Oxford & Camden Market

Wednesday, February 23, 2011:

Today we went to Oxford! For all you Cambridge fans I'm sorry, but I loved Oxford 10 times more than I liked Cambridge. I don't know why, I just did. Carly's brother, Brady, graduated from Merton College in Oxford in 2007 so he gave us a list of all the fun things to do there. We got so much done in the little time we were given to explore. We started out at 'Alice's Shop' - the original Alice in Wonderland Shop where the real Alice, Alice Liddell, used to buy her barley sugar sweets 140 years ago. Lewis Carroll wrote the shop into his story because he loved this shop so much. (**My camera is broken right now so I don't have very many pics, but I will get them from my buds and post them later!)

Next we went to Christ's College and went into the dining hall, aka the GREAT HALL from Harry Potter. It was awesome! The actually dining room was a lot smaller than I was expecting, but it was still cool nonetheless.

After Christ's College, Carly and I branched off for a bit to head to Merton College, Brady's college. We were a little worried that they wouldn't let us in because it's not open to visitors until July, but Carly told them that Brady graduated from there and they totally let us in. We wandered through the gardens and through the chapel and then one of the guys took us up and showed us the common room. Saweet! This guy then pointed us in the direction towards the Real Tennis Courts. It was cool (reminded me of Ever After) and there were actually two people playing a match so we watched for a sec. It was so fun! Then Carl and I met up with everyone else at St. Mary's church which we hiked super clausty (aka claustrophobic) stairs to the top of the tower. The view of Oxford from the top was amazing! Then we went to a pub called 'Turf Tavern' and I got fish n' chips! I hate to admit to this but it was the first time I got fish n' chips since I've been in England...Embarrassing, I know. After that we basically walked around, explored, and shopped. I loved Oxford and would LOVE to go to school there!...Yeah right. In my dreams. :)

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Today was just an ordinary day. School, hanging out in London, etc. Carly, Paige, and I went to see Love Story. This is a musical only here in London and it was AMAZING. It was funny, sad, and, of course, full of love. I am tempted to buy the album on iTunes because I loved the music so much. Their pitch and unison was on the nose. I loved every single minute of Love Story.

Friday, February 25, 2011

Today we woke up and got ready for our long day ahead of us. We started off with getting one of our London Walks done. It's called the Regent's Park Walk and we just walked through the park and it was beautiful day so it was magical! I am loving the beginning of spring over here in London! I went outside both yesterday and today without a coat on! Best feeling in the world!

After the walk, we took the tube (which took WAY longer than I wanted to) and headed over to Camden Market. We got the BEST burrito and wandered through the HUGE market. If you ever come to London, go to the Camden Market on a Friday or Saturday because I got sooo many London souvenirs for cheap. I loved it! There is also just the yummiest food I've had in a while there. Homemade donuts, chocolate covered strawberries, etc. SOO good!! Came home and we had a party because the professors are out of town so the centre directors made us pancakes for dinner. It's been a great day!

Tomorrow - Borough Market and hanging out...

Next week - SPRING BREAK & PRAGUE!!!

Hope you are all doing well and having a wonderful last few days of February! I am jealous that Jess & Dave are leaving for the Caribbean today..Have fun! Get some sun for me because I'm albino over here...Love you guys!

Hampton Court Palace & The Down House

Today was a great day! We went to Hampton Court Palace where Henry VIII lived and then we drove to Downe and to the Down House where Charles and Emma Darwin lived and where he wrote The Origin of Species among his other famous works. It was a great day!! The palace was AMAZING and the gardens were BREATHTAKING!

XoXo,

Liz

Henry VIII's study

Yep, those are all guns.

The Royal Toilet

I love my little E.

Havin' a ball in the gardens!

I just love her.

Back side of the palace.

The Down House - the home of Charle's Darwin

The backyard

Temple Trip

We got to go to the London temple today. It was one of the most spiritual experiences I've had in a while. I have always had a love for the temple and a strong desire to go often. It took about an hour to get there on our bus. Not everyone could get their recommends renewed in time so the group was smaller than usual. The London temple is bigger than I expected and the baptistry itself is a lot bigger than the Logan temple. It is a beautiful temple. We only had our two directors and one boy to help out but the workers had everything very organized which was nice. When we got inside, the biggest wave of peace and love and joy came over me. I had forgotten how much I love being inside the temple. While waiting to be baptized, we sang hymns in the waiting room. We all know what hymns can do to us when we feel the Spirit. It was overwhelming. We continued singing while taking turns being baptized and confirmed. Seven of my ten names were Elizabeth. That was neat. Once we were all back in the waiting room, we sang "The Spirit of God". I'm pretty sure almost every girl in that room was crying. The Spirit was incredibly strong. I am so grateful for temples and for this experience. I needed a little spiritual boost of energy and this definitely did it for me.

