The Cecil Encounter

So Thursday July 8th seems like an eternity ago, even though it had only been two weeks. I'm having so many unforgettable experiences here in London, but the crazy thing that I'm noticing is that they are forgettable! The problem is that I'm having so MANY unbelievable experiences that my brain literally cannot contain all the wonderful images and information inside it without a few things getting muddled together. So I will try to do my best to recall these memories as I write them just 2 short weeks later so I cant hopefully accurately represent them to review later. Thursday was being set up to be a rather unremarkable day at the London Centre and most of us were stressed because we had quite a bit of homework to complete before leaving for Paris. So it just happened that almost all of the students spent the afternoon at the center writing papers. Several students were sitting at the dining room tables with their laptops out when the door rang and Lauren, who attends UT and not BYU, answered it. She opened the door to find President Cecil O. Samuelson, the President of BYU and also a member of the seventy, standing on the doorstep. He stood there smiling, apparently expecting her to recognize who he was but since she doesn't attend BYU, she didn't know who he was and asked him for his name. When she called down to the Shuler's flat to tell them that had a visitor, she proceeded to ask him what he was President of, and he explained that he was the president of BYU... How embarrassing! I couldn't stop laughing when I heard of the encounter. I was upstairs in my dorm when all this happened, and someone came up and said that President Samuelson was at the Centre. I raced downstairs to meet him where he, beaming, graciously shook all of hair hands (multiple times) and chatted with us for a while. Now it needs to be understood that at BYU, President Samuelson is somewhat of a celebrity, and my roommates and I affectionately (though probably not entirely respectfully) refer to him as Cecil. One day my roommate Annie and I passed him in the Library on campus where he said "Hi" to us as we passed. We almost peed our pants. It was the most exciting moment for us. But now I had the chance to meet Cecil for real, and shake his hand and talk with him. It pretty much made my week. I never would have guessed that I would meet the President of BYU some 5,000 miles from campus, but everyday at the London Centre is a magical surprise. We got a group picture with him, but it's not on my camera so as soon as I get hold of it, I will post it as proof of my exciting encounter.

Adventures in the English Countryside: Glastonbury, Stourhead, and Bath

As much as I love writing, especially writing about London, I have been dreading updating my blog since it has now been nearly two weeks since my last post and in that time I've seen at least 5 major Cathedrals, wandered through at least that many museums, took a ferry ride, went to another country, climbed the Eiffel Tower, waved at the Mona Lisa, partied with the French on Bastille Day, walked through the Hall of Mirrors, drove by stonehenge, saw the crown jewels, climbed the Tor of Glastonbury found myself shoulder-deep in WWI trenches, ate 4 crepes, and clocked at least 20 hours on the coach with our trusty and ridiculously informed driver/tour guide Tony. And that is merely the condensed version of my excursions. This past week I spent in France, touring WWI sites and as well as passing a few short days in Paris. But I will start with the previous week which was spent in London. Tuesday July 6th was spent mostly in class and doing homework at the Centre. I can't seem to recall anything particularly exciting about that day, which doesn't mean that nothing exciting happened but it must have been overshadowed by the 20 or some odd epic things that have happened to me since then. But I think I went to the National Gallery which was great and the London Transport Museum which was not great and also cost me 5 pounds and turned out to be a giant waste of time. Wednesday was extremely epic and we took a day trip to Glastonbury, Stourhead, and BATH. It was fabulous. I don't know if I could possibly say that it was the most epic of our day trips because they are all super amazing, but it was definitely a lot of fun. We hit up Glastonbury first, which is home to a laundry list of intriguing legends. The ruins of Glastonbury Abbey are said to be from the oldest Christian Abbey in the world. It is also legend that Joseph of Arimathea brought Jesus there as a child, and that he also brought the Holy Grail there full of Jesus' blood about 65 years after the death of Jesus. Glastonbury is home to what is speculated to be the actual Holy Grail of Arthurian Legend and it is also the home of the tomb they believe to be of King Arthur and Guinevere. The ruins are so impressive with their rugged beauty. So we got some time to look around the ruins and take pictures. Glastonbury is also home to the famous Glastonbury Tor which is a giant hill that rises up our the middle of the city and boasts the ruin of St. Michael's Church and it is also rumored to be the Isle of Avalon from Arthurian legend. We climbed to the top of the Tor and the view from the top is so far the most beautiful thing I've seen on my trip so far. The British countryside is absolutely incredible and it is just so green and lush. There are green fields dotted with sheep and surrounded by rows of hedges and picturesque fences. It is so beautiful and peaceful, and was sure worth every step of the steep climb up the hill.

