The White Cliffs of Dover

Well, here’s another update on us:  Online classes started for me this week, and Spencer has been busy at work.  (Now that we have the boring stuff out of the way, here’s what we did last weekend.)

Friday night I met Spencer at work for dinner at a Japanese noodle place, then we went on the Jack the Ripper walking tour.  For those who don’t know who Jack the Ripper is (I’d heard of him, but didn’t really know details), he was a serial killer that brutally murdered 5 prostitutes in London in the 1880s.  I don’t recommend you Wikipedia him, because he was a creep (and definitely don’t look at the Google Images).  On the walking tour, they walked us around to different sites of the murders, and where a piece of evidence had been found.  Unfortunately, Jack the Ripper was never caught, so we didn’t get to solve the mystery. Overall, it was creepy and fascinating.

Saturday, we had a disasterous day of travel that included missing buses, running through train stations, sitting in an airport waiting for 3 hours to catch our connecting bus (the first bus dropped us off at an airport), and ultimately led to us getting to Cambridge several hours behind schedule.  Cambridge was amazing though!  The buildings were beautiful!  There are 31 separate colleges that make up the university; we went on a guided walking tour that showed us some of the highlights with lots of fun facts. Every single building on their campus is like Old Main except a lot older, a lot fancier, and with a lot more history behind it. I can’t imagine what it would be like studying in a place like that.

Kings College is the most famous (and arguably the most beautiful) college at Cambridge. You'll also notice we finally got to enjoy some wonderful English rain.

Me with King's College again.  Spencer with the Senate building where they hold graduation and post your grades on a bulletin boards for everyone to see!

The buildings on the left are different colleges main buildings and grounds.  The clock on the top right cost over one million pounds and is only correct every 5 minutes.  The creepy bug on top symbolizes your life being eaten away. The bottom right is punting on the river, which we were cheapskates and didn't do.

Monday was a “bank holiday”, which is similar to Labor Day, so Spencer had the day off.  We went to Dover, which is on the south tip of England, bordering the English Channel.  On a good day, you can see the coast of France from Dover.  We visited Dover Castle, which was built in the 1100s by Henry II.  It was sort of surreal to go inside an actual real life castle.  Another site on the grounds of Dover castle is the Secret Wartime Tunnels. Many of the tunnels were dug during the Napoleonic Wars and go hundreds of meters down into the cliffs of Dover.  They were used most recently during World War II for planning and defense, as Dover is considered the “Key to England.”  We were able to go down into the tunnels for an interactive show about “Operation Dynamo” or the Dunkirk Evacuation/miracle in which they rescued over 300,000 Allied soldiers in 10 days.  The soldiers were trapped in France after the French surrendered to Germany at the beginning of WWII.  We also visited the Underground Hospital, which was awesome!  (Dad, if you’re reading this, you should be very jealous, and think that maybe deer hunting isn’t as cool as visiting your daughter in London.)  The castle is built on top of the “famous White Cliffs of Dover”, so we got some pretty good pictures with them as well. 

Check out that castle!

Top left: Some musicians (I can't remember what they're called), Bottom left:  Looking out from the top of the castle, Bottom right: Just a good old jousting competition (those people take it VERY seriously) 

The dining hall, the throne room, and the King's bedroom.

The grounds around the castle.

This lighthouse was build in 50 AD!!!

The Cliffs

Pictures weren't allowed inside the tunnels.  So we had to settle for pictures with the signs (plus the one I snuck on the top right.)

Well, I hope everyone is enjoying their first weeks of school! I’m legitimitately sad to not be at USU this year, especially with the game tonight! Go Aggies! 

Across the River Thames

Last week passed by slowly, and without anything interesting.  I watched way too much How I Met Your Mother, and was excited all week for Ever After to be on TV Thursday afternoon.  The highlight of the week was my last missing suitcase arriving Thursday night.  I was pathetically ecstatic to finally have my blow dryer, straightener, and shoes!  The lowlight was our hot water going out (and it's still out).  I do a fair amount of cooking, grocery shopping, laundry, and other "housewife chores", but overall, my days have been boring and long.  On the other hand, Spencer finally feels like he's a member of his team, and is enjoying his job at Barclay's.  He has been given his own project to work on, and is also helping with 2 other projects.  I don't really understand all of it, but it's basically a social media something-or-other that involves him doing field research, working with a graphic design and strategy company, etc.  Even though he enjoys his job, we were both ready for the weekend to come, so we could experience more of what London has to offer. 

