Woke up in London yesterday...: Super Long Week = Super Long Blogpost

We spent a lot of the first couple days doing homework this week; recitations, papers, reading, watching educational movies, etc. So we'll just skip to the highlights...

Wicked! A big group of us went and saw it on Monday night. It was an interesting experience. I sat in the second row of the balcony middle. I think I was play deprived (due to the fact that I had yet to see one until this last week and I've been here for what? A month?) because as soon as it started I was so excited I started to tear up a bit. I feel like I'm not usually like that, but the excitement got to me. Elphaba...she was amazingly fantastic. She had the most gorgeous voice and was just perfect. Glinda was...a good actress? She was really cute and funny when she talked. Her voice...I'm not gonna lie, I hated it. Way too much vibrato, and she sang weirdly quietly and did the dynamics alll wrong...I think she was trying to make it her own but it just didn't work. Fyero...hotter on stage than in person and decent voice. Strange thing about staging an American written play here....the British accent takes out a lot of the funny elements. Ya know the whole “popular...laaar” part? Well ya see it sounds the same with a British accent, thus killing the funny. Oh and here they do not “dance through life” they “Daunce through life”...maybe I'm snobbish but it weirded me out. Elphaba made it beyond worth it though, I seriously loved her.

Wednesday morning we got on the bus to go to Stratford. On the way we stopped at this adorable quaint little town called Chipping Campden. It was so beautiful and such a cute little town. Loved it. Except for the part when we saw a dead fox... :( sad day. But besides that it was great.

Chipping Campden

Chipping Camden...random driveway that was just pretty

The quaint little town

We made our way to Stratford and began a Shakespeare experience. We started by going through Anne Hathaway's little cottage, then went over to Trinity Church to see Shakespeare's grave, then to his birthplace museum. The museum was the coolest part, it took us on a little video tour type thing and was kinda funny. Then we went through his house and got told some stories, saw some impromptu acting, and looked around.

Ashley and I at Anne Hathaway's Cottage

Mikelle, Ashley, Becca, and I outside of Shakespeare's Birthplace

We left the museum and were hungry and tired of being on the bus and such so we all went and checked into our Bed and Breakfasts....aka my new favorite thing. Ours (by ours I mean, Ashley, Mikelle, Abby, Kaylee, Sarah, and myself) was owned by this sweet woman who had a few kids and was just so nice to us. Our rooms were gorgeous...everything about it was just so cute and English. :) Oh! And the lady had two cats, Tilly and Max.....Max doesn't usually like people apparently, but he really liked us. Thus, he was rubbing against my legs....SIDENOTE: I am a sucker for animals and latch onto any that come near me come to find out...I pet random puppies/dogs that are walking and come over to me or are on the bus here, I try to hug horses, have photoshoots with swans, etc etc. (gee, I wonder why that is Daddy? Perhaps cuz I was deprived of pets? One specific one in particular? :P) Anyways...I wanted to play with the cat and pet it cuz he came to me and was very cute and soft...Problem – I'm allergic to cats. So a few minutes after I realized my hand was red, swollen, and itchy/tingly. Dumb of me I know...but hey I'm a sucker for small furry animals. So needless to say we had to make a pitstop on the way to dinner to pick me up some Benadryl. We then made our way to a pub that the guy at the drug store suggested to us....after much awkwardness and being carded despite the fact that we told them we weren't drinking...we finally got our food and ate. We picked up some chocolate and then made our way to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre to go see Taming of the Shrew....ha. Rough play......really rough. Moving on...after the play we were all just happy to be out of there and went back to our B&Bs and went to bed. SIDENOTE: If you are ever flipping channels and the movie “The Hitcher” is on...just don't even stop on it in passing. Okay?

This is Ashley with the cat...Oh the cat... (sorry its sideways..it wouldn't flip)

Our adorable room!

Me on my bed haha, I'm happy cuz Ashley and I got the cute room

Our rooftop access and view

Outside the B&B

Despite the fact that mine and Ashley's room was the cutest...it was also the coldest and we were freezing when we woke up. We got ready, went down to breakfast and were back on the bus. We drove to Warwick Castle and had a few hours there. It was pretty cool...Madame Tussauds got a hold of it so its theme park Disneylandesque (But not because Disneyland is the best and nothing compares). It was pretty but we didn't have enough time to make it to everything. But we took a bunch of pictures.

Haha

Just playin cards with the guys

Well he was filling up the tub...so...

Oh Henry, we always meet like this

Mikelle and I are the 7th and 8th wives...we survived.

Uh oh....

We were trapped in a spiral staircase and the bus was gonna leave us! Hence the face

Then back on the bus headed to Oxford. We ate lunch there and got some delicious milkshakes at this Shakespeare place. We took a tour of Oxford, which potentially could have been awesome...but ya see we all wanted to die because it was utterly frigid. But that was forgotten for a few moments when this happened....

Look Familiar? Name that Harry Potter Scene filmed here...?

This would be the outside of the Infirmary and the Library at Hogwarts!

We Love Harry Potter!

We toured more and then had some time for ourselves to go explore. Then we got on the bus to take us home. We ate around here that night, studied for our exam the next morning, and then went to sleep cuz we were all pooped.

Friday...Aced the exam with flying colors and officially ended our London Walks class, got ready for the day, went shopping, back for dinner. After that we did some homework til around 8. There was this YSA dance we heard about in our wards so a large group of us decided to go. After a small ordeal in trying to get there we found it....haha there really is no way to describe what happened when we walked in the dance...or what happened throughout the night. It was....really funny and entertaining. The music sucked but it was actually a lot of fun.

The next morning...well...Backstory: This Englishman, Bro. Chittock, came and gave us a fireside like the first week we were here and he told us about this walk that he takes people on all the time and we set up a time to do it. Yesterday was the designated day, but it was supposed to be really cold and potentially snow. Thus, practically everyone backed out of the walk including the professors...all but 7 of us aka the troopers....Ashley Chipman, Mikelle Benfield, Sarah Barlow, Abby Barker, Emma Cisneros, Annie Olsen, and Myself....we bundled up well and went and met up with these cute little old men for a 10 mile walk around the countryside. Best decision ever...the walk was so incredibly beautiful and everything about the experience was worth it. It was not as cold as expected and it was all too amazing for us to care.

So Beautiful!

Loved this walk!

The Troopers and our Leaders

We got back and everyone who wasn't jealous that they hadn't come should have been. Haha. We went and treated ourselves to some Pizza Hut deliciousness and low and behold it was snowing! Like crazy! After we ate we came back to the Centre. You'd think that would be the end of this awesome day...but oh contrare...after doing some homework I got in the shower to wash off the grime of the walk but when I got out and was brushing my hair in my strangely empty room Mikelle and Sarah came in grabbing gloves and telling me to come play in the snow with them. Well of course I put on a hat over my wet hair and clad in only a thin sweatshirt, sweats, and rainboots, go out there. Being from Utah we know what to do with snow....we have various snowball fights, make snow angels, and commence work on the snowman....He was huge....then, we sculpted him (Mikelle is practically a professional artist) and after some very hard work we made a Dinosaur. We named him Snowbanksies (lol, for those of you who get that, it'll be hilarious) and he is our pride and joy. Everyone who walked by asked to take pictures of him and with us. Seriously...Note to self: Building awesome snowmen is a sure way to make new British friends. We finished him at about 1:30 AM and finally went in to bed. He was all melted and tipped over in the morning because snow doesn't last long here but we took lots of pictures and are in some random British people's pics from all over Palace Court though.