View from the top of the Glastonbury Tor. Beautiful England :)

Grave of King Arthur and Guinevere

Ruins of Glastonbury Abbey

View from the top of the Tor

Next we journeyed to Stourhead which are giant landscape gardens which were designed by Henry Hoare in the fashion of Gilpin's "picturesque." It was also the filming site for the proposal scene for the new version of Pride and Prejudice with Keira Knightly. It really was so beautiful and I'm sad that we had less than an hour to spend there because I could have spent an eternity. England is so green and beautiful and I absolutely love it!

Stourhead


Bath was our final stop on Wednesday. It lived up to my expectations and it was so so beautiful. The 18th Century Georgian style architecture is absolutely stunning and the town is so uniform. We first visited the famous Roman Baths which date back to the 4th Century. The bubbling water that comes up in the hot springs is said to come from deep within the earth's core and it is believed to be rainwater that is some 10,000 years old! The bath water is this bright, iridescent green color and you are not allowed to touch it. I did, however, buy a bottle of Bath water to bring home with me, so I will always have some ancient water from the famous Roman Baths. After our audiotour of the Baths, we walked up to the Assembly Rooms which provide the setting for many scenes in Jane Austen's novels, as well as her own life and we passed the home she lived in for a period in Bath. On our way out of town, Tony drove us by the Royal Crescent which is an arch of some of the most beautiful Georgian architecture and it was absolutely stunning. I was so in love. If I don't end up raising sheep in the English countryside, which became my ambition after touring Glastonbury, I will sell flowers on the street in Bath. I want to live there.


Me at the Roman Baths

My Future Career
A View of the Streets of Bath

The Pump Room (it's actually a restaurant)

Bath Abbey

Harrods Excursion and the Encounter with the Chocolate Room

After over a week, I am finally caught up in the chronicling of my early London adventures and can now focus my daily goings-on. Today was a relatively uneventful day. I was unable to drag myself out of bed early enough this morning to go for a run which I later regretted and vowed anew to try and get to bed early so I can resume my early morning aerobic activities. I then attended my two classes which I tried my best to stay awake for, ate some leftovers for lunch, and took a short nap. Afterwards, my roommates and I decided to take a trip to Harrods to explore more than to really shop because the 30 pounds in my wallet really wouldn't get me very far in that store. But we had a lot of fun! We spent time playing on the toy floor where I found the perfect gift to bring home for Emma, and then spent the following 40 minutes in the Chocolate Room. I probably needed to spend an entire week there to examine all of the different types of chocolates they had there. It certainly put the candy counter in the BYU Bookstore to shame. It was literally wall to wall with every type of (expensive) chocolate imaginable. There was everything from chocolate truffles to chocolate shoes... In all of those 40 minutes, all I was able to pick out were 4 truffles. I was so overwhelmed! So much chocolate, so little time (and so little money). Unfortunately for my waist line, I fear my return to the regal Chocolate Room is inevitable, and each time I will explore new chocolate horizons. Afterwards, Jessica and I headed back to the Centre for dinner and arrived much later than we had wished, since we had to wait 15 minutes for the stupid Circle Line train. I've decided the Circle Line must be avoided at all costs, because it is slow and way too full of Europeans who do not believe in deodorant. Its a very unfortunate thing. After dinner, Jessica, Hannah, Lauren and I went to Kensington Gardens to do some homework, but really the whole time we just laughed and tried to devise a way to lay on each other so we would be comfortable and able to read. It was relatively fruitless. But it was cool today and it felt amazing outside. All in all not a bad day.

