May 18th- Dover!!

Today we went to Dover! This was one of the best days of the trip in England. Dover castle was once an Iron Age hill fort, then it was a Roman lighthouse, then it was turned into a castle by William the Conqueror in 1066, and then a fortress by King Henry II in the late 1100's.

[Me in Dover. We all decided that day I looked like Amelia Earhart. Also developing a belly because of the large amount of pastries and chocolate. Haha.]

We wandered around Dover and the city. A group of us went into the wartime tunnels and took an hour tour, which was awesome! It was interesting to see Britain's side of the war. The tunnels have been used from the Napoleonic times up until the Cold War. And really crazy to be inside war tunnels that have been used for more than 200 years! Dover is a beautiful place. I would definitely love to go back.

[Dover]

 [Dover castle]

 [Dover]

 [White cliffs !] Very pretty town and buildings all around. I can't imagine how much they are paying to live there!

[Dover beach rocks] We all walked along the beach and gathered some rocks to take home. Beautiful beach.

 [We went that way..]

After Dover a small group of us went out to London bridge to take photographs. I didn't have a tripod, so the quality isn't amazing. But it was gorgeous! Missing London already.

[London bridge]

May 17- Courtauld Institute Gallery + Tate Modern

I saw a lot of cool paintings today. We went through a whole exhibit on Pablo Picasso. I don't love his cubism, but his Blue Period, and paintings before that I love. One painting that I was in love with is Pablo Picasso, The Mother, 1901, oil on board.

[The Mother]

[Casagemas in his Coffin]

& Pablo Picasso, Casagemas in his coffin, 1881-1973, oil on board.


Casagemas was one of Pablo's very good friends who ended up shooting himself in a cafe in front of his friends. Pablo was affected by this greatly, and this is what is said to have started his Blue Period. This exhibit was one of my favorites that I've seen. But there are a couple, one specifically that tops it that I will talk about later.
One of them being Van Gogh's Self Portrait.

[Van Gogh, Self Portrait]

 I love Van Gogh! That son of a gun was nuts, and it is great. I was a very happy girl seeing this painting :) We got a tour on portraiture by the cutest little British girl. That is one thing I miss about the UK. Their accents are adorable.

May 16- Ancient Roman Bath

We went to Bath today! We rode the train for 2 hours out there, and then got there and they had street performers out playing the guitar and singing.

[Bath, England]

The environment in Europe is so much fun because there is Always something happening. Wherever you turn there is a street performer, or a market, or something exciting. Anyway, then we went in and walked through all of Roman Bath. It was beautiful!

[This man serenaded me.. England, ya'all]

[Me at Bath :)]

[Bath, England]

After that, we all walked around the city and just explored. We went to Ben's Cookies, which has the most delicious huge cookies that probably have 5,000 calories in them, but while you are eating them you couldn't care less. I didn't care after I ate them either. Then we split up (that always happens. Our group never actually stays as a whole big group for more than a couple hours)... Haha. But Kyla and Alyssa and I explored the city and shopped. It was the cutest city!

[Street Performer, Bath]

So many fun shops with cute vintage things. I think that was one of the only days it hasn't rained, which was a relief. Then we rode home on the train. Long day. But a goodie :)

[My name! Wait...]

May 15th-Museum Day+ Singin' in the Rain!

Today we visited a few museums. The Tate Britain, Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Museum of Natural History.

 [One of my favorite pieces at the Victoria and Albert]

 [Victoria and Albert Museum]

 [V&A. They love David Bowie, and so do I.]

[V&A]

I didn't take many photographs that day because we were going through all the museums. But later that night we did get to go see Singin' in the Rain! I went with my good friend Kyla and Morgan, and met up with another group too. That was such a fun play to see! I had a permanent smile on the whole time. They splashed water all over the audience on the first few rows. We were on about the 6th row. Not bad seats for getting there half hour before the show and getting last minute tickets! That was such a great night :)
This post is short, I have so much to catch up on!

May 14th- National Gallery + The Globe theatre

Today we went to the National Gallery. This was by far my favorite exhibit that we have seen so far! Wow! I got to see Rembrandt's Self Portrait, Turner's Fighting Temeraire, Jan Van Eyck's Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his wife, among many others! It was an amazing experience to see all of these paintings in person. I always wish I could stay in those galleries for days at a time, but there's not enough time!

