Moved in!

Once we arrived in London we drove straight to our flats. I did not know what to expect and I was pleasantly surprised. They are in the perfect location, directly across from Hyde Park and down the street from Kensington Palace (soon to be Will&Kate's new residence). Our group has the entire second floor and it is perfect. Cydnee and I share a room and then we share a bathroom with two other girls. It was so nice to be able to unpack and settle in. I am no longer living out of a suitcase!! Wooo! Once we had moved our stuff in we walked to the tube station and got a pass for the entire time we are here. Then we went grocery shopping! We went to a giant store called Sainsbury. It is about a 20 minute walk from our flats and a 4 pound and 80 pent cab ride home. After we had bought a ton of groceries we opted to split the cab home.
Today was our first day of classes and let me tell you, we have the best professors ever. This morning we made our ten minute walk to the chapel and had classes from 9-12. I am loving the classes already and it is fun to be learning about the culture that we are experiencing. After class Cydnee, Katie, Brooke, Catie, and I all packed up our lunches and took them to Hyde Park for a nice little picnic. It was the perfect weather! After lunch Catie, Cydnee, and I took the tube to Picadilly Circus and walked all over, I mean ALL over. Our feet were killing us by the end. I was very proud of myself being able to navigate us through the different tube lines and all over the city center. We weren't lost once! Well, here is to a fabulous stay in London! Cheers!

*Pictures are of my flat, the view from my flat (Hyde Park), our picnic (we are obviously bad at taking self portraits), and us in Picadilly Circus!

Happy fourth from Stonehenge!

On Monday we left our hostel (yay!) and headed for London. On our way there we made a few pit stops. The first place we stopped at was Stonehenge. As we were driving there I was expecting it to be a hike or at least a little walk to get to it in the middle of no where but as we came around a bend there it was! Just right on the two lane highway. We stopped and walked around for about an hour. It was so much bigger than I expected. It is really amazing to think of how far those stones were moved without ANY sort of technology. I can't even imagine. It really does earn its standing as one of the 7 wonders of the world. We were all talking and laughing but got shushed by many people, apparently there is no talking there? Despite the shushing we had a great time looking at the amazing Stonehenge.
After we left Stonehenge we drove a little while longer until we got to Jane Austen's house. It was interesting for the first thirty minutes then Cydnee and I were done. I love Jane Austen and all but for some reason it just wasn't as interesting to me as it was to the other 18 English majors (not to offend you Jane Austen die hards). I will say, it was a beautiful house and in a very quaint little neighborhood. After an hour and a half we were on our way to London!

Here are a few pictures of Stonehenge, one of Jane Austen's house, and a giant Harry Potter billboard that welcomed us to London...oh so appropriate.

Bath Time

To start this off I would like to say MOM-this will be a good post and I hope it meets your extremely high blogging standards. Here we go! Yesterday was a great day. We took a day trip to the city Bath. It was about a 30 minute bus ride and we left our hostel at 930. When we got there we rushed into the center of the city to meet up with a tour guide. She has lived in Bath for 20 years and knows so much about the city. She was so funny and entertaining but by the end of the two hours we were really dragging since it was a lot warmer than we expected and none of us had really eaten a good breakfast. When the tour ended Cydnee, Catie, and I walked/ran to a Latin food restaurant we had seen earlier. We had all been craving Mexican food so we were excited to get in and get some chips and salsa. But, the food ended up tasting more like Chinese food (it was a weird combo...). Still we all scarfed the food down and drank two diet cokes. It was great.
After that we met up with some more members of our group and walked around the city looking at all of the amazing buildings and cathedrals. We were planning on going into the Abbey but there was a wedding so we weren't able to. The girls wanted to go to the Jane Austen museum (since they are all English majors) but, Cydnee and I stayed back and went shopping. There were so many cute shops and we found some cute things.
We went back to Bristol that night around 530 and were all so exhausted so we laid down for a little bit then decided to go find some dinner. We asked the front desk where a good Italian place was that was reasonably priced and they directed us to this cute little place called Sergios. By the time we walked all the way there we were all ravenous so we just walked right in and sat down. Then we noticed that the reasonable prices were all 9-18 pounds. BOO! But, we couldn't leave after we smelled the delicious food so we all decided to split some items. Our waitress took our order then went to place it and came back to tell us we had to order TWO more things because there were 5 of us. Even though the price was bad the spaghetti was delicious and I save my extras for today!
Today we went to church in Bristol. It was so funny seeing the big bus dropping us off and all 27 of us parading in. The relief society had to set up a ton of extra chairs and I think there were only about 7 of them that weren't in our group. The American missionary there was so excited to see more Americans especially since tomorrow is the fourth! It was a very cool experience and the fast and testimony meeting was great. I am excited to see all of the different wards we go to.
Well that is all for now. We leave tomorrow morning for the BYU London Center and our flats! YAY! I finally won't be living out of a suitcase, it will be so nice to unpack.
Here are some pictures. They aren't in a specific order but they are of Bath (they Abbey, the Royal Crescent, and the city) and I there is one more of Bristol (the view from our hostel).
Enjoy!! Happy 4th of July!

