I'm going to die here...

October 28

Today was the first day of my imminent doom. Also known as my first day of church in the Lea Valley Ward. These next few Sundays of my life are sure to be filled with all sorts of fun surprises. Well, I suppose I'll explain myself. So we get off the tube, mind you it was the last stop so it was on the outskirts of town and step out into what I can only describe as the Harlem of London. The streets were crawling with nasty people who look like they snort cocaine in their spare time and who would like to take advantage of 3 young blonde girls. You know, normal stuff. So we were walking down this street trying to find the chapel, all the while passing sketchy people and sketchy stores, not exactly sure where the turn is. One of the banks that we passed even had a sign on the door that said, 'for the safety of our staff, we have shut down this branch'. That made me feel safe. We finally found a map on the back of a bus stop and realized we had gone too far, so we turned around and about 2 blocks down the road this sharply dressed middle aged man came up next to us asking if we were looking for the LDS church. We must have looked a little out of place... I mean just a shot in the dark. We heard a car's exhaust pipe pop and thought we were getting shot at, all 3 of us jumped so high. But so this nice man told us where the church was and that he was going there, too. He even asked if we were from BYU, after we said yes he was telling us that he could always pick out the BYU students in those parts.

After we finally finished our scary journey to the chapel, we met with the bishop and he asked us all about our previous callings and whether we could play the piano. It was the first time in my life I was grateful that I couldn't play the piano. We also found out that we had a talk assignment in 2 weeks, lucky us. Now this ward that we are now a part of is quite an interesting one, to say the least. If you walked into that chapel not knowing where you were, you'd think you were in the middle of the Congo. Everyone was dark brown and had immigrated from some part of Africa so it's kind of hard to understand them sometimes. There's also a few mexicans thrown in there, too, so we were definitely about 3 of 8 white people in the whole congregation. It's going to be a cultural experience, that's for sure.

The best part about church, though, was the fact that during the third hour we had a combined relief society and priesthood meeting to talk all about safety. Topics covered:
- Keep the chapel doors locked at all times, unless it is between 1-4 on Sunday afternoons during church
- Women are under no circumstances allowed to leave the chapel alone after dark or even dusk
- Children are to be kept in the classrooms at all times and kept a good eye on so that no one wanders into the building and steals peoples' offspring
- Anytime you come to building when it is not church, ring the doorbell and identify yourself
- Don't let anyone in the building you don't recognize
- Pick up your children right at 4
- Be wary when you leave the building

I think that quite sums up my church experience. Let the fun begin!

Get this done...

October 18

I'm just going to pound out what I've done all these days that I've been to lazy to record in one post and be done with it...

- Went to class
- Went on a London Walk through Kensington Gardens
- There were some crazy squirrels that tried to get me to feed them, I'm practically the squirrel whisperer
- Went and saw Wicked and almost died because I loved it so much
- Got a white chocolate bueno milkshake with raspberry swirls

October 19

- Woke up
- Bought train ticket
- Went to Cambridge University
- Saw a guy karate chop a military issue duffle bag and calmly walk away
- Marveled at the beautiful campus
- Missed Thaise's wonderful cooking
- Ate left over pizza

October 20

- Went to Portabello Market
- Went to Borough Market
- Consumed a fantastic burger
- Saw London Bridge and took some sweet pics

October 21

- Went to church at Hyde Park Chapel for Stake Conference
- Accidentally took a 6 hour nap

October 22

- Went on a walk to Buckingham Palace
- Saw a beefeater yell at a guy who got in his face

October 23

- Went to the British Museum
- Wrote another 4 page paper
- Found platform 9 3/4

October 24

- Saw the opera Julius Cesar
- Hated it
- There was this super weird modern dancing going on with it that I didn't understand, at one point the dancers came out dressed as birds and were doing step touches across the stage

October 25

- Went to afternoon tea at the Orangery in Kensington Gardens
- Had the "Fall Ball"
- Got to see my professor dress in a tutu, sparkly bow tie, and crown and dance around to big band music

October 26

- Packed a lunch
- Went to Stonehenge
- Froze my butt off even though I had a million layers
- Went to Stourhead Gardens
- Place was absolutely beautiful
- Saw the lake, the cottages, the church, the mansion, the pantheon, and a temple of Apollo
- That temple is where Mr. Darcy proposes to Elizabeth the first time in the newer Pride and Prejudice