 [Rembrandt's Self Portrait]

 [Van Eyck Arnolfini and his bride]

[Turner Fighting Temeraire]

After I looked through all of the paintings I went to get some lunch. Sheree and Nikki had gone to get some cupcakes at another store because I said I wanted to stay longer to look at paintings. They met me in the National Gallery Cafe where I was eating a sandwich and tea. After I ate my sandwich a British man that worked there came up to us and said "I'm sorry, but you have to leave. I'll give you a refund." Literally picked up my tea and took it away from me and kicked us out of the National Gallery Cafe! All because they had cupcakes from another place. These British people are very blunt. Haha.

After the National Gallery the photo students all went to Man Ray's gallery. We all went home after that, changed, and then went to the Globe theater! We got in on the ground standing in the very front right by the stage. It was so much fun to see how Shakespeare would have really put on his plays. It was pouring that night as well, so most of the group left early and warmed up and slept. I don't have photos for this day! Since it either wasn't allowed in the museums or pouring outside. Good day :) Cheers.

[London Globe Theatre]

May 13th- Stonehenge, Old Sarum, Salisbury Cathedral

Today woke up feeling a little bit sick, but went to the Stonehenge! My camera's battery died, and then had a malfunction where the lens wouldn't work. Bad luck. But Rick let me borrow his camera for the day, so that's what I took photographs with. Not what I'm used to, but grateful I had something. We took a 1 and 1/2 hour train ride there. We got to Stonehenge and it was beautiful. Pouring rain.

[Stonehenge- Not very good with this camera. Whoops. I'm learning :P]

After the Stonehenge we all went to Old Sarum. Beautiful landscape with bright yellow mustard seeds growing everywhere. There were cathedral ruins, and you could see how it was shaped as a cross. 

[Old Sarum]

After that we headed to Salisbury Cathedral. Which, I am heartbroken, but I lost the photographs of it. We weren't allowed to photograph it at first, then the last minutes the Father said we could. But I lost them! Anyway, that Cathedral was Amazing. It had the oldest working clock in it. There was a baptismal font also, and when you looked into it you could see the reflection of the top of the building. 

[Salisbury Cathedral]

Sunday Fun Day

Today was very relaxing and not a lot happened. My flat room all woke up around 11. We got ready for church and went to an LDS church we found just a couple blocks away from our flat. It felt like home there! Haha not much different from an LDS ward at home. Just everyone had all sorts of different accents. That is something that is so much fun in London. People are from everywhere, and always speaking different languages. My director Courtney did tell us that in London you will feel like you are in the states still sometimes, which is true. But that once we get to Belgium and on you will feel such a culture shock. So, that will be fun!

Everything here is very expensive. All organic food, so much wine and cheese that is over-priced and over-sized. We did also tell the maintenance that our room smells like mold. Haha, he came in one morning early and said "What smells? What is problem?" in his middle eastern accent. We said "Our room smells, please fix it!" Haha. He says "No smell. This room no smell. I come back in afternoon." We were way too tired to really respond so we just let it happen and said okay thank you, and he left. Haha. Yeh, it still smells just as bad!
"No smell"? Yes, smell!

After church we went to the British Library for an hour or so. We saw Shakespeare original works, Beatles original song lyrics written, the original Qu'ran, all kinds of things. It was pretty amazing. Then we took the Tube to the grocery store, and back to the flat. Since then I have been catching up on all this blog stuff! Tomorrow will be a very busy day, so I am excited for that. Don't have any photos for today. Tomorrow we are visiting the Stonehenge, so I will definitely get photographs of that. Cheers!

Portabello Rd. Market

[Portabello Rd. Market]

Saturday was a day off so we all slept in a little bit. Some groups went off to Ireland, and some to Scotland. The rest of us stayed in London to reboot for this next busy week. In the morning we slept in, then headed to Notting Hill. Then to Portabello Road where there is a huge market. It was so much fun! Seriously just good music everywhere, clothes, art, small gadgets. It's my kind of place. Such good vibes there. 