Friday night, I met Spencer after work at a Tube station, and we set off once again for Central London. I am in charge of all the tourist research, and decided we'd go to Harrod's.  Harrod's is a five floor store that takes up an entire city block, and claims you can buy anything there.  It's just about true.  They have everything you could imagine from Toy Kingdom (which is the toy store all children dream of), Christmas Land, and Pet Land, to an entire floor of designer women's clothing, and departments for kitchen appliances, technology, fitness equipment, cosmetics, watches, jewelry, in-house restaurants, the works.  They have one area that's a gift shop for their store, so you can buy Harrod's souvenirs! We spent several hours walking around, and we definitely didn't see everything the store had to offer.  Unfortunately the prices were a little out of our budget, and included a $500,000 crystal encrusted bathtub and a $200,000 wristwatch.  One of the highlights was their food court, where you could buy just about anything you wanted, already made.  They had one giant room that was devoted purely to chocolates.  If anyone's going to England, (or wants to come stay with us!) I recommend a stop here.

We didn't take very many pictures inside Harrod's, but it really was awesome.

Saturday, we decided to take a trip to the South Bank of the Thames.  When you think of London, most the things you think of are probably on the North Bank, and it's definitely the richer part of town.  If you go right along the river though, the South Bank still had fun sites to see.  We rode a double decker bus to London Bridge, which was a bizarre experience.  I kept thinking we were going to run into other cars.  We started out at the Borough Market, which was just what it said it would be.  A giant market with fresh produce, meat, fish, cheeses, chocolates, baked goods, and food from every ethnicity.  We visited the Southwark Cathedral, The Shard (the tallest building in Western Europe), Shakespeare's Globe (a recreation of the original theater), and the Millennium Bridge (a.k.a the bridge the Death Eaters destroy in the beginning of the movie Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince).  We made a stop at Tate Modern, because I read it's one of London's most popular attractions and it's free admission.  Tate Modern is a 5-story modern art museum, and after about one floor, we decided that, unfortunately, neither of us were into modern art, and we didn't really feel like staying there.  At least we can say we stopped there!  As the South Bank went on we entered the area where the London Eye (the giant Ferris Wheel) is, and it became very touristy with street vendors and performers, but it was fun just to stroll around.

Traveling by bus in definitely not the most efficient (it took us 3 hours to travel what takes 40 minutes by tube), but it's an easy way to see a lot, without walking quite as much!

On the left you can see all those delicious looking treats!  On the right, you can see our lunch, an authentic German Brat and a baguette with sausage from the Borough Market.

We were the most excited about our treats.  I had yummy banoffee pie, and Spencer got a lovely raspberry tart.  Spencer also got a giant meringue puff because he was curious what it tasted like.  Turns out it didn't taste very good.

The Globe Theater  

The millennium bridge, it's kinda hard to see with all the clouds.

Mandi and Claire are probably so disappointed that I didn't enjoy the Tate Modern more! Sorry guys...

Some street performers and the Southwalk Cathedral

Sunday, we went to church where everyone was overwhelmingly kind to us.  Everyone wanted to shake our hand, and ask where we were from, why we were here, and where we were living.  It feels like a really small ward to me, but Spencer says it's normal for outside of Utah.  The bishop called us into his office, and said they'll be extending us callings next week.  They'll be the first callings either of us have had in over a year!   The ward is extremely diverse with people from Nigeria, India, Taiwan, and more.  After church, we went to Canary Wharf, where Spencer's office is.  It's the very nice, corporate part of London.  It was super clean, with skyscrapers in every direction.  We rented Barclays Bikes again, and rode all around the area.

Last night, we got a chance to talk to both our families, which was the first time since I've arrived.  It was so fun to finally talk to them again!  I suddenly have new respect for all the missionaries who move to new countries with no cell phones, Internet, or family to talk to!

London Calling

I have now been in London 5 days, and I can already tell weekends are probably going to be the highlights here! Yesterday and today have been pretty lonely with Spencer at work.  So far, I have mostly stayed in our "flat" to unpack and get settled in.  One thing I’ve realized is how much I rely on Internet!!!  Not only do I feel completely out of the loop without e-mail, Instagram, and Facebook, but I also can’t look up recipes, find places I want to go on Google maps, watch movies on Netflix, or read the news. It’s a big adjustment from living in my parents’ busy house with all my siblings, working full time, and studying for boards in my free time.  Today, I made my way to a local Barclays bank in Loughton just to use their free Wifi to check my email and post this.  Our landlord says we should be getting our own internet sometime this week, and I can hardly wait.  I’m more excited about internet then getting our microwave or my second lost bag of luggage!