- Walked around Leicester Square and Picadilly Circus and went to M&M world

October 27

- The kitchen almost got lit on fire
- Went to the NFL rally for a total of 10 minutes
- Went shopping on high Kensington Street and I found a cute Union Jack watch for 5 pounds
- Tried to see Phantom, but it was sold out



Whew! All caught up :)

And They Walked and Walked and Walked

October 16

Who knew Hyde Park was so gigantic? Today I went on a run through Kensington Gardens and made my way into Hyde Park and just chillin there was this gigantic lake. Who knew, right? It was so pretty. I love this place... I'm gonna stay here. Just live as a hobo and play some kind of instrument in the tube and get 5 pounds per day. I'll play the kazoo. So after my little run, and after class, we had to go on another stupid walk for my London Walks class and this one was stupid. Super stupid. It was all in the financial district and it was just looking at buildings about financial stuff. It was not fun one bit, buildings aren't super awesome. Once I finished that stupid walk, I went on back home and had another fantastic meal by Thaise of cous cous and curry chicken. So fantastic... Then I exiled myself to my room and did some homework. School is ruining my education. My education of life.

October 17

So I'm gonna try to smash another little blog post so I can attempt to catch up on the past 10 days of blogging that I have neglected to do. Once I was done with another day of monotonous class the whole group went over to the Westminster library because for some reason the city of Westminster thinks it is imperative that we have a library card for these 2 months that we will be spending here. I mean we don't have a library of our own 3 floors down. Oh wait... whatever. And not to mention that library was about 1000 degrees. Not an exaggeration. For the most part. Once we were done with the library I had to trek on over to the Prince Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens and study every facet of that memorial so I could construct a four page paper on how that memorial is a good reflection of the Victorian Age. Then I got to spend the rest of my night writing said paper. Oh the fun of schoolwork.

Life's hard sometimes.

London Fun

October 14

This one will be nice and quick. Catch up is hard. But we started our nice Sunday by going to the Hyde Park Chapel and attending a rather boring church full of white Americans. It's safe to say I slept through 85% of it. Then the only other thing of report is that we had fantastic ribs for dinner. Another win by Thaise.

October 15

First day of school :) yeah that's right I haven't had my first day of school until now. I'm pretty lucky I guess it's whatever. My classes were Music 202 and Music 212, which I really enjoyed. My classes won't be by any means rigorous, so I kind of lucked out there. It's just a bummer that now I won't have my whole day to run around and get into shenanigans whenever I want. I have to be responsible. Life's hard then you die, that's what I've concluded. After class we did something for one of our classes, London walks. We have this book full of routes to walk in London with the intention of getting us acquainted with the city, so we did one of the walks. We did the one that takes you around the area by our centre, which is Queensway and the area around Hyde Park. Our little centre is in such a good area! We're right by the Russian embassy (kind of scary, but cool) and on Queensway there are a whole bunch of cute little shops that line the street. We also went into Whiteley's, which is a little mall that apparently was Hitler's favorite building in all of Britain. Hitler was weird because there was not much that was all that special about the place. I guess he was a little crazy in the brain, though, for a few reasons. Then after we finished our walk we went back home to Thaise and anxiously awaited what she would bring us out. And she did not disappoint. She halved some avocados and put these little shrimps in it with some crazy sauce and yummy pasta. Oh Thaise. She knows the way to my heart. After we ate we went over to the Royal Opera House and watched Her Majesty's Ballet perform Swan Lake. I was dying I loved it so much!!! They were so amazing and it was my first time ever seeing Swan Lake so I had such a good time. It was so much better than the symphony... ew.

