Weekend Adventures

Friday-Sunday February 19-21st- After the wonderful time at Hogwarts and sitting in the heir of the Crown's chair, anything would seem dull in comparison. While this is somewhat true, I still had an enjoyable weekend :]. Our first stop as a class on Friday was to Baker Street. This street has been made known bu ti's most prominent occupant, Sherlock Holmes. While I did not run into Watson, there were many pictures of Holmes lining the streets and the store windows all along the way. It was "Elementary" to deduce that the inhabitants of this street love their call to glory.
After walking down Baker Street, we walked down a path through a park to get to the Central London Mosque, which is where we were having our field trip. The park we walked through was so beautiful! I really am in love with all the gardens and landscapes that I've seen here. This park was no less magnificent.









Maybe the reason I love parks so much is because they are the place that I go to whenever there is sunshine and sunshine is perhaps my most favorite thing in the whole world. It is more sunny than I thought it would be but still no where near as sunny and warm as home, it's OK I'm getting used to it :]. But wouldn't it be nice to live in the house right on the shore of the lake? It is so pretty. The sun still only comes out only every now and then on days it doesn't rain. If you notice in the picture with the bridge, the sky is gray with clouds. It looks like the angels simply forgot to pain the sky and left it blank. But then in the house picture, the sky is blue with white fluffy clouds. The sky changes every few minutes here, I am just good at whipping my camera out to remember the sunshine.

This is the Center London Mosque. We went here as a class for our Culture class to learn more about the Islam religion. It was very interesting. Friday is their holy day so it was more crowded that we expected but that made the experience more interesting and more real in a way. If we had gone when there was no one present it would not have been the same feeling as we had with so many people there. At High Prayer there were as many as 7,000 people there. We didn't see High Prayer but we arrived as the last of those praying were leaving. Our tour guide was named Omar and he was the best tour guide we have had so far. He was very informative and was able to relate Islam to Mormonism so we could understand it better. I learned a lot and was astonished at some of the things about Islam. Like every mosque must have a library that is open to the public. I had no idea that learning was such a large part of this religion. Another part I was astonished by is how structured this religion is. Being LDS I've seen universally structured churches before, sacrament meeting in California is the same as sacrament meeting in Utah or London. The Muslim religion is the same where ever you go as well.
After we left the Mosque, a group of us (me, Jake, CJ, Laura, Ali, Allyson, Sarah, and Margaret) went to dinner at 'Khans' which is the favorite restaurant of us students at the center. It is Indian food and so delicious! I could eat it every night :] After delicious Indian dinner the group of us went to 'Frogs' which is a frozen yogurt shop right by the center that is buy one get one free on everything. So you grab a friend and go get a large frozen yogurt each but only pay 1.50 GBP (Great Britain Pound) each!
It's a great deal and so yummy and the yogurt is not the sweet American frozen yogurt but real yogurt so it's healthy and only 100 calories for a large too. My favorite thing to get there is a smoothie. Natural yogurt with strawberries and Greek honey. It's so good!! I could eat that instead of any other meal. After my envy-worthy meal, we came back to the center to watch King Lear for the Shakespeare class.
Saturday February 20th- It was my roommate Sarah's birthday today! She is practically the Miss Congeniality of the center, everyone just loves her, so naturally we all celebrated it! Just our room went out to breakfast at 'Cafe Diana' (a cafe made for Princess Di when she lived at Kensington Palace) ((so not only have I sat in William's chair but I ate at a restaurant where Princess Di has eaten!)) Here are all my roomies at breakfast!
From the left of the picture there is Rachel(my bunkmate), Reesa, Alyssa, and Mary. On the right side Margret is in the back and Sarah Marshall is hugging Sarah Shepard (the birthday girl). Not only was it a great place to have roomie bonding but we had eggs! We have not had real eggs since we've been here and they tasted heavenly. What I wanted for my breakfast with divine eggs was a sandwich with bacon and hash-browns as well. The bacon here is the best bacon you will ever eat in your life, the eggs were heaven sent (I don't even like eggs very much but these were the best thing in the world then), but the hash-browns were not what we thought. The menu did not say "hash-browns" but "chips." This is the word for french fries here in London but we thought there was no way that fries would be served for breakfast, but there was a way and they were! While I didn't get my hash-browns for my sandwich, I had fries for breakfast and was just fine with that :].
After breakfast, Sarah Shepard Birthday Girl and I went to do baptisms for the dead at the beautiful London Temple! (For anyone who does not understand this, look up in the Bible 1 Corinthians 15: 29. All the people who die without being baptized cannot be exalted unless those who are living are baptized for them in proxy.) We went and because we were separate from a ward or group, had to wait for a group to come in that we could join, but it was so worth the wait. I was baptized for a grandmother, her daughters, and their daughters so a whole family! Sarah's people were my people's granddaughter's daughters on down! Together we did 6 generations of the same family! It was wonderful :] We walked around Temple grounds taking pictures after, hope they captured some of the beauty of this majestic building.