Well, Its official- I've completed my first full week in London. It seems like I've been here forever and I can hardly remember my life before London. I must be starting to look like a London native because I've been asked directions 3 times, and the third time I was able to give them successfully! It has actually been a little over a week, I've been here 9 days now, and I've only been rained on once so I am counting my blessings! My only rain encounter was my run through Kensington Gardens on Tuesday morning- it didn't even rain the rest of the day. We have had warm (actually unseasonably warm for London) weather with beautiful sunshine and a nice breeze. Today has been the coolest of the days, where I again count my blessings because the tube usually ends up being 20 degrees hotter than it is outside. Gross. But I'm loving each day and don't know what I will do when I have to leave. So let me bring you up to speed on the last few days.

Thursday, July 1, 2010
Thursday morning I went running again in Hyde Park, and I think my out-of-shape body finally caught up with me and I was a bit sore afterward. Then we had classes and enjoyed a lively discussion about Pride and Prejudice and Penny Bird's constant interjections of "Be still my heart!" whenever we discussed Mr. Darcy. He really is dreamy. I need to find myself one of those. And then we talked about more sad and depressing topics in my Great War and Modernism class. Mostly a usual day. And while most people were out visiting museums and shopping at Primark (London's version of Walmart), I decided to be a good student and spent the afternoon catching up on homework (which I thanked myself for over and over again throughout the weekend) and completing my first London Blog entry. After dinner, my roommate Jessica Glover and I rushed off to St. Paul's for an organ concert which was absolutely INCREDIBLE. To get to hear that impressive organ reverberating throughout that magnificent building was an experience I won't soon forget. And the organist played Variations of 'America' so I heard "America the Beautiful" in the middle of London-in the middle of St. Paul's. It was very interesting. But awesome. After the concert Jessica and I wandered across the Millennium Bridge and explored Southwark (pronounced sutherk) which is apparently very full of attractive British men in suits on a Thursday evening. Then Jessica, Lauren, Hannah and I hit up Tesco and bought a chocolate cake and the world's tiniest carton of milk, which we completely obliterated in a matter of minutes (like 2). All in all, it was a pretty good day.



Friday, July 2, 2010
Friday was EPIC. It was our first day trip and we went to Canterbury and Cambridge. At Canterbury, we visited St. Augustine's Abbey and St. Augustine's burial place. St. Augustine was the first missionary to reintroduce Christianity to England. Next to the ruins of the Abbey is the great Canterbury Cathedral which became the 3rd largest site of Pilgrimage in the world after Thomas Beckett was murdered inside the Cathedral really as a result of a miscommunication and was later dubbed St. Thomas for his martyrdom. It is also where the Archbishop of Canterbury sits. The Cathedral was incredible and I probably could have spent days there taking everything in. After the morning at Canterbury and a guided tour of the Cathedral, we got back on the bus and drove another 2 hours to Cambridge where we arrived just 5 minutes too late to get a guided tour of Kings College which was a hugh bummer. So instead, we went punting on the Cam and got a tour of Cambridge and all of its many magnificent colleges from the river with our hilarious tour guide Steve. On our way back to the dock, our long punting pole splintered and nearly broke in half so it was pretty slow going for a while. We were thankfully able to borrow a new one from another dock along the way because it the pole had broken completely in half, we would have been quite stuck in the middle of the river... It was an adventure. And it was so beautiful. Certain parts of the college are roughly 800 years old. It is the 4th oldest university in the world. After punting, we attended Evensong at King's College Chapel whose magnificent fan-vaulted ceilings are one of the great architectural gems of the world. And the choir sounded amazing. I had no idea little boys could hit notes that high... But they can. And they do it with style. It was amazing. We didn't get back from our trip until around 9pm, afterwards which Jessica and I went and got Thai food from a small place on Queensway. It was a perfect day.
The Ruins at St. Augustine's Abbey