I'm Glad I'm Not a Peasant

October 13

So I guess I'm just gonna try and fly through this past week so I can get caught up... Procrastination problems. The main thing we did this day was going to the Globe Theatre and watching Richard III. Now let me just tell you about this show. First of all, we were stuck "experiencing the show as the peasants would have" as groundlings. Which means you had to stand on the floor looking up at the stage for all THREE hours of the show. Needless to say, my feet were screaming in pain. I learned a hard lesson that standing is about... a thousand times harder than walking. But fun fact: Barty Crouch was in the play as Richard III's plotting cousin. The play wasn't too bad, though, I must admit. It was an interesting story and the actors were all really good, it was just not enjoyable at all having to stand and watch the show. In the rain. I mean obviously it was raining, it is London after all, but I was still pretty bitter about it. After the show, since it was Saturday Thaise was not gracing us with her fantastic culinary skills, so we had to go find our own dinner somewhere. That was when we stumbled upon my own personal heaven; also known as Benito's Hat. It's kind of the English version of Chipotle, but just with better marinated chicken. Oh my gosh it was so good I was drooling... And a big fat burrito was exactly what I had been craving, which is what happens when you leave a family that could possibly be partially Mexican by now with all of our taco and burrito nights. Now I need to explain something about the showers here at the London Centre. Brace yourselves, this gets gruesome. Let me set up the story. So there I was, just my innocent self counting down my two minutes till I'm done brushing my teeth, when I look behind me and right there in the mirror is a full naked body. In the shower, doin their thing. Yes, the shower doors are completely see through. I mean I'm not so concerned about the other girls seeing me in my birthday suit, but I sure as heck don't want to see theirs. Ew. I'll just say I was a little alarmed and now have to avert my eyes away from the mirror for the rest of the trip... Lovely.

Home!

October 12

I really need to get caught up. So I started out my fine day by going on a run through Kensington Gardens and was honestly blown away. This place is so beautiful!! There is this big pond in the center of the park called Round Pond and it has probably 20 swans just chillin' and a million ducks and birds all around the pond. It was so perfect, I was having so much fun running. Weird, but I did. Then after my fantastic run I went to my first breakfast in the London and had a fantastic meal of Frosted Flakes and bananas, which was all I've been wanting for weeks. After I had my fantastic meal, I had to do my stupid laundry and spent a million years trying to get it done because literally every article of clothing was dirty. Hard life travelling through Europe. So my friends left a little earlier just to explore the city, and I was going to meet them at Trafalgar Square at 11 but unfortunately I had a little mishap with my clothing, so I didn't get there till about noon so I got a whole day to myself. It was such a nice day, I'll be honest :) I forgot how nice it is to be on my own and not be surrounded by a million people all day long. I just spent my day going down Regent Street and Oxford Street, which are both really big shopping streets, and just walked around the shops. I love these shops they have all around here, but my wallet doesn't haha poor girl problems. Whatever. One downside of being on my own all day was the cat calling. People here don't have the same kind of restraint that apparently we do in the States so all of the construction workers found it a really good time to whistle and such after I had passed by them. Good thing I'm super freakin' mature and can handle it. When I got back it was time for dinner and I did not know what to expect. The couple who runs the centre, the lady is a cook so I heard that her food was really good, and let me just tell you, it wasn't just good. It was so unbelievably delicious! She fed us this marinated chicken with feta and sundried tomatoes with some salad and rolls. It was so good I almost passed out right there at the table. But I didn't because I needed that time to stuff my face with calories. Glorious calories. After dinner our directors gave us tickets to go the symphony, so at 6 o'clock we had to get on the tube to make our way over there. But the problem is that 6 pm on the central line train is like on of those Japanese trains where they use a stick to push everyone in so that you have literally no space whatsoever. So when I got on the train I had this creepy Asian man literally squished into my back and the whole way he was practically spooning me and breathing down my neck, which is not appreciated. This girl don't like no Asians all up on her. But eventually we got out of that sardine can and made our way to the Barbican Centre where our symphony was. The show was... Interesting to say the least. It started out really normal and everything with some music and instruments and such. Then the second section, they brought in this piano man who was insane. He was so into the music that his bowl cut was getting all messy. Then the third act is where things got real weird real quick. I've learned I should just avoid operas because I know I'm not going to like them. So let me just talk about this opera for a second. It was about an Italian woman who was trying to have an affair with a 2 different men while her husband was away, but then people kept getting in the way, so she would have them hide in the clock, and then she ends up just doing the dirty with the guy who moves the clocks before her husband gets home. It was ridiculous. I hated every second of it and it was all in Italian so we had to read the screen behind her to understand what they were singing about. I was not happy about that one. But I guess I'm more cultured now because of it?