Have a fabulous day!

- Liz

SCOTLAND and more...

I'm so sorry guys!! This has taken me WAY too long to do! I have been keeping track of the days and the things we did on my ipod notes, so I'll just do it by days..Hopefully it makes sense.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

We took a 5 hour train ride to Scotland. We passed the beach on our way into Edinburgh and this made us all WAY excited for some reason. Scotland is BEAUTIFUL. I can't even describe how beautiful it is. Edinburgh seems small with its intimate streets and cobblestone roads.

After we checked into the hostel, we went straight to Edinburgh castle. It had the perfect view of the city..stunning.

We took lots of pictures, walked through a few of the exhibits, and headed out down the main street, The Royal Mile. We found a mill that showed you how they make kilts and blankets out of wool. I bought WAY too much on this trip to Scotland but I AM a Campbell, so I just had to! The Campbell clan is one of the biggest clans in Scotland and I am proud of it! ;) We have the best plaid in Scotland, in my opinion. After shopping for a while, we went to dinner at a pub named "Mitre". I got the yummiest chicken sandwich thing and I am just glad I didn't get the classic Scottish dish, Haggis. In Sharon's opinion, it looks like gravel sausage. Yum. I was too afraid to try it and I'm kind of glad I didn't. It was a great night!

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Today was so much fun here in Scotland! We had the whole day to ourselves to do whatever we wanted! We woke up, got ready, ate breakfast, and were on our way to Edinburgh. We first started by walking down the Royal Mile (the main street here) to the Palace of Holyroodhouse - the official house of the Queen in Scotland. We didn't go inside but took pictures of the outside.

The sun was out today so I only wore a hoodie and it felt so good! After the palace we walked over to hike to Arthur's Seat. We started to walk up it when a few of the girls decided to stop because they weren't wearing very good shoes. Some of the other girls we were with decided to hike all of Arthur's Seat but Kinsey, Ramzi, and I decided to just hike the side of the grassy plateau so we could get the view from the top. It was SO WORTH IT!! The view was breathtaking. We could see the castle and all the way out to the ocean. It was amazing! I fell on the way down a few times but it was fun and hilarious. We had a blast.

We walked around for a little bit after that, shopped around, and then decided to get some lunch. We were so lucky that we saw a couple other people from our group because they told us they just got back from eating at Elephant House...the cafe J.K. Rowling began writing Harry Potter!!!! So of course we went there and ate. It was so cool! She wrote in the corner by a window that overlooks Edinburg castle (inspiration for Hogwarts???)!! We went into the bathroom after eating and found the COOLEST Harry Potter toilet! And then on one of the door frames someone had started "Dumbledore's Army" and I, of course, couldn't pass that one up! So I got on my hands and knees in this tiny bathroom and wrote my name on the list! I'm number 124. SO COOL!! **Sorry Mary, I tried so hard to buy you a t-shirt but they were all out! :(

We shopped around for alittle while after that, went into a kilt shope and made a Scottish friend named Stephanie, and then decided to split up. Most of the other peeps went to "Annie" because it was playing. Ashley, Kinsey, Ramzi, and I did our own thing. This is where the fun of the day really began. We were craving Mexican (I've been craving Cafe Rio since I got to London) so we found a little restaurant named "Pancho Villas". All I got was a quesadilla and some rice, but it was so good and definitely satisfied my craving. Now we were craving dessert. Namely chocolate. So we went "Chocolate Soup". Yep, that's what it's called. We all got our own brownie sandwich with ice cream in the middle and a chocolate shot on the side. It was the BEST chocolate dessert I have EVER had. We loved it so much we just had to document it somehow. So we took our chocolate shots and rubbed it all over our faces...Everyone in the place, including the workers, were laughing at us. (Note: People in Scotland are ten times more friendly than they are in London.) It was messy and hilarious and insanely delicious. I felt extremely sick afterwards but it was definitely worth it!!

