Days 30-34

Day 30:

We checked out of our Hostel early in the morning and were met by some blue badge guides to lead us around the Royal Mile and the Edinburgh Castle. Our tour guide happened to be LDS and went to Ricks College. She was so excited to give our group a tour. We got to see the changing of the guard, the Scottish War Memorial, the King and Queen’s apartments and the crown jewels. The crown jewels were sort of a disappointment after the Tower of London. After the Castle we went to the Sir Walter Scott memorial which was huge! It was the largest memorial I have seen. We then walked up to the Scottish Parthenon.  We only spent a few more hours there and then the rest of the day was spent driving to York. I feel like I need to go back to Scotland. I wasn’t totally satisfied with all I saw. I feel like I would have loved to go out and see the countryside more, too!

Day 31:

York was a really fun little town. The cathedral was so impressive. It is the largest in Britain. Apparently, York and Canterbury were always fighting to be the religious center of Britain. Unfortunately for York, Canterbury got the archbishop, so York decided to build an even larger Cathedral. I thought it was even more amazing than Notre Dame inside and out. The cathedral was made of a light stone almost yellow. It was a lot brighter on the inside than most cathedrals. The most unique thing about this cathedral was the amount of detail that they put into it. We went to this part of the cathedral called the Chapter House. It was dome shaped with stained glass windows. Beneath the windows there were carvings of individual faces. Every single one was different and there were at least a hundred in the room. Throughout the cathedral the carving was incredible. Everything was so unique. The stained glass was some of the best I had seen. One of the tour guides talked to us about stained glass restoration for nearly an hour. The work they are doing on just one window costs 40,000 dollars a panel and there are at least 30 panels. It is not a safe job either. People who do the restoration have to get their blood checked every two weeks because of the chemicals they use and most of them have back problems. The cathedral was my favorite so far; it was stunning. Then the rest of the day was spent driving back to London.

Day 32:

Yea for Valerie and Brad getting married! I was so sad to miss it! But congrats and I love you guys!

This was one of the only days of the trip that we didn’t have scheduled out. Amanda, Lauren, Tiffany, and I went to Kew Gardens. It was 300 acres of gardens and greenhouses. We were there for about three and a half hours and only saw a sliver of all they had there. I loved it! It was, for once, the most perfect weather in London! It was sunny and not too hot. And it didn’t rain! We started out going to one of the greenhouses that has African plants. It was so neat to see so many I had never seen before, and so many of them were huge! We then went to a green house that was just a large pond full of lilies. They were gigantic! A few were four or five feet across. We accidently stumbled into this rock garden that had a section dedicated to each continent. It was neat to step from North America into Asia and see the different plants. We went to a rhododendron garden that was full of bushes with flowers in all different colors. After that we climbed up a ton of stairs to walk along this path that led through the treetops. When we climbed down we ended walking through a forest of bamboo. One of my favorite things was all of the willows with hanging branches we could walk underneath.

That night we went to this Dutch Pancake restaurant for Kayley’s birthday. We had no idea what a Dutch pancake even was. Some of us got savory ones that had pepperoni or bacon with apples and syrup. They were gigantic! They were about a foot across and they weren’t what we were expecting. They were like crepes. It was so delicious.

Day 33:

Went to church! This week in primary I played the piano and sat in on the CTR class. Last week there were about 15 kids, this week there was only three for the first hour and then two more came. I am so impressed with how much these kids know. They remembered everything from the lesson the week before, and I have never seen kids more eager to answer questions. This ward is so nice to us also. I almost wish we were here longer so that we could help more and feel more like a part of the ward and less like visitors. By the time we are done here we will only have gone 5 or 6 times.

That night we had a fireside from a former stake president in the Wandsworth Stake. He talked all about what it was like to live during the Blitz in World War II. Most of the things I had already learned about in my history classes in high school, but it was really neat to hear it from someone who had actually experienced. He had to be taken to Wales to live with some people he didn’t even know part way through the Blitz. Being here and seeing things and hearing from people who lived here and visiting people’s homes makes the history so much more amazing to me.

Day 34:

Midterm. Wicked tonight! More tomorrow!