London Calling

October 11

LONDON!!! This was the day we finally got to London. I'm so glad we got to travel all around Europe, but I'll be honest, that bus was starting to feel like a giant tin can prison that smelled like cheetos and bread. So I was not sad to be leaving the continent. We started out by leaving the hotel and heading to go to the chunnel that would take us underneath the English Channel to our new home. The idea of riding a train underneath that much water was a little nerve wracking, but being the strong, independent woman I am, I sucked it up and did not curl up in the fetal position and cry. I refrained. After our refreshingly quick two-hour train ride to England I had then the difficult mission of navigating the London Underground with 2 suitcases, a backpack, and a purse, all being quite heavy. Luckily, it was not nearly as horrible as Paris was and there were not half as many stairs. A kind gentleman even helped me by taking my giant suitcase up the stairs for me while I took my little one. After we got off the tube station, though, we still had about 2 blocks to go with all of this crap and by then I was sweating quite profusely. No shame, I was working hard. When we got to the London Centre, it was not exactly what I was expecting. It looked like a little sliver of a house in this big row of connected apartment-style houses. I was wondering exactly how 40 students were all going to live in there, but I soon figured it out. There is a basement with an apartment for the couple that runs the centre, a giant kitchen, and a laundry room. Then on the ground floor there is a big waiting room, a dining room, a servery, and a library. On the other half of the building that I haven't seen is 2 flats for the professors. On the 2nd floor is a single room, a classroom and offices for the professors. Then on the 3rd floor is 3 toilet rooms, a bathroom with showers, and 2 dorm rooms with a bunch of bunk beds and closets. On the 4th floor is 2 more dorm rooms, and another bathroom with showers. Then there is even an attic apartment that the boys are exiled to. This place is deceivingly large. And surprisingly really nice. There is a lot of really pretty decorations and panelling all around the place. People were telling me that this place is really old and ghetto, but I find it quite lovely. It's also just really nice to not have to be living out of a suitcase and moving hotels every night or every other night. After we got all done with unpacking one of my friends Lily Checketts' dad was in town so he came and took us out to dinner. It was so good... I haven't had quality food in so long! I got this fresh fettucini with creamy tomato sauce and bacon and marinated mushrooms and some fresh mozzarella on the side. It was so good. Food makes me so happy, it's sad. It was really cool talking to him, too, because he's such a business man. I mean the man owns Real Salt Lake and has stock in a million other sports teams.... No big deal or anything. Such a good day finally getting home. And to top of our first night in London, we took a trek to Big Ben and took some pictures :) I love London!!

Cheese me.

October 9

I need to get caught up on these posts... Whatever. I suck. I'll get over it. But yes... the 9th. This was not a super eventful day, but I still had fun since I loved the Netherlands so much. That place is honestly so strange, I could see myself living there, though. We started out by going to the Hague and going to a windmill museum and just walking around the town for a little while. I didn't really love the windmill museum because I must admit, the history of windmills is not exactly something that tickles my fancy. But the city was beautiful. There hasn't been a place we've been to that hasn't been incredible. After we went to the Hague we went over to Delft and, again, got to explore the city. Delft is spectacular!! Apparently that is where the weird porcelain plates with the blue drawings on them come from. Who knew. But my highlight from Delft was going into this weird little cheese shop (yes, the cheese shop was my favorite, don't judge) and eating all of the samples. They had all of this crazy cheese that they had sitting out for you to try. Those sneaky cheese people made such good cheese that I couldn't even help but buy some. No wonder they didn't mind that we literally consumed all of their cheese because they ended up selling all 7 of us a wheel of cheese. They had goat cheese, pesto cheese, red pepper cheese, garlic cheese, aged cheese, spicy cheese, any kind of cheese you could think of. They also had some sauce out that you could dip the cheese in and I thought I was in cheesy heaven. Embarrassing, but I don't even care. Me gusta queso.

