I am twenty going on twenty one-what am i to do?

Why hello my fan club, cause if you are reading this, you are most defiantly a fan of me!!:) I hope life is going well for all of you...and if you would like to let me know what is happening in all of your lives, I would love to hear about it! Emails are great, a mail would be even better! I would be happy to give you the address.  

So this week was a slower week as compared to the past weeks that I have been here.  Monday we had a tour of the Globe theater.  Tuesday through Friday we had class each morning, which i am not used to so it was kind of hard to sit through it all.  But Wednesday we did get to go to a play at the theater, A Mid Summer's Night's Dream. We were groundlings, so we stood in front of the stage the entire play.  It was alright cause the play was really funny and kept your attention off your feet and on laughing.  Nothing much happened the rest of the week until Saturday.  

Saturday:

We had the opportunity to go an a nine mile walk through the Kent countryside.  It was set up by a brother in the stake that we are in.  He apparently does it for each of the groups, and this weekend had the best weather he has seen in like nine years or some crazy time like that.  It was beautiful! Him and his two brothers came who aren't members and the rest of us went. We walked through lavender fields, ate lavender ice cream, ginger beer tasting, corn field trudging, sidewalk strolling, and castle storming. Funny story: so we were on our way back to the center and we were parallel with another train going the same direction.  While we were passing them, we were waving to the people looking at us, most just stared/glared.  Then we slowed down and they passed us.  As they passed us, we waved again and got some better reactions.  Then we passed them again, and as we passed a particular window that had like six guys in it, one of them mooned us.  The funny part was that we were sitting by a few girls that had never been mooned before! They started screaming and then hysterically laughing/crying. 35 girls laughing on a bus for five minutes, full of nonemotional English people! It was so funny! 

Well I love you all, and hope that this week is spectacular!

Luvallyurguts!

em

St. Michael's Mount-the castle is way up at the top

I fell into the ocean within the first minute that I was at the beach.....my pants were wet for the rest of the five hour bus ride we had

Bliss

Exeter Cathedral 

Um this was when tide was out at St. Michael's Mount-and plus i really like this picture

Ask me about this sometime

The beautiful beach that I never thought England was capable of!

Thomas Hardy's Birth house

I love...I love....I love you

Same bridge but i really like this picture

The bridge that Lizzy runs across on her attempt to get away from Mr. Darcy.

I want to sing and dance and be a pirate of Penzance!

Arrrgh Matey!

This was a jam packed week.  Staring off we had classes Monday and Tuesday which were fine, but come Wednesday we packed our bags and headed out south. Our first stop was to Stourhead.  This is the place where all of the lake scenes from Pride and Prejudice with Keira Knightley. It was gorgeous!  We then headed of to see Thomas Hardy's house.  He was some famous author who wrote Tess of the D'Urbervilles, sorry it was the house where he was born, not where he lived.  We then headed out to Penzance to spend the night at a YMCA hostel.  It was surprisingly a lot nice then I was expecting.  We got there about eight and the whole town was asleep so we just went down to the beach and walked around then walked back.  Thursday we went to a beach-who knew a really pretty beach could come out of England!?-but it was a cornish beach with a great story to go along with it-you should ask me sometime!  We then went to St. Michael's Mount.  It is an island in the morning when the tide is in then once it goes out you can walk across the causeway to see it.  It was some fort that some monks say they saw the Archangel Michael and now it is a house that some duke lives in or something like that, i wasn't really paying attention when they told us why it was important.  After a few hours of St. Michael's we drove and spend the night at another hostel in Exeter. And just like Penzance the whole town shuts down really early so we entertained ourself with a walk along the Exeter river and singing show tunes for men in windows.  Friday was a little confusing, we had other plans but due to poor planning they fell through.  So instead of our original plans, we went to the Exeter Cathedral-which really is the only thing to see in Exeter-then headed to Lyme.  Lyme, in case you didn't know is where they filmed the movie Persuasion.  We reenacted a scene from the movie-watch it and you will understand. After a few hours at the beach in Lyme, and eating super yummy ice cream we headed home.  So there is my week in a nutshell, hopefully the pictures will help the explanation. 

Well best be off

Love you all

em    

Well here is the update for this week.... I've never had done so much walking in my life (mom you will love my A1C when i get back)!  We started classes this week and I think I just might fail cause I would rather be doing London then my homework.  The classes I am taking are london walks which are at least two miles of sight seeing , British History, Shakespeare, religion and Humanities. 

This week we went the British Museum and saw the Rosetta stone, and the National Gallery.  We went to Bath-which mom, I think we need to take a girls trip there, Stonehenge, 39 steps play, the Thames Festival, Parliament(we could only take pictures in one room), and today was the first Sunday in our individual wards.  I am now a member to the Lea Valley ward for the next 3 1/2 months.  It is about a hour northeast by tube/train but I think I will really like it there.  The girls that are there with me and I will probably be working with the young women or in primary.

Bath is a city in, I think, southeast of England about two hours from Wales.  it is where Jane Austin wrote most of her novels, and it is also the setting of some of them.  It is also a Roman bath city.  There is a natural hot spring there that was converted into a Roman bath house.  You can tour the place but you can only feel the water.  There are a lot of shops and tourist places.  They have a pump room where you can get tea and scones, which we did(herbal tea that is), there is a fashion museum, ballrooms, and just a million of little shops everywhere. I'm pretty sure Andi and Jenny would love this place!  You can also try some of the spring water, it isn't very good, it has a really metallic taste to it with horrible after taste.

It was a jam packed week of fun! And this will be just as busy, but I hope everyone back at home is doing well and enjoying life

love ya Em

So for one of my classes we do "London Walks".  We have a section of the city that we walk through with descriptions of what we see.  They are to help to get more acquainted with London and to get us off our computers and out of the center, cause really some of us need a push out the door (not me in case you were thinking i was wasting my time online)  But this picture we were on the "Londinium" walk that was freaking like ten miles long-it goes along the outer stone wall (shown behind me) of the old London.  It started to rain but what's new!

So apparently we live in a really wealthy part of London.  Our flat alone will go for probably 10 million pounds. And ours hasn't been refurnished or remodeled in awhile so it would go for even more then that.  Every morning I walk out and see this beautiful car to the left.  When we got here on Saturday there was a Maserati.  So to say the least we got a good set up here!!!! 

Well I just wanted to let everyone know that I have made it!  And everything went smooth and good and I am really glad I only had one bag.  Three of the five people that were with me had two plus their two carry ons and it was horrible.  I took us forever to get to the center because the girls couldn't lift their bags.  Anyways... just a little tour of the center:

first of all i am living in one room with 14 other girls...kill me please! It is one flat with five floors. there is a room of girls on each floor with the one guy on the second.  There is one class room, one dining room, and one library.  So for how many people that are here it is really really small.  But London is really big so there are plenty of places to go to get away!! 

Well that is about all that has happened up until this point 

Monday should be a little more exciting cause that is when we start classes

Well love you all-peace out 

Ciao - Au revoir - Hasta - Good bye

To friends and family,

This is your London Bird bidding you farewell for the next four months... I will log all my travels and adventures here, on this blog. So stay tuned!! If you want to contact me directly click here. I hope you all miss me. I will see you in December!

Cheers!

Em