Me and Hannah in front of Canterbury Cathedral

Saturday, July 3, 2010
Saturday was a day of great anticipation because we had tickets to see Les Miserables. But first, my roommates and I slept in, and then went shopping on Portobello Road, which is a market they have on Saturdays full of different vendors selling antiques and other random souvenirs. It was a zoo and I'm not sure how much I enjoyed it, but it was definitely an experience. Then we came back, got dressed up, and headed to Queen's Theatre for Les Mis, featuring the great Nick Jonas as Marius. We left a littler later than we had planned and ended up literally running to the theatre (me in my heels- not the wisest shoe choice but my legs looked darn good) where we made it into our seats with sweat running down our faces and a whole minute to spare before they turned the lights down. The performance was so good and while Nick Jonas' voice was not as strong as most of the other voices, he did a really good job holding his own and he was just adorable. He certainly looked the part, and in his defense, he was at least 10 years younger than the rest of the cast. He's still a baby. I thought he was adorable and it was worth the whole 28.5 pounds to see the performance, even though we sat in the second to last row. We were still able to see virtually everything. I loved it. Then we went and got our first Fish and Chips since being in London, which were divine, and then set off for home to watch a movie before bedtime.
The Interior of Canterbury Cathedral

The Shrine to Thomas Beckett in the Hall where he was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral

A View of King's College Chapel from the Cam

Clark's attempt at Punting on the Cam

A Very Attractive Punting Tour Guide (Yes, this picture was essential)


Portobello Road

Today, Sunday, July 4, 2010
Well, sadly when you spend the 4th of July in London, you don't really get to celebrate it. The British don't really think the day is as great as we do. Oh well. But we did get to go to our new wards today! It was one of the most amazing experiences I've had so far since being in London. I attend the Peckham ward which can be reached very easily by tube, if you have a complete set of directions, which we did not. We only had partial directions, and no street address, so after we got off the tube we wandered around aimlessly for about 30 minutes before we spotted a group of people in white shirts, ties, Sunday dress, and scriptures in their hands, and inquired if they were LDS which they happily replied that they were and we followed them to church. They were a family (2 brothers and 1 sister) that were originally from Ecuador and I got to speak some Spanish with them. They were so friendly and some of the nicest people. We snuck into one of the back rows of the chapel only 6 minutes late. And since we are the luckiest girls, it just happened to be fast Sunday and they singled us out and asked all the BYU students to come up and bear their testimonies. But I wasn't even nervous. They were all so friendly and welcoming. Nearly half the ward went out of their way to come up and greet us. I got called to teach Youth Sunday School, which I was completely stoked about, until I realized it was Old Testament and I got a little nervous but I'm still really excited. Virtually the entire ward consists of converts, but they are spiritual giants. I was so humbled to hear their amazing testimonies. I know I am going to love serving in this ward and I'm never going to want to leave it. I love it so much after just one day.

Week 1 in Londontown

Jane Austen said, "if adventures will not befall a young lady in her own villiage, she must seek them abroad". So I decided to take her advice, and that is exactly what I have done. I have been in London now for nearly a week and this is the first moment I've had to sit down and chronicle my adventures from the last 6 days. Between class, homework, shopping, gelato, tube riding, running the parks, giggling with roommates, eating, sleeping (though not enough...), concert crashing, extensive sight-seeing, photo-taking, and various other daily activities, I have so far found me free time to be very scarce indeed. So I'm taking advantage of this quite moment to write this update while enjoying the breeze by an open window in the BYU London Centre's servery before all the wonderful memories I'm storing in my brain start to fade and I loose some of the delicious details I never want to forget.