October 10

This was a long time ago I'm kind of forgetting things we did... Problems of a procrastinator. But I do remember that this was the day we went to Brussels and explored the city. It was really cool hearing that this was the city that is the most diverse in the world, that is something that I didn't expect. I also didn't know that Brussels is where the UN meets. The things you learn in Europe, right? But one thing I did love in Brussels was the food. I am such a fat kid with all of my food posts, I know, but my motto is go home big or go home. So I got these fries from this funny little frite vendor and they were really thick fries that he fried up in front of us with this amazing curry ketchup sauce. I don't even know what was in that crazy stuff, but I swear it was crack. It was that good. And then stupid Villam, I hate Villam (the bus driver from Hell, if you don't remember) wouldn't let me take them on the bus because he said the smell is too strong. I wanted to tell him to stop taking smoke breaks because his disgusting habit is stinking up the bus, but I didn't and just hurried and scarfed down my frites. Dang you Villam.

The Place Where Literally Anything Goes

October 7

Didn't do a lot today... Those are my favorite days. We started out our nice little Sunday by going to the beach in Hagge, which was a little chilly, but you just can't beat the feel of sand between your toes. Even if it is sand that's frozen almost solid. But it's not a big deal or anything. My little toes almost fell off from walking in the ocean, which now I realize was probably not the smartest decision, but I did it anyways. Story of my life. After we froze our little tushies off at the beach for a little while we went over to a modern museum that I honestly don't even remember the name of and saw some pretty sweet art. There were a lot of really famous paintings in there like Vermeers and Rembrandts. I wish I knew more about art so I could appreciate this stuff, but I'm too stupid for it all. Sorry all art history majors who wish you were me, I am very unappreciative. After we got done with the city we went back to our hotel so we could watch conference. It made me a little homesick watching conference, though. I really love getting a big blanket and watching conference with me family with a big, giant cinnamon roll to keep me company and my dog walking by and licking my face. Disgusting, I know. The things you miss, right...

yeah, don't mind our weird faces, it would be cute otherwise

October 8

Amsterdam. The place of legal drugs, prostitution, and any other nasty thing you can think of. Good time, right? No. Not for a mormon girl who isn't into anything even remotely close to that stuff. But other than the occasional cloud of marijuana smoke we had to walk through, I really enjoyed Amsterdam. It was really a beautiful city and what I found really cool was that everyone we saw were all very different kinds of people. People in Amsterdam, and basically all of the Netherlands, just kind of do what they want because the culture is accepting of everyone. I would love to live in a city like this where people feel free to be themselves without being afraid of what anyone else might think. Our day did not start well at all, though. So this bus driver. Needs to get a life. His name is Villam and literally can't go over an hour of driving without making us stop so he can have a smoke break. On our way to Amsterdam it was about an hour and a half drive and he got over the megaphone and literally talked in his unintelligible accent the entire time about complete nonsense. I use those bus rides to catch up on my beauty rest but with Villam and his crazy words, I can't accomplish that very well. I hate you Villam and I miss Peter. But enough of my ranting about our struggling bus driver, after we got off the bus we went over to the Anne Frank house and walked through it reading about her experiences there. It was really cool seeing her actual journals, too, and seeing what kind of a place these people had to live for so long in hiding. After we finished going through her house we went over to another Museum and saw the big Van Gogh museum. There were so many Van Goghs in there... He was a really interesting painter. Some were really good, but then in some other ones he did were just big globs of paint pushed around. Once we looked through that museum we went to our next museum that was full of Dutch history and paintings from famous Dutch painters. I got to see "The Night Watch" by Rembrandt, which I really enjoyed because I remember learning a lot about it in my Humanities class so being able to see it in person and the sheer size of it was remarkable. By this time of the day we were all starving and hadn't really eaten a lot that day.... Or the day before... Or the day before that really because we are all sick of spending money on food so we've been snatching a little bit of food at breakfast to suffice through the day, but a sandwich, granola, and an apple is not exactly enough to sustain me for a whole day. So we saw a sign for the Hard Rock Cafe and all started drooling at the idea of real American food. It was basically an inner instinct that made us go. My feet just took me there without my mind being able to do anything about it. I got a chicken club sandwich and let me just tell you about it. Toasted sourdough bread, avocados, grilled chicken, applewood smoked bacon, lettuce, and a big heap of seasoned thick fries on the side. I'm drooling just thinking about it. The only thing that ruined my experience was our stupid waitress. She told us that the water she was giving us was free and then when we saw the bill and noticed that she had charged us 20 euros for water she acted like we should have known all along. Brat. So we all had to pay about 4 euros for stupid water. She was one tricky little witch.

