The Beatles are back!!

yellow submarine!

Liverpool (August 5th)

Today we drove to Liverpool which was rad! It was a beautiful sunny and warm day. We were fortunate enough to meet up with Saries uncle who happens to be an ambassador for the city. “he is kind of a big deal” according to him and he was so much fun. He took us to the Beatle’s story museum which told the history of the Beatles and how they got together. It also gave information about their whole career and what happened after they split up. I was sooo happy to be here, the Beatles are amazing and this was one of my favorite days. Little did we know, but Sarie’s uncle used to be the booking manager for the Beatles. He was actually in New York with Paul McCartney last week! He got us in for free and hooked us up with cake and smoothies. He also gave us vip ambassador pins and we got some special privileges in the tour. He even was in some of the displays in the tour and narrated some of the self guided tour. Today I learned that john Lennon and Paul McCartney met when they were just 15 and started to play together. Also, I didn’t realize this but their actual recording career only lasted eight years! In those few years they had over 200 hit songs, many of which have been redone hundreds of times. In fact there are over 3,000 versions of the song “Yesterday.” After this museum we went over to the second newer part. It has only been open for about a month and it was mostly about John Lennon. It was about his life, his marriages and his children. I found out some cool facts about one of my favorite Beatles songs “Hey Jude.” It was written by Paul for John’s son Julian when john and his first wife got their divorce. The song was originally titled “Hey Jules” but it was changed later. We also walked over to Mathew Street where the Cavern (which is the pub that the Beatles got started at) is. We walked in and saw it and hung out for a bit. Liverpool is very proud of the fact that the Beatles started here. In fact, when they started to get popular they were resentful because they didn’t want the world to share their beloved band.
After the museum we thought we would be so funny if we bought Beatles wigs and glasses and walked around the town. We walked back into our hostel and nobody recognized us. it was hilarious. We wore them for the rest of the night and took really funny pictures. Im sad to be leaving Liverpool tomorrow morning and wish we had a few more days here.

Stratford (Aug 4th)

Today was the first day of our last week on the study abroad. We drove to Stratford upon Avon and it was a quaint little town. It was very small and unfortunately it was raining all day long. This is where Shakespeare is from and everything in the town was named after him. Our first stop was to his wife, Anne Hathaway’s cottage where she lived and raised shakespear's children. We snapped some pictures and then we went to shakespear’s home that he grew up in. it was restored recently but supposedly it was just like the original. It was interesting to walk through. After we walked through the town and came to the church where he is buried. We saw his tomb and took a few more pictures. It really was neat to be there just because Shakespeare is such an important person. He did so much for the English language. He was so influential and had such an impact on literature and writing in general. Later in the evening we went out to dinner and had some great dinner, but even better dessert. It was banana cheesecake and I was in heaven. That is where the good part of the day ended. After dinner we went to a Shakespeare play called a Winter’s Tale. It would have been better if I wasn’t so tired and if it wasn’t almost four hours long. It was very bizarre and frankly after the show I felt I had been dreaming for the last couple of hours. It was all a blur and I was pretty happy when it was over. When I looked around at the people in my group during the play I saw that 14 of the 26 people were asleep. However, even though the play wasn’t the best I still had a great day and enjoyed Stratford.

Preston England Temple

On our way to York we were able to stop at the Preston England temple it was so beautiful and even though we couldn’t go inside it was amazing just being there. It was such a good feeling pulling up to it and being able to walk around outside. Here are some good pictures…

The London Eye

Goodbye London (August 3)

So today was my last day in London and I am really sad about it. My time here as been amazing and I have learned so much about this culture and also about the English language in general. I took my two finals today and did really well on both of them. I came into the classes nervous and to be honest, not really looking forward to the class work. Linguistics is not a topic that comes naturally to me and I knew very little about it. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to do as well as I wanted to. However by the end of the class I feel like I really did learn so much. It has been a great learning experience to get out of my comfort zone and study something that I wouldn’t normally study. The topics turned out to be extremely fascinating to me and I feel like I was able to really take it all in. Outside of class I feel like I have learned a lot also. When I first got here I felt small and insecure, afraid to be on my own in such a large city. But by the end of the fourth week here I feel accomplished, like I can handle anything. I know my way around, I am confident in a large city by myself and even though I have realized that I prefer the country to the city I do think that it would be a good experience to live in a large city for a few years. I feel like I have been able to see so much in the small amount of time that I have been here. Looking back, I feel like I saw everything that I really wanted to see and then more.
Our last day here was a beautiful one. There was not a cloud in the sky and the temperature was perfect. I went for my last run in Hyde Park this morning and it was so rejuvenating. After class I came back and packed and then went shopping with Sarie. We bought a few last minute souvenirs and then we went over to Westminster Abbey for Evensong. Daily worship has taken place in Westminster for over 1,000 years. Evensong is a service performed each night that is mostly sung and follows very closely with the 1549 original Book of Common Prayer. Tonight the choir that sang was from Indianapolis and was a group of young boys. The music was really beautiful, especially when it echoed throughout the chapel. However it was really interesting to be able to go to the temple earlier this week and see the stark differences between the two churches. There is no comparison to the feeling that you get when in the celestial room, and it was definitely not the feeling that I felt during tonight’s service.
After evensong, all of my friends and I went back to my favorite vegetarian restaurant for one last dinner. I had the same exact thing as last time because it was so amazing. Then Kenzie, Sarie and I all went to ride the London Eye as the sun was setting. It was a perfect day for it. The city lights looked so cool and I loved being able to look across the city and recognize all of the places that we have been. We snapped some great pictures, had a ton of fun and then headed back to finish packing. I think it’s going to be a long night tonight but we have a long time to sleep on the bus tomorrow.
Off to Scotland we go!