Friday, June 25, 2010

I arrived in London around 10am and shlepped by all but broken luggage to one of the other terminals in an attempt to meet up with another girl on my study abroad program whose plane was supposed to land the same time as mine. We had emailed and decided to meet up and take a taxi together to the BYU Centre but without the luxury of cell phones that worked in my newfound country, the plan fell through and by the time noon had rolled around and I had still been unsuccessful in my quest to find Taylor (my classmate) I resigned myself to the fact that I would have to find my way to the center by myself and I headed back to the train station where I decided to take a train from Heathrow to the Paddington tube station and hire a cab to take me the rest of the way. When I stepped of the train at Paddington, I noticed a large blue suitcase with yellow Hawaiian flowers in front of me, which looked as though it must be the suitcase Taylor described to me that she would have with her. So to test my theory, I called out her name to see if she would turn around and miraculously, she did. We had found each other at last, and had ironically been on the same train from Heathrow. We took a cab together back to the center where we then got our separate room assignments and I started to unpack. I choose the last open bottom bunk inside room 3B and all the rest of my roommates were mostly finished unpacking and little did I know then that I would have some of the most fun in that room with those 4 girls. I spent the remainder of my day unpacking, napping, and shopping for some of the essentials I would need while in London like shampoo and galaxy bars.

Saturday, June 26, 2010

Since we didn't have any class or looming homework assignments, we spent the day in a mad rush to see as much of London as we possibly good in one afternoon. It was like drinking from a fire hydrant. In the morning, our professors gave us money to go purchase our oyster cards, which were are pass to ride the London Underground (tube) as well as the buses for the next month. We were then sent on scavenger hunt to get us used to using the public transportation and start to orientate ourselves around the city. We started with Buckingham Palace where we watched the changing of the guard at 11:30. It was amazing and the crowd was incredible. I managed to get a few pictures, which was a real feat, and a short video. Afterwards, we went to the National Gallery in the magnificent Trafalgar Square where, when you stand on the top of the steps by the gallery entrance, you can see all the way down to Big Ben along the Thames river. Inside the gallery, I saw Van Gogh's original Sunflowers. It was beautiful. Among his paintings were those of Gaugain, Degas, and countless others. And that was only a few rooms on the first floor. I want to go back and explore the museum more- it could literally take days. We then had lunch in Trafalgar Square and headed down to the river, where we saw the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey. By then our feet were very sore so we sat on a bench along the river in the small garden next the Parliament for at least a half hour. Even though the Thames isn't exactly beautiful (or clean), there is still something soothing about sitting by the water, and you can just feel all of the history that those banks have seen. Next we hopped on a random bus and let it take us wherever it was going. As luck would have it, the bus dumped us in the theatre district and then we wandered over to Covent Garden where there is a large outdoor market. So far, the market was my favorite part of London. There were shops, street performers, and local vendors, selling everything from pastries and bread to fancy perfumes. I plan to spend a lot more time exploring there. Afterwards we meet up with others from our group and ate dinner across the river at a Japanese restaurant called Wagamamas where I had no idea what half of the ingredients on the menu were and where they also did not believe in forks. Luckily I ordered to the udon noodles which were as thick as caterpillars and I was able to somehow get to my mouth (with much time, effort, and determination) using my chopsticks. Afterwards I returned to the center and then went to read in Kensington Gardens. The reading, however, did not last long as we heard music coming from nearby Hyde Park so we decided to follow it and stumbled upon an outdoor Stevie Wonder concert! We listened to the music from outside the perimeter of the concert grounds for a little while. It was nearly 10pm and the concert was almost finished so the guards let us into the concert for the last 15-20 minutes! So I got to see Stevie Wonder in person. It doesn't get a whole lot cooler than that.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

On Sunday we walked all the way across Kensington and Hyde Park to attend church at the Hyde Park ward. It was a really great experience and the congregation was so diverse! It was incredible. Afterwards I took a nice Sunday nap and enjoyed the rest of my leisurely Sunday and started my reading for class on Monday.