Dutch is Ugly

October 5

First off, I hate the Dutch language. It's ugly and gutteral and sounds like the speakers are gagging on something. But it's whatever. At least they all speak English as well as Dutch. And usually French, too. Yeah they're smart, America's stupid, it's not a big deal. So back to my adventures. We started the day by travelling to Brugge, a city in Belgium, and went to a bunch of sights in the city. The first place we went was the Basilica of the Holy Blood, which was a really interesting church and very unlike all the other cathedrals we've been in so far. It was a lot smaller and the designs on the inside were different because they were more geometric and colorful instead of plain and thoughtful. What I really thought was interesting, though, was the fact that the church was displaying the "Holy Blood" which was a wad of bloody cloth that the Catholics believe was used to clean Christ's blood after He came off the cross. It looked kind of gross though and disintegrated in the little tube that they kept it in. I don't personally believe that it was really His blood, but it was still really cool to see. After that we went over to the city hall of Brugge and just walked around and enjoyed the artwork inside. Now to the good stuff. Belgian food. I know fat kid problems, right? Whatever. Judge me. So first of all we started by getting a belgian waffle and I almost died the second it reached my mouth. Let me just describe to you this amazing heaven sent thing. It was warm, battery, and soft on the inside and crispy and almost candy coated on the outside. And then to top it all off, it had melted nutella over the top with a fat glob of whipped cream. Oh my gosh I almost had a heart attack, I was so happy. The American version of Belgian waffles don't even compete. Then after I completely satisfied my taste buds I decided to try some of this Belgian chocolate people have been raving about and I must say, I was a little disappointed. I mean don't get me wrong, it was fantastic, but it was just as good as the chocolate in France. But I still loved it, I will admit.

October 6

This was just another fantastic day of bus trips. Although with Peter and his wonderful joking character, it makes the bus trips bearable. So we travelled from Kortrijk to Ghent this morning and we went to visit the oldest castle in Western Europe just known as the Duke's castle. It was very cool, a little deteriorated, but very cool, still. There was really no sort of embellishments or anything of the sort so all we could really do was walk around. After we finished at the Duke's castle, we went over to the cathedral in Ghent and saw the Van Eyk painting. It was really cool to see the painting because it came with an audio guide and I got to see a lot of insight into the painting that I would have otherwise missed out on. All of these cathedrals are kind of blending together in my head, though, it's bad. We've just seen so many. So so so many cathedrals and churches and museums. It's taking over my brain.

Nutella for Breakfast

October 3

You know it's going to be a good day when you get to breakfast and there are packets of nutella for you to eat (and stash away for later). There is hardly a thing in this world better than a warm croissant with nutella spread on it, I'll be honest. So we started out our day on Wednesday by going to see the Bayeux Tapestry. I've never really learned about it, to be honest, but apparently it's a pretty big deal. It was created in the 1070s and was a giant long depiction of the story of William the Conquerer. I thought it would be an actual tapestry, but really it was just a piece of cloth that was about 70 meters long and the story is sewn in with a lot of precision and detail. The audio guide that we got to listen to was saying that it is believed that one woman, the sister of William, did the whole thing. Which would suck. That thing is huge and has so many figures with individual faces and features that it would literally take my entire life. But kudos to that lady. Crazy but whatever. So then after we got done seeing the tapestry we went to Giverny and got to see Monet's gardens. That place was beautiful! There were beautiful, exotic flowers literally everywhere and the pond area was just breathtaking with all of the lilies and the trees. Unfortunately, though, it was pouring the day we went so we were all very soggy and cold, but it made the gardens even greener, I thought, so I wasn't too sad about it.

October 4

Well this was another soggy day, but that's something I'm going to have to get used to if I'm going to be living in the city of frigid rain for the next two months. We have had so many activities every day that I am too tired to write in this... fantastic... blog so then I get behind and then I get all stressed about writing so much so I'm just gonna have to do this in sections. Stupid blog. Stupid procrastination. But anyways. So Thursday. On Thursday we started out by going to the Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland War Memorial where the Canadians have preserved some trenches from WWI that we were able to go in and see. They were mostly grown in, but some were still deep enough that you couldn't see over them or see the German war trenches on the other side of the field. What was sad to me was the guide was saying that there are over 200 dead soldiers still under the ground that have never been recovered and that they are never going to try to recover them, they just want to let them rest in piece. It's such a sad thought to me that these young men died without anyone ever even bothering to pick up their bodies and take them off the battlefield. But that's the ugliness of war that I don't think I'll ever understand.

