Days 46-50

Sunday I said goodbye to my ward. The kids were really sad to see us go and kept saying, “we didn’t know it was your last week!” The teacher for Trent and my primary class didn’t come to teach their lesson. We had three kids in Valiant that we served with. We weren’t sure what to do for the last half hour so we sang “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” over and over and over. They taught us the British version, and we taught them the American one. They knew it in French also and taught us. It was really hard to do it with the British tune and in French! Trent knew Hungarian so we did it in Hungarian. We ended up singing it in Spanish and German also. Then we just talked to them, and one of the kids, Bradley, did some break dancing for us. It was such a fun last day.

That night we had a talent show as a group. The Masons, our professors, told us that if all of us did a talent that their families would do a talent also. Everyone ended up doing a talent. We had media presentations, singing, dancing, skits, “poetry readings”, karaoke, stand up comedy, etc. My friend Kayley and I played a piano duet. Jaden, Amanda, and Lauren did a poetry reading with our friends Kelsey and McCall. They read lyrics to popular songs slowly and dramatically; it was hilarious! Our professor, Nick and his wife, sang a duet from a song they changed the words to that talked about our group. Everybody clapped as loud as they could for everyone else and hollered as much as they could. It was one of the best things we had done that trip as a group, and it made me realize how much I loved being with everyone and would miss them. I made so many wonderful friends on this trip.

The rest of the next two days were spent studying. Our last afternoon after finals were over Jaden and I walked around a last few places in London. We went to Portabello Market. I bought another scarf even after I said I was done buying them for the trip… We went to Sainsbury and got Digestives and Bueno Bars. Everybody else had the same idea and by the end of the day all of the digestives at Tesco and Sainsbury down the street were gone. Jaden and I walked around Hyde Park, the nearest park to the center, for a couple hours and just enjoyed being in London. We watched the elementary school students play football, people biking through the parks, and looked at the statues and memorials one last time.

Later that night we went and got Dutch pancakes for dinner with a group of 12 of us girls. We then headed out to see Henry V at the globe. The stage is just like the stage in Shakespeare’s day. It goes out into the audience, and we stood around the stage for the whole performance. By the end of the four hours my feet were hurting pretty badly. One neat thing was that it was an open air theater with the stage and the audience standing just like they would have when this play was first performed. They had a group of musicians that played instruments I had never seen before during and before the play. The actors ran in and out of the audience and interacted with us by having us shout with them or boo. It was a really neat experience. I hadn’t studied Henry V in depth so I wasn’t really sure what was going on a lot of the time, but I really enjoyed it.

When the play was over we walked around the London Eye and Big Ben. We crossed the Millennium Bridge and went to St. Paul’s as well. It was sort of strange to say goodbye to London because I felt like I had been there for so long. We went home that night and packed and stayed up together until 2:30. We woke up at 6 a.m. the next morning to go to the airport.

I happened to buy my ticket for the wrong day, so I spent the day with Amanda and her parents.  They were so kind to let me stay with them and we had a good time trying to keep them awake. We toured Wimbledon with them first. I haven’t watched tennis at all and know practically nothing about it, but I went along and took a ton of pictures that I thought maybe Sam would at least know something about. I enjoyed being with her family and seeing the courts though, and I learned a thing or two about tennis.

Amanda and I took her parents to Nando’s that night, one of our favorite restaurants in Provo. To keep them awake a little longer we walked around Regent’s Park which is my favorite park in London. There is box after box of roses in the center of the park. All of them had bloomed. They are all different colors and each box is named after a person or place or even a West End (Broadway) show. Some have funny names like “Razzle Dazzle” or are named after alcoholic beverages. In the middle is a small lake with row boats. Afterwards, we went to a pub called The Champion and got sticky toffee pudding. It is a dessert I know I won’t have unless I go back to Europe and I enjoyed every bite! We walked past the center and said goodbye one more time. It felt so funny because it has been my home for the past seven weeks.

I am headed back on the plane right now! I can’t believe all of the things that I have learned about British history, literature, every day life, etc. I have made the best of friends with so many people. I loved all my spring term roommates, and I loved rooming with Jaden one last time. I had great directors and enjoyed living with their families. I learned so much about England and about myself. It has been the most incredible experience. Now I am headed home for more adventures!