Luckily last weekend makes up for all of it!  On Saturday we spent the day in central London at all the “tourist traps”.  I wanted to spend my first day doing all the things I’d pictured London to be, so we visited Buckingham Palace, Parliament, and Westminster Abbey. We decided not to pay for a tour any of the interiors this time.  It's tourist season right now, and everywhere we went was absolutely PACKED, apparently July and August are the worst for tourists. On Saturday, we also made our way to part of "West End" which goes on for “blocks” (not that they have any form of a grid system here).  West End mostly seemed like walking down the streets of Vegas, or how we'd imagine NYC, with hundreds of people everywhere. We also walked around Chinatown (which Spencer LOVED), and Trafalgar Square.

I insisted we take these oober tourist pictures.

Westminster Abbey (Do you see how many people are behind me? It was nuts!)

Buckingham Palace

Top Left: Spencer was more excited about this car then just about anything, Top right and bottom left: The eye of London, Bottom Right: The international arch (I think)

Sunday afternoon we rode the tube back into central London, and had a glamorous picnic of PB&J in Hyde Park.  We rented Barclays Bikes for the day, and rode all around the Kensington Gardens.  A lot of the gardens were just grass and huge trees, but we did find a couple beautiful spots including the Italian Gardens, the Peter Pan statue, the underwhelming Princess Diana Memorial Fountain, the royal flower walk (which was gorgeous), and eventually we ended up at Kensington Palace.    

The Albert Memorial (for Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria), was beautiful!  I'd never heard of it, but it was incredible!

The Italian Gardens

Kensington Palace with statue of Queen Victoria

I love exploring London, and I think I could happily be a tourist everyday, even without Spencer…if I could just convince my poor, aching feet of that!  

A Busy Week

On Sunday night, my mom said, “You’ve got a pretty busy week this week.”  I felt that was a bit of an understatement…

Monday was my last day working at the Campus Store where I’d worked for the past 3 years, since I was a freshman.  It was a bizarre feeling leaving for the last time. I’d had my last day at my other job, Avalon Hills, on Friday, which was also a weird feeling.

Tuesday, I woke up bright and early to take my nursing boards.  This is the part where I confess my first NCLEX exam went horribly.  I got home from my test the first time crying.  I cried for the next 2 days until I got my letter, which officially told me I failed.  This led to another 2 days of crying.  As if failing the most important test of my life weren’t crappy enough, it also meant Spencer would be leaving for London without me.  So, on July 24^th, Spencer left for England, and I stayed in Utah to study and work.  The first time I took my boards I’d done a few practice tests and called it good. This time, I read 2 full study test books and took hundreds of practice questions, and studied just about everyday for 45 days. So, on Tuesday morning when I sat down to take my test, I felt at least a little more prepared.  The test went a million times better than the first.  It was so much easier! I’m not sure if it was overall an easier test, or if all that studying paid off, but 1 hour later, I walked out of the testing center feeling fairly confident. There’s a “cheat” you can use to see if you’ve passed or not before it’s officially posted. Spencer says it’s a fake, but it worked for me both times.  This time, it told me I passed.  Thursday morning, I saw the official posting online that I am FINALLY a real life Registered Nurse.

Wednedsay, I packed my bags, and my parents dropped me off at the SLC airport.  One 4 hour red-eye to New York, a mad dash through the JFK airport, a 6 hour flight across the Atlantic, an hour waiting in line for the border officials, and 2 missing pieces of luggage later, I finally walked out of Customs to see Spencer waiting.  Even though it was “only 2 weeks” apart, I was soooo happy to see him.  I didn’t even care that I was in London, England, I just wanted to see Spencer.  To make the picture perfect, he even had a beautiful bouquet of flowers. 

I took this picture myself, not from Google Images, but more to come on sightseeing later.

I already think London is fantastic. I feel like I’m living in a movie.  Mostly, I just pretend I’m living in Harry Potter.  Yesterday, I found my way to the grocery store and cleaned up our flat. It will take some adjusting though, yesterday I also had to ask a nice old lady to help me open my apartment (it’s more complicated then it sounds), I’m still not sure how to use the shower (also more complicated then it sounds), I think the people here drive like maniacs (it doesn’t help they drive on the wrong side of the road), and I don’t like to talk to people because I’ve watched too much Downton Abbey, and I’m convinced they all think Americans are dumb.  But, I guess that’s what happens you move halfway across the world.

So yes, Mom, you could say this week has in fact been “pretty busy.”