Am I World Traveler Yet?

October 2

Trying to write about 3 days worth of history stuff is quite an overwhelming task. But I'm down for the challenge. So let's see here... October 4th. I loved this day because we got to take a bus tour through all of the WWII sights in Normandy with a tour guide who was an expert on D Day and the history behind it. We started by going to the gun battery where all of the old german bunkers were and learned about how it was for everyone in the war on both sides. After the gun battery we went to Omaha beach where the American troops stormed on D Day. It was an interesting experience being there because of the historical significance of how many people died that day on both sides. We got to sit there on the beach and just think about it for a while, which I enjoyed.

After Omaha Beach we went up to the American Military Cemetery a little ways away and our tour guide took us through the cemetery and showed us some of the cool graves that most people don't notice. We saw Teddy Roosevelt's son's grave and a few brother pairs that fought and died together and one pair of father and son that died in the war. Then we had some time to ourselves to walk around the cemetery and go through the visitors' center. One thing that I really loved seeing was the little chapel in the middle of the whole field that had a beautiful mosaic on the ceiling of angels picking up wounded soldiers on the battle field and one interesting thing was that on the walls of the chapel that said, "Through the gate of death may they pass to their joyous resurrection," "I give unto them eternal life that they never shall perish," and, "Think not only upon their passing, Remember the glory of their spirit." I thought these were all really good quotes that intrigued me. The first two would definitely not fly in our society today, which is sad, but it wouldn't because it is talking all about resurrection and life after death, which people get very fired up about.

Then we took a quick trip to Pont-Du Hoc German War Cemetery. What was really interesting to me was seeing the major differences between the two cemeteries. The American one was really well kept and the crosses were all out of white marble and in perfect geometric positions to each other with a beautiful landscape, while the German one had smaller gravestones that were dark stone and set in the ground and it just looked a lot less cared for. Our guide was saying that the Germans don't like to remember war Germany so they don't fund the grave sites even though the men and boys buried there were their own people and fought for them.

Oh Peter

So to start out this post, we have this bus driver named Peter. He’s a gem. He’s from the Netherlands and he likes to get on the intercom and say the most random things you’ve ever heard… “So today is Sunday and yesterday was Saturday and as you can see there are clouds in the sky and there are cows in the fields and if you listen to the music playing right now it’s my daughter singing some American songs that you all should recognize…” yeah he’s crazy. But so today he got over the intercom and starts telling this joke that I will now relate to you. ‘So there is a law in France that you can’t go in the forest between 7 and 9 (awkward silence) do you know why that is? (awkward silence) it’s because there are elephants in the trees between 7 and 9 and they fall out of the trees. Do you know why alligators have flat mouths? Because they go in the forest between 7 and 9 (followed by awkward silence then strange courtesy laugh)’. I hope you enjoyed that one haha I know I enjoyed it. Now down to business. Today was really fun, even though we were just sitting on the bus for a majority of it. We started out by going back to Saint Malo and just walking around the town for about an hour and then had to get back on the bus for another 2 hours so we could drive to Mont Saint Michel. That place is amazing! It’s this beautiful island church that’s fortified by all these cool walls and surrounded by the ocean. It’s so pretty here by the ocean and it’s really warm, but smells like fish. When we went through Mont Saint Michel I was amazed at how old it was. The guide said that parts of the abbey date back to 507. Five hundred and freaking seven! That blows my mind… It was interesting the contrast between that church and all of the gothic cathedrals we’ve been seeing because Mont Saint Michel is a lot more plain and utilitarian. It doesn’t have the intricate stained glass or the really detailed stonework all around. It was cool because it was so old and the setting was so amazing, but it wasn’t that cool on the inside. I enjoyed seeing that it was literally the castle from Tangled, though. We sang a lot of Tangled today… A little obnoxious, but whatever.