre is even on the map!

Upon the Avon! :]
"Cooks Alley"

Anne Hathaway's House

Shakespeare's birth place


Harry Potter...There was totally a line in the middle of Kings Cross Station to take pictures with this sucker.
Saturday excursion to Cambridge! So fun.

Punting down the river in Cambridge.

Tea at the Orangery at Kensington Palace. So fun!!




President Gordon B. Hinckely said "No one can be in London long without developing a love for that city." I have truly come to know this. There are so many words that I could use to describe this city - magical, magnificent, beautiful, exhilarating, spectacular, enchanting, charming. But also strange. There are a lot of things that are strange. But I embraced them. They are what make this great city great. I have loved my time here. I believe that I am coming back to the states as a different person. More cultured, structured, independant, confident, directed, aware, and just changed. It has added a part of itself to me. And I love it! I dont think that the true beauty of this place has hit me until now, the day before i leave. My professor's wife gave me a card yesterday with a lace bookmark from Kensington Palace. In the card she wrote, "I hope that this bookmark will someday remind you that you once lived next door to Kensington Palace." I'm not sure what it was about that that made me step back and realize the magesty of what i have just experienced. Today was kind of an emotional day, as silly as that sounds. Sam and I, after the Trooping of the Colors, went to all of our favorite places for the last time. It was so sad! We walked around Covent Garden for a few hours just enraptured in the amazing place that it. We walked down Portobello Road for the last time - there is no place on earth like Portobello. Even just riding certain tube routes for the last time was bittersweet. Of course there are things that I'm excited to get back to...getting married in 2 weeks, not sharing a room with 8 girls, having my own space. But a piece of my heart will always be in London.

shower

okay. so people have been asking me what was so scary about the ride that we rode at Brighton Pier. so. to give you the full effect..i googled some pictures. this, my friends, is The Booster.



what these pictures fail to show you..is that the freaking this swung out OVER THE OCEAN. it was on the very very edge of the pier. so it went over above the water. it was terrrifying.

okay. so there are 3 other girls in our group who are engaged. a group of amazing girls (headed by brooke..who wants to be a wedding planner) thought that it would be fun to throw us a bridal shower! so they kept the whole thing a secret and planned it for weeks. it was seriously over the top. it was so so amazing. we had DELICIOUS food (one of the girls wants to go to culinary school - blondies, fruit pizzas, amazing salad, curry chicken salad sandwhiches, suer yummy chocolate cake) played some super hilarious games (ie. the question game. "if your fiance was a tube line - which would he be and why? or "if your fiance was a harry potter character who would he be and why?" ) seriously hilarious and got some fantastic presents :] (one of the girls used to work at Victoria's Secret). it was so much fun. every one in the centre except a few girls were there. we had so much fun together. we laughed and sang and just had a fabulous time. these girls are so fun. ive been so lucky to make such a fun group of friends. i haven't been able to get any pictures yet, but HERE is the link to brooke's blog..complete with pictures!! :]

Centre, Brighton & Bodium.

These are pictures that I definitely should have posted long ago. This is the beautiful London Centre. This is the street that we live on - Palace Court.

The Centre!
Where we eat dinner..

My favorite room in the Centre. The Drawing Room.

And this is the classroom! Its kinda weird to go to class right up the stairs from your bedroom.


Last night me and Sam were bored so we decided to go to a show. There was a group of people going to see Jersey Boys, but we didn't know if we really wanted to see that. So we decided to go look at a half price ticket booth and see what kind of deal we could get for something else, and then go to Jersey Boys if we couldn't find anything. None of the ticket booths had anything, but the Mama Mia theatre was right next to Leicester Square where the booths were. Some other girls from the Centre said that they had gone to try to get student discounts but that Mama Mia didn't have student tickets. We decided that we would take a chance and just see what they had left for the night. The show started at 7:30 and we got to the box office about 7:10. We asked the guy if he had anything for that night, and he said that he had student tickets for row B in the very centre right behind the conductor!! SCORE! it was seriously so amazing! we sat in 90 pound seats for 27.50. and the view was amazing!! there was not a single person in front of us. and we weren't looking up at all. we were so close to the stage that we could see the people spitting when they sang (kinda gross...but so cool that we were that close). It was SUCH A FUN show. After it ended the cast came back on stage and sang 3 of the songs from the show and everyone stood up and danced and sang. It was so much fun.

Today we went on our weekley day trip. We went to Brighton and Bodium Castle. We were supposed to go to Canterbury but a girl from the group was late to the bus and we were 45 minutes off schedule so we had to skip it. Kind of a bummer. Anyway, Brighton is definitely one of my new favorite places. I absolutely loved it. It was this super cute beach town. The pier was so fun. Sam and I rode a ride called The Booster. It was scary..really scary. it was this big long arm thing that swung us in circles upside down and sidways and up super high over the ocean. I really wish we had taken a picture!!





While in Brighton we also went to the Royal Pavillion. It was a palace that King George IV built. It was all decorated in an Asian style with dragons and such everywhere. it was SUPER over the top and ornate and detailed. it was super cool.
The last stop was Bodium Castle. It was a really cool castle with a moat and everything! It was fun. We went in to a room that was full of bats! It was nasty. The castle also had these things called murder holes..where if someone got into the castle, they could dump hot oil on them from the ceiling. It was pretty neat. It was one of my favorite castles that we have gone to so far becuase it wasn't turned into a museum or a tourist trap. It was simply the ruins of a super cool castle. There wasn't any restoration or remodling or recreations. It was just the castle. i liked that a lot. We also had fun with the stocks.


With Dr. D!

hah is was super sunny.. :]Up in this tower the stairs stopped..like there literally were no more stairs..but they still put a sign on the step that said "no further access". seriously funny.
Sam and I ended the day right - with dinner at Nandos. My favvvvorite restaurant in London.