After we washed our faces we went back to the hostel for a bit to get some warmer clothes on for our Ghost Tour. This Ghost Tour started at 9:45 and lasted until 11:15. The first 45 minutes are spent outside in the city and the other 45 are spent underground in the caverns. During the black plague, Edinburgh was hit. To contain the disease, they built the city you see today on top of the old city and left the rats (who were spreading the disease) and the sick to die underground. In the 1980's they began giving historical tours until people started having experiences with spirits. The first 45 minutes were interesting. We learned about how torture and execution went down the heard a couple of stories with that. The second 45 min, were terrifying. Good thing we had Ramzi there to keep the three of us girls sane! All our tour guide to guide us was a candle and so when he blew it out half way through the tour, I had a cow.

After the tour we wanted to end our night happy by taking pics by the heart we found in the cobblestone street! Ramzi didn't want in these pictures, so he was our designated photographer. These 4 Scottish boys come up and want to take one with Ramzi in it. Ramzi's a smooth guy..All he says is, "No you guys should get in." Then he says, "Hey you should kiss their cheeks while I take the picture." So they did and yeah. I got kissed on the cheek by 2 Scottish men. ;)

Friday, February 11, 2011

We woke up and left Edinburgh to drive to Sterling. On the way, we made a stop in New Lanark to go on a tour of the cotton mill there. The rooms we went into had creepy wax people to help us envision what it was like to live and work at the mill in those days. It was pretty interesting but, I'm not gonna lie, it got boring fast. I mean we went on a ten minute ride about cotton! It was Haunted Mansion-like (if that helps you envision it a little) except 1 mph. Elise and I were dying of laughter.

After the cotton ride, we got soup in the little cafe there. Then we walked outside up to a waterfall nearby. New Lanark was an interesting little Scottish town hidden deep in the mountains and it was fun to see PINE TREES again! It made me miss my dad and hiking with him. Next we headed to Sterling. We dropped our bags off at the hostel and went up to Sterling castle. It wasn't nearly as cool as the Edinburgh castle but it did have some cool exhibitions. We took "royalty" pictures in the church there. It had a fantastic view of the city and the Highlands and also of the Wallace monument.

Sterling is a pretty small city so we decided we needed to have a relaxing night. We went and got tickets to see "Gnomeo & Juliet" (I miss movies!). Our movie didn't start for a while so we went and got dinner at a place named "Frankie & Benny's" -- This was NOT my idea, but I still thought it was hilarious! Why do I see Ben stuff EVERYWHERE?! Now that you all think I am on the hunt for Ben stuff I'm really going to do it now. I had someone take a pic of me in front of just "Benny". Hahaha. We headed back to the movie theater, got popcorn (I miss that too!), and watched the movie. It was adorable! There was so much British humor in it. I loved it. That was pretty much our day and night though. It was fun!

Saturday, February 12, 2011

We finished up our time in Sterling by going to the William Wallace monument. For all you "Braveheart" fans, this is a monument for the guy Mel Gibson played. Created and led the Scottish army. He fought for freedom against the English, was successful in most of them, and then killed because of it. It was neat to see his sword and climb the 246 stairs to the top of his tower/monument. I couldn't help but should "FREEDOM!" at the top. ;)

All in all, I absolutely LOVED Scotland and its greenness, kilts, bagpipes, and castles. I would seriously recommend it to anyone planning a trip to the U.K.

LONDON:

Monday, February 14, 2011 - HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!

Today was such a great day! Ashley and I woke up and ran around the park, I got a letter from Ben, and we went to see "Swan Lake"!! It was the best Valentine's Day activity and definitely made me miss dancing. Oh well, my fault. I think all of us girls were feeling a little boy-deprived today, but we stuck through it! The end of the day was awesome too because I got to Skype my wonderful Logan roomies! I miss them so much and laughing with them was a blast!

Tuesday, February 15, 2011 - TODAY

Our class was swapped to the 9:15 time so a couple of us went to a museum for our Fine Arts class right after it. Then we went to Southall! It's also known as "Little India" if that gives you an idea of what it was like. We went to a Hindu temple there and enjoyed wandering around a different part of London. The change in culture was definitely noticed and I enjoyed it a lot. We had dinner at an Indian restaurant, of course, named "Giftos". I had never had REAL Indian before and I actually really liked it! It was spicy but delicious! After that we went and got Henna tattoos! I got a picture of it, but it's on my friend's camera so I'll post it another time.

Well, I finally got it all caught up! Sorry it took so dang loooong!

Love from London,

Liz