 [Me and the Charlie Chaplin]

 [Hippies doin' their thang]

I'm going to be 100% honest. I got to the market with Nikki and Sheree and lost them half way through. Then I found Chloe and Emily and lost them. What can I say, I'm a wanderer! So I spent the end of my time alone at the market, and I loved it. My mom probably wouldn't approve of this (but don't worry, I was safe!). I bought a few small things here and there but mostly it was just fun to be there and experience it. 

After the market I made it back to my flat and went with Nikki, Sheree and Chloe to see if we could get tickets to see Les Mis. We didn't get tickets, but we visited the M&M factory and then went to Platform 9 and 3/4's. We got our photos taken with a cart and owl cage jumping into the platform. I will post those when I get them! Fun day and pretty relaxing and chill :)

 [London City]

[British M&M's. Cute!]

St. Paul's Cathedral + Greenwhich

May 10th-
Today we went to visit St. Paul's Cathedral. I was not expecting it to be so huge!

 [St. Paul's Cathedral]

[St. Paul's Cathedral]

[St. Paul's Cathedral]

Sadly, we couldn't take any photos once we got inside (Although one girl in our group snapped one shot before we got to the top and got kicked out. Yikes!). We were, however, allowed to take photographs after getting to the very top of the whole city of London from the view from the top of St. Paul's. It was gorgeous! It was probably around 300 steps or so to get to the top, but so worth it. When you got to the top you rotated around, able to see a bird's eye view of London from all different angles.

[View from St. Paul's Cathedral]

[View from St. Paul's Cathedral]

After climbing up to the top of the cathedral we went back down and toured the rest. The architecture and inside was so beautiful. Every detail is so precise, and so ornate. There was a section in the back dedicated to the Americans who served in the war with the British, which was really touching. There was so much stained glass, chandeliers, saints, gold decoration. Wish I could have photographed the inside, but we couldn't! There was also a choir that sung while we were there which was beautiful. After we went through we were all supposed to meet as a large group outside and we couldn't find the group! There is a little bit of poor communication going on between everyone. So Gabbe and Caroline and I went around for about 30 minutes trying to find the group. Which is one of the pictures I took below! Haha.

[Trying to get in touch with our group when we got lost. Obviously I'm being of a lot of help]

[My flat mates. Sheree (left), Nikki (right)]

  [Cute Courtney lecturing]

After St. Paul's we all went to Greenwhich. We went around to a few stores and shopped. We also ate at a cute little restaurant there and ordered paninis. I'm going to be honest.. London doesn't have very good food! So I am looking forward to the food we get in the future. As of right now I am living off of English muffins, cereal, granola bars, and fruit. 

British Museum

May 9th-
Went to the British Museum today. We rode the Tube to the British Museum. Had a small lecture, then went in and looked around. Honestly there was way too much to see, and so little time! I saw the Rosetta stone, which was very interesting. Went through all the other exhibits and lastly went and visited the Parthenon marbles from Greece. Holy buckets! I have never seen something so beautiful. I can't believe that's the last thing I saw and that we had to leave after looking at them for about 20 minutes. They were magical. So detailed, and precise, and simply beautiful. It's such an interesting experience when you see hundreds of historical pieces of art at the museums that you have studied in person. Some things I expect to shock me don't, and vice versa. But this specifically stuck out to me. It's so wonderful that art can suck you in and take you back in time.

 [British Museum]

[Parthenon Marbles]

[Parthenon Marbles]

We met back as a group at around 4 and headed Bordeaux market in England. I was with Caroline and Gabbe. There I ate a British pie, which was okay, but I wouldn't get it anywhere else! Haha, I think it's something you eat for the experience, but never care to taste again. Also, I was thinking of Sweeney Todd the whole time and couldn't help but think I was eating human.

[Bordeaux Market, England]

The markets in England are so much fun! After that we visited a church where Shakespeare would have gone to church.

[Shakespeare's Church]

That night after dinner (which Rick makes for us in the evenings most nights) our group met up and took the Tube to Big Ben and the Eye of London.

 [Tourist photo at Big Ben]

We lost Travis, our teacher, and Rick because we got distracted taking tourist photos. That night was so windy and rainy. After about an hour of looking around and photographing we all headed back to the flat. On the way back we went to a nice restaurant near our flat. Then to sleep!

[View from the Eye of London]