Monday, June 28, 2010

I started my day with a morning run in Kensington Gardens. It was fabulous! There are dogs everywhere, running about, and it is so green and beautiful. Monday was also ironically the first day of classes and the anniversary of the day Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated which sparked the First World War. The first class of the day was "Jane Austen in Context" where we got an introduction to Austen's works and then started our preliminary discussion of Pride and Prejudice. And then afterwards we had our classes interrupted by a guest speaker, Mr. Gibson, who was a big-time businessman and LDS convert. He talked to us about the history of the LDS Church in England and it was amazingly powerful. He single-handedly purchased and restored the building which was the first LDS chapel, and is located in England. It was amazing story. Afterwards I had my "Great War and Modernism" class where were dove right into our study of WWI. After class I went with a group to the Victoria and Albert Museum to see the Horace Walpole exhibit on a field study assignment for my Jane Austen class. It was magnificent. The exhibit was extremely interesting and I also saw one of Botticelli's sculptures. Ahhh sweet history. It is just the spirit that illuminates this magnificent city. After the museum we had dinner and another guest speaker who came to distribute our Ward assignments and then gave a lecture on living in London during the Blitz. His was a first-hand account, and he had been 3 years old during the Blitz and was shipped off to the country as part of a city-wide evacuation to get the children out of the city in anticipation for an air-raid. It was so interesting. All in all, it was an enlightening day.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

On Tuesday morning, I started my day with another run in Kensington Gardens, this time in the rain. So far we had had sunny beautiful weather but the minute I stepped out of the front door, it started sprinkling. I looked around and noticed that no one else seemed to be deterred by the precipitation, so I followed suit and continued on with my original plan to go running. By the time Kensington Palace was again in view at the end of my run, the rain was really starting to come down. I have never run so fast, in an attempt to finish my run before the rain picked up. It was good fun, though. Again, we had classes, minus the interruption of guest speakers. I then took a trip to H&M and visited the National Portrait Gallery on another field study assignment where I saw the only portrait of Jane Austen to be completed during her lifetime. It was done by her sister Cassandra and it was very tiny. I almost couldn't find it. I went back for dinner and then spent the night working on homework.

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

An epic day. I slept in and then our group went on our first London Study. At 10:30 we arrived at St. Paul's Cathedral for our guided tour and I was so excited. We spent the next 2 1/2 hours exploring the many wonders of one of the greatest architectural feats in the world. It was magnificent. It was completed in 1710 (exactly 300 years ago) after being reconstructed on the same spot where the original St. Paul's stood, which was built in 1300 and then destroyed by the Great Fire of 1666. There was one statue inside that was the only one to survive the fire intact and I got to touch it. 700 years old. AMAZING. We also got to see the stairs in one of the clock towers where the Sherlock Holmes and Harry Potter movies were filmed! After our tour of the Nave, I got to climb all 500 steps to the top of St. Paul's dome where we were able to look out over the whole city and let me tell you, it was worth all 500 steps. It was absolutely breathtaking. And then we had to walk DOWN all 500 steps... And they were all circular staircases. We also visited the crypt where the great Christopher Wren himself (the cathedral's architect) and Samuel Johnson are buried. After St. Paul's we went to the London Museum which chronicles the history of the city of London from the Romans to the present day. I got to see the death mask of Oliver Cromwell and a leather Roman bikini, so it was worth it for me. Then my roommates and I journeyed to Leicester Square and bought tickets to see Les Miserables starring NICK JONAS as Marius, on Saturday afternoon! I just can't wait. After dinner, my roommates and I got gelato and I got to Skype with mom for the first time since I've been in London. A very epic day.