ABBEY ROAD BABY!

My trip to London wouldn’t have been complete if I didn’t go to abbey road while here. It was very exciting. It took us about 45 minutes to get a good picture crossing it though…there were a few angry cars that didn’t like the fact that we were stopping traffic. But after a few shots I think we got it down…in fact we look just like the Beatles themselves…ha. We went up and took some pictures at the actual studio and then stood by the wall that is decorated in graffiti (kind of like a shrine to the Beatles.) It basically made my life.

Fun Sunday in London (Aug 2nd)

Today was our last Sunday here and it was a little sad. The day itself was beautiful and sunny. We went to church and first time the tube was running normally so it only took us about 45 minutes to get to church. I am sad to be leaving that ward. Everyone shows so much hospitality and is so genuinely nice. It was nice to be in church in a place that is so culturally diverse. We taught the lesson in primary today and we talked about the temple. We had a tense moment however. We didn’t realize that the game we brought would cause such a commotion…but in the beginning of the lesson the kids were very opinionated about which stick figure they wanted. But don’t worry we got it all figured out and the lesson went really well. The presidency in primary was sad to see us go (I think they were mostly sad because they have to start teaching lessons again) but id like to believe that they will miss us. They sent us home with cake and a bunch of food it was great.

the top picture is the statue mentioned in my blog below. the bottom picture is the area that they fire burnt.

Counting Down the Days in London (August 1)

So my days in London are numbered and im getting kind of sad about it. I can’t believe I have been here for four weeks, it has flown by. Today I slept in a little bit and then went running. After that I went over to watch the changing of the guard (which if anyone ever has a choice to go see…don’t do it, it’s not worth it). I was supposed to meet up with my friends there but unfortunately that didn’t happen. I wasn’t about to waste a full day so I went out and did things on my own all day. My first stop was the Museum of London. It took me a while to get there but I managed. The museum itself was great. It was split up into four sections, one called London before London (which was about ancient civilizations), a second about Roman London, another about Medieval London, and the last exhibit was all about the London Fire. The first gallery was pretty cool; my favorite part was a woman skull that had facial reconstruction so we could see what she looked like. It was especially fascinating because the skull dated back to 3100 BC. The roman section had many cool artifacts also, but my favorite was the coins that they had on display. The medieval section was great too; it had a lot of history on the Black Death that reached Europe in1348. It was spread by fleas on rats but many English people of the time believed that it was a punishment from God. It killed over 50 million people in Europe alone and it usually was deadly within 48 hours of the first symptoms. This would have been an ugly and painful death, the side effects were numerous including puss covered sores, fever and vomiting blood. It is said that there were more dead bodies than people knew what to do with, and apparently the whole city smelled like rotting flesh. Isn’t that a great picture?
My favorite part of the museum was the exhibit on the Great Fire of London. I learned a lot there and it really interested me. I apologize but I am going to write a lot about it…it was one of the most famous disasters in world history. It started at a bakery in pudding lane on Sunday September 2, 1666. It destroyed an astonishing four-fifths of the city of London. At the time (just like with the Black Death) people believed that it was a punishment from God. In fact they had one picture at the museum that showed a statue of a fat boy. According to the commentary many people believed that the fire was caused by the sin of gluttony (eating too much). The statue is still standing today. It was not a huge surprise when it happened, London was common in London-there were at least six serious fires in the 1600s. This fire obviously was particularly bad. They do have recordings from diaries that wrote about the experience. Thomas Vincent said that “if at any time the sun peeped forth, it looked red like blood.” He also said that wooden scaffolding on St. Paul’s cathedral caught on fire and the lead on the roof melted causing the stones to fly like grenades. The fire itself lasted 5 days and spread wildly because of the strong wind. It was eventually put out because the wind died down and the people of London had torn down houses to create a gap. The city destroyed thousands of homes and left millions without a place to live. The city took nearly 50 years to rebuild and St. Paul’s cathedral wasn’t completed until 1711. I can’t even imagine how terrifying that must have been!
After the museum I took the tube to Bakers Street where I found a small market. I walked around, tried a couple of different foods and then decided to go to dinner. I found this little vegetarian restaurant where I kid you not I had the best food I have ever had in my entire life. I had this butternut squash pie or something…it had red onions, squash, goat cheese, rosemary, zucchini and a balsamic glaze. It was topped off with toasted bread crumbs. It was soooooo good. I know I sound like a dork but this kind of stuff is my life haha. For desert I splurged and had a toffee bread pudding. It must have been covered in butter or something because it was so good. It was definitely worth it. In fact, it was all so good that I asked them for the recipes and they are going to email them to me. Im weird I know.