Bristol...England, not Palin.

Okay post number 3 here we go! After we left Tintern Abbey we drove to Bristol, England which is where we are staying for the next three days. It is such a cool city! It is fun because there is always a lot going on so there is always something to do. We spent the evening walking around and eating dinner at a very cute restaurant that had "skinny chips" or fries like we have at home ! We were all worried about what the hostel would be and we were very pleasantly surprised when we walked in! It was so nice, new and up to date! It is also right in the center of town in a nice location!! The rooms were even better. Tons of room and only four girls to a room. The beds were clean and the bathrooms were even cleaner! It is going to be a great 3 day stay!!

*So the pictures underneath are of Bristol, the Farr sign I found (woo woo!), and the hostel!

Tintern Abbey

The afternoon after Cardiff castle we headed to St. Fagan's History Museum. It was a museum all about Welsh life. It was interesting to see all of the different exhibits. My most favorite of course was the fashion section. They wore some pretty cool stuff. Sadly, I left my camera in the bus and did not get any pictures there! After the museum we drove to Tintern Abbey. I wasn't really sure what to expect with that but as we came around the corner and you could finally see it everyone oohed and awed. It is so amazing! The ruins are all surrounded by a ton of grass and it is so green. The abbey itself is so beautifully built. We walked around in there and took a lot of pictures. We also read the poem by Wordsworth that was inspired by the beautiful Tintern Abbey. These pictures of course don't do it justice but I hope you can get a little bit of a feel for how amazing these ruins were!

Cardiff Castle

I can only post five pictures at a time and it is driving me CRAZY! There are just so many I want to post. So I will post this next day in two sections. In the morning on Friday we went to tour around Cardiff Castle. This was by far my most favorite castle. It was just like I imagined castles were when I was a little girl dressing up in princess dresses. We walked around the grounds with an audio tour then also went into the inside of the living quarters in the castle. It is so cool to be able to see all these castles that have been around for such a long time. There is so much history in every single one! I am so glad I have the opportunity to be on this study abroad and to be experiencing history the way I am.

*Again, I don't know what order the pictures are in but...they all of the inside or outside of the castle.

More Wales!!

I haven't had access to internet in a few days but I am at a hostel and now I do! More on that later. To catch you up here is what happened after the last time I blogged. (What day was that? The days are all blending together here!) Anyways...after we went to that castle we stayed the night in the cutest hotel! It was right on the beach and Queen Victoria actually stayed there. It was so quaint. We had fun walking around the little town and strolling on the beach. We were also very happy to be served dinner the night we got there. It was free from the hotel and was served the way it is on a cruise. We chose from a menu of starters, meals, and desserts. It was so nice not having to hunt for a place and cross our fingers that it would be good.
The next day we woke up early again to continue our drive. Little did we know, it was 6 hours long!! We drove through the countryside to Cardiff, a big city in Wales. On our drive we stopped in the most adorable town to get some delicious homemade gelato! Once we got there we put our stuff in our hotel room and were just itching to go out and about. So we got on a bus, after a little bit of a walk, and headed into the city. We found a fun place to eat that was playing cover songs of American songs we knew! It was fabulous. Cardiff was a fun city and there were a lot of cute stores to see. After we were done we had to find our way back to our hotel somehow. It was quite the adventure since the bus system is way confusing but, after my great navigating skills (yes mom, my great navigating!!) and help from a sweet old lady named Candy we made it safely back to the hotel.

*Okay now for the pictures, I don't really know which order they will end up in but they are of the drive to Cardiff, including one of the little town, and the beach at the first hotel!