This is the Beautiful London, England Temple :]











Me in front of the Temple. I didn't know it was possible to be less beautiful than a building, but I am in this picture.









I thought this was a perfect symbol of the Temple work that Sarah and I just did, the ground had frost and appeared dead but, there was a small cluster of snowdrop flowers bursting through the frozen ground. There is always hope and always some way to rise above death. It was very profound for me when I was here, just wanted to share it with you.








When we got back to the BYU Center, it was dinner time. The center doesn't give us dinner on Saturdays and since it was Sarah's birthday and everybody loves her,a huge group of us went out to dinner at an Italian restaurant called 'Zizi's.' It was very yummy, I got regular spaghetti and a side of mixed olives, so yummy!! Here is part of the group who went:
In Europe, it is not a part of their culture to have large groups any where and never at restaurants. When calling to make the reservation we asked if they could accommodate large groups and they said "Of course. How many? 6, 7, 8?" The waiter almost had a heart attack when we said 20 :] The staff probably hated us when we were at dinner too, being the loud obnoxious Americans that we are. Not really but the English aren't particularly a chatty people, and Americans are. We were just sharing bread across the table and we were getting hate stares from other people eating. The hate stares from when we were jsut having casual dinner conversations was nothing like the stares we got when we sang Happy Birthday. I kinda feel bad but it's nothing weird really, pretty normal I think, o well :] Birthday cake and presents were next on the list! We came home to do that, didn't think the restaurant could handle if we had stayed for dessert as well. This is the group of dinner people plus one or two who missed dinner for cake. You may be able to see a few reasons why Sarah is loved by all, she is the one with the pink Minnie Mouse ears on and had my dream Birthday cake, a Disney Princess one. (I ate Cinderella's head on the cake :] sounds morbid but it tasted good!)

Sunday February 21st- Church was an experience in and of itself. I had the piano practiced as much as I possibly could have with classes, homework, day trips, and everything. Apparently it wasn't enough for the Primary President. She wants to get me released (fired in a sense) and get someone who can actually play. I didn't think I did awful. I played the top hand pretty well, but didn't even attempt the bottom hand, but you could follow the top and knew what I was playing at least. She wasn't very nice about it either. I played 2 songs then she left the room. When she came back she had another BYU student who could play and had her play until she had to leave. Then she brought a missionary in to play. It kind of hurt my feelings. I tried very hard and it was only 2 weeks since I started practicing, it's not like I would become Mozart overnight. O well, not having to play the piano wouldn't be so bad but leaving my Sunbeams would be very hard. Here they are :] The little girl is Nayla, she is so sweet and helpful and is the best one at paying attention, the one in the middle is Ositae, he is very smart but not one to be beat in a my-horse-is-bigger-than-your-horse race, he and the other little boy, John, always have to out do each other and it is quite entertaining listening to them actually. John, as you can tell from his face, is the class clown. All are smart and like to participate and I will miss them very mush if I get released. But C'est la vie, nothing I can do now.
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were just class days. I am still liking all of my classes which is good. The best part of this week has been getting an early birthday present from my mom! There is a company here called 'Cath Kidston' that I am absolutely in love with. It is all so bright and cheery and happy looking. I was talking to my mom about a tea set I wanted to buy from them because I have wanted to buy a tea set from England and I loved one from this company and she bought it for me!! Here is a picture of the tea cups :] I love them! Thanks again Mommy!
I will be having a tea party with her the day I get home and everyone else is invited to come as well :] And Cath Kidston is such a cute store I recommend everyone go there when they are in England. Sadly it does not exist in America but maybe that's a good thing. If it was at home too I would definitely buy everything!!
Wednesday night the whole program is going to see a presentation of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night!" I am so excited! This is one of his comedies and is completely hilarious! If you have not read it, the plot line of the Amanda Bines movie "She's The Man" is the same plot line as "Twelfth Night." So you know it must be funny if the plot line is still used today! I am so excited to see it. And on Thursday the program is leaving for a weekend in Wales! There will be a post on that fun trip when I return but good bye for now! Have a great day!