Monday, March 31, 2008

Lots of London Fun!

Day Trip to LIVERPOOL...home of the Beatles! A group of us rode a five hour bus ride to chill for a quick day in Liverpool; I wish we had gotten to stay longer but it was a blast. First we went to the Beatles Musuem which was so so cool - old guitars, posters, reconstruction of the Cavern (one of the first bars they played in), and of course music :)




We hung out mostly around the Albert docks on the River Mersey...love that water lol.


We went to the Merseyside Maritime Musuem, which had a Titanic exhibit that I was so excited to see!!


We went on a ferry ride on the Mersey to see more of the sights of Liverpool. It was pretty sweet, but way windy! Then we walked a little bit more around the city and happened upon The Beatles hotel - Hard Days Night Hotel :) I thought that was pretty clever.













This last Saturday, I had a very British day. First, a bunch of us put on our Oxford apparel to root for them in the Oxford vs. Cambridge football game. We realized that British don't wear team paraphernalia when we got to the game, so we stuck out as crazy Americans...especially when I tried to fake a British accent which was a big mistake when I got a little carried away when I was telling a story and a bunch of Brits turned around and stared me down or just thought I was crazy lol. Anyways, it was a good game but Cambridge got in two goals the last few minutes winning 5-3.

After the game, my friend Andrea and I went to boat race between the two schools as well. It is a big deal in London, so tons of people were there partying it up on the Thames. It was kinda rainy so I got soaked through, but it was tons of fun. And Oxford slaughtered Cambridge, so we were proud :)






I never had the chance to put up pictures from when we went to Stratford a few weeks ago and visited all the Shakespeare sights. We went to his wife's, Anne Hathaway, cottage; took a tour of Shakespeare's birthplace; went to his grave; and then went to the play, Henry IV Part 1. Good times!!






Oh and I saw this on the way to Shakespeare's birthplace and it just reminded me of Harry Potter :)











PLAYS!!! So I found a new love...watching plays in London. I have spent too much money on all the shows I have watched but it has been worth it. Other than the few I already talked about at the beginning, I saw Wicked twice and then Phantom of the Opera, Lord of the Rings (musical type - it was very interesting lol), Sound of Music, and Mousetrap.






















Monday, March 24, 2008

March 24....HAPPY EASTER!

hey family, this is going to be a quicky because this internet is so dang expensive.. its the smingis ningis or something like that .. day after easter, basically hardcore water fight day so nothing is open today. this week was great, easter was a blast. We tried hitting up some easter mass but the times were marked wrong and missed the one we were going to go to. we ended up running around all of poland trying to find any church that would be doing mass in the evening. Couldnt find a single one.. isnt that just like the Catholic church .. haha it was fun running around trying to find one though.. Earlier that day we just had a sacrament meeting and then lunch over at a members place.. the food was polish so naturally is wasnt very good.. bigos, kielbasa, beets, dry bland pastries. i just eat that stuff upppp! im way jealous of the amazing food im sure you consumed without me for easter. we have another dinner appointment today with a member, mm cant waitt. > hmm lots of interesting stuff went down this week, we went to a Jehowahs Witness sacrament meeting.. haha it was a blast, we were invited by some JW friends we had talked to earlier. Everyone was way nice to us the meeting was very well done.. for jws.. they passed out the sacrament, but noone took it because there was noone there from the 'elect' 144,000 that are allowed to take it.. i motioned like i was going to drink the wine and got a lot of dirty looks shot at me.. oops, just a joke, apparently not a very funny one.> talked with some amazing people on the streets this week.. no new investigators unfortunately.. the only ppl that actually talk to us are during the whiteboards we do in Gdansk.. and since most of them live in that area and not in gdynia.. we end up giving all those new investigators to the Dl and his comp.. such is life with only one whiteboard. i talked to a muslim guy the other day and that was probably the best conversation i had this week. > > happy birthday dad! ill probably be sending one package sometime soon home with a tape and some stuff for lysh and dad i found.. be excited :-) > > mom- i can pull from my checking if i want, but id rather not, im not in that desperate of circumstances haha.. just figure id try to spend as much as i get every month > > happy easter! hope it was incredible for everyone, im sorry my pictures didnt get sent, theyre amazing, ill try to send them some other time? i duno, it might just be the software on these computers, ill try to figure it out.

More West Country - Cornwall!!!

Another week to the West Counrty!! So so much fun...a lot of beach time which I thoroughly enjoyed :) I did forget my camera on the trip, but thankfully I have great friends to take pics for me...but I don't have all of them yet so I might post a few more fun ones on the next one.

Anyway, our first stop was in the village of Clovelly built into the side of the seaside hills. It was a really cute town with a steep cobblestone street. They use to use donkeys to transport stuff, but now they just use sledges. My favorite part was of course jumping into the ocean and basking in the sun!!!






















Next stop...Tintagel Castle!!! It is also situated on the ocean cliffs and only cool ruins are left. According to legend this is where King Arthur was born...but more importantly (to me) this may have been where Tristan and Isolde lived with Lord Mark in Cornwall!! I was pretty excited about this because of my former obsession with the movie Tristan and Isolde with gorgeous James Franco :) Haha...me and my movies - I get real excited!





















Our hostel was in the beachtown of Penzance (we watched the movie Pirates in Penzance before we left so we would it appreciate where we were more lol). Anyways, the second day we woke up early and went on a five hour hike along the ocean and cliffs. We first played at the sandy beach. The hike was so beautiful and so much fun!! I love the ocean, so I was basically in heaven! We hiked to Land's End - the farthest western point of England.
























Then we went to the Eden Project. This was way cool! Basically they are building biomes (big white-bubble domes) that house plants from all over the world to show that degraded environments can be fixed and what plants we rely on and how we can use them and so forth. Basically it was a Disneyland for plants. The two biomes they have so far are the Mediterranean Biome and the Rainforest Biome. The rainforest on was my favorite because you felt like you were serioulsy in the middle of the jungle - it was hot, humid, and you surrounded by tall trees and gorgeous plants. It was so cool!!!





The last thing we did was go play at the beach and on St. Micheal's Mount which is an island off Penzance. It was really windy but I had fun running around in my bare feet. One of my friends has the pics from it, so I haven't gotten them yet, but I do have this one. Anyway, my trip was just a blast!!!! I love England :)




Oh and for my Easter present...I got snow!!! Ya, it seriously snowed in London on Easter - unbelievable lol :) I guess Provo wanted to send snow our way and punish us for having such good weather this winter haha. I hope everyone had a Happy Easter!!! Love you!